Follow Your Heart, it is Smarter Than You Think

Follow Your Heart, it is Smarter Than You Think

because this life is fleeting

and we so easily forget

A bit of sage for the heart

nothing more

A quiet, rainy Tuesday night.

Cooking with one hand, cup of tea in other. Sausages in the cast iron pan, potatoes in the oven.

Neil comes on the stereo, and here I am.

Looking for your company or finding it.

Three Generations and A Big Ear

Grandson: "So, I went book shopping today."
Grandma: "Book shopping! Oh, lovely, where?"
Grandson: "Uh, ha, I don't remember the name now. Down on King St."
Grandma: "Oh yes, King St., and what did you purchase?"
Grandson: "I got Carl Jung, A Brave New World, and a Steinbeck. Do you know Steinbeck at all?"
Grandma: "Mm-hmm. Yes he's great."

Grandma: "Carrrrl Jung: The Undiscovered Self. And look at this on the very first page of Chapter Four: '....man is an enigma to himself. This is understandable, seeing that he lacks the means of comparison necessary for self-knowledge. He knows how to distinguish himself from the other animals in point of anatomy and physiology, but as a conscious, reflecting being, gifted with speech, he lacks all criteria for self-judgment.' Well that's us in a nutshell."
Grandson: "Yup!"
Grandma: "Well, honey, I'm glad you did that - OH-ohhh, who is that calling my cellphone now?!"

She Drew Me A Tree

I remember when a friend in need was a friend indeed. It wasn't long ago. I was in need and a friend did see; in my tones and on my head hung low. When words poured outta me and only she saw, but they weren't crashing down, she was catching them all.

"A girl with kaleidoscope eyes is what I need", I heard myself say, in a voice so close but echoing away, and with an image in mind but to keep at bay. "If I could get her back I could be set free!"

"Someday, friend, someday", she said, and then she drew me a tree.

Grow Again Brotherly Love

Open in new tab and hit play:
http://grooveshark.com/#/search?q=Alexander+-+Old+Friend

And then again, a few weeks later, there I found myself on a Pennsylvania turnpike cruisin' to The Doors, the late great Jim Morrison croonin' to the shadows of my mind, to the lost simple thoughts that have seemed so hard to find. The ones in the back that never get to surface. "Find your true life's purpose", I heard, and "TRY TO SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE!"

I'd slowly been coming back to me this trip, returning from somewhere older. Everywhere I went I had run into The Doors, beckoning in their subtle and obvious ways thru city street lights. "Better black than blue", they always seem to say. There's a great musical spirit as I careen thru the gentle Pocono Hills in the last hours of a late August day. The Sun is soft and guiding and in its great blatant purpose shining across the valley down below it leaves only shadow on magnificent green trees. And that's where I'm climbing out and up a new mountain; on my way now thru the lovely curving humps of all things, knowing. "Grow again."

The Sun shined thru a thin white giant cloud with a black horizontal stripe across its face.

lakefront haiku

Trees, sun, water and
be here now; stillness and breath;
warm on my belly.

Tree House (Verse 1)

Go away,
just to find the words to say,
Stay at home,
and you'll never be alone.

But ya gotta know,
there's only one way to be free.
Stay and go,
there's always wind inside the tree.

The Bachelor Party

Open in new tab and hit play:
http://grooveshark.com/#/search?q=neil+young+philadelphia+original+soundtrack

I went back, I had to, back down south to the other motherland. The thrill of hopping the big fence and becoming my other half; and it's odd how everything seems the same but when you're over it you are quiet in a new land. Being on the road and flowing through the veins of an old air in a time that's not so far behind us. This was our first road trip together and we hit the big city of brotherly love. We found some other brothers and threw back some old times.

The stadium was infested with glee and red jerseys and breasts as the eye could see. And me? Well, lets just say I was impressed by the infectious energy. After some winks and grins and chuckles we took to our proper places. I can feel it now, growing as I approached, that old air coming through to me and it began to sink in as we reached the upper level. People buzzed by laughing like a thick traffic of kids, not realizing their supreme temporary stature, and in their grandeur I smiled on my own.

I turned and cut through the fray and suddenly was hit by it all: the old days. Everything slowed down at once and I was atop of the old world looking down and into the old days. I could feel it all around. The smells, the sights, the sounds had all changed instantly and I was frozen. And that's what I love about baseball, it stays the same. The grass is mowed and the quelling expectations in the air keep it contained. At any moment 'the pounce' is on and what seemed settled leaps right outta the pot. I couldn't keep my eyes from the moment down there. I felt six years old again just standing there drunken-snug-as-a-bug.

After the game I had a cheesesteak then we were off to the night. Three different bars. Another cheesesteak. Cheers! Cheers! Cheers! Hand stamps and car bombs, your typical racing events. Then, down the line to the next boxcar for more. We roared.

The van shuttled us all to the hotel where we vanished into linens amongst the untouched binge-bomb-beverages we were to consume upon our return. But we slept like lambs.

When we awoke we joked and exchanged hands for another time. We sat around waiting for the next play. When two of us left we stopped for my third cheesesteak; and the best one yet. As we thinned out of the city limits The Boss came on the radio and walked us to the door with his take on the place. We weren't 'bruised and battered', but we couldn't tell what we felt.

And when the big bell tolls we'll be back.

Mindful

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant -
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

Mary Oliver

we found it.

LOVES the best thing around and LIFES only what we make of it. - CS, 6/29/11

blood on the tracks.

Bob Dylan responds to Rumi

From meghan says

Do I understand your question?
Man it's hopeless and forlorn.

-Shelter from the Storm

Amen

Wonder when they'll meet again
skies of blue
rain clouds too

Wonder when they'll speak again
his eyes say true
hers see two

Only one thing left to do...

Wonder when
Again,
and again.

Response to Your Question

Why ask about behaviour
when you are soul-essence
and a way of seeing into presence?
Plus you are with us. How could you worry?

You may as well free a few words
from your vocabulary: why and how and impossible.
Open the mouth-cage and let those fly away.

We were all born by accident,
but still this wandering caravan
will make camp in perfection.

Forget the nonsense categories
of there and here.
Race and nation and religion.
Starting-point and destination.

You are soul and you are love,
not a sprite or an angel or a human being.
You are a Godman-womanGod-manGod-Godwoman.

No more questions now
as to what it is we are doing here.

- - Rumi May 2

like you

From meghan says

Like you I
love love, life, the sweet smell
of things, the sky-
blue landscape of January days.

And my blood boils up
and I laugh through eyes
that have known the buds of tears.
I believe the world is beautiful
and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.

And that my veins don’t end in me
but in the unanimous blood
of those who struggle for life,
love,
little things,
landscape and bread,
the poetry of everyone.

By Roque Dalton

My Oasis

lost and lonely and loving no one,
i sing to the sky for to see where i'm from.

A reflection of light and blue clarity.

And she is the ocean, i still know.

And I am both, so it seems.

Oh, love, i am free!
Oh, God, I, and Me...



"the joined is not united, nor the separated apart, nor the long in excess, nor the short wanting. For just as a duck's legs, though short, cannot be lengthened without pain to the duck, and a crane's legs, though long, cannot be shortened without misery to the crane - so that which is long in man's moral nature cannot be cut off, nor that which is short be lengthened."
- - Chuang-tzu

how I see you.

ways to grow

As there are billions of stars
There are billions of steps.
As there are billions of souls,
There are billions of ways to grow.

Don’t mind the destination,
Don’t mind the end.
Don’t mind the good or bad
or right and wrong.

Grow from the past,
But grab hold of now.
Now is always evolving.

— Rumi