Love Poems

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I Don’t Know Your Name

I don’t know your name

It left me

And I’m without it now

Wishing I knew it

Hungry to speak

And give life

To the fluttering sensations

That drift upon the wind.

You are far away

But if I yet knew your name

I would speak it

Aloud and unwavering

Conjuring up

Through mercurial wonder

All that marks the traveler

Like rain,

Riding the back of thunder

To let you fall before me

That I should meet those eyes

With a kiss

Upon Emerging

Upon emerging from the desert

Did you immediately move through lands

To open men’s sight through fire

And sting their eyes with sands,

If they refused or failed

To see the splendor of your beauty

And give homage to the divine

That lies within your soul?

That you ask for courage to love thee

Is what I expect to feel

Allowing no man your heart

Lest he is capable

To be of the chosen few

Wiling to burn away ego completely

From the passion of having loved you

Making Love

Let flow my vitality

Through and with

The ever moving current

Like a stream before dawn

Birthed from the source

Of the ever living

Never gone

Together lifting

Bodies through soul

This river moving

Flowing through sands

And sifting past time.

Let me flow into you

The ocean of life

Surrender me to your depths

Welcome my current

Let it penetrate and suffuse

And make us free

The ocean in one river

And the river in one sea

Intoxications

What’s this I’m tasting,

Your lips?

Yes,

And more

Something else,

Something I can sense

But not discern;

Something extraordinary

But it won’t be clear

Something I notice but can’t see:

Dimly lit upon the senses,

Inebriated through flooding,

Intoxicated to the limit,

Boiled over and dulled

From a point to a plateau.

I am chasing the source

I am boxing you up

I am trying to comprehend,

But you are endless.

Divine Beauty Please Guide Me

Will the Divine

Guide me across this landscape

The sun barren desert

Parched thirsting for essence

Emanating lights in the distance

Something I’m headed to

Eternity stops in your presence

It comes to an end with you

Time Lapse Frozen

Paradise unmoving

Time lapse frozen

Stillness silencing

And the midnight moon

Your essences exhaling

Birthed from the quieting

Of a mind’s grievances

Surrendered of thinking

Peaceful dispositions

Sent away in love

Blessed in accent

Kissed without motion

The aura of your beauty

Quieting the surroundings

Called in to stillness

At peace from longing

Worship

I will not turn you into God,

But I will worship the divine in you;

Since you are the expression of it,

I worship you,

As the Divine expression

Of all that it is;

The essence of beauty,

Of awe and wonder,

Truth and serenity

Reclaiming the Meaning of Religion

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It has become fashionable to state that one is spiritual but not religious. Usually the distinction is made in regard to highlighting the difference between a practice or set of beliefs that are personal as opposed to collective or dogmatic, and abstract and mercurial as opposed to material and scripted. These are healthy distinctions, relevant to creating distance from one’s personal beliefs and an organization that often obscures it through codification, identity, and fundamentalism.

Recently I have gone back to embracing the words religion and religious, and I have done so, not because my beliefs have come to be more institutional, but because of the root meaning and etymology of the word religion and its meaning, a meaning I feel should be embraced and emphasized since it speaks to something that goes to the core of the human condition. It is possible that such an embrace might make institutionalized religion less dogmatic, while helping other people to understand that religion at heart is a phenomenon that is more human and ever much an essential aspect to the human experience than may be recognized by those turned off by religious fundamentalism.

Etymologically one of the accepted meanings of the word religion comes from the Latin religare, meaning to bind fast or to reconnect.Interestingly this is a similar meaning to the word yoga, which means to bind or to yoke. These are etymological meanings stripped of connotations related to fundamentalist dogma and institutionalism; and indeed, most of us do feel in relationship with something higher. Here ‘higher’ means a felt sense or sensation that there is more to some type of bigger picture than one’s individual life or will and what that will can comprehend, especially in the midst of spectacular experiences.

When people speak of being spiritual they often mention feeling close to or expressing an awareness of something more profound and wondrous, something that seems to defy human cognition or emotion. There is the sense of awe and wonder when it comes to observing nature, or of being in love, or of chance encounters that occur at just the right time; there are feelings that truth is stranger than fiction; that words can’t do many experiences justice; and that some sort of larger script accompanies most of one’s innumerable “sentenced” experiences.

It may seem odd at first to put such sensations and experiences within the realm of religion, but that is only because the word religion has come to take on connotations associated with organized religions and rigid orthodoxies. If one can look past the connotation than one can more comfortably acknowledge a sense for what is happening in those moments in life where one feels entranced or overawed by many of the experiences that accompany it.

Often times there is such a reluctance to embrace religion or even spirituality because one has boxed much of both into the same category without realizing how institutional religion has obscured the original meaning of the word religion as opposed to being in line with it. This is not to deny the relevance to the communal aspect of religion, and the union that surrounds people of a common set of beliefs from getting together.

This is not a deconstruction of organized religion with its strengths and flaws. Rather, the attempts is to encourage people to be more open to embracing the word religion at its original meaning and so open up a person to embracing an aspect of the human experience that I believe is essential to a quality life, irrespective of whether this means using the word God or not.

Carl Jung talked about the religious instinct in human beings. That is, a natural inclination towards the awe, mystery, and wonder accompanying life. More succinctly, he described religion as “A careful and scrupulous observation of that which one regards with awe.” This is an understanding of religion as those wondrous moments being a kind of bedrock for one’s existence, and a kind of compass, something that one can both orient themselves to and be led by in one’s attempt to find meaning in life.

Religion at heart is really about making the wondrous a cornerstone of one’s life. With much of life’s commotion, what keeps us anchored, what inspires us, what do we live for? The joy of seeing one’s children smile? The majesty of a sunset or landscape? The passion of making love? The raw power of many of nature’s phenomenon. The splendor of seeing animals in the wild? The thrill of various adventures and activities? The taste of fine wine, tea, or cigars?

All are variations on the theme of wonder. These experiences bind us to a power that created them, a kind of something, whether one believes it to be the natural order or a “cosmic being”, or both. Whatever the case, one may find it very difficult to have a pleasurable and meaningful existence without fostering an intimate relationship to the spectacular and awe inspiring.

I certainly understand the resistance to embracing or using the words religion or religious, especially in their more common connotational forms. But one need not let the obstructions define them and make one afraid of using them. If we can remember the word in its original sense then we can reconstitute and rehabilitate it so that we stay true to its basic meaning, and help people embrace a core aspect of the human experience, one that can keep us oriented and inspired as we negotiate the task of living and understanding who we are and what we are ultimately connected to.

Letting Go

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Letting go is a phrase that is often extolled upon us. Most everyone, to some degree, has experienced what this means; most of us by now have let go of something emotionally burdensome from our pasts, even if that thing may not be as highly charged as others.

Yet what is actually happening when we are letting go and how do we actually do it? Anyone who tries to describe how they let go of something will end up unable to describe, in essence, what happened, and that is the way it should be. But we can elaborate a bit more on what is actually transpiring in order to give a better understanding of this everyday imperative, and why it is useful and essential to a healthy wellbeing.

To let go is to gradually put distance between what we are and what we sometimes have. What we are is a life, life itself, and it exists in every moment, perpetually, without worry. What we sometimes have are emotions. Note the use of the word ‘have.’ That is, although we speak in terms of being a specific emotion, i.e. I am angry, I am sad, I am lonely. Such things are in truth not representative of what we are. We hold onto them; they become one’s skin, when they are actually just clothes. What we have also includes experiences, the things that happen to us.

To let go, we sit still and see what is happening to us, in our bodies. We watch the emotions come and go. We observe their fleetingness. Even as they are raging one can view. The more we watch, the closer we look and the closer we look, the more we see. What comes into focus gradually and with patience is that there is some presence inside that is stable while everything else around is moving and in flux. We do not necessarily get caught up in analyzing what this presence is, but we feel it is there.

Crucially, we note the feeling of this presence compared to the highly charged and erratic nature of the emotions we watch. We make a distinction between the two. We may call the former a feeling or an emotion, but we are careful not to muddle the terms since the feeling associated with the former is more of a sensation than an actual emotion. We note the stability of the former, a kind of positive emptiness, compared to the erraticism of the latter.

Here this emptiness, although it may sound of negative connotations is much more full and wholesome than can be deduced. As an example, we can point to a window, as the daoists were fond of doing. The empty space of a window appears to be dependent on some type of frame for its existence; a frame defines an aspect of emptiness, but the emptiness was always there, and is always there. Likewise, in the human person, many things come to frame our presence, but none of them are crucial to that presence being.

Suffering arises because we become attached to the various frames that define how we show up in the world. Emotions happen to us, and we mistake them for life and the sensation of presence. We have experiences that shape us, and we define ourselves accordingly. But then we lose perspective. We come to think that the frames are more representative of who we actually are. We forget that our presence, even when not framed, still is. Letting go means detaching from the frames.

Re-thinking Suicide and the Difficult Questions It Entails Asking

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With another pair of recent high profile suicides, society on the whole continues to be surprised by these occurrences. I would like to discuss why we should not necessarily be surprised, what it says about a society that continues to deal with suicide, but also its seeming spontaneity, and the current collective attitude towards suicide and suicide ideation, and its affect on making suicide a difficult topic for individuals contemplating it to disclose to others.

During a standup routine a comedian was commenting: “I show up to the therapist’s office for assessment. She asks me if I’ve ever been suicidal. I said, “Are you crazy? What a ridiculous question?!?……. Of course I’ve been suicidal! Have you seen the world out there!?!” Comedy, being the art that it is, allows one to normalize and communicate something that everyone knows or does in a manner that allows it to come to the surface in an approachable and comfortable way. Thus, in looking at the joke, one can see something true to the observation, that, in a world where life, even at it’s best is often bitter sweet, where individuals must struggle to navigate the “real world” and find meaning in it, and where much of culture has become shallow and superficial, reflecting on the option to bypass the struggle by taking one’s life, has a semblance of normal and reasonable reflection to it.

In a world and society where there is so much suffering, so much disparity, so much superficiality, and so much alienation from self and other, does thinking about suicide represent something pathological or is it a normal reaction to being aware of and sensitive to all the suffering in the world and one’s limited ability to change it; perhaps a normal reaction to a society built around false promises associated around consumerism, having more, and “making it; perhaps a normal reaction to feelings of alienation born of a society mired in fear and technological obsession? Suicide ceases to be something so pathological and surprising once we start asking certain questions and considering certain realities.

Instead of suicide representing some pathological and deranged thinking process, suicide and suicidal ideation might demonstrate awareness and sensitivity to the suffering both within and without, an awareness of the much of the struggle of life, and an awareness of one’s ability to choose and have responsibility? Perhaps suicide is the logical conclusion of a life spent around expectations that being rich and successful and famous can leave one fulfilled? Perhaps as a society we are doing a terrible job of instilling a sense of self in our children grounded in self worth that is paramount to a meaningful life? Perhaps we are doing a terrible job of reflecting on what really matters in the end; what really makes life worth living?

An individual commits suicide and people are often surprised, no one could see it coming. The fact that this is so does not point to the mysterious affects of some suicide disease that strikes an individual from out of nowhere, but instead suggests that an individual feels compelled to hide signs of being suicidal because it has been so deeply pathologized, and because, as a society, we have collectively worked at obliterating our awareness and sensitivity to recognizing the signs. It is not that there are no signs; it is that we do not want to see them; we are moving too fast to be capable of slowing down enough to see or feel them, and we have created a cultural of pseudo happiness that finds it nearly impossible to tolerate any negative emotional states and realities.

As culture and society has become conditioned through consumerism to believe in life as this constant party and celebration, there has ceased to be room for recognition of any of life’s negative affect states. This topic is a much larger one that has been elucidated on elsewhere, but its connection to suicide means that it is taboo to feel negative, let alone bring it up within the context of feeling suicidal. No one wants to believe suicide for the reality it is because no one wants to believe that the real world life they have been conditioned to live is any less the party than it is said to be.

In line with this is the fact that thoughts of suicide are tinged with feelings of guilt and shame. In a society where money, fame, and recognition are held up as the ultimate goals, it will be shame inducing for people who have achieved such things to go on to admit that they are not happy despite having them. “What?! How can such and such not be happy? They are rich, successful, and famous!” Many people cannot acknowledge they are suicidal because according to the values of society they have no reason to be disappointed. The same is true of kids and teens in families where they are provided with opportunities in the way of money and good schools, but not the kinds of nurturing and support that leads to the construction of a healthy sense of self worth.

If we hope alleviate the risk of suicide by “raising awareness” then we have to do so in line with asking some difficult questions about the kind of world we live in, the kinds of accomplishments our culture esteems, the kinds of people we are raising our children to be, and the cost of achieving, and we have to be willing to accept some truths about our role in buttressing that world even if it ends up implicating ourselves. And this applies, not just to suicide, but also to any other mental health topic.

Of course, no one likes the thought that they were unable to recognize problems and emotional isolation; much easier to pretend the suicide had more to do with some mysterious illness that snuck up on them. This is not true of everyone, and it does not entail blaming, but it does mean acknowledgment. Suicidal thoughts do not point to a medical issue as if they represent the symptoms to some kind of disease. As much as a belief that suicidal thoughts are simply some genetic hiccup or a “chemical imbalance” may relieve one of the pressures of reflecting on existential reality and the environmental factors caught up with it, the truth is that the problem is more human than that, and thus requires, not medical intervention, but human intervention. By that I mean the recognition and acknowledgment by another of one’s thoughts, and feeling states in a world that is difficult for any living thing to navigate, let alone one that is aware of its own existence.

No one wants to ask tough questions about the kind of lifestyle and environment we have bought into. No one wants to consider that a certain mentality they have or passed on to their children could lead to emotional bankruptcy. No one wants to consider such things because it implicates us and dismantles the illusion of reality and a certain belief system we have created. No one wants to believe that someone could kill themselves in this world out of emotional bankruptcy because it means critiquing that world and bursting the comfortable bubble that most of us live in. But we cannot continue to deny certain detrimental aspects of our environment and culture and then rationalize superficial responses that put a nice and pretty gloss over everything while the heart of the issue gets ignored.

 

The Lioness and the Ocean

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I know you can’t swim well out here

But I am not trying to drown you

Just show off the mysteries of the deep

And the enchantments pulling my soul

 

There’s no one else out here

But you don’t see that

You’re too busy trying to use your claws and roar

Though it’s best if you put those away

They can’t serve you here

Just keep you from staying afloat

 

Amidst the vast and open ocean

Pride doesn’t serve the stranded lion

It’s best to relax and take in the view

And I’ll help you to swim

 

Would that be so hard?

Surely you have no intention

Of drowning out of spite?

Why We Strive and Is It Worth It

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I have come to be quite suspicious of ambition: the urge to “make it,” to create something famous, to be renown, to be recognized, to leave some lasting impact on the world, etc. There are many forms of such ambition, and of course not all of them are bad. But in reading of famous people, there is a common theme running through many of their lives. It is that many of them, towards the end of their lives, questioned, doubted, or even regretted many of the great works and achievements they had given to the world. By the end, many were never happy and failed to be at peace.

After reading about such people it is hard for me not to wonder about what was driving them. What were they chasing? If even great accomplishments can leave a person unhappy and unsatisfied then what good are they; and what are we actually trying to get? Is it obtainable? I can’t help but question our drives to achieve, and acquire. I can’t help but ask: Do healthy, whole, self-loving, self-affirming, self-accepting individuals have large ambitions?

I contrast ambition with contentment. Most of us never seem satisfied, always wanting more, always reaching for some unattainable culmination. By comparison the happiest people I have met are people that live modest lives with little to no ambition to achieve or accomplish, no desire to substantially increase their possessions or valuables. They have arrived at a level of contentment, contentment with their surroundings, with their environment, with their pasts, with their inadequacies, and with the reality of death.

To say such happy and healthy people lack ambition does mean that such people fail to have goals and are not trying to improve. Nor does this entail hedonism, reckless living, or a life of banality built around the desire for one big endless party or perpetual “trip.” Such a mentality is its own kind of “chasing.” The happiest people I’ve met also lack a desire for such a life. They largely abstain from reckless endeavors, drugs, late nights out, and loud gatherings.

I am not implying that all accomplishments stem from a lack of discontentment or some other kind of displacement, or that a healthy and “fully actualized” person would never have the ambition to do something of large significance. But I think that is very rare, and that the foundations of such motivations are different. Such people seem connected to a self that knows they are good enough, that can feel the miracle of being alive, and can recognize the wonder of such a miracle within the sphere of the rest of life and the living universe. Such people continue to explore the world and expand their tastes but from a place of groundedness.

It is anathema to speak in such ways today, especially in a country that mindlessly reaches for more, for bigger, newer, what’s never been done before! A recent commercial states, “Because better is a never ending quest.” I can’t help but think, “What a terrible way to live!” To chase something you know can’t be caught. The illusion of such a venture is staring us in the face and yet we are repeatedly dumbfounded by our lack of contentment, our perpetual unsettledness. No wonder we medicate ourselves trying to achieve, and later numb ourselves to get over the residual affects of having strained ourselves to the physical and emotional limit.

Some will say that such strivings are a natural disposition of being human. That is a different issue. I certainly feel there is some natural drive to accomplish. Advancement and achievement are not bad things, but they have take make life simpler, more worthwhile; they have to foster a sense of accomplishment that allows us to rest, sit back, feel contented, and simply enjoy the wonder of life. But we’re not doing that. We’re constantly running, never content, in constant hope that the next accruement or achievement will finally brings us peace or will finally give us the love we so desperately seek. We largely rationalize the whole process by claiming we are creating the ability to have an easier more enjoyable life but in reality we have almost totally obliterated the ability to pause and enjoy the very life we claim to be bettering.

We have to honestly ask ourselves what we’re seeking and why. We have to inquire into the quality of our goals. This entails not just questioning the value of the objects we wish to obtain, but what we hope to get through such things. Am I seeking approval? Do I simply want to be loved? Do I have a chip on my shoulder? Do I need to prove something to someone? Do I need to show I’m better? Do I need to hide my grief and lack of self-confidence through my accomplishments and conquests of others? We have to be willing to examine our histories and chart the circumstances that led us to craft the identity we have and the motivations we use to sustain it. Are we overcompensating for a need that was never met?

The 20th century mystic Gurdjieff encouraged individuals to reflect, “Go out one clear star lit night to some open space and look up at the sky, at those millions of worlds over your head. The earth cannot even be called a grain of sand in this infinity… It dissolves and vanishes, and with it, you. Where are you? And is what you want simply madness?” Most of us are overdue for such an inquiry.

Three Miscellaneous Moments

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Let It Noise

 

I was walking in a field, listening to the birds as they sung their evening song to the falling light emanating from the sinking sun. In those moments, the sounds of the birds drowned out all of my sorrows, bringing me to a tranquil state of mind, no dreams. And then I slowly became aware of an approaching plane overhead. I remember that this field is near an airport. A plane is coming in to land, and the noise of it begins drowning out the sound of the birds. Now what can I do in such a moment? Should I get upset or mad at the plane? Should I rage at it, wage war against planes, try and have them banished? Should I focus on remembering the sound of the birds from a few minutes ago? Should I try and love the sound of the plane like I love the sound of the birds? Let it noise? Love its noise? Let it pass? Should I focus on the future when the plane will land and the sound of the birds will be audible once again? I’m not really sure of a complete answer, but it seems that this little incident represents so many of life’s struggles in miniature.

 

A Red Sweater

 

I was driving down a busy shopping boulevard. Stopped at a light, I glanced over to my right, through a department store door, with wool sweaters displayed on a table in the center. One of these sweaters was a beautiful red color. I was transfixed by it, caught up in its red, a color searing itself to my eyes and in my mind. I started to imagine myself wearing it, perhaps over a black dress shirt, with a matching red and black tie, black slacks, and black dress shoes; very smart. This image burned itself into my mind, and I made up my mind to go to this store and buy the sweater at some point. Weeks later I made my way to the store; I made it to the entrance, walked though, and went right towards the table with the sweaters, eager for the red. But as I approached I began to notice that the sweater was not in fact red. The sweater I saw was actually pink. I began looking for a red sweater in other parts of the store. I asked a clerk about red sweaters. He said, “No red sweaters.” I realized the red I saw was made so on that particular day by the angle of the light from the time of day and the position of my view from the street. I left the store empty handed, but still with a red sweater stuck in my mind; a red sweater that didn’t even exist. And I wondered how much of the rest of my life is like this; chasing illusions in my mind?

 

The Incessant Me

 

I was out walking and caught a premonition of the past; something triggered a memory of a time spent in another somewhere. I knew that this time was a difficult one in my life; filled with confusion, anger, sadness, regret, worry, anxiety; a time I would describe to someone, had they asked about it, as dark. And yet this triggering felt good. The memories it brought up were wonderful, even intoxicating. It seemed the time I spent there was magical. I couldn’t help but feel good in thinking back to it despite believing it was such a dark time. How could this be? Was there a part of me living at that time that was keeping track of all the good moments? Was it wise enough to see the wisdom that comes from suffering, from learning from hardship? Is it smart enough to know now that it was worth it? Did it know this then? Of course I knew my whole time there was not one big hell, but was this part of me less in touch with the temporary, closer to the lasting? Am I delusional about the past, longing for it because the present is too real? Was I delusional then for focusing almost exclusively on the pain and suffering? Is there a constant “me” able to see things objectively, one free from my own mind? Is there a part of me always at peace, that knows better in each and every instant despite what I think I see and know?

A Set of Poems

Posted on by under Poetry

Is there anything that must exist

Between the height of stars

And the sky who lives it

Cradling what may fall

Into a thousand fading lights?

 

I Wish to Remain

I wish to remain a boy at heart

To play with the miracles

Of life and living

Never too far apart

And distanced from astounding

In the wonder

That forever befriends me

Like a constant brother

 

I wish to be an old man in soul

Conscious of the matters

Of lasting value

To see the bigger whole

From the vantage

Of a high mountain peak

One that pierces the heavens

To engage with its speak

 

I wish to stay a young man in spirit

Willing to challenges

That conquer illusion

And bring contented merit

Amidst the suffering lapses

Potentialing heartbreak

When the doubts of living

Attempt their fate

 

 

The Loneliest Place

The loneliest place?

In a crowd

Without a face

For eyes to meet

And greet the soul of another

No space

Or too much

When silence abounds

And no other sounds persist

But for the kiss you left her

 

The loneliest place?

In a crowd

Without a face

For eyes to meet

And greet the soul of another

No space

Or too much

Where silence abounds

But for the kiss you left her

And no other sounds persist

 

The loneliest place?

In a crowd

Without a face

For eyes to meet

And greet the soul of another

No space

Or too much

When silence abounds

And no trace of sounds

But for the kiss you left her

And no other sound persists

 

The Forest of My Soul

In the darkness

Through the night

Towards the forest of my soul

Past a tree line

Across an open field

Where I walk with second sight

To the holy light within

 

Frozen fog

And rippled banks of snow

Through waves of drift

My steps fall

To footprints

Towards a spirit I barely know

But to a glow that is familiar

 

Something breaks open

To a noise

Both whispered and clear

Through a question

It asks

And I respond with my voice

But my choice is uncertain

 

Come join us

Is the call

From spirits of the deep

Encouraging my leisure

As to wander

Through reaching trees tall

Causing me to stall slightly

 

I know not why

And know it all the same

The ability to see the future

That it’s not my time

Nor the hour

That it’s just a game

With a name called forever

And so I keep walking

 

On a Mountain

Out here in the open

Without an identity

The wind blows by

Lends breadth to my essence

Gives depth to my grounding

Though it seems I am floating

Thought it feels I’m above

 

On a broke lit sunrise

The light shines a backdrop

It sharpens the edge to existence

And highlights the mountain below

For a focus to peel back my eyelids

Casting me asunder

But dark and left standing

Calls it a name

 

Of eyes for all seeing

It opens the sky

As leaves pass and birds fly

Not worrying about foundation

Or a route to see me travel

Or a move to perfect the sound

When there is not such a thing

A Real Illusion

Posted on by under Poetry

Does her beauty

Sustain an illusion

Or illuminate a reality?

Between insight and falsity

This gravity

My soul,

Floating through space.

Is she a star or the darkness;

Which of them denotes the eyes upon her face?

These eyes staring back at me,

That appear to see nothing

Yet somehow have their sight

And somehow keep me looking,

Admiring.

This is night viewing night

And Fire heating fire,

A longing that can feel its passion

The yearning of its own desire

It’s own bloodletting

Bleeding itself thin

Like a heart that can’t stop beating

Though it sees the gaping wound

Pumping life

And pumping death simultaneously.

Putting the paradox on display:

Life and death

Sight and blindness

Truth and illusion

Light and darkness

And all I can do is reconcile duality;

To see the actuality of her beauty being

And my being absolutely