Inspiration
Category: Writing and Poetry

Shall I write about the weather,
Or the discordant babble
Of a cafe culture with no direction?
Shall I sing of Jane's green hair
That spikes our lives,
The barren seed of fruitless loves
Gone rotten in a ferment of ideals?
Shall I scream my pointless anger from the roof tops,
As though the whole world should be punished for my pain?
Or let the Soul sing its own song through my lips,
And breathe again.

7:11 AM - 3 Comments - 5 Kudos - Add Comment

Semi-conscious vision
Category: Writing and Poetry

Stepping out across the worn concrete I hear my footsteps echo as I become aware of my own presence here. Beside, me on the embankment, wattles grow. They are spindly, large leaved and thin stemmed with roots that reach a thousand miles beneath the Earth. They hold her in their iron grip, bequeathing food to the soil for its generosity.

I swim, helplessly sometimes, between the forever and the now. Spinning in pirouettes I watch the Earth spin around the sun as it spins around me. Effortlessly. The Earth and the Moon hold one another in balance and the Sun is an anchor to us all. Without it we would spin away into the dark cold void, where death is no longer an inevitability but forever is.

The wattle tree is waiting for the fullest Moon to draw the water up to the parched bare soil where it has made its home. It waits for the Sun to rise, satiated of darkness and hungry for light. It rests patiently as the beaten Earth begins to trust its ministrations and grows warm again. It waits, unnoticed, and it grows weed like, in an ecstasy of bowing, swaying life. Its leaves sickle shaped and lemon green, its flowers small and unseen.

Beneath them, weed seeds hang like pregnant bellies, plump and ripe. They move like dancers to the tune of the wind, as autumn sun roasts them to a ready brown, each seed a story about to be told, each plant a tale about to end. As each seed, carried by wind or storm or animals back, follows the Tao in the great stream of life, the motion of the mother's breath beneath us rises and falls with the seasons. The seed, born anew in a green communion, falls to the ground and becomes dust.

Behind me, grey green mountain holds a thousand lives in the fatty folds of its warm belly. Autumn wears a cloak of honey brown, even here in the dry southern land. Her honey coats the sky, the Sun, the wind; sweet smelling and sticky like sap she sings to the trees, calling forth the last flush of yellow green life.

Stir, swallow, shift now into tomorrow. Cry, weep, send carrion to sleep, so the babes may grow undisturbed in their wombs as the breezes blow warm from the north and the birds wait, silent for once, pressing their sword beaks into soft feathers, their feet under the warm mess of nest.

What sorrow? The grass grows green and the leaves still greener. The sap moves in the trees like the blood in the veins of a young girl, watched by a memory, dreamed by a man who knows she will never lie in his arms. She is rose of cheek and white of spirit. Pure and still she waits...

The lemon tree has brought forth blossom. On each new twig a tiny blossom clings: fragile, lovely. A bird calls, too woo: a note of joy, a note of simple rejoicing; so short yet full to brimming: a cup overflowing onto warm earth.

Quietly, slowly, the birth of the saviour is taking place. Now in the hearts of mankind, the birth of the saviour is occurring. Have you gifts to bring? Will you sleep this sacred day away, eyes clouded by the tears of faithlessness? Ah, but again he will be born and again she will come. Like a thief in the night, like the new buds of spring, each year anew.

She waits, the soft fabric of her wings caress the night, her feet brush gently against the Earth. All weeds see her, for they bring forth life for her. All children see her, for they carry the seed of the autumn grasses as a trophy, the red and yellow heads hanging down joyfully as they await their return to the Earth.

She, the mother of all, has stretched herself out beneath us. She holds us as if in the palm of her hand and breathes on us to warm us. We, frustrated gods that we are, will never truly know her. We are trying too hard. We are rushing in with our heavy hurting feet, smashing up that which we hope to save.

It is a pointless life if we live it believing our lives mean any more than the life of the graceful wattle, who lives for Earth and cares not who notices and who does not. Ah well! It takes a thousand years to grow an ancient tree, what makes us think that we, so young, could become wise overnight?

7:04 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

The wind
Category: Writing and Poetry

Ah the Wind! It breathes upon me like the gush of the ice dragon: cold and forceful. It tears the trees across the sky and blows the clouds away to leave only blue, blue, blue...

Roaring, it comes upon my valley and is welcomed by it. Rushing, it dries my little garden beds to a grey tilth, the seedlings cry for moisture, their little heads cold and unprotected.

It is a spring wind; this roaring elemental force is clearing all debris away, making way for new beginnings. The sun warms the soil even now; it is bright and ready behind the wind, to do its bit, to bring new life.

Ah winter is passed though still a chill descends at night and lingers while I write and eat and meditate: the morning rituals. Birds call to one another their secret joys and sorrows, renewing old acquaintances after the cold and weary winter.

And with the wind comes movement: the trees, the Earth, the animals yield to the wind and change. They mould their being to the Tao and so are not broken; they bend and return again to the delicate balance, sloughing off old leaves, old memories, as they do.

And always the leaves become the source of new beginnings: new soil. Their rigid leaves already softened by the moist brown Earth and her children the worms. They work to bring hard into softness, to breakdown established structure and create a new, formlessly perfect form: the immaculate pattern.

This pattern, the blueprint, the underlying beauty of all things, cannot be broken by but is forever changing. It shifts and morphs in eternal motion; it cannot be grasped and held.

This pattern remains the same forever and yet is utterly different from moment to moment. This is because the pattern is infinite and all moments are the same moment reflecting the many aspects of the same infinite pattern. The pattern that is me, the One, the All.

Being a part of this pattern one can see the movement of change as expression; what passes on is never lost: it has been expressed and must be allowed to take its own life. What is about to be expressed must be the focus: the joy, the reality of this moment.

6:58 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Big change ahead

It's amazing how quickly things can change... There you are just mozzying along and then kaboom! Out of the blue you're hit with some new opportunity that changes everything, and I mean everything! It takes a little while to sink in and then the waves of emotion start to roll in: first excitement, then a kind of sick anxiety and then panic as you realise just how much this impacts everything you've come to expect and rely on. Suddenly you're at sea and the shore is looking kind of safe and dry and oh so far away!

So off you sail to who knows where and you hope the boat you chose is seaworthy. No chance to fix it now... you're just going to have to hold on tight!

4:48 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment