R.S.V.P.

Sunday. 5:55am.
After sunrise prayers offered, Mabel is walking, as she does daily.
Mourning doves hear her chuckling. She stops, raises head and speaks heavenward. "I'm so ready. I'm thinking, God, that if the carnival came today, I'd hitch me a ride."

Sunday. 3:33pm.
Mabel pulls into her weekly Staples parking lot. Reaching to turn off radio, when circus music issues from the speakers. At same instant, she glances up to the sight of a ferris wheel, carousel and midway tents across the street. Mabel erupts in laughter.

Next Month. High Noon
I'll receive a postcard. Photo side is a road sign. Message on back reads, "Follow it."

On a Clear Day You Can See Forever

Welcome to Always
 

Realm of this Samurai Dragonfly

“Now” is so last year. The new thinking and way of being is circular and organic. I invite you to join me.

In agriculture, it is well known that to reap a bountiful yield and maintain the health of the field, one rotates crops. Lessons from the Masters must also be changed around, lest they become weakened from repetitive plantings. We seek to renew them by allowing them to lay fallow, while we sow a companion seed.

By linear time, we are two thousand years since hearing the voices of the Infinite Teachers and some even longer. We read them in the present, seeking to make their relevance to the external world we are. Close your eyes for a moment and visualize their historical contexts. See them in their settings. Can you picture them, here and now? To what were they responding? 

We are them, come round again, in order to spiral an eternal dance.

They, Jesus, the Buddha, Lao-tzu, Zoroaster, Isaiah, Plato, Mohammad, Confucius and Mahavira, all brought and taught for some whose view of the world was that it was flat. Flat implies linear or straight. They came to seed a circle. Round is the new “Here.”

Rotation time, continuance of the coracle.

“Always” is center point from which all potentials and actualities converge, diverge and weave their intersect. It is the thread of them all. In 1989, in Taos, through a series of unfolding sequences, I experienced awareness of Past, Present and Future as a simultaneous and singular event that can be consciously traversed. It was a non-verbal communication, an immediate “gnosis.”

I felt a presence alongside me, within my heart, gazing out of my eyes, vast beyond my small self comprehension, immediately, joyfully recognized and ever present. There was no place, “we” were not. In blinding flash, a door opened and I knew myself as part of the whole and the whole as me. Everything.

I “heard” although a more accurate rendering would be, “absorbed” in completeness, that each one's purpose through all these “points,” was to know in perfection, an individual spark of Unconditional Love. I was engulfed, buoyed, embraced, pulsating in “Oneness.” I was “seeing” all the other seminar participants around me as continually connecting, shifting (“morphing”) in ever rotating spirals
.

As I gazed into other eyes, during closing ceremonies, in only one pair did I see reflecting back a corresponding recognition. I asked the Presence if I was to share this and received a reply that said, not at this time.

And so, I went silent, in line with what the teacher counseled.

I have carried this within me from then, forward, speaking of it on rare occasions. 

I have been a monkey waiting, at times impatiently, for the 1ooth to step into “Always.” This will be the quantum instance, we have been amassing and holding frequency for. This time around,  we, along with Gaia, will do this together. "I have it on the best authority."

In the meantime, I have worked at “neutralizing” specific sections of mobius strips or karmic streams, if you will.  This has been part of my task.

 The Divine Presence I encountered, revealed that it mattered not what name was given to the condensed sparks of Soul that were in agreement to serve, both in body and pure consciousness. 

The name is but a resonant note, a symbol that holds space for renewal of connection.

How I found myself at the Taos event is a story on its own, yet has it's correlation to what I've shared.

I heeded an inner voice that said, Be here now,” or more accurately, “Be there Now.” So, there went I, without any preconceived expectations, without knowing what the entire 5 days would encompass, as had been suggested. It was the first time I'd ever attended anything like it. It's also been the only one. When the Divine steps in and says, “Glad you came, I have something I've been waiting to show you,”  i intuited that further learning would be in the province of the everyday.

Also, once anchored, non-returnable.

And so, I end as I began this telling.

Welcome to Always, True Sanctuary of the Heart.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

Prophecy, Forsooth

Out of Time.

Out of?
As in lemme
run to the store
and pick up a quart?

Out of?
As in stepped
outside to grab a pack
and didn't come back?

Out of?
As in
time out,
time delay,
gone fishing,
taken a break?

Out of?
As in
doled out,
passed out,
drawn out,
logged out?

Out of Time?
Well,
there's no time
like the present.
And, if not?
Well then,
it should be
taken out
and shot.

* * * * * * * *

chickens scratch in dirt,
like quilled pen writers of old,
seeking choicest phrase.

St. Peter's Prudery

Even though I'd given Catholicism up for Lent when 13, I still contained sediments of convent distilled guilt. Knowing one could be refused entry if not demurely attired, I studied my limited wardrobe. One is entering sovereign, not to mention holy grounds. No Daisy Dukes, micro-minis or naked flesh shoulders. This former parochial girl decides to test limits.

I elect to wear the only dress I'd packed, black with low scoop neck, albeit made more acceptable (or so, I thought) by pairing it with a higher cut camisole.

"Scusi, scusi" they would have said if they talked. By they, I mean the striped, puffy pantalooned ones. Instead, a strange man's hand on my chest bars way into the Shrine of the
Apostolic Order.

Denied. Thrice.  How ironic.

So off go I, to purchase a suitable cover for my exposed self, except, nothing was bared other than cardinal red lace. Oh heavens, do you think it the color or the fabric? We'll never know if my black one would have garnered the same response.

Wending my way through columns, hallways and hungry prayer boxes, I arrive at small gift store. A nun of hobbit size assists me, though neither speaks the other's language. I coffer up, returning with the only scarf large enough to veil head and decolletage. It is muted blues, homespun, coarse cotton, from papal homeland.

Chastened by habit, I am waved through with benediction. I cross threshold into Basilica. I smile.

"In nomino Madre..."

"Hungry? Thirsty? Sit.
Oh do tell. Fill me up, please,"
 Blank paper invites.

and now,

a soup pot of
syntax, synonmyn and syllable
are simmering on my stove,
so....

please enjoy the delicious gift of this:


How To Eat A Poem

Don't be polite.
Bite in.
Pick it up with your fingers and lick the juice
that may run down your chin.
It is ready and ripe now, whenever you are.

You do not need a knife or fork or spoon
or plate or napkin or tablecloth.

For there is no core
or stem
or rind
or pit
or seed
or skin
to throw away.

~Eve Merriam

 In Any Language


thank you.

2 words,
too small,

yet widened to stretch,
they encompass it all.

maiden flight

(first legs)

from within
will resurface the old stories.
the ones imagined just for me.
Girl Penny and Boy Penny,
loafer passengers.

Whose adventures were they for?
Grandma, did you wish to see the world?
Like the secret ingredient
in Thanksgiving gravy,
did you stir into me your longings?
Did you envision me solo explorer?

I open to receive who we were, and
who it's imaginable still to be.

Here I am,
miles away and beyond,
tasting boundaries
where new edges are grafted.
And some, original
wildest imaginings.

Here I am,
having the times of my lives.
Sitting upon ancient stones,
the ones quarried and carried.
True blue Aegean, my eyes behold,
hearing orators and philosophers
on the wind.

Here I was,
in the energetic presence
of Aristotle and Aristophanes.
Here, where visionary Pericles
brought glories to his
pledged Goddess,
loving her form in Aspasia.

Here stand I,
within the mathematic
language of God,
head bowed in gratitude
for sacred geometry.
Here imprinted,
photographed by stangers.
Did we recognize
each the other
from when we'd trod
these corridors before?

Here, amid cries and cheers,
were Caesars, Christians and charioteers.
The glory that was, still is,
alive in cobblestones.
Here too, my soul borne via Appian way.
Church chimes measuring time.

Here I slumber, to arise
humming morning arias,
appreciating work-bound descendants of
Cicero, Caraveggio and Claudius.
I partake a daily ritual,
counter sipping biscotti soaked expresso.

Here lay I
on back in awe,
a challenge to boys
in red dresses.
Here I, Isis
the veiled and ineffable one
they thought suppressed,
shedding my coin
in fountain and papal box.
I assure our way into their heaven.

Called am I,
to stand again on beloved shores.
Rapallo welcomed,
pensione ensconced,
I am brought from sleep
to ripe bounty unloaded
outside my balcony window.
Romeo to Juliet meeting at dawn.
Portofino piloted,
Here rest I, child delighted
by sweet gelato dripping.
Grazi Ristorante Puny.

Railed cross frosted crags,
I arrive, Elysee side.
Here I and they,
coquettes sipping champagne,
Chanel clad and enchantee.
Plaintive song emerges,
La Sparrow rehearses.
We, the sigh floating Seine-ward,
awaiting lover's return.

Too mute
to draw in elegant word,
I, eye sight of Paris alighting.
Faerie realm sparks appearing
first sky, then mirroring Earth.
Here I, daughter of Sacre Coeur
from the doorway gazing.

On The Telephone Line

today,
i saw a hawk.

today,
i was a hawk,
seeing me.

today,
visionary guardian
appeared for me.

"pay attention,"
he says.
"pay attention.

i come to activate,
to revive.

i am looking us over,
overlooking this.
i am looking out for you
as you gaze beyond me."

wide wing spread,
perched atop message pole,
"pay attention," he says.
"pay attention."

together, we listen
for the song of the wind.


june 3, 2009

Catalyst

upon entry
past portal lips,
nerve synapses snap.
i thrust through.

this direct yet narrow path,
a journey of viscose darkness
which beckons to center

pressing inward
to hidden chamber,
i pulse forth.
i die, yet live again.

wedded in
belly stoked fire
and breath born sigh,
spirit gestates flesh.

drenched in primal release,
a beginning's birthed.
i come to be.

april 2004

Revision

the study book
i'd planned for me,
twas not the one.

oh, now i see,
instead to eavesdrop
on dear Boethius
and his Muse, Philosophy.