Merry What Ever

Religious belief opens a Pandora's Box of credulity that leads the holder to equate fact with faith. When intuitions are transformed into dogmas, confusion can not but follow. The parable of "the blind men and the elephant" is a simply stated truth, and holds true for political beliefs, or belief of any stripe. We know enough within the simplicity of our humanity to answer the seemingly complex questions of human existence. But who can be that intelligently simple?

The efficacy of religion to unite the social imagination has throughout history brought tidings good and evil; and as our understanding of the universe and ourselves matures, religion will find its place amongst the lovely landmarks of awakening.

Cosmic Postal Service

oh . . .

the message was delivered right on time

and it was from the hand of God all right

but something went awry

for they have long since ceased ponder of the message

and spend their holy days worshipping the envelope

Lightness of Being

Shine a flashlight or burn a candle and the photons go at the speed of light through empty space til they hit something. The light of a candle in a featureless desert proceeds in space to the limits of being. That light is absorbed by something or moves on forever. Brain waves are no less an element of electromagnetic emanation. The sphere of your existence is written into the fabric of being at the speed of light times your age. 

Let those who have eyes see.

The earthworm and the elephant.

Individual Self Expression

Those who languish for an affirming identity are vulnerable to ostentatious displays of self expression. And this quite simply because they have something to prove to themselves and to the world. There exists a pervasive brand of mischief spawned only by practitioners of nervous self expression.

It is categorically impossible to not express ones self. Grotesque displays of self expression are inversely proportional to the progress of individuation.

Zen Pretzel

Twisting ones self into a Zen pretzel is not the way to freedom.




People Like Me

people like me
aren't like me

they are, like



them selves

Local Limitations

Any discription of what is real is a discription of "local limitations". A single photon screaming through space is a manifestation of "local limitations". A walking talking stack of atoms known as a human being is a manifestation of "local limitations". A universe ablaze with imploding galaxies is a manifestation of "local limitations".

If the organism that we are were not limited in the eye's perception of the electromagnetic spectrum there would be no light.

Our life is the swim of conscious awareness through the sea of local limitations.

What is the Who 2.0

If you do not own what you are, what you are will own you.

He

he wore a man-skirt from India

and a beanie from some South American tribe

and the smock from some table waiter in Japan

and he loved to speak in shopworn riddles

the same cloth

will clothe a wizard

or a clown

Uniformly Uniform

When one dons a uniform one is in costume. And each costume represents an idea proclaiming the wearer as an advocate playing a role. The Dali Lama, the tattoo gangster, the stripper, are advocates playing a role. As human beings there exist necessary functions, but roles are made necessary only by collective naivete. There also exist myriad functions made necessary only by the un-evolved state of the creatures we are. A world without uniforms will be a world in which the power of symbol is wholly awake.

In spite of ones self one finds admirable those individuals who so dedicated themselves to their vision of truth that they would make a symbol of themselves for the good of history and of humanity. Without them ignorance and injustice would proceed unchallenged.

There is a very good chance that things could sort themselves out if intelligent people were simply brought to the fore.

And role playing is part of that.

The Meaning of Life

The question is a misguided twisting of an observation. The life of meaning is life its self. Where there is no life there is no meaning. We ask the meaning of life in the same way the eye must seek a mirror if it is to see its self.

Field Guide To Reality

only if we recognize the difference

between imagination and perception

can we touch the inconceivable truth

which is the abode

of being

Distraction

After several seasons lost in the Om zone it is time to return to work, and I shall start with a poem that suggests the silence of my normal winter day.



The Fire Is All There Is


tending the fire is all that there is in the world

a boistrous band of crows call to each other
hunting down the ridge

the fridged morning breeze sends the smoke swirling through the snowclad bare trees
oak twigs pop in promise
the yellow flames snap like some searing fluid whip


and tending the fire
is the only thing there is in the world