Scones and Bones

February chills the bones
Till coffee rescues with the scones
March is marching to the scene
Just ahead the springtime Queen
But now the heater groans and shakes
Fish lay quiet 'neath the lakes
Poets write a line or two
But would rather have a scone with you!

Crickets

In fading days of endless light

Gone under

Wheeling stars and last cricket

Keeping the faith

An Angular Moon

Woke up early this morning- it's still dawn and the hills are slowly beginning to burn orange in this time of late October and the falling of the leaves.

Not being able to sleep, and feeling the presence of such age old buddies as doubt and depression, I sort of lay there for a while, pitying myself. I floundered upwards and squirmed around on the couch for an hour. Still dark, clock says 7 a.m. Might as well drag my fragile persona into the outer darkness- and the moon above.

Soon standing outside, staring dumbly upwards, wrapped in blankets insulating the coldest frost yet this season, I saw that this moon was shining with the same light now beginning to glow from the lucent East. Just about a quarter moon, waning, standing straight up from the sun way down now behind the trees but rising fast. And, of course, the vivid cold and freshness of the calm and heavy air. Good Autumn air that clears even this mind for a moment.......

And there's always that 'Indian' feeling I get, like I'm really not from this situation, this world. That the forest up along the Blue Ridge Parkway that skirts my home is a vein, a lifeline, that just allows enough planetary flow to ease my mind into the kind of 'coming home' feeling that the Indian image seems to click with. Such a deepening of Life into myriad colors that cannot be seen with the modern eye- the backdrop of my dysfunctional and unsustainable existence in the world. So, I light up a toke in both defiance and celebration of it all, and it's now 8:06 a.m.

While I was outside a little while ago I stretched my arms out wide into something called the Warrior Pose, a yogic exclamation shown to me by my somatic therapist Suzanna. You kind of stretch wide open and gaze out over your left upright and open palm into the future, and you imagine and see that future, feel it- enjoy it. For, in truth, the future of our souls is a happy one- both intuition and science agree. I can see that in the eastern sky over my outstretched palm- I can feel it.

Nature helps; She invites me to enjoy so fully, then drives a thorn so deeply into the heel of my foot that now I'm limping, and limping yet I must trust this mighty force of Love.

Love knows what she's doing. Here in this world of a third quarter squared moon, the pain is of a design. Mortality and the endless silent and silenced cries of the lonely and the sick, the bereaved and the abandoned, all this perfects the soul, over time, open her out and in to the great Intelligent Infinity that we are in truth.

Not by virtue of acts but by grace so the Bible says, and that's half the story we often forget. We are so loved, and cannot see or feel this, blinded by an angular moon.

But the moon reflects the light of the sun. And the sun is always rising! Nothing is but is becoming.

The Near Death Experience: Coming to Life

Most folks these days know what you're talking about when you speak of the N.D.E.- the tunnel towards the light, floating up out of the body, (poor thing! people often think looking down), the spooky as hell Life Review- where an entire lifetime can be re-lived from multiple perspectives and intense detail in no time at all, meeting dead loved ones, feeling the presence of complete unconditional love......

Yeah, this is some strange stuff. I mean, really, WTF.

But thinking people want to know: is this just the fireworks of a dying brain, the last desperate fantasies of a sputtering flame? The final longing moves of a pathetic losing game?

Doesn't look that way at all, after 30 years of scientific enquiry. It really doesn't. Something very real and very profound is going on. Now, I'm not going to make this case. If you're interested get any book by Dr. Raymond Moody or Dr. Pim Van Lommell.

All I want to say is this: most of us know that our world is in extreme crisis. In many ways, we are hanging by a thread. Death may be very near. (And it's always on its way anyway) We need some real comfort, soothing, love. Guidance. Faith in something higher, and the courage that comes from this faith- not the faith of fevered hopes and dreamy Utopias, but something tangible, grounded, embodied even in it's dis-embodiment. (NDEs as koan!)

And of course traditional religion is of no use anymore to anyone except maybe my aunt. And even the 'cool' Eastern stuff- talk of non-duality and lofty concepts like emptiness, however profound, are too abstract and heady for most- (What? I don't exist!?)- and they're difficult to practice in such a chaotic environment. This approach can even in the short term can cause bewilderment and be misinterpreted quite easily. Resulting in exististential ennui and big spiritual egos and nihilistic 'nothing but' Absolutism- a bunch of traps litter that venerable roadside....

This Heroic Quest that drives great men and women to live in caves turning green eating nettles or doing without sex (right!) is the transcendent path, the Father wisdom. Get out da bed, wash yo ass make some noise in the kitchen with them pots and pans.....and get on that meditation bench- we got an agenda here. Somewhere to be. Metaphysics to chew on. Things are a mess! With the Masculine side of things, Reality always has a point (get it? actually you can define masculine as anything that has a point) and that point is to make everybody free in one way or the other.......Get 'er Done! (Nothing to do with actual men and women here- we're all bi-gendered)

So much for the necessary, but not sufficient, Masculine side of spirituality. But, when yer freakin' grandma meets you at your death bed- and every one else in the room shares that experience- yeah, that's some visceral shit indeed and a horse of a different color. More real, in the sense of this relative world, as we live it- just as we live them, today, as fucked up and unenlightened as we may be- yet suffused by almost unspeakable love in the N.D.E.

Now we're seeing the Feminine side of divinity- the connections, the relationships, the heart-bonds, the personal and deeply shared- the sometimes terrible beauty but always deepening nature of this world, this life. The journey is the goal- as sacred, intended and loved in all it's chaos as any Perfect Garden in its well worked symmetry, or a mountain yogi's well earned bliss. Of course, the Feminine and Masculine are two sides of the same coin. They not only need each other, they are each other! How are yours getting along?

But I digress. What the N.D.E. tells us about reality is so much more powerful than any kind of concept- which includes any kind of aim or goal, any linear process- however profound. In the N.D.E, Science meets Spirituality and Religion meets Science. Spirituality even might meet Religion! Well how do you do and where the hell have you been? Nice- now they're all communicating. For once! Naturally, organically- not like some awkward blind date. This is the beauty of the N.D.E.

It's technically called a 'crisis apparition' when Granny calls- and as a metaphor, I can think of none better for this world right now. Granny is calling- and we're beginning to listen.

If NDEs point to a Bigger Universe, and I think they do- then what better road to take in understanding that universe than actually listening to what these experiences are telling us?And here's a key point- as N.D.E.s are known all around the world, people around the world now have a common language- we can talk about the Bigger Universe, happily including modern science, and avoiding religion. Because we're talking about people's experiences here, with cold hard science backing up the claims- not a-priori beliefs, or ancient revelations filtered through the generations in pre-modern cultures.

Nothing wrong with them- they work for many- but they won't speak to most.

Ah, yes you say- but what if the NDE experience is itself a product of cultural or religious conditioning, or New Age expectations?

What then?

But here's the cool part- atheists and christians all have the same experience, more or less. Around the world, the basic pattern is the same.

And that's the final beauty of the NDE. It cuts through all the bullshit, falling towers and all- and reveals something so Human, and yet at the same time Divine, that words cannot express what people feel and know through this experience- and even reading the stories can directly transmit some of that connection that we all have, and will all follow. That's my experience anyway.

I tell people N.D.E. stories a lot, just bring it up to strangers anywhere. "oh, I just read this cool story- want to hear it?'

Yes. They always do. And it always stirs something deep and beautiful in each of us. Connects us, because we each feel eternity radiating out of that story, a crack in the door....

And I didn't say one fucking word about religion or even 'spirituality'!

And that's a good thing. Concepts tend to be divisive, as thought is necessarily so. Stories tend to bond, and the Universe is indeed a Story, first and foremost. Quite a tale indeed......

Interested? Go here and read for like a half hour. How do you feel? Let me know!

http://www.nderf.org/Exceptional%20Accounts.htm

Subduality

I’m not trying to be abstract in the least when I say that I am a man who ponders duality daily. The gorilla in the room and there’s no reason not to ponder such a beast. Of course, in this day of lightning global whirls, mad knowledge and girls gone wild, someone’s always willing to spill the beans and cream still rises to the top, mostly- and here I mean the best stuff the planet’s come up with so far, grokked mightily by her most grokkable- Buddha, Lao Tzu, and when you pan it down to the richest ore you get teachings that tackle and characterize the nature of actuarial tabla rasas.........the very basis of a ‘you’in the first place.

Welcome to nonduality, friend, and watch your step- in step or out of step as it might be....watch your step because, when it comes to nonduality, you’re going to need both feet.

Seems funny, I know. To talk about something like nonduality at all, one’s mind must balance on the head of a pin and dive off backwards into a crystal pool forever falling. The serum that is Truth Lives burning anguish all else beside. There is no forward gone with no way home. All comfort rides this wind of swift razors cutting through- the colors in the wings of wild birds. Altogether, collaboration equals zero, yet everyone is here. A party ensues.

People come to the party and ask. Who subdued the dual? Where did I go? Am I doubley dual when I play the fool? The nature of the Known is always- always- the Unknown, and every great Truth, as for those, take a look at its opposite- another great truth. Damn.

Thus, I propose ‘soft duality’............the new duality with half the hassle; one less problem: Big You. ‘ you’ would still exist, but no Capitals, only far side ranges of snow mountains clear and present.

Or maybe Subduality- where the Big Bulb is wholly part of the show, or even better- the show of all shows, cut to the chase, making your own movie on the slipstream of the Edge, feeling the Beauty of the Bulb all the while...........

Slipstream the currents of soft duality. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath! And getting back to that party? Duality is where all the action is baby! But, sometimes he goes too far..........ah, the Devil. Keep an eye on those car keys!

Oh and here's a bit on duality writ weird and cool.

Next time: The Prodigal daughter

Of the Forests

Of the forests
Tendons dark rooted
Drawing towards dusk,
Retreating in blue haze-

If there is little to say
Then they will not speak-

If there is little to speak
Then they cannot say-

The ground lies under,
Always-

As night turns to day.

Winter's Pain

In my parlour of Winter
Pianos never played
Black keys covered with clear ice
Hammers nuzzle still to space
Lonely in undrafted air
Each silent note
Keening, lovely-

Oh, even you, Winter,
Struggling to speak,
Wanting your answer!