The thing with dead ends
is when you reach one, 
you have to turn around. 
I find certain practices of mine
still attempting themselves. 
I find myriad angles of viewpoints, 
yet no throughway beyond the maze. 
I complain of spiritual complacency, 
yet the new moon approaches 
and I scribble again in my hemp-paper hippie journal
my "intentions." 
The planet does its spin and the wars continue to confuse, 
and still I pray, 
not knowing what else to do. 


I yearn for a solution from outside the frame of thinking which created the problem. But am I still thinking within this realm anyway? I complain that we retreat into meditation and bliss ourselves out, while children die daily… But then if I don't retreat into some form of meditation, my heart aches. How can I make my meditations more succinct in their purpose? Not just to lighten myself and raise myself, but to anchor such processes for the sake of our world? 


I beseech the heavens to hear my pleas for peace, within myself and within the world. 
I close my eyes and see endless movements of whirling possibilities of blissfulness, or nothing at all, just stillness and calm, just darkness, the void. 


Hot light from the Leo Sun blasts through the numbness,
   a prismatic little rainbow shows itself at the tip of a cloud on my evening walk,
    if only it weren't a chem-trail cloud, my inner monologue reminds me - teasing, taunting, jaded, dulled. 
     If only I weren't dulled
      to the beauty before me,
       while smog fills my airways and I grumble at the congestion within me, and the congestion wihin my city, my town, my beautiful inner and outer worlds… There is hope for us yet. More than hope. We're just stumbling towards it. It's not ahead or behind. It's a quantum degree away. So close. So far. No space, no distance. Love. A salve applicable to everything, but how exactly? I see it in the everyday minutiae, I see it in every epic grandness that can be epic and grand. And still, I pine for something a step beyond it, a seat beside it, an understanding deeper within it, a point of view from its very shadow. 
    

Shared my previous post, "Quantum Leaping to a Better Place," as a facebook status. Got several responses from friends which were supportive and understanding. One comment, however, really made me think. Noticed myself feel defensive at the first part of the statement, and then noticed myself flood with reactions to the second part of the statement. Here it is:

"What you see around you is nothing but the manifestation of yourself, and all there can be is love, fear only appears when you forget this."

I started typing up a storm. Then decided to just post a short comment:

I mostly agree, but if I were to look at our world and NOT feel fear regarding the death of children, or regarding the secretive motives driving injustice, I would be alarmed at such a manifestation of self. Without acknowledging fear's effects, I couldn't feel compassion. And without compassion, I'd be missing a very important building block towards love being all there can be.

But my essay-long rant stayed on my mind for the whole next day. I didn't want to be overbearing with it in facebook-land. But I decided I'd copy paste it here into my blog, so that I can express my reaction. Even if no one reads it, it's out in the ether, and it represents a new idea formulating in my mind. That all our best intentions at spiritual thinking are leading us astray and keeping the world all screwed up and out of balance. So, here it is: 

      I mostly agree, but if I were to look at our world and not feel fear regarding the death of children, or regarding the secretive motives driving injustice, I would be ashamed of such a self manifestation. It would be like choosing to accept one's own cancer cells and letting them multiply, rather than employing the energy of "fearing" them to motivate oneself to heal and allow the body to thrive. It would be taking away the molecular force of will to generate the process of re-aligning what's come out of balance. And appeasing oneself with a surface understanding of love, rather than the muddy chaotic void-space it would require to actually learn and grow. 
      The world is a living organism, sustained by a balance of growth and decay. I am not the only soul living here, so it doesn't quite all depend on what I forget or not. I remember and treasure love at all times. But it doesn't make me able to brush off bad news about other people's suffering. No amount of esoteric or spiritual logic can take away my human emotional response. Call it ego, or ignorance, or un-enlightenment, but I meant it when I asked, wouldn't our prayers have healed us by now if they worked? 
      I think something in our spiritual complacency is off balance and just continues to allow this shit to happen, as if we need this physical world to be hellish in order to get what we came for. If that's my inner self manifesting, then I have a lot of work to do, as does our world. I am not concerned with just my perception of it, but with how we can all better it together. 
      I believe it's time to step into a new model of thinking, rather than repeating what we've been taught and supposedly discovered for ourselves that 'all is love'… I haven't actually discovered this. Love has taught me that we wouldn't ever understand compassion if we didn't feel fear first. And without compassion, no amount of individualized love and even love for the rest of the world, while feeling holy, sacred, or uplifted by one's spiritual "practice," can positively contribute to the grid of spirit/energy within and surrounding us -  it will just suck from it and feed itself if, it doesn't acknowledge that not everyone is able to uplift themselves in such ways. When the "self" is satisfied, let it take on the work of healing the rest of the cells of the organism, otherwise, what is the point? To begin another incarnation in the same "illusion" and attempt yet again to perfect oneself? To break out of the "cycle" and just float in love forever? Sounds boring and compassion-less, and like a very old myth about what actually "happens." The whole beautiful mystery is that we DON'T know, and the more that we pretend we DO, the more tangled up we make everything. 
      Our seeming progress makes us forget that we don't really know anything. Our experience-based discoveries feel like "direct knowledge," but those are actually influenced by this very world of which we are a part. I think it is the beauty of this world which seeps into our hearts and makes us think we're experiencing something divine. It is divine! And we are just confused! 
      Something is missing and I don't think we'll discover it if we just stay in the groove of all-is-love. What does any personal enlightenment matter if we don't leave the world a better place than we found it? It's not just about the self. There are many billions of us here, and not everyone has the luxury of pure-love-manifestation;  it's often not even one's own fault if that's the case. We just call them "them" and don't feel, compassionately, that "they" actually are our very "self," and thus with all "their" pain, we each carry it within us. Just as they have our love within them. All I was asking is if that love of ours could be even stronger, so that the strong pain that we all carry could be balanced. Even if you've released all pain, and carry none, I still think we each carry some sort of distributed amount of it. Just as each beating heart is emitting the electromagnetic frequencies of the force you call "love." It's almost one and the same. 
I think we need to open our hearts and minds to greater possibilities of how to see love all around us. I will not repeat a mantra that "all there can is be love" when I see that hatred, greed and corruption are clearly something that can also "be." Just closing my eyes to it is not going to make it magically go away. 

Plant a seed in my soul. I've been tending the soil and preparing the ground. I've been nurturing the matter and fostering the spirit. Anchored in the Earth, I open my entire heart, brain, nervous system and electromagnetic torus field. I feel plasma love fill me from infinite galaxies in infinite universes. I feel the dirt and greenery of my planet, I long for its waters, the smell of its seas, the blues of its skies and the sweetness of its fruits. I also long for the depth of starry space. And I know true love. So I am a very fortunate human being. I imagine that anyone reading these words is able to receive this energy, in this moment, whoooosh, a bunch o' love! 

I summon the deepest truth from within me. In the room I've sat so much and prayed and yearned, I sit now again and see yet another angle of the infinite facets of spirit… I realize any outward reaching of mine has always actually been just reaching within, even when not realizing that is the only "place" to find peace, answers, solutions, ideas, comfort. With my great fortune of love in life, I know well what it is to find peace and comfort "outside" oneself - for it's just so close and so ready, so reliable - all the people (and plants and animals!) who love, who give, who ask nothing in return, and who breathe through a smile. Yet I also know what it is to seek truth within, deep deep within. Even when not intending to do so, sometimes just riding along and plummeting towards a sort of transcendence. Stepping upon prismatic puddles of the rainbow oil of life lived for love. Existing to love. To speak of beauty and seek it everywhere. To know there is no longer a need for seeking. 

This seed is one of a tinkling truth which silently subtly sat straight by me all the while. 

Turning to look again, turning to wonder once more, 

yep, all clear, at last - for a glimpse again, 

of that "sort of" transcendence. It holds all the love that cannot be held. 

With that life-force, 

I seal this light-wave, 

onto every nerve-center

onto every strand of DNA

into every membrane, nucleus, neutrino - 

everything which comprises my body and soul, 

my world, my people, my land, none of it "mine," 

but all of it within me - 

and pray. 

Here I pray. Deep within the 

kingdom of goddess god goodness good

within the deep of me, 

reflected by pristine mirrors (with a scratch here and there)

but quite lucid nonetheless…

I pray for true presence. Moments, in which to serve. Give light. Community. Peace. What we truly need. 

Slippery thoughts meander not through these inspired halls of cell walls and pulsing blood. With this aliveness, I pray for my Mother, my Father, my every Relative and every Friend, my every Guide and every Angel. I count an uncountable amount of blessings. I give thanks with every breath in, and I release with every breath out. I witness beautiful music in my headphones and my heart swells with warmth at seeing the simple sight of my cat sleeping at my feet. I hold what needs to be held. And I let go of everything else. 

What needs holding? 

This seed being nurtured. This seed of a gift to the world. From my family. For my family. 

A seed which can absolve all doubts and remind me to twist out of darkness and summon the light, which is constant. To give thanks for that dark dark womb, without which the gift could not sprout. And to stretch calmly towards that light, as it is in my nature to do so. To exist. 

That, I already do. 

Please, my inner reflection of universal light energy and spirit of a mighty flame of kindness, please help me. I call out to the angels. Please help me remember

what is mine to do. 

So I can dance and sing

and show you too. 

To water my planted little seed, I breathe deeply right now and release the doubts of the previous weeks. Release the congestion of overworked thought. Release the buzz of other humans milling about. Hold compassion. Hold a new model of thinking, or, I do not "hold" it - but allow for it. Like my cousin Russell has said, only when you accept what you have, are you open to receive anything. 

I accept. 

It's nearing, I can feel it. Will be in the desert to watch. To feel. To heal. Pour my fears and worries into a pitcher to empty. Plant the seeds of my intentions into the fertile soil of my heart, activated by the celestial realms, suddenly so much closer to us, and we to them. 

Endless gratitude. Awareness of the elegance of being. The sumptuous sweetness of every breath. Life. Love.  

Oh Easter Sunday and all your misguided attention, rather, the attention paid to you... so focused on male energy. So dominated by religion's tongue-in-cheek unacknowledged recklessness throughout history, how shameful and naive, all the beings lost in its name. Today I honor the sacred feminine energy. Rebirth, renewal, transformation, growth, the planting of seeds and the laying of eggs and all good and beautiful things. Righteous in my view, more so than any material or monetary thing or status. I long for our world's healing. I feel akimbo. There's a churning in my gut and in my heart. There's a solid line of force and love, from heart to throat to third eye and to crown and up to sun, and down again through and into the solar plexus, the hips, the base, the root, the crystal core of the planet, the everything of every star and every breath, all connected to the meditation I did on the beach yesterday, swaying like a reed in the wind, feeling the breathing of the Earth. Feeling the rapture and the poignant sadness, feeling the ache for absolution, the destiny of the unwritten, the points in space that time glosses over, the energy of song and movement, the knowingness of faith, the only bliss. Tonight I'm doing a gateway of light meditation and watching Thrive. Goodnight. 

'The present moment is a powerful goddess.' -Goethe


"We dance round in a ring and suppose ... but the secret sits in the middle and knows." Robert Frost 


See more of amazing sculptor and artist Dan Jones' work here