A Man Who Fell

A man fell yesterday. He was very heavy and could not get up. He was ill with other issues too. Three of us came to help.

The man was embarrassed and without of sense of humor. Understandable.

The man wished at one point that he would die. Nonsense, I thought to myself, but then later I thought about what all I’d read about that we never die, we just transition to a heavenly realm.

Mortal life, in my meditation, is a continuum of growth, experience and choices and when we’ve finished what we came to this existence to do why would we want to stay in this density and illusion? I also think we’ve done it over and over again.

And then I thought about today, Good Friday and the death of another man of so many years ago and I wondered if his death was relevant two thousand plus years ahead to the man who fell and wished to die.

It’s not an easy extrapolation. It’s not an easy understanding.

After some time of thought, I did think it was relevant. Not because the other man long ago is said to have died for human sins, but for what that man so long ago taught by example and by word and by his death.

Love one another, love one another, love one another. To me there is no more powerful tenant in life.

The man who fell; I pray he can love himself first and than all else will fall in place as designed by his sacred covenant with spirit.

May you have a blessed Easter.

Gold in Maine?

The Swift River in Maine is still frozen. The ice jams are just starting to melt. When spring comes the prospectors will be out there, searching, panning for gold. It's not a new find. Panners have been swirling the Swift River sediment for years, ever since the big rush in 1901 and 1902. It wasn't a big rush like they had out in California, but some gold was found.

Most folks think river gold is found out west. The truth is gold is where you find it and some pretty rich deposits have been discovered in the East. Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Maine have all had their share of gold strikes.

Some amateur gold panners around the country claim they make a living finding little pieces of gold. Some started doing it while on vacation and never stopped. After all if you find an ounce of gold a week, and some panners say they do, its like earning sixteen hundred dollars in today’s market or whatever the going price of gold is when you finally sell it.

The Swift River Gold rush took place in the little hamlet of Houghton, Maine. The town changed its name to Goldfields after a prospector from New Hampshire struck it rich. He made up some stock certificates and sold interest in his strike. He made quite a bit of money before investors discovered it was a man-made strike.

It seems the fellow loaded shotgun shells with gold flakes and fired them into the stream bank. They caught him at it and he was convicted of fraud.

Shortly thereafter, Goldfields changed its name back to Houghton.

Sometimes things just don't pan out.

Balance is Love

I received several picture the other day about this artist in Colorado who balances rocks and stones in a mountain stream. I checked him out and Michael Grab is legit. Here is just one picture of his art, but his website is magnificent.

Years ago with another picture of a rock balanced in San Diego taken by my friend Sheila Ryan DeBold I wrote the following poem.

Note: No they are not held together with velcro or glue. These rocks are balanced one upon the other.

This activity, Grab says, balances the material world with the spiritual one.

On the one hand is the material nature that rocks symbolize, on the other, the perfect harmony and balance that comes from the spiritual world, as well as the connection to the natural world.

Balance

© 2001 Rolland G. Smith

Consider this, inquiring friend,

there’s no beginning and no end.

There’s only balance, out of time,

a mystic concept much sublime.

Exempt your mind from granite plight

that stays your thinking from the light,

then loose all structure from your mind

to keep your mystery undefined.

It is within our intellect

to understand and then reflect

that something holds us in a grace

to freely move from place to place.

It is a poise we cannot see

that compensates, in this theory,

for any movement anywhere

to keep the status wheresoe’er.

Not even thought can interfere,

disturbing place or atmosphere,

for there is something balancing

the butterfly who flaps its wing.

The winter snow and infant’s dream

are also part of life’s routine;

all need balance, to equalize

for drift and growth or blink of eyes.

Let us assume this Universe

is perfect balance and diverse

and in this form of symmetry

there comes a knowing certainty.

All atoms, quarks, and humankind

have orbits and are intertwined

to all the others’ frequency,

a masterpiece in artistry.

Again assume a paradigm,

omniscient, a mover prime,

that set in motion everything

and gave the tone of Aum to ring.

Now take the step of further thought,

what keeps this balance from onslaught

of random pandemonium

disturbing equilibrium?

There only is one answer to

this complicated spirit glue,

a cosmic field unified

by something simple, undenied.

It’s love.

A Holy Time

Some thoughts on a Holy Week.

Passover and Easter are often intertwined.

It is often hard to embrace the centuries old message of Easter and Passover when we are mired in seeming fear and worry from terrorists and terrorist’s threats. When we are occupied with concern for our service men and women and their safety in so many fields of harm and when we struggle just to meet the daily needs of our families in these tough economic times.

Easter for Christians around the world is a time of renewal and rebirth, not only of one’s faith, but also of the joy and peace that is supposed to come from the practice of that faith. Passover is a happy time with the four questions of one's faith.

In general, it seems to me that many who profess to practice their faith, no matter in what religion it is structured, more often they talk a good game, but come up short in honoring one’s God with tolerance, non-judgment, and unconditional love. Me included.

Opportunities of selfless and Samaritan acts of grace go by the wayside when quick judgments, dogmatic bickering, and historic ethnic hatreds rule our everyday actions.

There is good and truth in all faiths, all religions. It is man who creates the differences and the conflicts in order to worship the same God of many names. May your week be blessed and I hope you had a happy Passover.