It’s easier to believe what you believe when everyone else is wrong, right?
To walk blindly through the night when you deny the reality of the light?
And it’s easier being a big fish in a small pond than it is to swim in the sea,
Or to be a grand tree in a backyard garden than a sprout within some forest,
To sing soliloquies to your mirrored image than to join some festive choir,
So suggestive of frailties you try to hide as you abide in a self-made world,
But is such abject dearth worth the emptiness of such a vacuous existence?
When the world around abounds in mystical beauty and sensuous luster?
When you are welcome to make your home neath the dome of kind skies,
Where everyone is greeted with opened arms, friendly faces, warm kisses,
And embraces appropriate in a family of wondrous, affectionate diversity,
And love that upholds one’s soul thru adversity with no minatory perfidy?
Ah, but you cling to cerebral idols erected in your narrow, mental temple,
And at what cost, but that of the integrity and life of your very own soul!
Category: Wisdom
Burn to Learn
Continue burning to learn in order to discern
Taking now the whole world as the classroom
With so many erected, accepted lies to overturn
While pushing out the cold darkness of gloom
Ah, never more to look over the shoulder
While he gently guides each and every footstep
To change my weak self into something bolder
And never more along this long way misstep
My guide, my guardian and companion true
Delights in love with wisdom in bright light
Exposing life to be little lessons long overdue
But learned over years will stand me upright
For the Victims of El Paso and Dayton
Monday Muses
Muse of Peace: Pen some song of serenity to sing over the world, and let the banner of love be unfurled in the hearts of people everywhere
Muse of Love: Yes, and let peace reign without shame everywhere sun and moon shine to pierce the darkness of bitterness, blessing earth like fine old wine
Muse of Wisdom: Open up the Book of Divinely Human knowledge to look once again to lessons learned, to begin again to live without sin against neighbor and friend
Muse of Beauty: Open up eyes of the soul to behold what is noble, lovely and true in this world ever-renewed, and bathe in simplicity without duplicity
Muse of Creativity: Mimic the Creator in creation of what is good and right and delicately appealing, what is understood and bright and genuinely healing
Muse of Labor: Yes, and labor to bring everlasting love down from heaven above in the spirit of reconciliation, cooperation and concord among humanity
Muse of Truth: And never forget or compromise what is truly true even when too few stand with you against the wave of anger, animosity and dangerous ferocity
Thus have these Muses spoken this day, especially in sadness and sympathy with prayers for the victims of two monstrous mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton. And may the Spirit of Light and Life and Love comfort their grieving friends and family.
Admiration of Creation
Sunday Soliloquy 8.4.2019
How is it I can see so much beauty in mystery while others are bound to the sound of their own voices and the choices they make in life, which seem to blind them to so many wonders?
Of all the blunders I’ve made in life, and despite my faults and failings and shortcomings, my soul has never failed to contemplate Life and appreciate this grand Cosmos that forever demonstrates just how we are really very small.
All in all we only stand tall in our own vain imaginations in some insane notion that the whole of the Universe revolves around each of us, as if our petty determination might somehow alter the very course of stars and moons and planets.
Yet when I peer deeply inside my own self there is something very unique, invaluable, even priceless ~ certainly not weak ~ wrapped in eternal mystique, and in truth something purely divine.
So again I look into the Cosmos in awe ~ to reverence, to be blessed, to learn ~ and my passion burns, yet it is to my own soul that I turn to discover what is most fundamentally true and to uncover the simplest answers to the simplest, most profound questions.
“When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon,” said Mahatma Gandhi, “my soul expands in the worship of the Creator,” and I might only say, too, that when my soul expands and my worship deepens, so also does my wonder and admiration of all of creation.
Apothegms
Life is a series of lessons given in which success is measured by what is learned
And learning to love is of all the most crucial lesson given to the yearning heart
Which learns its powerful part within a crucible of affectionate understanding
Without demanding the compliance of other souls to all its whims and wishes
Because no one can change the mind of another without binding her spirit first
And that is imprisonment with dictatorial demands rather than honest change
So that you never win friendship by ripping the fabric of another’s personhood
And this is an important life lesson too that you naturally grew into over time
Along with so many others not taught to you by mother, father, brother, sister
Just lessons learned through oft-times painful experience along the road of life
Building Blocks of Life
True love awakens my heart while opening my soul
To teachings of the sages in the wisdom of the ages
For me to firmly build my life without so much strife
And Nature adds a mystical touch to the torch of life
That illuminates my steps forward, upward, onward
As I reach new heights over the plights of this world
And these are the strong building blocks of life now
For me here as I travel on with Beauty as the marvel
And centre of the One to whom I most wholly belong
Note: Thanks goes out to Patty at Dreampack for inspiring this poem!
Qoheleth: Part A
An empty breath is life with vanity heaped upon vanity,
And all seems insanity as we march forward into death
One generation fades into oblivion as another fills its place,
But the world eternally remains in earth and sea and space,
And the face of the sun shines along a fine circuit by design,
Always to rise, always to set — to begin again once again —
As the wind blows south, then north, turning and churning,
Returning to burning land, seas and hills with terrible trills;
And rivers flow all into the ocean, yet the ocean never fills,
And then the ocean delivers its waters to the rivers to flow
And to show how mighty are they below surface so serene;
Yet are all creatures ever turbulent, creation insubordinate,
And the eye of man is never sated, but by temptation baited,
While the ear has truncated voices of virtue created by God,
Animated and articulated for all of humanity so devastated;
Yet whatever has been will be so again — time without end —
Indeed, there is nothing new under the sun,
For what was begun before will begin again;
Indeed, some say, “Look at this! Look at that!” but what of it?
We covet creativity and a birth of something worth our life,
But we have only some short time before the last bell chimes,
And there will be no memory of our lifetimes upon this earth,
And there is no expectation of some to come in coming days…
An empty breath is life with vanity heaped upon vanity,
And all seems insanity as we march forward into death
Noble Manifesto
I will read to plant seeds of knowledge to breed wisdom untold,
And so bold, I will continue burning with a passion for learning
To be made no one’s fool or hapless tool in the long school of life
In which I will sing the living song so strong
As I carry along within a throng of humanity,
And I will be lovely for all to see, giving smiles to miles of faces,
Playing in rhythm with angels, marching through the cataclysm
Of apocalyptic terror, while fighting ‘n writing for full freedom,
And I will drop to my knees in an unadorned attitude of gratitude,
And stop to enjoy the wonder of fields flowing with bright flowers,
And even though I may blunder what I should say along this way,
I will never rue the day I was born, nor will I be at all forlorn,
But I’ll adorn myself in happy apparel as heaven leavens my soul,
And I will love with love from above, and cheer the cheerless,
With none to mourn, but all to give to live this apropos manifesto
Note: This manifesto was inspired by Patty and her own manifesto. Please read and enjoy … and thank you, Patty!
Beyond Abhilāaṣhā
Waking-life is the ruthless taskmaster, leading to disaster,
But what is at the heart of this center-part of our reality?
It is the heart itself, filled with wanton desire
That reaches higher and burns in blazing fire
Of the soul with gaping hole which naught can satisfy
In ten thousand years of fears, nor can riches rectify
With truth the Self that lives within to defy many lies
Of destitution and all spiritual pollution of this world
Of Soul circumvolution and execution of tranquility;
So now reject desire, lust, and anger and the dangers
Of this life, and learn the nomenclature of wisdom;
Indeed, wisdom from above, and secure divine love,
And so shall you be free upon bended knee to see
Far beyond the bondage of mere earthly knowledge
With no stoppage nor even shortage of pure wisdom,
So shall you overthrow the taskmaster and avert disaster
Note: Abhilāaṣhā means “lust” and/or “desire.” This poem was inspired by my friend and fellow writer, Kunal Thakore, particularly his “And from Scribbles is Born Art.“
Plea to My Son: Wisdom Living
So many times in life I thought I knew what was best
And I wore the vest of pride in stride with arrogance,
And I tried with all of my might to make it all so right
Only to fall into the dark night of the soul with a hole
In my heart and my mind bound against sound reason,
Collapsing into an awful season of tumultuous unrest,
And all the while there were blessings untold for me
That I could just barely see in the distance but would
Not touch in my insistence to forge ahead with plans
Of my own that were sown in isolation and darkness;
And, oh, how I wish now that I could go back and bow
To sense and sensibility, to rewrite my past in lasting
Joy and peace with a new lease on life . . . but no, son,
This I cannot do and so I sue myself in the court of life
So rife with pain and such little gain from such insane
Decisions and I hold my history in derision, my child;
So I say to you, do not walk the same path I’ve walked,
But be sober-minded and clear-headed and do pray
Before you say what you think you want and then leap
Without looking! Read the book of your own father
To learn and burn not with zeal but hear without fear
Wise counsel offered and open your eyes to see gifts
Already bestowed in your life and do not thrown away
What has been so freely given to enliven your fantasy!
Sense and sensibility under the cover of prayer, my son;
Take the higher and better road; yes, the better road!
noblethemes 