Tag Archives: hearts

TIME PUSHES THROUGH THE BODY LIKE A BABY

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God isn’t found in any scientific theory
Because God’s alive in hearts – not unraveled in the mind.

God lives totally in, and actually is, the Spirit
And won’t be uncovered by computer algorithms.

God is simply a dance.

Also, God is Beauty, as to the presence of which
There’s simply nothing more to say.

God hums and we start humming along with her
So, when we picture any external threats,
We understand they’re going to  be met by the drawn sword
Of a gentle young girl.

God arrives right before the “second birth” of every human being –
First there is raw attraction,
Then, an amiable and patient waiting,
Consummated by intense pleasure/pain
Opening up one’s body, soul, and spirit
As God bursts through the doors of our being.

It’s unceasing, this pounding on the doors of life,
When time pushes through the body like a baby –
Or even the birth of God herself!

BURNING!

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“The cells of our bodies are like candle flames,
Their atoms constantly replaced by new ones.
 Only their structures live on.” 
                                                   John Leslie

Burning!
I’m burning up –
Yet being replaced instantly and constantly.

I’m also a flower –
In flower –
A bouquet in bloom –
A gift to myself.

I’m composed of about an octillion atoms
Walking around in my own modest interstellar space –
Sometimes, I spin out of control –
Like a supernova
Or a black hole
Depending upon which side you’re facing.

I know nothing, I know everything,
I know some things –
Modest in my enlightenment
I’ve also been accused of enlightened modesty.

One of our secrets, traditionally, has been love –
Hiding everywhere and nowhere –
Over and under our eyelids –
And deep in our – beat, beat, beating – hearts.

I want everyone to stop – just for an instant –
So love can finally appear in all its glory!

 

DANCE

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The supreme physical expression of human joy
Is dance.

God (including all earlier gods) requested dance first
Before images, ideas, and all other expressions of worship.

First was the foot
Then the hand
And, finally, the head.

Dance expresses joy in life
And the immanence of God in our hearts,
Along with a strong desire for physically moving with others.

Dance is how children express their happiness
With spontaneous movements.

I think it’s important to become aware of dance going on all around us –
Especially that of our sky neighbors – the birds.

Also, watch patterns of waves forming over large bodies of water –
Watch wind as it touches, and then re-touches, forest leaves.

Notice the small shy smile appearing on your lover’s face
And your joy, in response, when you give your feelings permission to shine.

Why not give that permission right now –
After all, the entire world depends upon it!

 

ONE DAY, SITTING UNDER MY FAVORITE TREE

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I understand
We need light for clarity as well as its disinfectant powers
And darkness to grow underneath consciousness.

I understand
We need sweetness to lure us to habitual goodness
And sour to teach the necessity of a few bitter lessons.

I understand
We need pets while young to teach us about love
So that when we’ve grown up, we won’t fear vulnerability.

I understand
We need strong appetites both for learning and life,
Hearts that yearn after greater emotional consciousness,
And minds unafraid of any categories of emptiness.

One day, sitting under my favorite tree,
I hear a song I’ve always yearned to hear –
Starting low and steadily becoming stronger –
One voice – swelling into many –
Suddenly, I hear myself
Singing along with the rest of the world –
Aurally blossoming in a personal/communal joy –
One soul, one world, one God –

All of it – hopefully – in harmony!

GOD SINGS IN COLORS

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Traditional English poets were primitive
Because you could hear the “beat” but not actually “see” much of anything.

When your heart echoes that beat and starts becoming giddy –
Your eyes will still be saying you have no idea where you really are!

A poet of fountains hears cool splashing –
A poet of the mind occasionally knows what he’s talking about –
But a poet that “sees” the world – as it is –
Is the poet God listens to.

God sings all the time –
Not always in melodies, that’s true,
But listen – God’s singing right now
About a direction in which to go and friends we might want to listen to!

God also sings in colors –
But only mystics are able to see this beauty
And only mystics have a good idea what God’s been talking about –
Generally, love, truth, justice, or beauty –
Directing these holy conversations straight through our hearts.

NOTHING BUT GOD

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“The fireflies, twinkling among the leaves,
make the stars wonder.” Tagore (“Fireflies”)

 

In the past, they called this “magic”
Now, we call it “wonder” –
Actually, it’s just the border of God’s robes
Brushing like wind through treetops
Sparkling with thousands of tiny intermittently-flickering living lights.

We would recognize this if ever we decided to look up
But we don’t –
Because we no longer have interest in spiritual evidences of God.

And, yet, there still remains a repeated murmur
Way back in the depths of our hearts –
A whisper about the promise of what’s coming.

In truth, underneath all our disbelief, we still believe in God –
We know it’s God who’s been knocking at our door –
Even though we’ve completely forgotten God’s name.

Beyond all the tall church steeples
And even before human hypocrisy has completely died down –
If we just permit ourselves to start seeing spiritually –
Everything our eyes take in

Will be God – and nothing but God.

BLACK RACE WHITE RACE

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Think about it –
African Americans have ended up as significantly more “human” than European Americans
Because, as a race, they’ve never had to repress a shameful collective truth about themselves.

On the white side, generations of uneasy immoral feelings, buried infinitely deep
Beneath unacknowledged, and even vigorously denied, racial wrongs –
Has resulted in European Americans ending up as decidedly less human.

The reason African Americans didn’t need to repress their natural humanity
Was because they were the ones who paid the harsh price
Through generations of stolen labor and, yes, blood,
While European Americans, nonchalantly, went about
Keeping everything they could “grab” –
While building a prosperous lifestyle for themselves, their children, and their children’s children
Which they have refused to “see” – much less acknowledge.

This almost complete repression of a sordid violent national truth has resulted
In a serious and tragic limitation of human feeling,
Which, in turn, permits (or encourages) European Americans to repeat,
Repeat, repeat – and repeat again –
Acts of ancestral coldness and hardness –
Eventually turning their hearts, at least in part, to “stone.”

A major problem for European Americans is that there’s no one left to pray for them
Since, for generations, they’ve been unwilling to pray for themselves
Because, during all that time, they’ve repeatedly denied they have a problem –
Which, however, is, and always has been, right there in front of them –
Just ask the white Southern Evangelicals –
Who get angry as soon as this subject is raised –
Still proudly glorying in semi-ancient bronze statues
Memorializing their European American “warrior Christian” hardness!

What would Jesus say
About a white race that continually mars its own spiritual face and heart
Through recurrent harms to the African American race?
Don’t you think that Jesus, by now, would have gotten upset
In the midst of this seemingly unending suffering
By African American fathers and mothers
And their beautiful children?

Now, European Americans, would you please tell me the name of your “religion” –
Could you say it for me just one last time?

THE NATURAL TRASH COLLECTOR

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The ego is a natural trash collector –
As soon as it feels any space opening up
It immediately refills itself – generally with some new species of “trash” –
And that’s why there’s never any room for God or one’s “true self.”

The most elevated spiritual path ever discovered by mystics was “emptying out” –
Literally, “everything” has got to go! – especially all one’s favorite treasures.

So, after all the work and time spent cleaning out our ego-self,
What’ll be left is “no-thing”
Which provides us with the space to be “born again”
Which also provides us with space for reality to enter our lives –

In other words, room for God to be welcome in our hearts.

INEFFABLE LOVE

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The love of God is like a cool fountain
Continually shooting joy up into our hearts –
Or a bright flame that illuminates our minds
And never goes out.

Once you experience ineffable love
You’ll know what God is like –

Nevertheless, this is difficult to describe
Even for mystics or poets.

THE SECRET OF SUCCESSFULLY GROWING OLDER

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The secret of successfully growing older physically –
Is to simultaneously grow younger spiritually.

As our body starts falling away – heading back towards the earth –
At the same time, we should be striving to attain freedom of spirit –

We’ll know we’re living right
When, as our happiness is receding,
We experience joy on the rise.

We’ll be satisfied with decreasing material success
When a “spiritual” fountain opens up in our hearts –
And grows daily more refreshing.

It’s a race we win by losing –

An “end of life” paradox:

As we dissolve into the dust –
We simultaneously become more radiant.