From These to That

There is a place here

Meshed lines threaded tightly

Vertically,  our relationship,  from then till now till then

Horizontally,  the influencers

[past relationships,  upbringing,  culture,  biochemistry,  libido,  emotions,  beliefs, obstacles;  Things.]

Things complicate the relationship,  until:

The space where the criss-crossing is noticed.

Millions of spaces,  that are windows to that which all of this is built on:

Awareness.

So now,  instead of pulling Thing threads, which tighten or loosen our Relationship Threads,

I step from space to space to space.

Sometimes I fall through;  you sense it and meet me there

Other times,  there is stasis and entropy as our small s selves circle like vultures over unmet expectations we have of each other.  The Relationship Strands crackle and smell.

I've learned from experience that pulling or pushing doesn't work with you.

So I have chosen to stand back,  watch my emotions and feelings pass by

Float through the awkwardness we both bring to our investment

And live as well as I know how - which is standing in the spaces,  in and as Awareness.

You might respond,  you might not.  My expectations might or might not ever be met

But as Awareness,  those are just more Things anyways.

And while yes,  I wait for you to broach that which I think *should* be important to both of us

I realize that getting from These Things to That

Is simply a process of Standing as That

Being love

And welcoming your embrace or rejection,  contraction or expansion.

Relationship teaches through fire.  I've walked through it,  and now,  I hope for the sublimation of waiting to Being to complete.

Be well,  

Be.

Miss Ova Given's Bridge to Nowhere

Miss Ova Given's Bridge to Nowhere
Grommeted here, I am stretched across the four elements and the two horizons
A translucent whole with a thousand I-holes
Threaded with silk to the bergs below

You are the berg.
And you,
&
That.

Four times two is 10,000
A hoary cartographer's dream

No ordinary mapmaker, or course
Miss Ova Given was the perfect candidate

She found herself pulling the silks one by one
Until I draped across the bergs
Kissed the myth breaker on the cheek and re-remembered no distance between
I, Miss Ova Given,
you,
&
That.

The return path to this bridge to nowhere
Spans the relative and the absolute
Always dropping me - the ink and paper of the picture -
Square in the centerless circle I never left.

The Change and the Changeless Tree

||:  HE asked if I thought I had a choice in the matter, and I said yes.

Which led me to here.

And here is fine,  except that there are decision trees sprouting around me like virile rabbits,  each vying for watering, weeding,  and climbing.

The days where I choose to climb are actually quite fun, and HE is disappointed to hear that.

Lost in the world, lost in thought,  lost in thoughts of the world.  That's what the decision trees are deconstructed to - an ego-gelling gauze between me and IT that prevent me from simply not seeing the whole picture.

At first,  I argue with HIM,  and HE settles back with self satisfied smile - 'You see?  You argue about what is not real to begin with. Duality on duality.  Duality squared.  What does that get you?  Well on your way to 10,000 things.  And the number of lifetimes it will take to find your way back is staggering.'

And yet - they are so beautiful.  One leaf out of the Ground of Being - then another,  then a stalk,  then branches,  then an entire tree,  all from that apparent first single split from what Is.



//Last week,  I climbed the Change Tree:

Could Jesus or the Buddha have been a conservative?  (leaf)

What can a conservative be boiled down to - somebody who doesn't like change (leaf)

Buddha saw that everything WAS change (stalk starting)

Jesus railed against the status quo - he WAS change (stalk growing)

Conclusion - no they couldn't be conservative,  anymore than water could not be wet. (branches growing)

Counter arguments (more branches).

//And,  verily did the Change Tree drop  acorns which formed into the Changeless Tree:

But Jesus and Buddha could not be progressives either (leaf)

They had qualities of progressives,  but labelling them as such pigeon-holed their true essence - that which is without borders (and reaching the top of that tree,  the branches bent over and started dissolving back into the ground).

//which brought me back to seeing that on close examination,  the trees were not separate from the Ground of Being any more than what is aware of these words is separate from the words themselves.

When I got back to the ground,  as always,  I saw the living truth:

The trees were not a deviation from reality,  they were a manifestation of reality.

They sprang from and returned to the ground of being.

Kind of like...

....HE that questioned,  challenged, and derided me for my enjoyment of This.

And with my recognition of HIM,  we embraced and feel into a deep sleep.

When I awoke,  HE asked me if I thought I had a choice in the matter.  :|| x (infinite number of lifetimes needed for realization, minus 1).

==============

For those not musically inclined,  the ||:  xxxx :|| is a repeat sign.  Everything between the bars is repeated a specified number of times. In this case,  the number of lifetimes it will take me to realize the truth  which is infinite minus 1).

Injo (Aum Sante Maria)

Wine spills from your chalice
Blood red stain upon your robe
The sacraments give comfort
But oh God you're feeling old

Your masters pass the flaming stole
Before their eyes go long
You fade back inside yourself
And listen for the song

(Chorus)
Aum Sante Maria Hallelujah El Shaddai
Broken open koans "I am That" and "I am I"

You start to pace the hallway
Wearing only your remorse
Fully clothed for battle
If they'd only bring your horse

Time and legalese and King James English
Fill your head
The only place your shouting gels
Is lying in your bed

(Chorus)

Grab the scythe or cling to life
Based on the neurons flare
Regardless of your choice the song you heard
Is always there

(Chorus)

Occam's Gestalt

I am living proof that Occam's Razor makes a lot of sense.  But it doesn't mean that there is not a place - and a joy - in complexity as well.

Complication is my modus operandi - and also a signal to noise ratio for how my particular pathologies are raging within the machine on a given day.

Still,  on the relative plane, complication is also a gift.

Complication is embedded in patterns - or maybe the other way around - but without question there is a relationship between Gestalt and Complication.

Complication - at times I have to watch myself:

1000 words instead of 100 to explain something at an emotional or professional level.  Drives others crazy;  eyes roll back in their heads or simply gray out to those fuzzy screens you'd use to get on antenna-ed TV's.

Trying to get ideas across. Often good ideas - but by the time they spider off in lexicological decision trees about how to proceed,  the listener is left with a spaghetti-ed mess of rhetoric that must be abandoned or simply not engaged with from the outset.

Gestalt: at other times,  I just watch 'my' Self:

Spiritually,  patterns within the complicated explanation light up; figure 8's on the spaghetti plate glowing neon bright or muted pastels  circling this way and back and eating their own tailes.*(tales|tails)

Complexity and Gestalt  were birthed from a corn husk last nite.  It flowered and opened like a womb,  and I was ushered into a darkly dimpled Nebraska evening.

Below:  the earth;  verdant,  rich and wet

Above: somebody stringing Christmas lights in figure 8's *exactly* 17 feet above the tallest corn stalk.  On the lights, a race of sort - imps and devas and faeries or god-knows-whats chasing each other towards infinity,  and me,  suddenly on the bench,  begging to join the race.

Be careful what you ask for.

The want, borne from the need,  was fulfilled.  I was in the race,  baton in hand, and the other racers dissolved into me.  ONE,  racing till my heart synced with the light's on-and-offs and the speed dissolved into no-speed and the distance dissolved into no-distance,  and I raced,  one foot *just dragging* in the relative,  with the rest of me forcing myself into

Infinity:

Which planted itself into new stalks,  causal wires criss-crossing into impossible patterns below ground:

Complexity:

Which I was left on waking with trying to decipher, or simply live.

Namaste.

The Key to Graduation

Growing up, I was internal
Hoping, dreaming for the day that others would see me as special
Pain constricted the exterior
But strengthened the interior

The Muse introduced herself early
I wrote and sung and played and imagined
And hoped

And imagined hope

Reaching for The One who would
Accept the exterior
But See the interior
Believe the interior
Share lives in the interior

This many years on
Pattern recognition has improved
I'm still There

Reaching with imagined hope towards
Blinking lights
Which sate and bate in figure eights

I have the toughest teacher in the world
Giving me daily lesson plans

The challenge - can I live from Here without going There.

I'll keep trying
Or simply give up trying
And probably, if the intention in surrender is pure
Be graced by release

And Graduate.

Alphabet Soup

Upward drizzle from the train to the platform to the escalator to the causeway.

The Muse or one of her cellmates has obviously set up shop here:  a causal bunker,  well protected. She's torching passer-bys with creative fire.

Most of the commuters' suits are unreasonably fire-proof,  but not mine.  I'm burned to ashes and am rising again before I even know what's hit me.  Under my left arm,  The Book.  In my right hand,  a set of golden tongs.  Over my eyes:  nothing.  Everything is shining and new and waiting to be discovered.  Undulating fields of love as I see what everybody else has become,  and what I can do about it.

They're all letters:

Commuters come personalities come images come words come letters.

There's a pattern here,  but it's in the fact that there IS no pattern

The lawyers,  accountants,  programmers,  construction workers,  Baristas,  hangers-on,  applicants,  daycare drop-outs, businesswomen, bankers,  analysts and traders...

...all reduced to a single letter each.  Nothing to do with their profession;  many aren't even english:  Hebrew,  Sanskrit, Greek, Aramaic, French, Spanish, Slang, Graffiti...

my personal Tower of Babel Buffet.

There are no seconds here,  however -  all firsts;   even the same letters shine differently as I pluck them with my trusted tongs and put them into the book.

It's mechanical at first,  I pick and choose who should go in,  then relax into an almost random sweep,  then a  fully fluid pick and grab.

The book flips pages as it fills,  and even seems to be indexing itself.

The Muse is waiting at the exit,  cigarette in hand and absurd pocket watch dangling from her waist jacket pocket.

"You like?"   she seems to ask as she takes the book  opens it *exactly* in the middle,  and watches as a visual cacophony unfolds itself - up into thunderheads,  then splitting and folding and splitting and folding in on itself, then spraying everyone in sight with chains of God,  anchored in the The Book.

With that,  she says a word,  the crowd moves as one,  and she skis through the lobby,  out the door,  and through the downtown streets:

Creativity, pulled by God,  through the noosphere and further.

God bless the Muse, and her Alphabet Soup.

Namaste.