River's Edge

I sit at the river's edge

Deep currents and eddies

Bear you away

I throw a rope

of hope

of love

of promise

To draw you to me

To safety

It is not yet time

I am not the one

To save

I stand at the river's edge

Dark, churning waters

Carry you away

I release the rope

Relinquishing you to the care

of true Love

We are always safe

Though we know it not

You are in my heart always

I love you

I love you

I love you

I See You

A glowing heat that can be blocked 
but not contained
Emanates through all beings
as love, thought, longing and peace.
When letting this vibrancy through,
We open the common heart that lives beneath
All human longing . . . 

Mark Nepo
The Book of Awakening

All I want

All I want

Is the One

The one thing

I see you

I fight past the veils

Struggle through illusions

of separation

I see you

Your brilliance shines

Reflects, resonates

Pierces my soul

One soul seeing another

I am you

You are me

There is only One

One hunger

One Source

One Voice

Speaking each and all

Singing through a million throats

Splashing myriad canvasses

With color and light

 Beauty

I see you!

You see me

Speak me

Sing me

For what do I yearn?

What is this longing?

Where are you, my Love?

My Life?

See me

See me

Expressions of love vibrate with the One Love

Representations of life resonate with True Life

We fixate on what feels good, looks good, tastes good

...

These are

Windows

Through which light shines

Gateways

Through which to pass
Reflections.  Expressions.  Guides.  Avenues.

Focus on satiation

Feeds the hunger
Focus on Light
Draws you through and in 

There is no shame in the longing

The grasping 
The wandering

All is rooted in the one desire

the one hunger

Common to all

Strung out
Lost in our addictions
Temporary cures fail
We fall
and open our eyes

I delight in the spark

I see in you

For it is also mine

I see you
I see myself
I was never lost.

The Perfect Life

The thing that has been - it is what will be again,

and that which has been done is that which will be done again;

and there is nothing new under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 1:9

Deep within each of us lives both a leper and a wolf,

both of which we are afraid of.

In Franciscan lore, they are our inner imperfections.

They are always there in some form, 

waiting to be tamed and needing to be forgiven.

Radical Grace: Daily Meditations, Richard Rohr

http://chp.deviantart.com/art/outstanding-sky-76271247

We close our eyes

Visiting the dream

Tentatively touching remembered magic

Impotently grasping for the life that was; 

That was to be

Please, no more.

Please no more poorly given love

Love poorly received.

Hurts unintentionally caused

I am the leper.  I am the wolf.

Fear bars the giving. 

The receiving.

There is nothing outside of myself which completes.

No sweet words.

No right touch.

No one's "faith" in me.

No perfect understanding of "truth"

No perfect life.

No place where children do not suffer.

No place where horrific maladies do not strike.

Where the right relationship, the right drug,

the right anything,

fixes all.

Always, always, always

The Source of all I need and desire

Dwells within.

Nowhere else

There are no new answers

No matter how badly I want a quick fix

(and sane explanations for the insanity)

Just discovery/rediscovery

Of what's always been.

Sink down

Sink into the solid embrace

Release the death grip

Preventing your fall

It's okay

Okay to fall away from self made protections

(illusions - delusions)

Structures of identity and value

Which inevitably crumble and collapse

Sing me asleep

Hit me awake

This perfect life

Carries me down and in

Friction removes the lies

Bit by bit

I remember again

 to smile 

through my aching heart.

Yes!

This is life.

Perfect life.

For there is no other.

Butterfly Transformation by Julia Watkins

The path of descent is the path of transformation.  

Darkness, failure, relapse, death, 

and woundedness are our primary teachers, 

rather than ideas or doctrines.

Richard Rohr

Listen to The Perfect Life by Moby

Oh, we close our eyes

The perfect life

Is all we need

You opened up when you had me in your hands

Slipping far away with the world at your command 

You sing me to sleep and then you hit me awake

It's a perfect life, a perfect life

I only want to be here when you're by my side

Oh I believe now, I'll love you 'til I die

You will sing me to sleep, you will hit me awake

In the perfect life

Perfect life 

Oh 

We close our eyes

The perfect life 

Life is all we need

Little Mikey steps everywhere

Knives in his pockets and bullets in his hair

He has nothing to live for

Nothing left to say

He's locking all the doors

to keep the older wolves at bay

Spoons and foil are all he needs

A bed and some china, a lighter and some speed

He will sing you to sleep and then will hit you awake.

In the perfect life, a perfect life. 

Oh 

We close our eyes

The perfect life

Life is all we need

Oh 

We close our eyes

The perfect life

Life is all we need

Oh 

We close our eyes

The perfect life

Life is all we need

Oh 

We close our eyes

The perfect life

Life is all we need

The perfect life

The perfect life

The perfect life

All we need

Images: http://chp.deviantart.com/art/outstanding-sky-76271247

Glorious and Fleeting

(Powerful words written by a friend who is grappling with the effects of Alzheimers)

~

Ripping, shredding

tearing from the inside out

fraying at the edges ~

The brilliant mind slowly parts

from the glorious, yet fleeting tent

You have fashioned.

Reserve and careful control fade ~

Now unfiltered raw emotions

are seen through the veil

as it dissipates.

Magnificent vessel of Your creation

slips to the side

of the Potter’s wheel

as it spins, and is dashed ~

its shape now unrecognizable

from that which was.

We long for the day when we,

Your works of clay, are drawn

in final form from the fire ~

Vibrant colors blended and edged

with gold, to serve at your eternal table.

But for now we grieve for the centered balance

That was and is no more.

Sweet Seeds

I recently returned from a visit with family which included my mother, who has Huntington's Disease.

The first week back I was engulfed by a deep, heavy darkness.

Having a history of depression, my first thoughts are,

"Here I go again.  What's wrong with me?  How can I fix it (me)?"

A friend said, "I think you are grieving."

Oh.  

Right.  

Maybe I'm 'normal'?  Not needing to be fixed at all?

My mom isn't who she was.  She won't be (in this life).  

It's a special sort of sadness.  This loss of what was; of who was.

The mind and body altered.  Diminished. 

A brilliant and beautiful mind fighting through a fog.

Striving to locate and hold onto thoughts.

Working to get the brain and voice to cooperate.

Oh, sweet, sweet mother of mine

I weep because you were beautiful

I weep because you seem even more beautiful now

Strength fighting through weakness

Tender expressions of love

Pure.  Simple.  

Pure and simple.

No pretense (because there can be none)

Why does it hurt so much? 

This is the gift.

This is the evidence of great blessing and deep beauty.

If there was nothing much to lose

The heart would not bleed.  

How deeply blessed am I? 

To have been loved so greatly 

To love so greatly

I carry all of it;

All the grand adventures.  

All the little day to day events that formed who I am.

Nothing is lost.

So, I smile into my tears.  

This pain is the fruit of love and goodness

Seeds planted in me -

A million little bits of life

Sent roots deep

Sprouted and blossomed

(and blossom, still)

I hold you in my heart

With love and tenderness.

I cherish a love which cuts so deeply.

Spread from heart to heart

Generation to generation

I allow myself to grieve the loss

I hug to myself the pain which is also the love

and nurture the seeds of life and color and music and compassion 

and silliness and wit and exploits extraordinaire . . .

and so much more

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

How trite is it, to end with the following quote?  

Yet, it's true.  Love is worth the pain.  
Is actually deepened and intensified by it.
For pain reveals and is evidence of love.

'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

 

For more information on Huntington's Disease.

Huntington's Disease Society of America

For information regarding my family and HD.

Make Life HD

To hear my brother's composition, HD Blues.

HD Blues

To help with research into treatments and a cure.
My donation page

It Is What It Is

When I argue with reality, I lose - but only 100 percent of the time. 

 How do I know that the wind should blow? It's blowing! 
I am a lover of what is, 
not because I'm a spiritual person, 
but because it hurts when I argue with reality. 

 We can know that reality is good just as it is, 
because when we argue with it, we experience tension and frustration. 
We don't feel natural or balanced. 
When we stop opposing reality, action becomes simple, fluid, kind, and fearless.
Byron Katie *


How do I find peace?
When 'what is' can feel so dark 
When the story seems set
When hopes held dear
Fade
Disappear 

?

Byron Katie stresses that acceptance, and actually LOVE of what is,
does not preclude taking action to bring about change.  
Simply, that it is pointless to argue with the reality that presently exists.
Since, it, in fact, IS.

She also believes that the essence of the Universe is good.  

If we trust that God is Love
That the creational direction of this universe is that of love and goodness
We can know that all is ultimately well

The 'is' that is, is much more than we see.  
Larger, grander
Deep, intense, wild

Wonderful. Beautiful. 

It is the caterpillar in the cocoon, the chick in the egg . . .

 The is that is, holds the promise, the potential, 

the energy of creation which flows beneath the surface always. 

'What is' can feel dark, sterile, motionless, a finished work . . . 

but it is not.

'What is' can appear to lead only to decay and loss.
but, it does not.
That which carries death, 
atrophies and passes.
True life lives on
Shines through
Prevails

We are carried.  
We are Jonah in the dark belly of a fish. 

Moving, though we see not where. 

We are the chick, crushed within the suffocating darkness of the egg.

The caterpillar dissolving, disintegrating

Losing all form, to be reformed into

A beautiful, winged creature

(oh, how I fight this feeling of formlesslness - painful, liquid unknowing)

I may feel that my life is static. 

That I've taken too many 'wrong' turns.

I smell the stench of death . . . 

Fight the darkness that threatens to consume . . . 

yet

Life is an organic thing

Only artificial things never spoil

As I ask all that is not love to die and be gone from me

Can I accept and love

the byproducts of death?

Can I embrace the pressure and pain . . .

the darkness and the discomfort . . .

as the gifts they are?
(Or, evidence of the gift.)

LOVE looks on, and smiles.
Sees beauty shining through the darkness. 
Renewal emerging from dissolution.
Sees the end of the story.

And loves what is.

*http://www.gratefulness.org/readings/bk_noticing.htm

Check out Byron Katie's Work.  Life changing stuff.
http://www.thework.com/index.php

Portions inspired by Dark Nights of the Soul, by Thomas Moore
http://careofthesoul.net/books/