MIRRORS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
File opened 3/8/96
A...
A LAMB AT ONE WITH THE WORLD
ALL
IS GIVEN TO EACH ACCORDING TO THEIR FAITH
ALL THINGS RADIANT
A MORNING MEDITATION ON ISAIAH
A NEW WORLD
AS A PEARL IN A FLAME
C...
CHRIST'S ROCK OF THE WIND
COMMENTS TO THOSE ON THE OUTSIDE
LOOKING IN AND CATAGORIZING
D...
DOWN, IN THE BASEMENT OF THINGS
DOWN IN THE RADIANT ROOTS
E...
EXCLAMATIONS
I...
I DON'T REMEMBER
IF I SHOULD ASK TO KISS THE WIND
I WOULD BE A POLLY WOG IN A SILVER SEA
L...
LONGING TO HEAR THAT TRUE SONG
LOST AND FOUND
M...
MY TRUTH
Q...
QUESTIONS FOR LAMBS IN THEIR DREAMS
R...
REGARDING THE LAST AND BEST REFUGE FROM GOD
S...
SWIMMING THROUGH THE EYES OF THE HEART
T...
THE HELPERS OF PRAYER
THE REALIZED MEANING OF SALVATION
THERE IS A TINY, SPACELESS SPACE
DOWN IN THE DEPTHS THE SOUL
THERE IS MUSIC IN THE SPIRIT OF GOD
THE SPIRIT OF PRAYER (30 meditations)
THE UNUTTERABLE SEEKS US
THIS POETRY IS NOT YOU
THIS SIMPLE VISION
THOSE WHO KNOW, DRINK LUMINESENT STREAMS
TO LIVE
TO SEEK THE BEAUTY OF GOD
TWO SIDES
U...
UPON A MYSTERIOUS WEAVING
OF FANCY AND TRUTH
W...
WE
ARE MIRRORS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
WE MUST WORK IN THE HEART
WHO IS TEACHING THIS THING WRONGLY?
I. WHY GOD DOESN'T HAVE A NAME
II. WHY
GOD HAS A NAME
WORDS CAN BE KNIVES
LAST POEM IN FILE: THE
SPIRIT OF PRAYER
-------------------------------------------------------------
THE POEMS:
WE ARE MIRRORS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
We are mirrors of consciousness.
When our mirrors are clean
we reflect the hidden light
of the Holy.
Have I said it too plainly
for poetry?
THE UNUTTERABLE SEEKS US
In prayer
we appear before God.
Our imagination,
fluid in prayer,
conjures images:
similitudes
of
the divine.
Prayer-born images
overflow into deeds.
Through us,
the unutterable
seeks incarnation.
THE HELPERS OF PRAYER
Along the desert of the sky
wheels the seeing spirits.
Faint, and far away
they
seem... yet raging in God
louder than the sun!
My prayer burns in their midst,
the natural center
of their circumference,
though I am unaware
and feel as if
my words had merely melted
as snow within a molten light
of nothingness.
Off they silently roar,
wheels whirling within wheels,
with the fragile flame of my prayer
held within like the holy,
they
fly boldly,
flames melting into the Flame.
CHRIST'S ROCK OF THE WIND
Dig down to Christ's rock of the wind
and open its treasury.
There, words were born...
and there,
words are reborn as you
in essences.
TO SEEK THE BEAUTY OF GOD
To seek the beauty of God
is to be linked to the minds
of angels
and deathless holy
human souls
who have passed through
to express glory as their delight
--being the purpose of the heavens.
In the creative
fulgent of God
all becomes creative.
And what is made?
A certainty of blend:
beauty working compassion
and
compassion birthing beauty.
And poured to earth through Heaven's
silent glass,
this is the full, redemptive
miracle that transforms us.
A MORNING MEDITATION ON ISAIAH
"And God will be our beauty!"
The prophet said it.
"God our
everlasting light!"
No more oppression, nor grief.
What a wild dream of hope!
Our inner being swathed with glory:
washed through, flushed out,
clean and free!
God the harmony of our minds;
God the image birther,
the pure drop,
the full, loving
emotion,
the river of knowing
--the great adventure!
And all people will be flowing
in deathless Life...
What
a place to be alive!
Earth, a vast community of song:
busy with God-sung beauty makers,
compassionate care-givers,
celebrators of each
and all.
Neighbor sharing love
and sustenance with neighbor
and receiving the same again.
Gifts of love binding
soul to soul in love's freedoms!
It seems so simple,
so profoundly sane.
Just a slight shift
from our tiny cauldrons
of anguish and anger.
Just a little dying
to the dark and light
illusions of our selves.
I. WHY GOD DOESN'T HAVE A NAME
Does a glittering sapphire
need the word, "light,"
or "beauty"
inscribed upon it?
Would you write
black
letters on a ruby
saying "Oh wondrous fire?
or on a perfect pearl
would you write
"lucid moon,"
or "silver cloud of the sea?"
The metaphor fails.
Just gaze for a while
intently at a jewel.
To feel the essence of it
is to adore;
to
adore is to know
and savor it
with your mind and heart.
II. WHY GOD HAS A NAME
Soul needs names.
Words convey essences
to those who are word-wise,
who eat words
like hot bread,
who drink them
like bitter glacier water
or
a flow of chocolate.
Call grief, "grief":
not apathy, nor anger, nor depression.
With that word-key
you can access and weep
every sorrow away.
Call ecstasy
by its rightful names:
freedom, silver fish,
quiver of the loins,
blue ice and rose buds,
the
dance of two lovers--Christ!
If you call me Lloyd I'll avoid you.
Love me and call me Blake, or Haggart,
(my hidden name),
or Steele if you're my intimate.
It is my name sounding
with love's music in your voice
that reveals the color of my soul.
Because I am,
call me by my name!
You may yet come to know
my secret story.
So I ask you,
what is God's name?
DOWN, IN THE BASEMENT OF THINGS
There is a clarity
in which one
sinks down under all souls
and things
where, from the bottom side up,
the visibility is astonishing.
Looking from the top
things are opaque. Souls,
mingling with the elements,
barely appear.
But from below,
all things seem made of glassÑ
and God shines through!
The soul,
down in the basement of things,
observes everything
transformationally
and is flooded
with countless beams of light.
IF I SHOULD ASK TO KISS THE WIND
If I should ask to kiss the wind,
then the wind kisses me,
in the same way as it kisses
young, shimmering trees.
Yes, I can kiss wild streams of wind
each morning, noon and night
by writing poems unto God
in the freedom of His light.
AS A PEARL IN A FLAME
As
a pearl in a flame
so is the soul
in God.
TWO SIDES
When a great prince dies,
many beautiful and powerful people come
to anoint his body
and bear it to a tomb
embellished with stone saints
who cannot weep.
But when a poor, holy man dies,
dogs may howl
as his soul is disrobed and revealed,
and angelic women, with faces more fair
than the Pleiades of heaven,
come to anoint his soul
with mysterious golden songs
as they bear him across
luminescent seas.
THE REALIZED MEANING OF SALVATION
We
are trying to dig down
to the utter core of us,
the naked vulnerability
which longs to open
without shame
into the ecstasy
of God's flowing life.
It is this disrobing
of the soul
which lightens the heart
and flushes love
and awe
through our being.
It is this pure
opening
which is the essence of religion,
the realized meaning of
salvation.
SWIMMING THROUGH THE EYES OF THE HEART
I can swim up through the pool
of my imagination
to break through firmament waters
into
a new world.
Jesus is there.
A wild angelic woman is there.
They smile into my eyes
and say,
"Welcome home!"
then speak unto my heart,
"Radically forgive yourself,
beloved one,
for the sake of God's name
in the world."
UPON A
MYSTERIOUS WEAVING OF FANCY AND TRUTH
We must weave imaginative spells
of dreams
in order to do the deeds of compassion
infused with beauty.
Strangely, there is sort of illusion
that is very close
to reality.
God's Angels have been known to
joyously fly in and out
of fanciful dreams
of love.
A LAMB AT ONE WITH THE WORLD
I am at one with a broken,
adulterous world,
a lost lamb
lusting for life
and seeking redemption.
And all the while
God carries
my wooly little spirit
in His strong arms
as He flies along singing
in rivers of wind.
THERE IS A TINY, SPACELESS SPACE
DOWN IN THE DEPTHS THE SOUL
There is a tiny, spaceless space,
(smaller than you can imagine),
down in the depths of your soul
within which angels chant
and deathless children sing...
for harmony and innocence
are in the immortal soul,
and yet, so thickly cloaked with clay
that
only on rare occasions of prayer,
or love's ecstatic celebrations,
or in the soul's deepest songs of sorrows,
or on the death bed
may they be clearly sensed.
THERE IS MUSIC IN THE SPIRIT OF GOD
There is music in the Spirit of God,
the wild poetry of His heart.
He pours it out through
every tree;
courses it through birds.
Simple, passionate souls know this:
a free people upon whose minds
God writes His verse.
All
creation waits
for a love-ravished people
to pour their Maker's music out.
Light gathers like liquid
in the bottom of a valley:
worshipers have assembled in the fields.
Hand in hand, they sway
unto the rhythms of stars--
loving the rocks, loving the sea,
loving sky!
God's light floods through their songs
into the earth...
Rabbits and squirrels come out of their holes,
drawn towards palatable grace.
Fearlessly
bounding to the people's feet
they hear angels singing.
DOWN IN THE RADIANT ROOTS
Goodness, love and beauty
have created us
through magnificent wisdom.
Why not see each other
as wisely made?
Evil is an intrusion
best overcome by redirection
of
attention
to the holy roots of things.
Evil enchants us
only as it hides in good.
In truth! it is a vapid alienation
from God, a tough, resistant nature
existent outside the divine feast
in warpage of its own deceit.
It is goodness, love and beauty
that have created us
through
magnificent wisdom!
In the face of all painful contradictions,
let us vividly remember
and passionately proclaim
in deeds and words of utmost courtesy
these truths!
A NEW WORLD
The radiance of rocks and trees
shines from the night
as sky lightens and beckons.
Draft horses in yellow yokes
pull new plows.
The fields are chock-full of corn
and partridge:
a
dozen coveys per acre, I suppose.
Fat chickens wobble on the roads,
eating fat worms.
A cottage lies buried
in sunflowers and aspens.
Cucumber vines are spilling
over a picket fence.
Sunlight powers everything:
cars, tools, washing machines...
Inside,
lovers write beautiful poems
on computers
and market, across the world,
their herbs,
which cause people to live
a hundred years or more.
WE MUST WORK IN THE HEART
We must work in the heart
with a white hot iron:
awaken a thorough
forgiveness;
re-find the music,
and the beautiful shapes of things;
re-find our God-breathed passions;
re-find the glory
and the ecstasy of the holy;
let poetry run through us
towards itself again.
WHO IS TEACHING THIS THING WRONGLY?
"And
they shall return to God
with everlasting joy upon their heads..."
Where is the artesian laughter,
the dancing feet,
the
flashing light of freedom
in the eyes?
There is no joy
in a boring God.
Where is the God
that all little children
would spontaneously love?
Let's return
to that One.
I WOULD BE A POLLYWOG
IN
A SILVER SEA
I would be a pollywog
in a silver sea
amidst a land
of thick jasmine,
where rose petals
grow moist at night
in quiet gardens
conceived by passionate women,
and pearls roll out
into sunlight
day by day.
I would wear
iridescent shoes
made of fish skin
to walk along paths
of
human milk
and divine honey.
This is the land
of a thankful heart,
where common things
begin
to glow.
This is the journey
of yielding
to the silent,
silver flow.
QUESTIONS FOR LAMBS
IN THEIR DREAMS
How do we know
that lambs in their dreams
do not see
lions licking them
upside
down in a mirror?
How do we know
that stones
do not dream of sunlight
splashing through leaves
upon
gray faces?
How do we know
that seals
do not chase
luminous fish
which glow
with
beauty
in their eyes?
And didn't the ark of God
once get dropped
and spill so much liquid
gold
on the ground
that it seeped
all the way to China?
And how do we know
that Jesus Christ
isn't inside
that fat girl
who hands out
Big Macs
like they were
going out of style,
or that the
Holy One
isn't playing
games with lightning
inside the mind
of that paralyzed woman
whose courage shines
through the whole length
of her body?
We see life
through what we are...
and how do we know
what we are?
ALL IS GIVEN TO EACH
ACCORDING TO THEIR FAITH
The same God
who
smiled on St. Francis
as he rolled naked in the snow
to subdue his bodily passions
smiled on King David
when he took
his
800th concubine.
EXCLAMATIONS
O rose breath
of Holy love,
I love you...
O silver slew
of Divine joy,
I love you...
REGARDING THE LAST AND BEST REFUGE FROM GOD
Should Church be a place
to hide from the naked Heavens,
a place of refuge
from encounters with the world of Spirit?
Why don't church goers meet angels?
If a profound spiritual awakening
should happen to a certain church member:
an opening of the eyes of the soul
to see spiritual halos, departed saints,
angels and devils, and the glory of God
hovering like fire above the altar--
would the congregation be a safe place to share it?
Or would there be murmurs of fear,
anxiety about delusions, hallucinations,
gastric distress, nervous breakdowns?
then castigation or an unspoken distancing.
I think God is too creative and free
for
almost all religion:
that is why the seed shell must crack,
the old wine skin burst!
*
One day, the poetry of God
and
religion will be one...
The fields will be singing;
the sky, angel packed.
LOST AND FOUND
Lost
souls
live in the shadows
of their idols.
That is why they are lost.
Found souls
unfold in the light
of nothing
but the Light:
Naked and transparent
they flow in and out
with the Love
that
is them
while lost souls
twist and mar
all good they acquire,
as they melt away
soul substance into
lightless
nothing.
ALL THINGS RADIANT
All things radiate
with the glory of God:
therefore, enter into all things
with great thankfulness of being
for the lush, plentitude of Life.
Life is the door to Life!
We
are to be a simple,
open receptiveness
to the growing, loving presence
within and amongst us,
and within and amongst all things
which are reflected in us.
TO LIVE
One must learn to surrender
well and forgive freely
to be a sensitive soul
in this world.
LONGING TO HEAR THAT TRUE SONG
Do the wordless birds
always sense the breath of God,
or only when they are alone?:
when the flitting, dropping,
pecking and peeping is done
in the hush of day's end
and they sit silent in the dark.
Is it then that a sweet flow
wells forth in their breast and brains
and an ecstasy of rest overflows
into their song?
MY TRUTH
The anxiety to be something
in the eyes of others
is
the worm's concern.
To Be in the breath of God's
loving radiance
is my truth,
letting God unfold life.
THIS
SIMPLE VISION
This spiritual vision
is about simple openness
to the simple openness of God:
clarity of soul;
poetry
of thought and heart;
birthing beauty
in suffering
and dying people.
It is a simple, joyous vision.
It is about growing into
God's expansiveness of God
that is alive!
beautiful, ecstatic!
WORDS
CAN BE KNIVES
Layers.
I must be writing down the layers
to the bones.
Words can be knives, sharp, honed,
making
thin, deep cuts that flay the body
open: the soul glistens, moist, pink in the
light. This work of art.
This Life!
I DON'T REMEMBER
I don't remember laughing with my father,
hearing the best of the old stories.
I don't remember exploring my body
with a slim young girl,
giggling as we discovered hers without shame.
I don't remember bringing all my fears
to my parents and having them laugh
and pray them away with me.
I don't remember ever having
an ambition for this life of mine
other than finding my way home,
other than being alive.
THIS POETRY IS NOT YOU
This poetry is not You,
nor any image.
The
Bible is not You,
nor any holy book.
The saints are not You,
nor any compassionate deed.
This longing is not You,
nor
any answer.
The light in a lover's eyes
is not You,
nor is this body You,
or any truth--
yet You cloth
Yourself
with all these
at Your pleasure,
then laughingly
divest Yourself
of all things
to run naked
into garments of sunlight
through invisible snow.
COMMENTS TO THOSE ON THE OUTSIDE
LOOKING IN AND CATEGORIZING
They can call it lyricism,
they can call it romanticism,
but the poet who writes it
calls it green life
budding
in the brain,
rose buds blooming in the loins,
blue rivers running from the belly,
three fountains of honied milk,
a
throat of candle light,
gold horns of the morning star
piercing a heart.
*
Life's language flows out
from
the inside
of Life.
THOSE WHO KNOW, DRINK LUMINESCENT STREAMS
Who knows the freedom of a child,
and senses souls of things born wild,
embracing love's most certain pain of loss
while moving through the mysteries of the cross?
Those who know, drink luminescent streams,
and eat the constancy of fiery dreams
mingled with sounds of secret weeping
from illusive dreams the asleep are keeping.
And knowing, they are washed by naked being
to laugh within the dreams their hearts are seeing,
while yielding, yielding dark unto that death
which blows through light of holy breath:
until
a beautiful child of wise compassions
weeps for dead things done and undone Ñ
while spinning, spinning, in a sea of sun.
THE SPIRIT OF PRAYER
(40 Meditations)
The Spirit of Prayer
flows on creatively forever...
1.
If we are prayerless,
perhaps it is because
we do not believe
in an image of God
that makes us
love Divine freedom
and laughter.
2.
When Love causes us
to imagine the divine
that imagination is not true--
but the Love that flows through it
is.
3.
Talk to God.
God speaks back,
not with a voice in the brain
but with a sense of wisdom
flowing through countless elements
of life
in the brain,
in the heart,
in the
belly...
4.
The Spirit of Prayer
is like a little girl
stretching her whole body up
in morning's first rays
of sunlight
and laughing.
5.
The Spirit of Prayer
is like a curious boy
full of wonder,
hunting for fireflies
with a magnifying glass
in the grass
at night.
6.
The Spirit of Prayer
is
a woman softly dropping
her dress
before her lover's eyes
as her soul
melts down
to her toes.
7.
The Spirit of Prayer
is a warrior
swinging his sword
and singing
as he cuts through the skull
of his
own inner enemy
in twisted dark.
8.
The Spirit of Prayer
is walking down
a city street
with an 800 year old
Cesterian Abbey
wrapt around you.
9.
The Spirit of Prayer
is saying, "Thank you God,
I love you too,"
by the way
you wash
the dishes
or comb your hair.
10.
The
Spirit of Prayer
is a warm glow
of an invisible flame
on the fingertips
as they touch
a face.
11.
The Spirit of Prayer
spills
moonlight out of your eyes,
sunlight into your footprints.
12.
The Spirit of Prayer
is the freedom of God
playing with us.
13.
The Spirit of Prayer
is openness...
when all things open,
when the breath of God
flows freely through,
and Loving Is...
14.
Prayer is this freeing,
this loosing
of constrictions,
this letting God
be God
in nakedness
of flowing forth,
in trust's creative
wishing
and simple
loving action...
15.
The Spirit flows
out of your heart
when you believe it so.
The Spirit flows
through your voice
when you believe it so.
The Spirit
flows out of your belly
and
loins
when you believe it so.
16.
The Spirit
shines through your loving eyes
and beams through your loving smile.
You breathe it in
and breathe it out.
It flows and laughs,
twirls and tumbles
--yet, is unmovable.
17.
The Spirit of Prayer
is freedom
in simple stillness,
freedom
in simple actions,
freedom
in simple song,
freedom
in simple speech
to love
the Love
that loves
the Love
in us
that loves...
18.
The Spirit of Prayer
is beautiful God
flowing through
and
joyously animating,
or quieting
our spirit
in adoration.
19.
The Spirit of Prayer
is the essence
and fragrance
of a grateful heart.
20.
The Spirit of Prayer
worships God
with names as praise
and without names
as silent observation
and pure savoring.
21.
The Spirit of Prayer
opens the heart,
opens the brain,
opens the arms,
opens the voice,
opens the belly,
opens the loins,
pours in innocence:
spills life in and out.
22.
The Spirit of Prayer works
to open people
to God's Love,
to cleanse and free them
from wounds and lies and constrictions
until Love overflows
all containers
into expansive oceans
of innocent Love.
23.
The Spirit of Prayer
is radiant grace,
abounding and bubbling,
seeping all silky and pouring
to all people.
24.
The Spirit of Prayer
moves the breath of God
through every cell
as Love for my body
saying a wordless,
"Yes, Life, yes, yes!"
25.
The Spirit of Prayer
is God's
silver waters
spilling
through the brain,
swirling through
the heart,
and splashing
down upon
pure, rosy loins.
26.
The Spirit of Prayer
is invisible light
flowing
out your hands
onto the heads of children,
blessing them;
upon the body of the sick,
blessing them;
onto the head of a dog,
blessing it;
into the belly of a cat
blessing it:
blessing green things,
blessing trees,
blessing the earth,
blessing all you love
or wish to love
with Love.
27.
The Spirit of Prayer
blesses God
in blessing
all God loves.
28.
Go
outside.
Put your two hands
over your heart.
Lift your face to the sky
and say,
"God, I love you."
That is the Spirit of
Prayer.
29.
Sit in your house
or on a hill
or next to the sea.
Whisper,
"I love You
because you love me,"
over and over
until your heart
starts to get it.
That is the Spirit of Prayer.
30.
Learning to love
lavishly and wisely.
That is the Spirit of Prayer.
31.
Freeing God to be untamable God;
yourself to be
the process of You!
That is the Spirit of Prayer.
32.
Freeing yourself
and all people in your heart
into
innocence.
That is the Spirit of Prayer.
33.
Welcoming and embracing all wounded
ones within
with tenderness and laughter.
That is the Spirit of
Prayer.
34.
Grieving love's loss with tears;
opening the pain fiercely to GodÕs freedom.
That is the Spirit of Prayer.
35.
Being
firm and free and tender
in the world,
brimming over the spontaneous silver flow
of Divine Being.
That is
the Spirit of Prayer.
36.
Talking
to God
even when it's really painful
to
keep believing in God.
That is the Spirit of Prayer.
37.
Believing
with all your heart in the voice of tender Love
and being
bitterly disappointed
then only believing in the grief and
unbelief
with the captive part of your
heart
while you
hold back that wild, crazy part that loves without
conditions just because you
know
God
is beautiful beyond all belief no matter what happens.
That is
the Spirit of Prayer.
38.
Continuing to Love GodÕs Love and freedom
no matter
how many evolutionary scholars say God
is
nothing more than a misguided evolutionary instinct.
That is the Spirit of Prayer.
39.
Never
giving up the dream
of joyously making beauty everywhere.
That is
the Spirit of Prayer.
40.
Loving without conditions or regret.
This is the
Spirit of Prayer
that flows on
full of faith forever.