A Far Distant Howl: January 2009

Friday, January 30, 2009

"The Buck in the Snow"

White sky, over the hemlocks bowed with snow,
Saw you not at the beginning of evening the antlered buck and his doe
Standing in the apple-orchard? I saw them. I saw them suddenly go,
Tails up, with long leaps lovely and slow,
Over the stone-wall into the wood of hemlocks bowed with snow.

Now he lies here, his wild blood scalding the snow.

How strange a thing is death, bringing to his knees, bringing to his antlers
The buck in the snow.
How strange a thing--a mile away by now, it may be,
Under the heavy hemlocks that as the moments pass
Shift their loads a little, letting fall a feather of snow--
Life, looking out attentive from the eyes of the doe.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

John Updike 18 Mar 1932 - 27 Jan 2009

The feathers were more wonderful than dog's hair, for each filament was shaped within the shape of the feather, and the feathers in turn were trimmed to fit a pattern that flowed without error across the bird's body. He lost himself in the geometrical tides as the feathers not broadened and stiffened to make an edge for flight, now softened and constricted to cup warmth around the mute flesh. And across the surface of the infinitely adjusted yet somehow effortless mechanics of the feathers played idle designs of color, no two alike, designs executed, it seemed, in a controlled rapture, with a joy that hung level in the air above and behind him. Yet these birds bred in the millions and were exterminated as pests. Into the fragrant open earth he dropped one broadly banded in slate shades of blue, and on top of it another, mottled all over in rhythms of lilac and gray. The next was almost wholly white, but for a salmon glaze at its throat. As he fitted the last two, still pliant, on the top, and stood up, crusty coverings were lifted from him, and with a feminine, slipping sensation along his nerves that seemed to give the air hands, he was robed in this certainty: that the God who had lavished such craft upon these worthless birds would not destroy His whole Creation by refusing to let David live forever.

from Pigeon Feathers
thanks to Jonah Lehrer

Monday, January 26, 2009

Let Everything End

There is a great momentum of suffering and confusion that every spiritual seeker encounters. It is the momentum of ignorance which manifests as the experience of conflict and confusion and which causes suffering. In order to discover the perspective of liberation, which alone transcends this entire movement of ignorance and suffering, one needs to let everything end. "Letting everything end" means to stand in the moment completely naked of attachment to any and all ideas, concepts, hopes, preferences, and experiences. Simply put, it means to stop strategizing, controlling, manipulating, and running away from yourself--and to simply be. Finally you must let everything end and be still.

In letting everything end, all seeking and striving stops. All effort to be someone or to find some extraordinary state of being ceases. This ceasing is essential. It is true spiritual maturity. By ceasing to follow the mind's tendency to always want more, different, or better, one encounters the opportunity to be still. In being still, a perspective is revealed which is free from all ignorance and bondage to suffering. From that perspective, eternal Self is realized. The eternal Self, the Seer, is recognized to be one's true nature, one's very own Self.

This is an invitation to let all seeking end, all striving end, all efforting end, all past identity end, all hopes end, and to discover That which has no beginning or end. This is an invitation to discover the eternal, unborn, undying Truth of being. The Truth of your being, your own Self. Let the entire movement of becoming end, and discover That which has always been present at the core of your being.

- Adyashant

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Rapper T I

"I want to thank God for somehow … I know he perfect.
So I'mma thank him for everything. I'mma thank him
for making me drop out of school. I'mma thank him for
making me run the streets. I'mma thank him for making
me sell crack. I'mma thank him for making me have
shoot-outs. I'mma thank him for allowing me to watch
my partners die in my arms, So I'd be fearful enough for
my life and paranoid enough to go out and cop machine
guns and silencers so I catch a fed case and I have to put
up $3 million for my bond so I have to spend seven
months of my life in my house, so I have to spend a year
of my life in prison just so I be validated enough to get
out there and touch the youth because they know that I
done been through it, and if I say it, it means something.
You know what I'm saying?"
- Rapper T.I. told revelers at the Hip Hop Inaugural Ball in D.C.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Song of a Muslim

I have come into this world to see this:
the sword drop from men's hands even at the height
of their arc of anger

because we have finally realized there is just one flesh to wound
and it is His - the Christ's, our
Beloved's.

I have come into this world to see this: all creatures hold hands as
we pass through this miraculous existence we share on the way
to even a greater being of soul,

a being of just ecstatic light, forever entwined and at play
with Him.

I have come into this world to hear this:

every song the earth has sung since it was conceived
in the Divine's womb and began spinning from
His wish,

every song by wing and fin and hoof,
every song by hill and field and tree and woman and child,
every song of stream and rock,
every song of tool and lyre and flute,

every song of gold and emerald
and fire,

every song the heart should cry with magnificent dignity
to know itself as
God:

for all other knowledge will leave us again in want and aching -
only imbibing the glorious Sun
will complete us.

I have come into this world to experience this:

men so true to love
they would rather die before speaking
an unkind
word,

men so true their lives are His covenant -
the promise of
hope.

I have come into this world to see this:
the sword drop from men's hands
even at the height of
their arc of
rage

because we have finally realized
there is just one flesh

we can wound.

~ Hafiz ~
c. 1320 - 1390
(Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West by Daniel Ladinsky)

Thanks to Panhala

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

I, Too, Sing America

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.

They send me to eat in the kitchen

When company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well,

And grow strong.

Tomorrow,

I'll be at the table

When company comes.

Nobody'll dare

Say to me,

"Eat in the kitchen,"

Then.

Besides,

They'll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed--I, too, am America.

~Langston Hughes

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Love

Love, as the word is generally understood,
denotes separation, whereas in true
non-objective relationship we do not
love others, we ARE others.

Balsekar

Friday, January 16, 2009

The Little Mute Boy

The little boy was looking for his voice.
(The king of the crickets had it.)
In a drop of water
the little boy was looking for his voice.
I do not want it for speaking with;
I will make a ring of it
so that he may wear my silence
on his little finger

In a drop of water
the little boy was looking for his voice.
(The captive voice, far away,
put on a cricket's clothes.)
~Federico Garcia Lorca
Translated by William S. Merwin

Friday, January 09, 2009

To Know Another

Say "non duality" to no ear

and only the silence smiles back

at your naivety.

Say it to one other,

and you have created

its counterpart.

Say it to thousands

and you have given birth

to a grand hypocrisy.

This one finds it easy

to recognize grand hypocrisies

having postulated so very many.
William Mace Mealer

Monday, January 05, 2009

Izzy

“What it is that dwelleth here,
I know not.
But my heart stands in awe
And the tears trickle down.”
- 11th Cent Japan

For Presence

Awaken to the mystery of being here
and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.

Have joy and peace in the temple of your senses.

Receive encouragement when new frontiers beckon.

Respond to the call of your gift and the courage to
follow its path.

Let the flame of anger free you of all falsity.

May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame.

May anxiety never linger about you.

May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of
soul.

Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek
no attention.

Be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul.

May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven
around the heart of wonder.

~ John O'Donohue ~

Lela May Bishop Grant: May 25, 1907-January 5, 1999

Take My Hand Precious Lord
Precious lord, take my hand
Lead me on, let me stand
I am tired, I am weak, I am lone
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on to the light
Take my hand precious lord, lead me home

When my way grows drear precious lord linger near
When my light is almost gone
Hear my cry, hear my call
Hold my hand lest I fall
Take my hand precious lord, lead me home

When the darkness appears and the night draws near
And the day is past and gone
At the river I stand
Guide my feet, hold my hand
Take my hand precious lord, lead me home

Precious lord, take my hand
Lead me on, let me stand
I am tired, I am weak, I am lone
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on to the light
Take my hand precious lord, lead me home
~Thomas A. Dorsey

Listen . . . . .

Sunday, January 04, 2009

The sage, the wise man, has the basic working and living attitude of respectful trust towards nature and human nature, despite wars, revolutions, starvations, floods, rising crime and all manner of horrors. He is not concerned with the notion of original sin, nor does he have the feeling that existence (samsara) is itself a disaster. His basic understanding has the premise that if you cannot trust nature and other people, you cannot trust yourself; if you cannot trust yourself, how can you trust your mistrust of yourself? In other words, without this underlying trust, the faith in the functioning of Totality, the whole system of nature, you are simply paralyzed. Ultimately, of course, it is not really a matter of you on the one hand, trusting nature on the other; it is really a matter of realizing that we and nature are one and the same process, and not separate entities.
~RAMESH 1989

A disciple traveled to the temple and stood before the statue of Shiva. The Warden came to him and said "It is our tradition that we do not point our feet towards Shiva". The disciple replied "Certainly Sir, if you will point to where Shiva is not".
~unknown

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