This Sermon on This Life

Right now, I’m here alive. 

And when I die, 

this life will never know I’m dead. 

So why, as this vitality, 

should I concern myself with dying? 

The leaf will fall; 

the woods don’t mourn the summer 

while the trees prepare for spring. 

Am I the leaf, 

and if I am, 

I process light to know the light. 

Am I the tree, 

and if I am, 

I process light to know the light…

The Sermon on This Land That’s Your Land

I had always wanted to drive cross-country. Maybe it was Chris who forty years ago first put desire in my eyes to see this land as she discussed her trips back and forth from San Diego. Instead I studied all about its history and literature looking for the sights as others saw them.

Six years ago, my daughter was about to move to California, and being recently unemployed, I decided I should drive her there, and then I’d slowly circle myself home, visiting the natural wonders of America. And so it happened.

I wrote a poem while sitting on a great sequoia; took so many pictures in Yosemite they left me black and white; looked out upon Lake Tahoe’s mountain dark reflections; drove the lonesome road straight through the desert of Nevada; walked through sandstone Arches after crying at the marriage of the ground and sky in Canyonlands; looked out from Anasazi windows in the sacred vaults of Mesa Verde; never took a photo of an inexplicable white buffalo in Zuni; worshipped with the silent Acoma apparitions in Sky City; just missed a slow coyote on I-40 in New Mexico; touched the surface of the largest mass of turquoise ever while exploring Santa Fe; listened to the blessed myths of Taos Pueblo; found my way to Cripple Creek and finally the summit of Pike’s Peak from where I scouted over cornfields of Nebraska crossing Mississippi waters towards the east back home.

It was experience I cherish to this day. But still, it was the mere experience of a superficial world, infinite in its variety and wondrous in its manifest appearances, but nothing without the consciousness in which it’s seen.

This wordless Being is the only wonder of the universe. More to the point, it is the god in which that universe appears. It’s here and now, and everywhere I go, it is. Even nowhere. Omnipotens sempiterne Deus qui abundantia. This land is your land.

The Sermon on My Birthday

It was my birthday yesterday, commemorating this appearance of myself in its continuing transformative performance—

as a universal entity not knowing nodes aren't separate networks. 

We know beneath the surface is an energetic field of sub-atomic spontaneity.

We know that it’s impossible to see the space between the mother and her child in which a separate consciousness is born.

We know that nothing is an island and the butterfly that flaps its wings becomes the eye of hurricanes.

It’s elementary education most of us received some years ago.

And yet we play this game of long division to the point of wondering why this world is so divided, full of suffering and violence.

Spontaneous, unborn, holistic, we pretend we’re something other.

Happy birthday to this grand illusion.

A Sermon on the Sunset

At last, the sun will set a minute later on this evening. 

It’s not the solstice yet, and daylight lessens still 

because the sunrise still is later too, 

but when the light is dim 

we tend to grab at what we can. 

Such is the way of the world. 

Unmindful of what we really are, 

yet subliminally aware of what we are beyond appearances 

and its precipitous diminishment within the mind, 

we blindly latch upon whatever object, 

physical or conceptually otherwise, 

that helps to fill the gap we intuitively know exists. 

It never works, of course, 

because the gap is both an infinite one 

and nonexistent on the very same occasion. 

Similarly, the sun is never really setting. 

Its light is ever-present, omnipotent and diamond bright. 

It’s just the world that’s in the way.

A Canticle for The Experiential

If it’s not experiential, it’s a borrowed belief.

Beliefs may be borrowed for a limited time on faith.

If a belief is not confirmed by one’s experience, return it.

If a belief is confirmed by one’s experience, burn it.

There’s no scientific data supporting

the almost pre-Copernican-like belief

that consciousness is

an epiphenomenon of the brain.

Simple awareness sees

that the entire universe is,

including all scientific data,

in, of, and by consciousness.

Any belief indicating

consciousness is an epiphenomenon

need never have been borrowed—

at least the sun appears to circle the earth.

But the earth circles the sun.

And the sun appears in consciousness.

And consciousness is witnessed by

this reflection of awareness.

Hail Goddess

The flower doesn’t grow itself. 

It takes a seed to raise the stem. 

Without the sovereign ground, 

how would the root appear? 

Water, water, everywhere, 

and who will taste its truth? 

Sunshine is our superwoman, 

fear our only kryptonite. 

All history belongs to her 

despite a battle’s latest lie. 

She’ll always win the war 

because she never has to fight. 

Hail Mary! Hail Parvati! 

All are always hailing love! 

Every flower in the floral 

circle of this wondrous world 

is singing in her laurels.

Ouroboric Samadhi

The yin and yang of snow coats the crazy 

wisdom of ten thousand branches 

and I feel the trees are energetic 

natural appendages of myself. 

This is revelation of a native kind. 

Verily the universe is my body 

and I am the eye of the universe. 

These words are what I see. 

The sky is lit. 

The space around me is a waterfall. 

The ground is opening to unveil 

a fearless dragon swallowing its tail. 

Yes, I am the eye of all 

and all is my intent to see myself. 

Holy alchemy of realization, 

with this poem, all disappears.

Nursery Instructions

Welcome to Conditionland!

Take your face and state your view;

Rather let us form them for you.

Never try to understand;

Fill that void instead with other

Substitutes that give you pleasure,

Never using thought to measure

Thought itself as its own mother.

Always fight for your belief

Even though it isn’t yours.

Close your windows! Close your doors!

Truth is nothing but a thief.

What remains when it takes all?

Who is left to smart and die?

Never question who am I!

Always fall for our free fall.

Being born in thought is being

Dead to being, blind to seeing

That you’re only guaranteeing

Never freeing your own being.

Thoughts like these will stop your thinking;

Stop them now and start your drinking.

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

I am the leafless river. 

I am the fountain on the brink. 

And when the wind is breathless 

and night has dropped the day 

and all its industry and play, 

I am the eagle eye reflecting 

deepness of the quiet moon. 

Awaken to this revelation! 

See its prophecy alight 

the water into soundless flames. 

Feel its photovoltaic inspiration 

wash against a thoughtless shore. 

And love the intuition of the trees 

dancing in the breeze of being 

all and nevermore.

School Time Images

I was shy at school and during recess stood alone, standing up against a chain link fence, while I watched the schoolyard buzzing with its games of tag or jumping rope or shouting, chanting, laughing, crying, talking. Inside I knew I didn’t have to be that way.

One day, weeks after classroom pictures had been taken, we received a captivating envelope. Inside, besides our five-by-sevens, eight-by-tens, and wallet sized individuals, there shone a wondrous sheet with all the separate photos of my classmates smiling through.

My mother cut the universal glossy into personal existent images and I played with them while sitting on the floor, pretending we were in that busy schoolyard and I was nothing but the center of attention, playing childhood games and being infinitely happy.

Although, there were those times just two of us, me and Joanne Kerry, secreted ourselves away and climbed the coffee table, hand-in-hand, or rather edge-to-edge, and rested by a plastic apple in an emerald crystal bowl, whispering chromatics of our love for love.

In that moment, I would disappear, both physically and descriptively. What remained is now transmitting clouded memories some fifty-four years later—as if I never aged. In truth I see that consciousness was never born, and life is just this lesson trying to be learned.