We need your disciplined wildness,
Your sober intoxication,
And a return of the Holy to our postmodern world.
We need your appearance –
Because we’ve almost forgotten what it means to be human
In spite of our ancient collection of male-centered religions
That we’ve been so carefully preserving.
Mystics use “poetic” language to express
An otherwise indescribable spiritual experience –
Saying, for example, that the ultimate meaning of divine love is “annihilation.”
Once you are able to set aside your ego-self and become “no body” and “no thing”
You’ll be free to love everybody and everything.
Meister Eckhart taught: “The “eye” which I use to see God
Is the same “eye” that God uses to see me.”
This “two-way” view – currently available only to God and God’s friends –
Is what we all should be striving to attain –
A freedom with no why in it –
The kind of freedom that ensures the impossibility
Of God or the true self from ever being manipulated
Again.
There are friends
Who, in reality, aren’t –
Then there’s the Friend
Who’s been patiently waiting for us to call.
But, because we’ve been so busy with the essential
Tasks of living –
Somewhere along the way, unfortunately,
We’ve forgotten how to celebrate “spiritually.”
We’ve been so busy “pissing into the wind” or
“Whistling past death” –
That we haven’t had the time to eat a single celebratory peanut –
Not to speak of that splendid wedding cake.
These days, we no longer take time to get spiritually “drunk” –
Instead, we’ve reserved that particular party for some anticipated “life” to come –
The one where we enter the door of death
And come out the other side in a spectacular display of angelic fireworks.
But what if this is the only celebration permitted
What if this the only “light” we’re ever going to enjoy –
Our sole existence –
Suffering and all –
What then?
Poets are bakers
Kneading wonder words into the food we need.
Sometimes, though, poets can start believing they’re even more ancient than the gods
And attempt to create greater worlds than those gods were ever able to achieve.
Poets’ most critical work, however, is discerning fresh uncharted paths
That they can barely see –
And have rarely had the opportunity to walk on themselves.
Poets also are carpenters
Building worlds not yet in focus – much less existence –
With unsettled words
Plucked out of the sweet invincible air.
Poets use words like nature uses colors –
And diligently work to design magic glasses
Through which “reality” may be seen.
Poets – humanity’s last surviving “world-makers.”
Even if you put on an official “coat” of religion,
You probably still won’t achieve what God truly wants –
However, if you courageously open your heart – even a bit –
You’ll quickly find yourself being flooded with loving spirit.
Actually, “God” isn’t God at all –
Because God doesn’t have a name
And disappears whenever we are attempting to use one.
God sometimes may be found out in open fields or beneath gently rustling trees –
You can’t actually see or hear God then,
But, during such times, it is possible to gain a sense of God’s airy touch.
More often, though, God is found in hardship and suffering –
You won’t hear or see God then either,
But, if it’s important to you, you’ll be able to feel God’s presence.
God is known most completely by us
At birth
And death.
The rest of our lives should be just the same –
Yes, God should be that close – all the time.
The reason the “Gods” have all been male
Is that God is secretly female –
The male myths serving to protect fragile male egos –
Delicate as champagne glasses hurled into stone fireplaces.
Also, the reason men have a need to feel super-male
Is an atavistic fear of returning to the Mother –
Consequently, they’ve been devolving into “cartoon” men,
Slapping one another’s’ backs and butts –
And absolutely refusing to grow up –
Peter Pans on steroids.
As a result, the men, unfortunately, have been getting dumber,
While, at the same time, women, in general, are becoming more intelligent
The men have done this to themselves.
As the women, inevitably, become stronger and freer –
The men have been spending too much time “playing” at being heroic
In computer games and as sports spectators.
When “the purest-hearted girl in the world” finally arrives
And starts explaining everything to us –
The men, hopefully, will start maturing naturally –
And the world, in turn, will be able to breathe a much longed for sigh of relief –
That is, when the men – who understand how to build (as well as destroy)
Eventually relinquish their childish rages and adolescent destructiveness
And start joyfully constructing
Solid homes for all God’s children –
Men and women together.
We create a “self”
To protect our true self –
Which we may never come to know.
We protect this “self”
So that the true self – hidden deep inside –
Might, one day, feel safe enough to appear.
The “self” works, marries,
Saves for retirement –
And, generally, watches its step.
But this is not the Way –
Because one has to be willing for the ego-self to “die” for that.
Similarly, God turns out not to be “religious” at all – not in the slightest bit –
Because God is primarily a destroyer –
Obliterating artificiality wherever and whenever it appears.
Seven and a half billion people have been milling around –
Waiting for a word that could become the new “First Word” for humanity.
Who will speak it?
Who will frame the question we all want asked?
The day humanity finally gains its potential to become One
It will be asked
Because it’s always been the same question.
God is in no rush – and so relaxes time –
Willing to wait for us to embrace the Divine – sometime in the course of our lives.
God knows us – and so is patient –
Understanding that we need freedom when turning in the direction of ecstasy –
And that we also need time to get prepared for all that light.
God is within us – “immanent” – I know you know this –
But God is also “transcendent” –
It’s the same thing, believe it or not.
Remember, every time you catch yourself loving someone or something –
You’re experiencing “God” at that very moment.
Just think what it would it would be like “to completely fall in love with God” –
That is, with everyone and everything – all the time.
Surprisingly, for an agnostic, you already know this –
Isn’t that true?
The snake tricked us
Into eating an apple –
But the conversation wasn’t really about apples.
Instead, the snake whispered:
“Watch me shed my skin
And become something entirely new.”
The snake was happy
About its rebirth,
Viewing it as an exchange of realities –
Life and freedom in return for work and risk.
God never barred the tree of life from us –
We’re able to walk over any time, take a bite, and
Become fully “alive” –
But, after that first bite, each subsequent step needs to be in full reality –
Looking at God – “face to face” –
Letting our “ego-self” die!
Instead of doing that,
We decided to take a long slow route
Out of the Garden –
And around the world –
For thousands of generations –
Enswirled in brilliant denial dreams –
Destined to keep going
Until we get bored enough, spiritually, to wake up
And begin living in “true reality” –
Biting cleanly into the apple
Of life.
God’s never “perfect” because God is real –
Same as nature –
Same as you.
God’s not limited by imperfection
Since that’s the wrong category to apply to God –
“Perfection” is only applicable to the world of abstractions –
Which only the “unreal” achieve.
Abstractions are “definable” –
God never is.
So if you truly want to experience God
Take anything from nature,
A leaf, for example –
This is not God, obviously,
Yet the leaf belongs to God,
Just like you, if you’re fortunate enough to discover your own
Inner leaf.
Law and the Political
BUILDING ALTERNATIVES FOR PEOPLE AND PLANET: News and reports from the grassroots on worker and community coops, land trusts, participatory bufgeting and other explorations in mutual aid
Diner Mystic 