Christmas

alive . aware . presence

Miriam Louisa Simons - Breathscribe series: I am here, detail

 

This year
on the day they call Christmas
Team Emelle wakes up
wondrously severed
from its culture’s insidious story
about stars and shepherds
wise men, stables and saviours.

 

Team Emelle is curiously deaf
to the seductive calls
of collective consciousness
to make of this date something special.
It greets the day with a deep bow,
celebrating its everyday sanctity
with gratitude and wonderment.

 

It tends the Great Light
known as Primordial Wisdom Awareness
(as befits its Dharma name, Yeshe)
with its own private rituals
custom-created
on its unique journey
through time’s long now.

 

It tends creation’s original Word
by sitting,
breathing,
in solitary, silent, stillness.
Breath is its prayer
and its practice.
Breath.

 

It tends the manger
in the Heart’s stable
– the soul’s sanctuary –
where the ever newly-born,
uncorrupted
Child
dwells in comfort and safety.

 

Team Emelle doesn’t buy
into the marketplace mindset.
It knows of only one present sure
to give happiness and joy,
one (omni)present that can’t be bought,
wrapped, given or owned…

 

a l i v e  .  a w a r e  .  p r e s e n c e

 

Artwork by Miriam Louisa Simons – Breathscribe series: I am here, detail.

Since the Miriam Louisa composite is made up of of many characters, to say nothing of 37.2 trillion cells and a roughly equal population of bacteria, I have come to think of it as Team Emelle.
Emelle = ML
ML = Miriam Louisa
All smiling and bowing at you right now!

Primordial Wisdom Awareness is also known as The Great Perfection

on christmas day in the morning

 

The Southern Cross and The Pointers

 

when you reach crinkled cronehood
days are as good as nights
as far as sleep’s concerned

wide-awake
I get up to pee

then I’m distracted by
the song of the Southern Cross
and lose my way back to bed

The Pointers are crisp and clear
SIT! they command
and who am I
to argue with the Cosmos?

oh joy and glee –

where else to be

but on a zafu

@3?

 

Image source – Sydney Observatory

One of the wonders of the night sky in the Southern Hemisphere (and greatly missed by its natives when they travel north of the equator) is the Southern Cross with its Pointers. In the image above, the Cross can be seen to the right, and the two Pointers to the left, indicating the position of true south.