Hommage To The Oaks

 

Lately I saw you standing, 
brilliant, naked sun everywhere 
streaming incandescent photons like
Threads of silver 
On your knotted body.

Majestic, silent, patient forest alchemist, 
On every visible and invisible frontier
You bestow your patient blessing 
and manifest the very ebb and flow 
of a breathing God. 

O! How the entire universe (my heart) 
contracts now that you have 
fallen into the openness 
With one last thunderous echo! 

What final blessing did you bestow, 
trembling exquisitely on those last tiny fibers, 
awaiting the supreme moment: 
the ancient Pull of supernovas? 

What can I do now? 
Bow in gratitude! 

That which passes through everything 
Passes through me (Kerouac). 
I bow in a suspended moment of that recognition.

Your thunderous echo 
bestows upon me 
a final blessing, spreading outward 
in the delicate arc of your falling grace.

A myriad of spring buds 
singing one last alleluia 
before the crushing weight 
of congealed sunlight forces them 
down into the yielding 
earth, where galaxies of beings 
embrace your return. 

In your final act of falling, 
I too dive headlong and blind 
Into the fierce eye of God 

WPS May 2014

Farewell Maya Angelou

This recitation by Maya conveys every bit of the struggle to overcome adversity and arrive at liberation. Truly inspirational.

Vishal Vaid Love Song

Simply wonderful to allow the sound to penetrate the veil!

Moral Monday March On Raleigh

On Saturday February 8th 2014 between 80K and 100K marchers flooded into Raleigh NC to protest the regressive politics of the state which include major efforts to restrict voter rights,  limit access to affordable healthcare, impose new taxes on the working class and poor, erode educational advances, and take away the right for women to choose. I was proud to represent Asheville along with 300 other Ashevillians who departed at 0430 from Asheville on 5 rented buses. I walked with Claire (my daughter) and Sam, her boyfriend. Chris (my son) was there selling the official t-shirts from On a Roll graphics.

The Honored Guest

    

The Honored Guest

Outside my window 

An invitation to dance

Sways in the wind and
The warm hand of that light
Smooths rough linear bodies
Stretching up and out to endless blue where
Wet lambits of cloud
Catch wildly in the
Bony extremities of branch

O! To become once again
A lover of trees!

O! To feel that strength inside
My own feeble bones

And stretch my body
Along those soaring flanks
To drink the rising sap

And so,  loved once more
By forest glade,
Become the honored guest 

WPS. Hawkscry 7/7/2010

Candy for Gold; A commentary on ego development

   

The following article from Tricycle Magazine discusses the healthy functioning of the ego and contrasts this with the concept of egolessness prevalent in Western Buddhist thought. Thanissaro Bhikkhu unties this tricky knot brilliantly. Years back, many Buddhist teachers in the West began using the term “egolessness” to explain the Buddha’s teaching on not-self. Since then, egolessness has come to mean many things to many people. Sometimes egolessness is used to mean a lack of conceit or self-importance; sometimes, a pure mode of acting without thought of personal reward. In its most extended form, though, the teaching on egolessness posits a fundamental error of perception: that despite our sense of a lasting, separate self, no such self really exists. According to this view, to provide for the happiness of this illusory self, we not only place our hopes on an impossible goal but also harm ourselves and everyone around us. If we could only see the fallacy of the ego and understand its harmful effects, we would let it go and find true happiness in the interconnectedness that is our true nature. Read more here.

Meditation on Hatching Bird