Aranyhid

All of humanity is a scintillating ocean; a never ending twinkling of sunlight, without which there is neither darkness, nor light. Each ray sent is a soul dispatched, each ripple is a life awaiting, each quick sparkling on the corrugated surface is a ray striking for the sole purpose of returning to whence it comes. The entire ocean is the perturbation of incarnation so that thereflections sun might know itself; the ocean surface is a glistening facetted diamond reflecting the source of a star.

We are ripples, nothing more, arrived reflections on the polished surface of humanity. Every birth is glistening aura, every death a reunion of light with light.

You cannot seek what you already are, in any place or at any particular time; there is no place – you are. There is no time – you are. There is no path to take – you are.

 

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Posted in Poems Beyond Their Words, Short Stuff, vignette | 2 Comments

Ramblings of a Majnun Part 2

Our present state is often a manifestation of waiting for something or someone in the future. And sadly we measure our waiting in hours, days and years… not deeds. We braid our thoughts into beautiful strands of words, tie them into bows around packages of hope and place them at the feet of God. Faith is not a gift we give, but one we receive.

Seek to know the many attributes of the giver, if you ever want to receive.

The body is inside the soul, the soul within the spirit, the spirit within the heart. What matters to you therefore will matter to everything. You cannot go to the mountain, the mountain is within you you. Hearts have hardened as the minds sharpened. I understand now … my children are my calling – what has been given up so that I might have them can never be returned. I gave up love for love. And that’s all it is… it requires no medium through which to travel… one thing that is never diminished… love. So much so, that one wonders if there was ever any “body” there at all; love casts a shadow made of light.

There is a form of learning that makes us “aware” but the true lesson for that kind of learning is beyond awareness.

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Cash without compassion, is the bitter slake of charity


Let me prepare you in case you are expecting a Hollywood production, with background music and celebration, cries of gratitude, broad smiles and praise. It’s not there friends. You can put on your own background sound. When you grow up in a world filled with violence and poverty, simply waking up for another day may be all the gratitude you can display. The endangered and impoverished life becomes a sideshow for the privileged masses – our standards lower, our expectations lower. This is the starkness of living in multiple worlds on one planet.

Musab was 12 years old when he was orphaned last summer during the ravaging of Gaza. He lost his mother in 2011 – killed by Israeli missiles and then lost his father in June 2014 – killed in his home during the pervasive bombardment. He still lives in Gaza and last year we started helping in the most basic way. I hope he and my children outlive me in the harsh years that follow.

How does one donate dignity, compassion, love… God, how do I put the perfume back in the bottle. My dollars are as wasted as my English words, and while the former puts food on the table, ultimately, it is not what is needed in Gaza or Syria. At best, it is monetary landline to let them know the world is listening and watching and in some cases, we hope, praying.

Cash without compassion, is the bitter slake of charity. The well-being of humanity begins with a divine compassion. Help me to tie the bow of charity for Musab with your empathetic awareness and well wishes. I know for a fact that the money gets there – but we need to be sure something more arrives. Please give me something to tell him, so he knows his home is more than a smoking 25 x 5 mile strip of isolated land worth no more than a tax deferment on some spare american currency.

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The Rind of Love

fruit2For every fruit, bitter and sweet, is the rind. So it goes for every human. And we twist and peel at their external visage and feast upon their essence until dried and withered. Then in our wanting despondency, we cast aside the aged and acrid pulp.

With those whom you share sweetness in this life, there is a seed just for you in their heart. Plant that seed within your own and their nourishment will flow endlessly within you. You cannot consume love from the outside, it consumes you from the inside.

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Posted in love poems, vignette | 1 Comment

Essay on the Oneness of Being

A mystic seeks to sense what he knows is beyond the capabilities of his own instrumentation. He knows the search is an abandonment of all he knows…and perhaps all he knew that he sought to refine. It is surrender, submission not to anything, but of oneself. All we know, is reflected back as illusion from polished illusions… and this is not to say we should ignore illusions, and least of all, it is not to say we should not keep the surface of knowledge clean and smooth. The states of reflection lead to deepening states of self-cognizance and self-cognizance is the result of an abandonment of all tools and faculties used to cognize outside oneself. Unity.

If you are seeking God outside of yourself, the path will never begin, for you will have decomposed all that requires no proof. For no matter how much “proof” you amass, you cannot expect to recognize the totality of some thing if you cannot understand totality Itself as an essence. The most all-encompassing answers come from the most well articulated question, manifested in an individuals “highest state.” Indeed, the perfect question contains its own answer… you cannot measure that which is beyond measure.

All is oneness of being (creator), and as creation (the created), there is oneness of perception. The One reflects Itself as One, within a Single multiplicity. And the universe shares the single essence “…of existing… “ Even non-existence exists in God’s consciousness, so vast and incomprehensible is this. So, as a human being – know yourself as nothing else than the essence of “existing.” Let go of attachment – stop just short of being a man, a father, a soul, an anything – just be. To say ONLY “I am” is the most confounding statement – despite its simplicity. I can only grasp this by encasing “being” with “being-ness.” There is no effort in simply being… like a tree; as if a tree exists via “being-ness” no more or less than we do…

There cannot be anything other than what is… Nothing to do, nothing to say, nothing to be. Just “being-ness.” Why do we remove ourselves from the Wholeness of Being – and create so much “stuff” to occupy, distract, or appease our consciousness. If we simply exist with an awakened consciousness, the fog of multiplicity lifts.

Seek “awareness” of nothing… attach awareness to nothing – “la illah” for there is only One Being… whose Being-ness (without attributing being-ness to God….). Don’t seek the Being of God… seek only “being unto yourself.” He will manifest within your own cognizance, and you as “immersed in being-ness” will come to know Him as Being. “He who knows himself, knows God.”

He is the Real, you are the reflection. Consider yourself before a mirror. Your reflection is only as aware of you, as you are of it. Then what is the mirror? What is that surface that stands between you, yet so accurately creates an illusion of “you.” The surface of the mirror is ego… and its dissolution is the ultimate merger of a reflection and that, which is being reflected… one and the same.

All of humanity is a scintillating ocean; a never ending twinkling of sunlight; without which there is neither darkness, nor light. Each ray sent as a soul arriving, each ripple is a life awaiting, each quick sparkling on the corrugated surface is a ray striking for the sole purpose of returning to its source. The entire ocean is the perturbation of incarnation so that the sun might know itself; the ocean surface is a glistening facetted diamond reflecting the source, the sun. We are ripples, nothing more, reflections on the polished surface of humanity.

Every birth is glistening reflection, every death a reunion of light with its source.

You cannot seek what you already are, in any place or at any particular time – there is no place – you are. There is no time – you are. There is no path to take – you are.

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The “hidden potential” and the “emptiness” of all things

Here is the irony with visiting our own wilderness – as soon as we get there, it’s no longer wild.  How does one remain still with such compelling curiosity?  How does the ney flute remain silent, when its purpose as the once wild cane is to be cut away to kiss the neyzen’s lips and deliver its breath before the empty ears of the waiting.

Nothing cognizes a full heart like an empty heart – and yet it takes a fulfilled being to see itself as “empty.” Same for how the truly cognizant communicate – only the most perfect word can slip undetected past perfect silence… such memorable moments are mysteriously unnamable – designed to remain so.

Likewise, there is a beauty in not-having-anything that those-with-everything might miss. For everyone, life is a long blink… and all we seek to shed light upon is there in the dark. Sometimes that which we hope to see is persistent in remaining hidden; it is a revealing wisdom that we will make no effort toward our perfections, if the end is given to us first.

There is a peaceful calm in the burning desire to know oneself – I’d not know what to do, if I were not hidden.

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Matt’s Rancho Martinez

I was sitting at Matt’s Rancho Martinez outside Dallas.  I caught the blurr of a waiter zooming by with shots on his tray.  It’s a loud place – reminds me of the echoing noise of my grade school gymnasiums I guess.  Such an oddity am I here – people spend a blink of time “tryin’ to figger me out”… but then go back to two fingering their shot glasses… pinkies up I suppose.  I don’t deserve as much attention as 2 oz of liquor on fire.  In the cacophony of chip dippin’ diner and drinkers, I ended up on a completely bizarre trip back in time.  Strange what sends us back – but here I am, in the present and just fine.

Saucers fly by on the Texas breeze
Of waiters with wings on their heels
Carrying courage to the sober in dire need
Those who will never read my poems.
Those with hearts and voices tough as steel.

I was the last one picked for kickball
Me and the other kids fighting the hurt, staying strong
Waiting to be seen by our idols, not caring what side we’d be on
and here at this table, I ask how did I land in this roadhouse
moving to the same old emotional dance, the same old childhood song.

My cap is pulled down over my brow, as I prefer
to not be noticed in the din of this drunken schoolyard
How magnificent a God that hears each and every call
of billions and billions of waiting souls
each picked first by the captain of their very own heart.

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The Passenger

Was it frightening when I went away?
I miss you, when I used to know you.

“I suppose. Were your journeys difficult?
Because I’m still here…climbing, and I miss you too.”

I would often scan the signalling stars
and wish you’d have just come with me instead.

“I would have, but I was swallowed by silence
In the shadows of the wooded edge.”

And I was entranced with the hues on the horizon
wishing only to slip away with the sea going fleet.

“and I could feel the mountain breeze at my back
And the sweet scent of seasons shifting below my feet.”

I watched as you turned toward the trail.

“While I saw you step into the whispering surf.”

Sad and confused I felt my heart deflate.

“Aye, so heavy, I thought mine would burst.”

 

As the Passenger, I watched each of you,
Traveling the course of creation.
I delivered your lessons along the others path,
and through each other, revealed your station.

Hope waits hidden beyond the reaches,
Free from the hands of time.
You’ve nothing without your faith in the other
And yet all you have is Mine.

Every deep sea and soaring mountain
Returns us to unite along destiny’s coast
So never abandon your own truth’s calling,
For in the end, where you began falling,
Is a passenger’s Heart that awaits you both.

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Posted in love poems, Poems Beyond Their Words, poetry | 4 Comments

Darkness Longs for Its Shadow

I find myself in darkness now…and it’s here I wish to linger. Darkness, an old friend who listens to my enlightening stories with a sardonic grin and small dagger that he slowly but deftly twirls in his fingers. He knows when to show up…when I hang the light of a beloved in the heavens, he comes and grins…and lets me continue to sing the praises. “Oh this love I’ve found…if you only knew.”

This love we emanate pales in comparison to its source within. Yet we wield the light as if we hold the eye of God. We rip open our chest and beat rays of light on everything around us. “I never felt love, until I loved her…I never knew the beauty of the moon, until my heart shown upon it… ’tis my own illumination, who’s reflection I seek.”

I’m a tenant of my own heart…darkness is my neighbor on one side, light on the other. But the dark companion patronizes me…and taunts me to expend myself, “write poet, write! Cast that heavenly light on everything.” It is darkness that drives me to love myself blind – and it’s there the poet fumbles for his quill, spilling the ink reservoir all over the parchment. Darkness spreads whispers of light into the ears, but we hear with our hearts. Outside our hearts, darkness moans to enter, begs for deep and undulating penetration – to seduce it’s way into our hearts; but nay, not to snuff the flame within, but rather to reveal itself to itself in light. For how lonely it must be, to be darkness and never see your own reflection. How lonely to love, without another heart to at least cast back a glimpse of our own image.

We are dervishes – wanderers and aloof mystics; seeking to seduce our way into the depths of the divine. But it is the divine that seduces us. You are wandering gypsy and vagabond, learning to love in the absence of another’s presence. I see the emerald worn in that necklace, glimmering in the dark shadows to where she sometimes retreats. It takes but a pin point of light to find the heavenly source.

“I want no more of this,” I once conceded…and threw up my fortresses. My hands cracking with dryness, my fingernails were laden with dirt from digging the mote around my heart. No one was going to enter my heart – and I spilled my own blood into the mote. I took my fertility talisman up to the mouth of the volcano and threw it in with disgust. I leaned over to watch it descend into the sacrificial pyre – flames shot up, and the nuée ardente seared my eyelashes. I wanted no more of this idolatry…I’d been loving the symbol, wooing her for too long.

I’d loved everything lit by the Sun, while I lusted for a brighter star. If love is a tiger, then lust is I, pacing the cage. I loved my possessions, my family, many a vagabond and gypsy – I loved myself and my God.

I loved my poetry – my beautiful poetry. Some writers court their readers – seeking not their understanding, but a watering eye. I wrote to be worthy of love… not just any. Yet, I have whored myself to the masses, but being poet, a seam from my heart tore through and caught the eye of its reader, or rather, caught a glimpse of itself in the divine opening of another. God came through the emptiness – and without describable content filled my container.

I spoke of poems I’d never write
Of ghosts that haunt in broad daylight
Like the time I kissed you silently
When you forgot you said you’d remember me.

Words that spill from a poet’s pen
Form iron links that lock you in
A heart whose walls are paper thin,
From which you leap, you’re gone again.

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Posted in love poems, Poems Beyond Their Words, poetry | 3 Comments

In an Instant

Merciful pain reveals to you
that the ghosts of those you love
are real, and those departed you thought were real,
…never were.

Do not unhand your own self-awareness
to take the hand of a divinely bestowed beloved
For God takes back all His greatest gifts
except the one you give freely…

And you cannot give,
what you do not yet understand.
You cannot be the wine,
if you do not know your own intoxication.

Love withheld is an obstacle,
Love relinquished,
clears the path.
It is these two actions,
like inhaling and exhaling,
that are more important than breath itself.

Be what you are becoming in this moment,
for each moment is a promised eternity
revealed within yourself
in an instant.

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