Diminutive

Posted on January 3, 2016 by skipavm@gmail.com

imageI laid down on the sand, humbling myself before this majesty and felt diminutive in the foreground of such immense love shared between the Sun and Moon. The ocean tides ebbed and flowed, and mountains blew down, forests were razed, glaciers melted, and deserts were washed away. But I held on while the truth fell all over me.

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Quivering Hearts Be Still

Posted on January 3, 2016 by skipavm@gmail.com

Quivering hearts be still
Even a rising mountain is but a tear drop
slipping into the universe
Worlds are built anew
from sorrows like these.

Greater mysteries weep for you
than you for those,
Soothe these channels,
twisted saline braids
that carve our cheeks.

Your beloved has passed
dissolved through the veil
through which you saw her
to mix inextricably with
an ailing conscious

When you find within a lover what  you seek,
you recognize God within your own heart
you love away separation, distinction, and “otherness”
The framework of what is left is a ghost
What  taunts you,
protects  you.

 

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abandon our camera (#25wtT)

Posted on January 3, 2016 by skipavm@gmail.com

We cannot always capture beauty with a camera; perhaps it is best to simply BE the beauty we hope to expose through device and instrumentation.

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Labyrinth of Mirrors

Posted on January 2, 2016 by skipavm@gmail.com

My love is a besotted moth
flying deliriously in a labyrinth
of mirrored passages;
my Beloved is the glowing lantern
hidden within its center.

I am a vessel of senses and impulse;
Whenever I run with my love to Her flame,
I find only my own reflection –
for Her light is around every turn
and I burn in the unfound-flame desired.

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The Known and the Knowing

Posted on December 31, 2015 by skipavm@gmail.com
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Drawing by dear friend Arshia Qasim

I have spent a lifetime trusting men I’ve never personally come to know particularly well on this earthly plane and dimension, and they have never let me down. Rather, it is those I think I know all too well that let me down. But they are not to blame.

It is not in the “known,” but the “knowing.” Perhaps what I know so well in others, that came with so much concentration, becomes just a mirror of myself.  And hence, it is I who let myself down. So who applies the polishing cloth to whom?!

It is the process of knowing, in which we are closest to the essence of that which is known, which itself is its absolute divine conception before it manifested; for all things created must first come from its idea within the creator.  The path of knowledge implies a willful action of transcendence; what is known must pause at a place and time and becomes muddled with judgment, bias, and a general lack of exploration.  What is known sets the “what” aside, detaches it, and disconnects us from further engagement with it.  Seeking knowledge of the idea (knowing), perfects its creation (as a process) and its manifestation in its known state of “what-ness.”

I hear one thing with interested ears, but I listen to its other with only a compassionate heart.

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Lovers Devoured Page by Page

Posted on December 28, 2015 by skipavm@gmail.com

Your ebullience becomes the gilded leaf
to my aging pages,
a lingering touch along precious edges.
Each golden blade shows your mettle,
turned slowly into the flesh of a heart.
Every sliver, the mete for eyes and ears,
for the pain of your passing precedes your death
and each day you live, I die a year;
weeping Braille joyfully
for a blind man to read
off the tear pitted parchment
while he traces red arcs of wine glass ringlets,
until his fingers become dizzy.
This book is my cup filled to its lip,
every sip, a spill,
every word a taste
of my beloveds
salted kiss.

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The Wake of Paris

Posted on December 27, 2015 by skipavm@gmail.com

These ruthless acts do more than further the divide between the nefarious and their victims. Still in the wake of yesterday’s Paris events, those of us who survived now risk becoming a venomous two-headed snake, striking at itself, while the evil instigators slither away, recoiling in the shadows.

For each of us left, the candle in our heart presents a delicate flame; so easily blown out by vengeful thoughts… so easily blown out by sorrow. How do we shelter this light when we must boldly hold it up to the darkness? There is a place in our awareness where the breeze is still and the fragrance strong. Lost in a cloud of self-righteous judgment, we seldom go there and so the flame is flickering to near extinction.

The sun setting on an ocean’s western horizon looks the same as another’s sun rising on its east. East reflects west, west reflects east – but the mirrors Plane of reflection is forgotten as we toil with which of us is the real and which is the illusion. How is your Mirror?

Mine reflects on the other 106 murdered in Beirut and throughout the Middle East and Africa this month, and the 102 killed in Ankara, Turkey the previous month and the other more than 500 killed in the same region in October. I am so confused. I have no explanations.

It’s not accountability I seek. When the entire world is seen as the cause for this or the cause for that, where do I ultimately feel its effect? The answers to all these questions begin with “I” followed by love… or not.

Be still with your neighbor, hold your candles up

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Love’s Earthly Tracing

Posted on December 27, 2015 by skipavm@gmail.com

halcyonMy heart is a winding
painted canyon,
carved by my beloved.
I followed her echo
out to the ocean
And below her surface
I dove.

I emptied myself
into her depths,
beneath the currents
of unspoken worlds
and breathless I rose,
her eyes,
my pearls.

Her lips, the wings
of an albatross
we sheered crested waves,
kissed in halcyon
above deep parted canyons
and then
beyond.

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On Artists of All Mediums

Posted on December 26, 2015 by skipavm@gmail.com

benchIt seems that inspiration resides in the interstitial space of aggregated thoughts. The indescribable essence of creativity that connects independent structures of the mind – no accidents happen within these hidden channels. Intentions echo through their hollow halls.

Contemplative prayers are to artistic inspiration as deft hands are to soft clay. So, I am thankful for the observation of subtle contemplation whether manifested in art, craft, or mystery.

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Weaving Friends

Posted on December 26, 2015 by skipavm@gmail.com

I felt the pounding below my feet lighten with my steps… running through suburbia on an unusually warm late fall day. As I moved along, I noticed next to me a single spiders web stretching a great distance between two nearly leafless trees. I marveled in this, as I’m inclined to tinker with the mundane. And I thought of friends who’ve yet to meet each other, and those whose relationships depend on the connective gist of a gossamer thread.

Hand over hand, each of us silently pulls along our lifeline back to the source. But what of the connections we foster between beloved friends? We universal town criers; we meditative match makers; seekers of gathering birds-of-a-feather; running out the rhythm of our melodious contemplations, gathering the accompaniment of stunning harmonizers. Friends follow nothing less than a love for the scent of each other, counting beads strung along the silk sequence of their sound.

I have heard their amazing stories – blessed by these deep listening minds and gathering awareness.  To some extent, I’ve walked through the mansions of their hearts.  We all do this, and may we never leave our houses unattended for too long.  So long as I have the occasional visitor, I may never leave.

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