ask me what’s here
and I will tell you
how naked life is
Tag Archives: spiritual
welcome the whale (20 Jan 2011)
22 FebIt’s fast, the rhythm jaunty
there’s nothing foreign in it
but I can’t breathe
like my lungs are craving
complete submersion
and I am drowning, as a fish drowns
in air
the pulse of life has sped up
and I have slowed
down
my rhythm
alienating
the more I try
to join in
the more I
drown, the muse is pulling
I can feel another pulse
it is deep
deep
blue
it is the speed of sand
the texture of ocean
the ripple of one century
after another
it is a forever more wish
it is the silent pulse
the youngest throb of an ancient whale
as she holds the calm
and claims the surface
for a wandering moment
she sees me struggling
you are not of them today
and guides me
down
I navigate my slowness
my steadiness
I pulse languid on the radar
these small eyes
understanding
still rhythms
to those up there
I pulse alone
the surface ruffled by wind and
the chattering white waves
aah but I pulse not-of-them today
I pulse deep
silent
blue
Water
15 Oct
As part of Blog Action Day 2010:Water I had a go at writing a poem about water as it relates to me.
This poem is inspired by the beautiful work that Dr Masaru Emoto has done and is continuing to do.
Water
“Water has a memory
and carries within it
our thoughts and prayers.As you yourself are water,
no matter where you are,
your prayers will be carried
to the rest of the world”
Dr Masaru Emoto
Here is my body
seventy percent water
that’s less than when I was born
when I was ninety percent
fluid potential
Here are my emotions
a cup for emptying
oceans like love
expressing more than one way
to live, when love is the only way
Here is my consciousness
netted into all consciousness
one ocean, many tides
one tide, one gravitation
for now
Here is my energy
subtle and vast
like the space between
me and the sky
me and my heart
Here I am
awareness
of all that I am and am not
of all that I can be
and where I chose to be
and I place myself
at my centre, offering
love and
so many thank yous
for sending
all of this …
to me, to all beings
to all waters
to all earths
namaste
Chocolate (14 Oct 2010)
14 OctThe following is my first attempt at writing a ‘ghazal’ – a poem in couplets. It is an Urdu word in the tradition where the author is conversing with their beloved. It was described to me as couplets that sit as pearls on a necklace, each stanza beautiful in its own right. The exercise was to *not* be particularly coherent between stanzas, offering us to leap off into the next stanza.
I wrote about my beloved as chocolate, and the battles fought and lost over this.
Chocolate
The label on the packaging says Enigma
Rich velvety chocolate blended with a hint of mint.
A disciple in marketing should take lessons from Rumi,
Hafiz, and why not Buddha?
Christ makes you less impressionable
after fasting 40 days
But I tell you; the Truth tastes so good. It melts doubt.
All mysteries dissolve in Truth.
Should I follow Osho, he would allow my senses to touch
enlightenment. Chocolate, enigmatically, would get me there first.
~
I think the Buddha said something
about cravings.
~
Ramana Mahashi said you must want enlightenment
like a man on fire wants water. This is not a second-fiddle want.
Take my violin. Take my orchestra.
Take my audience, their families, and their families.
~
The Spanish Conquistadors have valuable cargo; coco nibs
spiced with chilli.
The Mayans predicted I would fall in love after all and I fall
and fall and fall and fall.
Destiny is finishing what you started and …
the falling leaf of inner peace is destined to land.
~
how did we come (14 Sept 2010)
22 SepHow did we come to water,
or water come to us…
because we needed to drink, yes
but it’s drawn out like emotions, teased
into existence, because
we had to master survival,
like there’s a rhythm for us to learn.
How did we come by air,
because it’s invisible to us really
so innate, intrinsic, inherent
and yet at one point, someone said
we breath… Air. And now
we think and think
and think, like we deserve it.
How did we respond to earth
as something under us,
or in our way, or to be climbed over.
How did we skip over the grace
of our earth in a few short decades,
and not see every variation
as part of our survival.
How did we learn about fire,
watching it burst into heat
and light and roar with total
indifference, and somehow we kept
a little parcel of this sacred,
held by sacred people
to light the way.
Like this:
be kind (30 Aug 2010)
8 Sepamazing how righteous indignation
or anger or sulking
or brooding
can play host to such
permanence
he, you, they, them, all of the
thems so persistently
consistently
convincingly
proving my mind right | proving my mind right
like I can wear a badge
saying see! I told you
so, I harden the evidence
overwhelming
in support of me
and so, if I want to see the
impermanence, of my moods
of theirs, in relation to that,
I actually need to ask
for an entirely new scene
where boxes and paths and
well trodden tracks
don’t yet exist
to illustrate
that the kindest thing
is nothing fixed
to an idea or mountain
or moll hill or even
to thinking I know him
or them or anyone
because that’s real
intimacy
it is the real dirty knowing
the unassumed recognition
an open bandwidth to be
free
and profoundly kind to my self
as a service to them
to be kind to them
as a service to me.
that feeling (4 Aug 2010)
27 Augas if a dream
were needed
you wake up
a tender certainty
pressing all around you
because you touched
the essence of your life
the oldest Love
embraces you
oh it’s too much to
ever want to let go
it fills
it sates
it is complete and life
takes you away
on a journey
to the twelve weather stations
and you’ve passed
the usefulness of these
recordings and predictions
you leave, still
knowing that tender touch
and a long ago voice
asks, can I join you?
‘no’ you reply
for you have outgrown
even that voice
filled with useful
advice and offering
a short cut
you walk
and wake
you walk and you wake
remembering that embrace
seeking
still
what dimension of love
is pulling you?
dancing air (3 Aug 2010)
27 Augsoften your gaze
let it blur and hover
in its own shadows
let the light behind
leap forward
let movement wash away
into a glisten
a sequinned dress
hanging on the line
allow your iris
pins and needles on your mind
rest your heels on the floor
stop stretching so far
gaze at the whole thing
at once
think how happy you are
and then see the air dance
like a spider web
lost to the wind
magnificence (1 Aug 2010)
27 Augalter me
show my original face
where I suddenly find myself
awestruck
prompt me
dare me to break free
this cautious mind wants freedom
and awe
deliver me
intimate with the mundane
and into the deepness of life
and reverence
break me
wide open
for subtlety and magnificence
yes, this is for magnificence
My Poetry Book
