Sometimes I think the comedians and the poets are the most aware ones here. As we engage in our lives, it is helpful to remember that we can be any Larry or Bruce we want while we discuss the budget with a furrowed brow (while laughing every chance we get).
we dream that we are choosers–
that our minds can weigh
our lists of pros and cons
and offer us the way for
sensible action.
Lists and justifications and choice
at best
are curtain decoration
for the windows on the plane ride
through turbulence.
We can torment each other with plans for the future,
but we would be better off telling the truth-
that we are surfing
avalanches with briefcases
and nice shoes.
The trees have chosen,
after weighing their options,
to drop off the green,
and then to disrobe,
desperate for a little attention.
Those of us alive are choosing breath
after the pros came out ahead.
What’s next tees up
while we color,
like earnest children
with fancy, art store pencils,
in our sleep.
This writing feels didactic and I question why am I putting into words a philosophy of one? I don’t know. Maybe just a sticker on a map. Maybe a look in the mirror. For some reason, this morning, I’m covering myself in a humble patchwork quilt of pieces of practice\al philosophy gathered from one set of feet, one pair of eyes, marching through the time of a life in a body.
It’s okay – I’ll let it flow, for no good reason and then move on to the next thing…
Starting here: No matter how much circumstances seem contrary to okay, life is ultimately okay.
Okayness is true as seen from the small still point inside of me that is never not there.
This still point is within, a radiant, patient sun inside the solar system of me around which everything in the show revolves. Remembering this point, learning to dwell from this point, gives me the stability of moving within the world with more spaciousness even in the moments that seem chaotic or in crisis. This space accepts me “back” to this point, no matter how long I’ve forgotten that I am dwelling here; thank goodness, it’s always accessible and open for business. We are always here, actually, but there is some aspect of taking on this life that allows us to forget. Mysterious this!
Life is a ride, “a” not “THE” ride. Here, a clue in the articles – each one of us on a ride, the whole (of me and of us) ride is beyond my comprehension.
It used to seem like a long ride, but it is ever more clear that this ride is not very long at all.
The body has a mind of its own. It is best to recognize this and communicate with it (through it) by learning to dwell in the body’s awareness as much as possible. Wordless wisdom comes through the body suit – profound messages, information, and access to God (our spacious still point again) is through the body, not from somewhere else. Though it may feel like indigestion, a muscle cramp, dread in a seizing stomach, the body has a language all its own. I’ve been learning to inhabit this body garment and finally listen after so many years to the wordless words of a billion cells in symphony to make this ride of me.
I’ve been told I am loved, and I have enormous confirmations of this; however, some dynamic of this ride allows me to forget this, to feel so alone, and so vulnerable to harm, to hurt, to hopelessness.
The shifting of perspective – that’s it – changes what I think is happening. BUT hearing this idea might not help. This life is a 3d riddle, an optical illusion, a Escher painting lived.
What is real is difficult to determine, perhaps impossible to determine, with reason alone. Real is known within – when within is not obstructed by false thoughts which make real difficult to perceive.
Breath centers.
Center knows truth because it is truth itself – our flame that can’t go out.
Until there is not breath, there is still a chance one can clear obstruction to truth.
Other people and life circumstance (including leaky roofs, ahmmm) are a reflection of where I am and how I am perceiving. From the center point, I exist from a space from where, in interactions, I have a room that gives perspective in real time. I can see from this spot the deeper thread and zoomed out view at once more clearly which gives me pause in micro-time before I move with words or action which provides more skill and ease and compassion. When I am not moving from this space, I can observe my tendency to rush or soothe or dismiss or avoid, as well, so all motion in the world is teaching at all times.
This is just some truth from this one spot along the way. Marking the map with “I am Here, Now” this morning, as it rains and shines and the temperature falls and rises – ever instructing our skin. Blessings for us all, sisters and brothers. Which version fits today?
I pulled the entire damn thing off
and started again –
and for a few days I breathed easy
resting on the pillow of my roofer’s assurances –
his reshingling was foolproof he said–
and I wrapped myself in his confidence and
my homework.
this roof is only one thing in a long series of large playings out
for the necessary things
such as air and heat
and water and waste–
a difficult year
in a decade of years
that has me asking the sky
what is the message?
what is the metaphor?
what do I not see that I need to see, please?
Is there a message for me here?
or should I open an umbrella to the raininess of life?
mercy mercy me oh why.
we surrender will
and continue until the last
drop
enters and destroys
what was temporary anyway.
we rise up again and again
against the elements
relearning how to shelter
against the relentless turning of ages
oblivious I am how short my moments are to the trees
to the hills
to the ocean who used to own this land
it is no wonder
me no bigger than a drop
in all of this
that I can not understand
why the roof
will not stop the rain
or any blessed thing
before I’m gone.
making a bone broth of me
cooking tendons of need
clear down
delicious fat and richness
from my full bodiment
boiled down
caramelized shame
fire roasted shame
fig leaf soaked shame
layers
of collective legs
there, tasted in the slurp
hot from a dipping spoon
you are here
not in the soup line
but in the building nonetheless
familiar with the recipe
available for consultation
with the apprentice
master
all in one
thank you pot
and water
and flame
and thank you space
and atmosphere
in which it all can happen
and in which we all
can hear the dinner bell
now with liquid ears of
life.
The passage ending in a lowering ceiling closing in,
my view of dim, withering, repeating of days,
somehow was only respite
much needed in the overwhelm of noise,
in hindsight
tasty silence,
when surprise!
came new words
or words strung together in different ways
than seems possible
a sky
with the power to melt rock
–
which I can not replicate here in my simple ways
–
but the words of others who found me
took on the form of keys to a door
of not-alone-in-this
Here it is, the power-
the words for
what is felt yet unnamed
which can create
connecting streams
that until now, for me, a single, confused droplet,
to the ocean unseen.
Thank you poets
but also too painters, body dancers, cooks (in your own form of words)
who jumped into my sternum tightness, my adam’s apple blockage,
my longing stuck,
and released me
and started blood to flow again.
I’ve curled up here,
allowing a wordless doom
to creep too close,
but birth it comes again, a gift.
Here I am, alone/backed by an army
of deep breathers
with courage to call out truth-
is ugly in its composting phases-
unashamed for my muddy footprints
for carcasses left
in the wake of this empty
fragrance
with my name
moving
on
In the pan
browning on all sides of
my cubist self–forward, back, and side at once.
edge living
is hot!
at times I try to jump from the flame,
my own juice
basting over my head
a humiliating baptism to the one
who has forgotten
the agreement of what’s for dinner.
the hairs on my arms seek like radars
trying to read the flames’ intention; even though,
I signed a waiver.
veins pulse while
the heart is in its throws–
with or without me along.
I’m cooked so long
falling off the bone
tender
tender
who sees the anxious fingers
slip into the pan
to satisfy the longing
for a preview bite
of this upcoming feast?
Everyday bad things happen, so-
I’ve drawn you a flow chart
to take you from point a to z
with arrows to the short cuts
so roughly won by me.
Let me help you jump over ditches
and avoid the dead-end streets.
Watch my greatest hits of
heartache, thought addiction, faux pas, shame, fear, regret,
so you can save yourself the trouble.
Look, simply, I can help you
avoid the ramifications of not heeding good advice.
I didn’t even know I had it in me, as non-linear as I can be,
to map it out for you, but I did; I’ve a crash course on not crashing.
But I’m being asked another task, much different than what I’ve done.
The night now asks me to have a courage I don’t know how to muster –
I’m now to be the watcher and not the player and not the coach.
I’m now to calm my plotting mind.
I’m instructed not to imagine trains flying off of their tracks
even while I feel the lurch and screech
of the metal momentum – see sparking in the air.
I’m to observe as boats sink, as elevators release and fall,
as villains creep most uncartoon-like in dark shadows when you pass by;
who orchestrates such visions – where are the views of nature walks, of laughter,
of joy? Why the fear, why the wrecks, why the destruction?
Why am I thinking of how my parents must have ached and quaked
sitting in hospital rooms, listening to white coat protocol-
powerless
except to release a real-life child to death, to unthinkable death.
I mouthed the words but I didn’t register the meaning –
because I’m still on the simpler fare—
that love is holding the tongue
and squeezing my own trembling body while
I watch and allow.
I am unable to live for another,
unable to undo words,
unable to iron out the wrinkles
of the kinks forming in the plan.
The night brings what the day allows me to hide.
The learning is only ever mine
and it can only be postponed, never avoided altogether;
now or later is the only choice I get to make.
my gut tightens from a sound
angry voices rise outside
peering out the peep hole
giving space to work things out
i’ll check for my mail later
*****************************
sensing something’s wrong
is the start to make it right
all are welcome here
****************************
muscles in the jaw
set our teeth for war in cars
throw away the clock
****************************
corners of my eyes
wabi sabi wrinkles
I’m folding into me
****************************
all i see is good
always has it been –
just just –
twinkle berry
flower cactus
solo cat
its time for tea
again
the movement to fill the belly is a vow
at least for now
to continue on in the journey of the body
to fulfill the need
that being human
makes me have.
we play the game
we all must do the dance of chewing
and swallowing
and pleasuring in taste
but at times
it is just a chore
like bathing and peeing
like flossing and dentist tripping
part of the musts for taking care of this bod
this minivan – no truck
I’ll look under the hood, and change the oil
get enough fuel to do the things I want to do.
I cannot hike or paddle or swim without reserves –
eat to live
live to eat
I remember those days
when going without I thought would make me faint
and now sometimes I forget,
I forget and get the signal from the gauge
hey girl, you’re riding on empty
and you got miles to go
you know…
and then at times
a taste,
a whiff even, is enough
to begin a longing
to flood the tongue with taste
and the brain – endorphins
what is this drug?
the charring, the sweet and salty?
the perfect meal
a bit like heroin, never quite measuring to that first high
but definitely worth the try –
so many roads to go down
some necessary, most by choice
I enjoy the pleasure and the denial
I am a ambidextrous consumer
I can dive into pleasure
without needing it to show up daily
and I can dive into denial
without a nagging voice of need
yet still,
a cup of tea is champagne
a basil leaf, a boat to shangrila –
may we ever hunger for that which truly fills.
Life as Improv 