Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Sacred Poetry Share




Welcome to this week's Sacred Poetry Share.

Like most things in life, this blog is a wave with it's own crests and dips. The nature of the creative flow and emotional expressions that pour from my heart onto these pages is a dynamic oscillation that is as varied as the infinite ideas and moments that we experience.  In that awareness, I am drawn once again to work towards making these posts on a more regular basis and to confront the personal challenges that hold me back from doing so. I know the force that motivates me to share may ebb and flow as time passes but for now, the sharing continues. And so, today's post is a return to the sharing of sacred poetry, tho more essays will also make there way here. I find myself continually expressing a strong emphasis on seeking to understand our varied perspectives and, in so doing, revealing the opportunities to heal ourselves and the biosphere.

The vast majority of the sharing that we do online is steeped in the pain and fear of the oppression and hate that feels too much a part of our world. Knowing how easy it is to focus in on that which is unjust and infuriating, today's sharing is meant instead to break apart our limited perspectives and help us see that, despite all that appears wrong in this world, there is equally as much that appears right. It is simply how we choose to experience and judge our reality, that determines which aspects of life take the forefront of our focus. In truth, every moment simply is what it is, not what the mind makes it.

So, this week's poems are shared in celebration of heart, community, and clarity. To remind you to take another look at what seems to hurt your heart, turn to see from a different angle, from a wider view. Imagine that there is a bigger picture, that there is a greater good, and even tho you may not see the bigger picture fully, trust that it is there. Tell your heart you choose freedom from how your mind would judge and attach to experience. We have long walked the path of heartache so today, remind yourself and others about what is good in life. I'm not asking you to pretend that the bad is gone, I asking you to make a choice. Acknowledge that you are in control of what you focus on and what you share with other. Accept your strengths and weaknesses equally, as neither defines you.
The same goes for everyone else and the whole world outside.

Be the Love and Light.
Flow Gently in your Body, Breath, and Awareness. 
Honor the paths of all others.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~


World Enough
 by Christine Irving (2015)

Some say a celestial Dipper tilted
to spill out star people who drifted
through space like cosmic dandelions
seeding planets with consciousness.
Some say sisterly Pleiades danced
down to Earth in spinning pirouettes
trailing blazing streamers of stardust
to mother humanity.

I find Gaia miracle enough.
Like any other earthly mother, she
generates life from resources close to hand,
fanning the first spark; weaving ninety-eight
elemental threads into myriad elegant patterns,
every design complex and beautiful
as the last, dovetailing one intricate prototype
into another, plaiting each creation
into the unified living whole we call home.

The word home contains om, primal sound
of making, origin of first vibration
and the anti-matter that is no-thing.
Tiniest fractal holds entire it's mother's information.
Perhaps all matter contains, within itself, a blueprint
of the universe. If this be so, then surely
Newtonian and quantum facts
embedded in our matrix manifest
in individual dreams and cultural myths
as art and allegory, driving humankind heavenward
to search among stars for the beginning place.

The Word for Goddess, God, and Spirit
in many tongues is also
the very word for home.

~*~


The Gift
by William Stafford (1970)

The writer's home he salvages from little pieces
along the roads, from distinctions he remembers,
from what by chance he sees- his grabbed heritage;
and from people fading from his road, from history.
He reaches out far, being a desperate man;
he comprehends by fistfuls with both hands.
But what can bring in enough to save the tame
or be home for them who even with roofs are shelterless?

We give them scenes like this:
a tree that blooms in a gale, a stone
the gale can't move, a breath song
against the pane from outside,
breathing, "Some day, tame (therefore lost) men, the wild
will come over the highest wall, waving
its banner voice, beating its gifted fist:
Begin again, you tame ones; listen--the roads
     are your home again."

~*~


(from the group of poems: The Fish In the Sea Is Not Thirsty)
by Kabir (15th century-translated by Robert Bly)

14

I said to the wanting-creature inside me:
What is this river you want to cross?
There are no travelers on the river-road, and no road.
Do you see anyone moving about on that bank, or
resting?  
There is no river at all, and no boat, and no boatman.
There is no towrope either, and no one to pull it.
There is no ground, no sky, no time, no bank, no
ford!    

And there is no body, and no mind!
Do you believe there is some place that will make the
soul less thirsty?
In that great absence you will find nothing.

Be strong then, and enter into your own body;
there you have a solid place for your feet.
Think about it carefully!
Don't go off somewhere else!

Kabir says this: just throw away all thoughts of
imaginary things,
and stand firm in that which you are.

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