Life

the birds come to my birdbath

 

Philip Sutton, The Tree, 1958

 

emelle says:

I’m a fool with little need of company.

There’s no one deemed respectable here,
so how could I demand respect?

When recognition only brings busyness,
how could I not love invisibility?

Knowing that mind is the slayer of silence
why would I want “the last word?”

Saturated by streaming aliveness
how could I be lonely?

I cherish the extraordinariness
of ordinary suchness
but few know what that looks like,
so I’ll tell you:

The birds come to my birdbath.

The dogs wag their tails
when I open my door.

My luna-lover beams at me
without reproach or expectation.

My cup runneth over
and the ants make the most of it;
they even cart off my toenail clippings.

When the tide of breath runs out
they will claim every scrap of this body
and have a banquet with the worms.

And their scats will feed the earth;
new grass will grow in the summer,
sap will rise in the trees
and they will exhale my smile.

I will be breathed back
into the fecundity of space.

Just like that.
And that’s enough for me.

 

Image: Philip Sutton, The Tree, 1958
philipsuttonra.com

 

this wild and precious life

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
– Mary Oliver

 

Kano Motonobu - Zen Patriarch Xiangyen Zhixian Sweeping with a Broom

 

after decades of wondering what I’d be
when I grew up,
what I’d do when I found my ‘real’ work,
what I’d contribute to life that might be of worth,
I tossed the questions to the stars
and gave up

is this typical I wonder?
a symptom of seniorhood?
or does it eventually occur to everyone
that while life is unbearably precious
and untameably wild
it isn’t yours or mine nor ever was

so with hair gone silver and eyes a-twinkle,
I whisper to the beloved poet:
this wild and precious life was never mine to map;
it always had its own agenda, dancing itself
across infinite webs of thought and feeling,
back to its own vibrant womb

and the role it gave itself as miriam
was that of sweeper of the space,
one who clears the mind-droppings, ensuring
no concealment of that fierce Grace
shining, shining through the world’s sorrow and joy
(and the sweeper’s too)

 

And what will Life do I wonder, with its one wild and precious You?

 

Image: Kano Motonobu –  Zen Patriarch Xiangyen Zhixian Sweeping with a Broom (detail)
Muromachi period 1336-1868.  Ink and color on paper.

 

you will not be missed

Photograph by Andy Ilachinski

 

You will not be missed by Life

– you,

a minuscule synapse in Its immeasurable web

of pulsing intelligence.

 

Yet, if you stumble wideawake into that synaptic self-

less identity – against all odds,

turning away from all cultured data-input –

Life will support you in unimaginable ways

(you will speak of Grace, you will kneel in awe)

as you flow the info-field for the fulfilment

of Its One Uncaused Thought

 

Make no mistake

you will not be missed by Life, ever.

The nano-speck of measurable matter

known by your good name

will be recycled to beneficent use

in the interest of the

Holy Whole.

 

You will not be missed by Life

Beloved

because you can never go missing,

even when you pretend to die.

 

Image by photographer and physicist Andy Ilachinski

See more of Andy’s fine work on one of my other blogs – the awakened eye

Synapse?

perhaps it is time?

 
Photo art by Christoffer Relander
 

would you believe me
if I assured you that
you can never be too old
(or too young)
to meet the unborn
deathless Bright
that is your actual identity?

would you believe me
if I whispered that you
and the world appearing
within that radiant
Knowingness
are inseparable
except in thought?

would you believe me
if I said, No, it is not
too late
to turn in, to dive down
into your immensity
and feel loved again by
your own shy Life?

if your days feel deadened
by weariness and futility,
if your world seems fragmented
and full of pain,
I implore you: please
don’t believe or not believe,
but glance, with thoughts
on hold,
at the ever-present invitation
to check this out for yourself
 
perhaps it is time?

 

Multiple exposure portrait by Christoffer Relander

raking rocks on the emptiness allotment

 

what I’ve noticed
since the free-fall into foolishness
is that
only a phantom called ‘me’
with its program of personal purpose
and its visions of attainment
– whether altruistic or mundane –
could demand of Life
(when the shit hits the fan)

but why?

why me?

?

Echoes from Emptiness: Ingo Leth: the spirit of zen, 2011, acrylic paint on linen

a space-filled nobody
(the absence of a ‘me’body)
makes no demands;
it doesn’t mind what happens

it has no agenda beyond
the health and well-being of the organism
(all organisms actually)
and no fantasies of an improved future

it just streams on regardless
from now to now to now
often wearing a quiet smile
and surreptitiously
inviting
more playmates to rake rocks
on the emptiness allotment

(the home base, dears,
of radical activism)

Painting by Ingo Leth

life boils down to a cup of tea

292

By the wondrous old age of 90 both my parents have seen enough of life to know that it unfolds according to its own agenda.  Having been through a zillion shatterings and upliftings, they quietly confess that nothing much turned out the way they thought it would or wished it might.  They like to say that everything in Life happens of its own accord.

To say “of its own accord” is another way of saying “by Grace” – and we can’t understand either the cosmic laws that orchestrate “happenings” or the dynamic of “Grace.”  But we can have fun with concepts, while keeping the difference between concept and Reality in view.

My concept of Grace:  active, dynamic, non-local information/intelligence.  Primal Power.

My concept of Life:  unborn, unmoving, immeasurable Primal Potential.

Without Grace, Life remains impotent.

Visual concept:  Life’s omniscient and omnipresent Potential sit at the two corners of a triangle’s baseline, and Grace – omnipotence – forms the apex, transforming the connecting lines into form and unleashing creative energy.

When I show this bunch of concepts to the aged wise ones, they simply smile and make a cup of tea.

~

I had a death dream

287

I’m standing on the deck of a boat of some kind. The sea is benign, but there’s a heaving swell which is making it tricky to tie up at the wooden pier. I’m thinking about how to get my little suitcase onto the pier, trying to assess the rhythm of the swells. I toss the bag but miss the moment by a fraction and it catches on something on the pier then tumbles into the water. I’m not too worried, thinking it will float and be retrievable.

Then I’m standing in the water, which now appears to be a kind of estuary. The bag’s still floating, but a swift current has caught it and is carrying it further out. Dogs are swimming out to it. (Varanasi flashbacks!) It’s moving faster than I can run. Then it moves into open, choppy water, becoming submerged, and I know it’s gone.

I stand there, trying to recall what was in the bag: clothing, a pearl necklace given by a beloved, a jump-drive holding all my writing and images of my artwork, a notebook, another book, or two. I’m unfazed. There’s no sense of loss or anxiety.

The dream ends.

During the day the thought arose again and again:  I had a death dream.

For surely dying must be just like that, like simply watching the little bag that holds your identity kit together – all the accessories and loved phenomena of a Life – float away on the outgoing tide of oceanic consciousness. The wild awareness that has been watching for that entire Life-time (and all others) simply continues to watch …

~