Excellent Men

Once, I found myself in the company of excellent men; or rather, men of habits lending toward what some might call excellent results. Well, I knew well enough to lay my third-eye gaze inward. Indeed my contents were in every way equal to theirs and yet my output, my expression, my transmission, my transubstantiation, my alchemy, of said substance (rather a "super-stance" or an "omni-stance" than a "sub-stance", I propose) was simply not par. It was a difference of method, approach, motivation. Indeed, either a lot of work was needed on my part, or a miracle, to come to match. I'd scribbled on a piece of paper, as I was in the habit of doing -- and still am -- whilst I sort of fretted in my agitated, inferior-feeling Will-force and irritated Ego: "I, too, must therefore seek excellence; if not, new company." 

And then, just at that moment, the lads of whom I speak, who were at the table discussing other things not-at-all related, all cried out, "amen to that brother!" smashing their glasses together above the middle of the table, and it was a Divine Timing behind that coinciding of my interior moment and that shared experience where by body, at least, was present. It was metapoetics, it was what the Single Soul in which we reside looks like when it dares to leap from the alphabet soup of the Collective Mind and fizzle in the caustic breath of Life, gazing upon itself through my confounded ears. Gone it went.

And of the capital “T” Truth, the meaning, there is no measurement, no empirical nothing in regard to it. Just me – I – and my response. I was to be the result, the proof, you so desperately need in order to confidently “know”.

But even now – and perhaps no matter what I might do or claim – you prefer your fine and reasonable doubt as if it were the shadow of a lone tree in a desert of confusion when, as I see it, it is much more like a mirage holding you from progressing onward, from returning.

Examining our two situations, I wonder: If you are right insofar as I am fueled by a fiction and I am right insofar as you are rendered stagnant by your Truth, which of us, in this Life, has got it right? 

Where Words Come From

Whatever language we may speak

it is from whence our words come

that maketh all the difference.

Whatever language we may speak

we must make sure we can protect ourselves --

the world is riddled with unkind blemishes

and confusion so hotly disturbed the mirage

of Evil ascends before our veiled Consciousness.

Your Ego may be your most articulate

psycho-spiritual organ, then.

The question posed herein is

have we trained our heart to speak as clearly?

Religious texts try to give us the language we need

to speak from this sacred land called Heart

but the language is, regrettably, outdated;

the message so necessary for us lost,

seemingly.  Indeed, the first scroll was escavated

from the Heart, itself --

even if the angels did descend

to deliver the message

they were faithful and accepting eyes

that saw those angels and awakened, hopeful hearts

that did not run from such uncommon phenomena.

I digress now, as I often do: 

Possessing the same letters as Earth

only with the "H" at the front rather than the end,

we might wonder where, in fact, we live

and what, in fact, sustains us

and if Earth and Heart are not the very same

in some literal or at least figurative vision of Life.

Perhaps the Earth speaketh through the Heart?

Argue against it.

Have the subjects and nuances of the Heart

proven too challenging to express?

Love is the Highest Order Thinking

and to see where it is needed and give it

through the defense mechanism behind which

we prefer to store it is painful learning

like giving birth to a whole new you.

But nothing as painful as destroying the Earth.

The fact is, our prejudices, our stereotypes,

those quips we slap so quickly onto the table

of conversation, those reactions that aren't our own

(that's different, yuck; where we come from we don't

do it that way; that's ridiculous, that's wrong).

We don't think that.  We don't think that because

before we said that, we did not think.

We applied neither Mind nor Heart in the matter

we did not reach for the Dream of Togetherness

we reached for the Soma of our Destruction,

that intoxicant spirit that stumbles our logic
down avenues of Falseness, singing,
  "this is silly", "I don't have the time",

"it is impossible", "you aren't worth it" -- all the lines

that draw us lazier than the shadows of our Higher Selves

such that we Will Not imitate what we know

in our Hearts, to be Right.

What we did and tend to do is purchase a cheap 

and automatic response that society has 

for some reason

deemed acceptable.

The Dream of Togetherness and Peace

simply isn't Profitable in certain circumstances.

And it wasn't You, it was "Them"

who want to promote the idea of

"You and Them"; who want to divide.

Adding irony to confusion,

"They" don't even exist.

Fear does.  Fear crops up

in the fertile unknown

between you and I like a weed

and pushes us apart with its roots

whilst sucking up the nutrients

of our common ground.

Whatever language you speak,

know from whence cometh thine words:

From thy Heart, from thy Ego

from thy ... ?

Not that one orgin is wrong or right

but there is a time and place for each --

indeed, often times a concert or choir

of internal voices is necessary to speak

a complete and true sincerity --

the point is, all of your intra-nations

should be equally educated

literate, and articulate.

If that is impossible.  We are just

too busy.  Okay.  The Heart, then,

should take priority for from there

all tributaries are eventually reached

and muscles awoken, 

all foreign and unknown brain cells

and connections illuminated

by the charity of our aligned rhythm

and we will find ourselves in all eyes

moods, states and faces.

And we will be fearless, again.

This is the beginning of Awakened Peace.

Until then, we will feel incomplete

and continue to purchase the cheap

and automatic responses of Ignorance

and Fear because, as it could be advertised,

it is so easy

we could do it in our sleep.

Dance like only little kids are watching
and you gotta make'em laugh ...
because, in fact, behind every pair of eyes
is a child waiting to laugh at you
or with you.

Express yourself, you silly-billy.

Return

If and when you feel yourself nervous or anxious,

and if these feelings are composed of thoughts of what needs to be done

in order to achieve a certain goal in life

and

if these feelings are stirred

by the compulsion to participate more

in the actualization of this achievement

or inadequacy,

take a moment to release this nervous, anxious energy into your energy field;

take a moment to acknowledge your energy field

and the fact that it's grandeur is not your inadequacy

but your reservoir for Being

and sometimes what needs to be actualized 

is Calm and Faith with Inaction

rather than Self and Progress with Action.

dilute your potent feelings in the microcosm of universe that surrounds your being and mass,

see them hanging there as not yours and not you,

thus can their energies be inverted (or converted) and

then used to your benefit

without disturbing your Calm.

The intelligence surrounding you

(your energy field and forces from which it is composed)

is more ancient than your own

and thus wiser,

at least in some ways (and with certain species of energy).

Think as much about what the universe can do for you

to help you achieve your goals

as you can do for yourself to achieve your goals.

Recall the hierarchy of your goals

and do not confuse this:

achieving the goal will not bring Peace

or anything other than a certain satisfaction.

Peace you possess now

and peace you should protect.

The actualization of your goal is your pleasure, your privilege,

your busy-ness, your expression of what it is to Live.

The capacity, desire, and determination to do so --

unhesitatingly, no matter what -- are your Gifts.
Discard these and you will create the paradoxical beast,
sufferer of misalignment, the Destructive Self,
who claims and acts as if he prefers The End over Tomorrow, any day;

so long as the Death is slow and feels good

(excessive smoke, drink, anything; dangerous highs;
sympathetic, enabling affection for his
deep and intellectual laments, perceptive enough to know
he is wrong but so in love with his perceptive abilities
that being wrong is his beautiful rebel doppelganger savant,
the fairest and most sincere He knows or is willing to be,
a bona fide higher self;
the most romantic, noble death a good heart can have, actually.
A stubborn martyr. Shivering with courage
in the freezing shadows of doubt...)

and doesn't actually snuff him.

But I've digressed; indeed, I know this sad,
doomed archetype too well.

Peace is not what you get when you get There

it is what you carry and hold dear along the way,

(it is what keeps Here always Here
just like Now is always Now,
even if it was a little while ago
or will be way later, the fact remains:

Here must always be Here).

along with Love

and Faith

and Forgiveness.

When you arrive There (The Here from which all Heres hail)

rich and successful and accomplished

they will not ask for a check

autograph, diploma, badge
or anything like that.

They will ask to see your Peace

your Love and your Forgiveness
and expect that, along with your Heart,
each is in better condition than the day you got them.

"That was the meaning of your Life,
were those who told you different so convincing?
You can always go back try again.
Go on back, then.  There are fresh new bodies
you can chose from.  I'm afraid you won't remember anything
in any one of them, but eventually you'll just get it... "

Handing these over to the Saint at the Gate,

or using them to build a bridge

over the Great Abyss between

Here and There ... however you see it,
the point is

it is with these precious

and natural resources

that We return to Purity.

Nothing else.

Seeing Beyond Either/Or

If an Either/Or scenario causes you stress

it may be because the scenario is not Either Or,

rather, that you are seeing only in Black and White

and feel the limits of your vision.

The feeling and intuition that one's own vision

is limited, incomplete, less than one would expect

can be the true cause of the stress, anxiety, or discomfort felt.

To offer a basic example:

"Or", is most commonly used as if it were mutually exclusive

when, in fact, it is not.  That is,

the question, "would you like the apple or the orange?" includes the responses,

"both, please" and, "neither, thank you" in addition to 

"the apple, please" or, "the orange, please".

Oscillating between scenario A and scenario B is not bad.

Both must be examined and assessed for their merits and demerits.

However, to stop there -- to perceive only A and B, or to use a better metaphor,

0 and 1 -- is to fail to see the infinite space between A and B,

the infinite numbers which are themselves possibilities, between 0 and 1.

The intellectual response to the perception of unfavorably limited options

is to squint the mind's eye and seek subtlety, nuance.  Sometimes this requires populating

the space between the clearly visible with the content of one's imagination:

imagine scenarios, however absurd, and see what comes of them; 

hypothesize and consider the results of your hypothesis as thoroughly as you can;

cast a premise into the unknown and watch it blossom there into who knows what

as you shower it with the attention of your mind and the light of your purpose;

and so forth.  In short, recruit your creativity to bend the rules, make unconventional connections

which themselves serve as the parameters and building blocks of new and very possible scenarios that were not so evident at the incipience, when only A and B appeared as options

to the mind's eye.

Not all possibilities produced by your imagination and premises and hypotheses

will be feasible, realistic, desirable solutions.  They may not even be solutions.

But the practice of Seeing with the richness of your own Wealth of Knowledge

(intellect + intelligence in all its modalities)

is worthwhile.  It will evolve.  You will become better and better at it

and you will become a masters at it.  And it is a skill that you can apply

to just about field of inquiry, life scenario (internal, external, or otherwise).  

Indeed, seeing The Truth as a composite of:

1) the External Truth known as Reality

and Physical laws interconnecting her parts;

2) the Intra-Truth, known in the West as the Self

and the Spiritual laws connecting the Self;

3) the Inter-Truth, connecting the complexes of External Truth

and Internal-Truth via the deeds of, specifically, Human Beings,

which possess the energies of intent, purpose, and so forth

which, themselves, unite features of the Extra- and Intra- Truths

resulting in Culture and possessing a direction (a purpose as Heidegger might put it).

Seeing The Truth thus should console us.  It is not all ours.  It lives on its own and I do not believe it has any designs on destroying anything that does not seek to destroy it (being that it is, or can be interpreted as, a Life Form or a higher order than the Human Being, em si.)

Vignette

There was something missing from my life, and as if a hole in my heart, chemicals rushed in like so many planets of solar-system-looking elements of our universe and, to my drowned sobriety, they tasted like the loneliness one packs way down deep in his bags before he goes to visit his ancestors so he can deliver it in one piece: a brew stronger that I expected; hoppy bitterness of a Belgian Ale yet dark and deep as the absence it fills.  This is my well of Longing.

Something is missing.  Laughter.  Yes, my second half, laughing, falling on me and on the table where I sit and write alone, wiping all these words away ... no, I take back the "other half" metaphor and put there "a whole and complete tavern lighting up Pope St. with a neon sign reading The Imperfect, which flashes an occasional apostrophe between the "I" and the "m" stumbling the logic a bit until the windows appear golden as the flecks found in happy eyes pouring out warmth."

Let's divide this drink, the sum of all the spells you could cast in one midnight, all the intent you could squeeze into the pin head puncturing flesh of a voodoo doll, the ink from the indelible word bedazzled by the seriousness of our feelings, drunk off the same the stuff, we step outside where it is dark to have a better view of our future, raising the height of any forest canopy within us like the hairs on our bodies, leaping like so many tongues speaking to the edges of me and you like an ocean might, in its own way, howl under a full moon, and lap up the sweat of a throbbing nape.

The Big Bang

About my aggression --
once a single, violent conflagration
desperate to illuminate
the Infinite Void
in which I thought myself trapped --
it has learned how to live
in such a place:

replacing frustration
and fury and all that energy
that'd been balled up into One --
that Singularity resisting
the fracture into Life --

that one fire that
would either consume All or Itself
is now Infinite Flames
tossed into the still, deceivingly quiet Abyss;
scattered, random,
chaos no less than ever before
only now,
navigable,
perfectly spaced
but not imprisoned.

Each star has a function,
each sees the other
and burns to the death

illuminating with all its might
and patience --

my cosmology,
celestial bodies working together
light is light is light
from Light
and Light from Energy,

the same Original Nature,
like nine hundred ninety nine billion
nine hundred ninety nine million
and so forth monks
sent to war, meditating on the front line
for Peace, reaching into the character Nemesis
to His Heart, which beats and bleeds for us All.

This Universe of ours
is nice.  A well-lit neighborhood,

a lovely place to meander
when you are ready
to forget what you thought was True

or, at least, realize that all truths
are as mortal as you --

Save Mystery,
she will outlast us all.