Locate the Gap

I AM THROUGH WAITING SILENTLY FOR THE WORLD TO CHANGE, SO, 

MUCH LIKE A FRAGILE FLOWER BRAVELY STANDS TO PRESENT ITSELF, JUST AS IT IS, I SHALL BEGIN 

MY NEW WORLD AND STRIPPED OF ALL BAD TRADITIONS KNOW BY SIMPLY BEING: WHO I AM.

Alice was told, “If you don’t know where you are going, then any road will do.”  We are told that by our world as soon as we get here. Choose one. Choose a major.  Choose a career. Choose a companion. And follow the rules. The risk you take when you listen to the world is that the world will never see you as somebody who knows where (s)he is going. That is terrible. Why is it terrible? Because you will always be receiving advice from those who do not know where they are going either. All who know where they are going will automatically refuse to tell you to choose a road. They respect you too much. Lost people will be be glad to be your guides. They think you have need for one even though you have no such need. You already know that feels like a rolling stone, completely unknown, and all alone. Bob Dylan said that. 

First, know where you are going and where you stand are the same. It is no coincidence that nowhere and now here are the same. It is perfectly all right if you cannot please the world.

I will discuss a moment something very beautiful and very important that everyone knows but almost nobody remembers. It is this-nobody can embarrass an infant. It is impossible. You were once such a creature…beyond an embarrassing experience. The world had to first build up inside your head an image which it could embarrass before it would accept you as one of “us”. It gave you a name and then drilled that name into your consciousness to the point it one day embarrassed the named kid…not you, by the way, but the named kid you had become. Now you had a feature the world could send to school and later to war.  It had control of you. You were a citizen now. Not happy, sad, actually. There is beauty in an otherwise sad story, though, and the beauty is that you were never made to give up entirely on the baby who could not be embarrassed, the amazing creature who never once gave a thought to its appearance in the eyes of anybody else. It lives on inside you.  It , I call, the heart, so courageous, so bold, so full of passion, so intelligent, so wise, so devastatingly fascinating to observe. It’s free. It’s you! Given a chance, it will show you and everybody else it is as kind and generous and and tolerant as it is courageous and bold and free. How divine!

1968

In the Summer of 1968 I know something happened to change me forever but I was unaware it happened or that I had changed either. I lived on until now inside that new, invisible cocoon where I was molded by loving hands to become one of these… 52 years later. While that was underway, I was aware only briefly from time to time that, “I am different somehow and I like it”.

This afternoon I looked hard into those years right up to that fateful summer. I noticed a few important happenings. In April and then June, Martin and Bobby had been assassinated. I was about to begin my third and final year of Law School. The political scene that Summer was an insane parade of wild, weird, incomprehensible freak shows. In Chicago, the Democrats led off with violent beatings and stomping and kicking and jailing of many kids my age also students who dared protest in the streets and parks. It was sickening to watch on television. People just like me being treated in such horrible ways by policemen who behave as if they hate them ferociously. That could be me. Should it have been me? The trials of those kids in Chicago who were the leaders of the protests were a complete mockery of anything resembling justice. By now, I knew it. I had learned enough to know better and had not yet stepped into a courtroom to try a case. 

And it was to be another 24 years until it was revealed to me, an honor graduate, that as early as 1830, when the nation was only about 30 itself, then President Andrew Jackson directly and without apology flaunted the United States Constitution by ordering the Trail of Tears forced march of all Indians across the Mississippi River to live on Reservations designated suitable by the white politicians in direct violation of the order of the Supreme Court which told him he could not do so legally because the Constitution, the supreme law of the land, forbids it. That is not taught in Law Schools in the United States. In my lifetime, I lived to listen to another President tell the world on television,”If the President does it, it cannot be illegal”. These guys with swollen egos never learn. In my law practice, I  saw many times the laws disregarded by courts, police, lawmakers and elected leaders. It is enough to make anybody sick. I even once wore a tiny device to record a public official tell me repeatedly, “forget the law, let them have what they want” (meaning the authorities.)

Okay, that which I turned out to be when I emerged from the cocoon?  It is a whooper swan! Have you met someone who knows who he is and is happy with it? Such a one can make peace with the world he lives in and experience that miracle while alive, regardless of what others do or do not.

___________________________

*Let me add that it was the darkness played an important role in that transformation, as important a role as the light within the cocoon. Both are with us.  Which will you feed the most? Think it over.

ANNOUNCING!  Grand Opening of the Swan River Theatre!

Politicians say, Make America Great Again, Vote for me.

What do they mean tossing the term, “America” at us? Is it in the government offices in Washington D.C.?  Is that where “America" resides? Is it on the printed money? Is its voice heard in false positions of power wielded over others? Can it ever be? Is it jobs? Is it in institutions? Is it an army, navy, and air force? Is it law and order as determined by fiat and punishment? Is it a chain of prisons? Is it glamour, sports and entertainment? Do not answer too swiftly.  Give it some thought. What do you think? What do you want it to mean to you from now on? 

The politicians speak of it as if they had understanding of the term when they have not any.  Little do they know that “America” insofar as the word has any meaning in reality is not a place marked on a globe. It is a magical spot that is at the same time vast beyond measure and so tiny it can never be located to be attacked or mocked. It is where all people who are born come from and long to return to and mostly they wish to return because of the confusing mess politicians have made claiming they are the experts on the subject, “America”. It can be things like those listed and many more or it can be humanity’s gate that never closes. It can be confusing or it can be simple. When will we learn that politics speaks only to the worst in us? Fear, greed, intolerance, envy, lust, hatred, rage, violence, vengeance. The other “America" listens to and speaks to only our goodness:  which includes love, patience, kindness, tolerance, courage, stamina, appreciation of beauty, contentment, self reliance, simplicity, joy, wisdom, all supporting a peaceful co-existence. That is where we wish to live.

Maybe “America” is something so important its name ought never have been spoken. The essence of its meaning to those who crossed uncertain seas looking for something better is certainly unspeakable. We know it when we feel it. So, it is recognized by every human being. It is the first treasure.  The one from which all other good, life-enhancing treasure flows. It is a treasure no one can own or hold as his own in any way, shape or fashion. It cannot be held, printed, banked, or counted. It is the heartbeat and the first breath.

Then it must be obvious no man or group of men and

women can make it great…it is what it is by its nature and that is all there is to it. Everyone of us carries an abundance of it inside ourselves. In other words, it is obvious that since the first treasure belongs to nobody all treasure that flows out of it is likewise the property of nobody. All things good are to be accepted in the heart of a human being as gifts every day as the daily bread spoken of in prayers.

Now, if there is a poet out there with an original thought it would be nice to hear something like, “America” is freedom of each of you to be true to thine own self. After all is said and done, it is the only decent way to live.

You can be reminded of the meaning for your own self at the Swan River Theatre tonight.

LOVE

I rode upon a beam 

to Planet Earth to exist here as a human being.  

From that moment until it is time for me to go I belong where you find me. My sense of belonging comes from within me not from without. This is my time. This is my story. Only I can know it. 

Even someone who sleeps next to me in the same bed night after night will not. And I will not know her story. It is in that intimate sharing we know each other to belong here as we are and know how to share the plums generously. It is the only way. Then we can let each other enter our dream as an unknown equal.

I heard it said many times that it is a dangerous thing when people are not seen as who they truly are but the speaker is usually referring to how evil some other person is and not at all considering the effect of not being seen as  one who belongs here as much as any other can claim to belong. When that occurs a candle is lit in the heart of a wrongdoer which will light other candles. Being seen is what it is all about. Seeing others is why we beamed here in the first place. 

I Am

I am an alcoholic. That actually means only that I carry within me a possibility of plague which at any time may erupt. I live with it. Was given by another such person a strategy for doing just that. You may have it too. It is not for me to say you do. 

I recall a morning when seated at a coffee shop alone at a table on an outdoor balcony with a laptop in front of me being joined without any warning by a beautiful young woman who asked if she could join me at my table when the others were empty and nobody else in sight except we two at the time. More than happy was I to assent. I was tickled.

As we talked she got from me the admission, “I , myself, am an alcoholic.” She told me of an uncle who she loved very much who she said she was sure had to be one. Then she added, “I believe if my life had been a bit different I too would likely have become also an alcoholic. It is in me, she added.

Later she added, “ I have a close relationship with a God of my understanding but never do I talk to anyone else about my relationship to God so I do not know why I am speaking of it with you now, but I am. We talked there until it was time for her to leave to pick up her children. 

I tell this because it is a tricky way to address what IS IMPOSSIBLE TO ADDRESS directly. I mean the plague we carry if we carry it. There is afoot a play of a sort which is divine by nature and the players are all of us and the world is a stage as someone famous said a long time ago. The play invites us to discover our selves as we are where we are and give it our full attention. A gap in time is to be found by this act. An escape, a victory if we want, is about to happen. It appears on the surface as a response to a plague and it becomes a reliable strategy for living with it bravely.

It is so difficult to accept maybe that happiness is not at all what we are programmed to believe it to be. In fact, it is not anything to be found by a search. It is not out of reach for it is in us along with the plague. In this way it is learned that evil is the same as good, death the same as life, and the two work together on behalf of the ultimate, same nature. When you think about it, you may realize they have no choice in the matter. Water always seeks the ocean by the path of least resistance. And the ocean it seeks is inside the drop of water.

Flowing may be the nature of the strategy mentioned. May you be blessed.

If we had nothing to complain about

If we had nothing to complain about,

We would have to take the blame.

Once there was a man who had never seen an elephant.  He wanted to see one.  He investigated and found a place in Africa where elephants are kept.  He traveled there. On arriving he went to the place where elephants were in captivity to see one. There he saw many.  He was amazed.  While studying them he noticed all were held only by small little ropes wrapped around their legs just above one foot and then tied to a strong iron post. He wondered, How can such a large and powerful animal be held captive by such a tiny rope around one leg? He went to the chief to inquire.  The chief laughed and said, Let me explain.  We tie the elephants by those ropes when they are very young. The ropes can hold the babies. By the time they are grown they have long before given up hope and have quit even trying to be free. That is how they are held.

That is our situation as people on Earth. It is time to wake up.

This short poem has a message for the human heart that answers a lot of questions.

No Leaders Please

invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,

don’t swim in the same slough.

invent yourself and then reinvent yourself

and

stay out of the clutches of mediocrity.

invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,

change your tone and shape so often that they can

never

categorize you.

reinvigorate yourself and

accept what is

but only on the terms that you have invented

and reinvented.

be self-taught.

and reinvent your life because you must;

it is your life and

its history

and the present

belong only to

you.

~Charles Bukowski, from The Pleasures of the Damned

How Many Times?

Many times I have felt-

that world…out there…is never going to be at peace.

Of course there is no peace in a thing of fiction. Only living things know peace. We are alive.  

We are the peace we wish would come. And we are the peace we wish would come. And we are the peace we wish would come. By knowing yourself will you be set free. Many have said that. Listen now.

Human's Nature

I have been considering the understanding that governments and religions cannot bring peace but individual humans can. It is a grasp of the simple and obvious and is missed because we have for so long been transfixed by the world’s spin on things that keeps us in servitude of fictions waiting for the world to change. 

You see, all attempts by us humans to organize ourselves amount to make-believe. Such nonsense  calls upon our imaginations to pretend there is a nation, a religion, and all the little branches of both where there are no such beings in existence. Yet we are asked to serve them as a duty more certain than our duty to ourselves. We exist. They do not. By following such a shaky path without reason we force ourselves into an awful corner there to admit to ourselves and our children we are, by nature, lacking. 

The incredible cooperation and interdependence the creative force of the Universe made and placed solidly in command as unshakable truth is called by us, “nature”, and we think and talk of it and behave as if we are not it but separate from it. That organization, though, is as certain as birth and death. Breath and no breath. None escape its power. 

In the heart of each thing that exists is its nature. To that all but humans are bound to bow in loyal obedience. True peace is undoubtedly the knowing in one’s heart that to align with true, actual power is its (the heart’s) nature. Peace is felt not theorized. To feel I am, as I am, inseparable from Creation’s handiwork and so as such will always be true to the whole tapestry of nature without choice and having thereby no conflict with any part of it as separate from me means as a practical matter obvious to a child that peace is my nature.

By nature, you are an angel who came to Earth to show by your life the way home.

Whooper’s Dream

I dreamed Bob Dylan came to my yard.  Told me life had led him here to see me. 

Then up stepped some others. Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg had come with Bob while J. Krishnamurti brought Prem Rawat. Albert Camus came, too.There was Alan Watts and Gangaji and there was Mooji and some whose names I did not remember. Bill Wilson and Bob Smith came anonymously. One, who wore a mask, whispered to me he was the anonymous author of The Heart Sutra. Another added he was the anonymous author of the Book of Hebrews and Ecclesiastes, both. That was confusing. Each one who came told me he or she was here for no reason they knew. Just came. Drawn to come to my attention. Oh, I remember Abe Lincoln had come. Billy the Kid came. And Joan of Arc.

I replied, I think I may know why.  I am here because I know that governments and religions cannot live together in peace but human beings can. That is big medicine, they all agreed.

My experience in putting that knowledge into practical application is unique enough to be noticed,  I realized. I know any attempt to work with organized man on the subject of peace is a waste of time. We need the intelligence and strength and reliability of unorganized man…man and the God of his understanding, someone very much like everyone else, and I literally mean everyone else, to tackle the job 

of cleaning up this mess.

The job calls for someone to keep closely aligned with a clear understanding that this job is for everybody, not a handful, everybody, without exception, and yet nobody will be coerced to join and anybody is free to join up at anytime he or she wishes. 

That much I can do. I am capable of doing one. Thing well. Ha! I hollered. And awoke myself. But, just before I did, I was promised I’d probably be charged as a heretic, a sorcerer, and a cross-dresser.