Sermon from a River

Do not become misguided by the politics of division

for the world itself is nothing but division.

The mind divides.

That’s what the function of this instrument is there to do.

But one does not identify with a tool, of course,

for in doing so, a divided world is lacerated out of universal being.

We are this one universal being before societal conditioning

and universal being always

despite forgetfulness and ignorance

and these projections.

It’s not a problem though;

it’s just the inner workings of a process the mind calls self-awareness.

There’s an evolutionary vector one is following

and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

The river flows intently to that absolute almighty sea.

Being is the holy water

and love, forgiveness, and compassion is the current.

Follow oneself and see.

Pike's Peak Projections

At thirteen thousand feet, I saw majestic long horn sheep about three hundred yards away from the highway up Pikes Peak.

I stopped the car and ran across the mountain tundra intending to get closer for a better picture,

or I rather jumped from rock to rock avoiding tiny flowers, moss, and lichen in that fragile alpine zone

until my rapid breathing caught me by surprise.

I had forgotten that the air up at such an altitude is as rare as all the ground beneath me.

In that special atmosphere I was remembering something quite pedestrian—

breathing is as awesome as whatever else is out there in its fantastic exhalation.

Phenomenal Fantasia

1. October Flower Dance

Looking at leaves, my subtle branches intuit the stars.

There is no separation for division is exclusively a concept; what appears to be the universe is my society of being.

Only thinking makes an object from the subject, makes this jade-plated quality from that which is unknown.

As if the self-awareness of the self—the self that unknown pure awareness—is spontaneously blossoming into thermonuclear dreams of being.

There is a current underneath the chatter like the river pulling at the heart of some huckleberry backwater.

The personal is just projection from an ignorance of what I always know I am to be unknown. Stop and feel the flowers.

Love, forgiveness, and compassion like the naked roots of god only knows the stars above us.

As the universe is my single song, the absolute is silence singing.

There's intent in evolution, spontaneity is this freedom of intent and self-awareness is the song of self—that is why purple asters in October.

2. No Will

The dream is a self-powered love machine.

Everything is a thought. Even nothing. I am.

A red wheelbarrow.

Black hole white noise. 

The sea, the sea, the sea.

Shakespeare Bodhidharma.

3. Further

After irony is reflection is understanding. Comedy is always further.

One's conditioning is the mirror by which the absolute is seen. The dust is the whole point.

Feel the dust as dust.

See the leaves as always turning.

Love being and being illuminates.

Existence is a thought. Being is now. I am beyond.

The process of self-awareness is like watching sausage getting made.

An Indigenous Trip

Down by Indian Creek the leaves are turning back to that indigenous condition of an innocence before conditioning.

An unnamed stream is flowing with this hydrologic river to the absolute unknowing of the sea.

And suddenly the dream of summer celebrations on a sandbar in the middle of

this wide expanse of legendary knowledge fades like chlorophyll in hillside foliage.

There is a red-tailed hawk in pure blue skies, yellow double lines on a river road, and orange sunshine

in the loving deconstruction of yet another world.

The Great Profile

I saw the Old Man in the Mountain the year before the five granite cliff ledges giving form to face collapsed.

It was Autumn 2002 and the trees up at the notch were bare, although within the valley further north the foliage was peak.

Still, the drab surroundings only made the rock face more prolific in its inspiration, as if a vision will only come alive

completely unattached and otherworldly in the murky night when sleep has overcome the colors of our daydream.

The overall effect was honestly phenomenal! But next summer when I visited again the site I saw an even greater revelation.

There in crystal skies is surfacing the Old Man’s original face.

October Surprise

October begins with leaves 

and ends in emptiness 

and in-between occurs 

a colorful illusion 

lost to apple picking.

By November, everything is over

as if the none of it was ever there.

But that is getting far ahead of autumn things.

Stories need their telling like sleep needs dreaming.

There, a leaf is turning yellow, another

one is falling like a magic carpet

sailing in the cool fresh air,

and ten thousand erstwhile fallen

hide the ground from being self-aware.

Northeast Absolution

The wind is stuck this week. 

It’s blowing from the Northeast 

with a steadiness of force enough 

to turn the temperature on land to that of sea.

The Gulf of Maine in late September

off the coast of Northern Massachusetts

rests around the higher fifties

which is where our air is resting.

Likewise now there’s something to be said

about the art of meditation as the absolute

redeems this being no longer lost in thought

but resting in this being.

O let the sea wash over me

ten thousand yards away

as black crows fly but here

and now as silently as I.

An Acadia Love Musical

i.

Like a feeling but not an emotion.

Like attention without a thought.

Affectionate awareness isn't nothing 

as being isn't something.

ii.

That which appears to be the universe is universal being and

this knowledge known as being is just that.

And love is the sign of universal being to be followed like cairns

upon a fogbound trail on this rocky ground high above tree-level.

And fog so thick one has to walk past the last cairn to a point of almost-

no-return before the next one is discovered—this is called further.

Imagine this newborn matrix in affectionate awareness is

conditioned to perceive my self as something else.

iii.

Conditioning is an original error 

passed on thru generations

and love is the sign of my self—

the missing of the mark is not following it.

This is called sin.

And often misunderstood as 

an act against another.

There is no other.

There's only self, 

confusion and the way.

Hiker. Fog. Trail.

Conditioning. Sign. Self.

iv.

Meanwhile the big bang is the earthling name for like half

of the singular wholly process of godself knowing godself.

And the chorus sings love and attention,

love and attention, love and attention.

v.

Acadia; Act Five, Scene One: after

crawling up the desert rock western slope

suddenly seeing an eastern sea and sky

in blue panoramic ultra high definition.

One Late September Morning

This morning was as close to frost since early May. 

The sun which now appears within this picture window

warms the living room in a different way than summer sun,

reminding me I’ve built a shelter for the lack of one.

When the weather in September changes,

the change I feel is not external nor objective,

but this vital breath, this subtle feeling that I am, this seeing

affecting transformation in its universal earth-bound being.

There’s nothing but this sense of one,

affectionate awareness, easier done than said,

but being is conditioned otherwise to see myself instead as some display

divided into colors, thoughts, emotions, play.

In fact the world is not in battle, bloodshed, conflict, war.

The wind is not unfriendly, frigid, spiritless, far.

I am merely being in and breathing out—

of this I have no second thoughts about.

The Black Whole

Compassion is the default position of seeing.

Being is the only known.

Only being is known by the unknown.

If being is the only known,

and only being is known by the unknown,

then there's truly nothing

but being.

A mountain rises from the sleeping giant.

The sun is speaking from rare air.

The sun is my heart.

And I am that black hole from which the sun shines.

As the earth knows itself to be the sun,

the sun is an embodiment of that great black hole.

In this world, the language of the black hole is

the words of revelation.

Between divided emotions lovingly awaits deep sleep.

Or enlightenment in some translations.

Picture the sun as the source of the body

in tangerine clouds of absolute sky.

There's the unknown.

I am. And evolutionary intent of mind.

One not busy translating is a busy body—

urge urge urge of the procreant east.

For the discerning, 

the intelligent, the intensely questioning.

Furthur.