I Knew Him Not

I Knew Him Not, Yet I did – A Sonnet

© 2017 Rolland G. Smith

He died today. Not well, did I know him.

But, yet I did, for all are connected.

Twas early morn’ he passed; a man named Jim.

His body ill; his spirit ejected,

And released with thanks. The eternal soul

Then rushed to light another place and space.

Death’s leaving is what hurts and takes its toll

On friends and family. They sadly retrace

his gifted life of simple wants and needs

By stories told with smiles and a tear.

I know a truth, that’s proved, that life proceeds

And no way do we ever disappear.

But more profound, as all say heart’s goodbye’s,

Is the truth that only the body dies.

Just Maybe!

As each new day dawns, I wonder where do we go from here? What happens next?

Even though we are in the second decade of a new century, we are still searching for a global sanity. There are still numerous regional wars infecting the planet as we struggle with the belief that security is having more and that collective fear requires violence.

There is always the hope we can overcome the litany of Pandora troubles that are part of our daily struggles, but let us not forget that hope without action is arrogance. We each have to work at finding the hidden harmony in overt chaos.

It's there; we can feel it when we give from empathy and not reward. We feel it when we resolve not to be discouraged, not to speak in anger, not to blame, and not to judge without the truth of looking within first.

Maybe this day, maybe tomorrow or the next day or the next unconditional love and appreciation will guide the hearts and wills of humankind.

Maybe!

Doing Nothing

What a day yesterday. I did nothing. I don’t have too many of those kinds of days, but when they present themselves, it is delightful. I passed on breakfast but had an early lunch of Chinese left-overs. I added more Soy and some hot sauce. It made it better.

It was rainy here, off and on all day. I watched a puddle get sprinkled with drops in a melodic cadence that blended with the Flight of the Bumblebee, an orchestral interlude written by Rimsky-Korsakov which I had playing on the stereo. The sputter and patter of the drops mimicked the beat of the composition. The rain pelted furiously for a few minutes then the rain rhythm would change into a Strauss waltz and then into a Texas two-step as the rain abated. What a glorious day.

I then tried to take my spiritual advisor for a walk. “McGee” doesn’t do rain, she doesn’t do snow, she doesn’t do heat. She waits, and looks, and waits some more. If it’s wet, white, or hot, she looks at me with the question of, “why are we doing this?”

I couldn’t answer her inquisitive look. All I can do is suggest, with a gentle nudge on the leash, that peeing outside is better that peeing inside.

Old Body - Young Spirit

I looked at one of my hands the other day. It was old. Protruding veins puffed like a fissure in a seismic fault. The skin was wrinkled in horizontal lines like the ripples in a wind blown dune.

Then I looked within and behold there was eternal youth. There was my spiritual being within my corporal body, and it was young. My aging body was just a vessel to hold what I am in material density and in the illusion of time.

Few young in the world understand the awareness of spiritual being. The young are still intoxicated with experimenting and experiencing life and playing with choice. Two glorious dichotomous gifts. Free floating youth and aging awareness.

Within the mind of all wrinkled, graying, aging bodies are visions of unfulfilled manifestations; discarded choices of what each hoped to be, but just below the surface of unfinished dreams are the currents of change and the desire to find and be the Truth.

When I look within, I find a clear passage to my soul and the smooth highway of understanding the being I am.

In some global societies, particularly in western cultures, we hide the grace of age and experience of living. Human power is in the awareness of our interconnection. Whether old, young, or in-between we are all ONE with the unconditional love of All That Is. In spirit, we are all valued the same. The task for each of us is to carry that equal value into mortal life.

Little Ones

He or she was tiny and delicate.

A ruby-throated iridescent green-feathered hummingbird, not more than an inch and a half long and not even a half-inch wide slammed into a picture window and dropped to the ground. It quivered and throbbed as its body tried to recover from the head-on trauma.

Watching the process of recovery, I think human concern and a sadness of helplessness increases exponentially with the smallness of the creature. I’m sure it’s a subconscious protective reaction of something so small, but one of genuine concern.

This little creature was obviously hurting. I wanted to help, but there was nothing I could do. I knew it was alive because of its miniature movements, but I didn't know if it would live.

I also knew from other bird strikes against the glass that sometimes these delicate creatures survive and you have to give them time to recover without triggering their instinctive fear and natural avoidance of human closeness. You also have to fight the desire and need to run and pick them up to comfort and try to cure with concern.

I watched the stunned and disoriented bird for a while. Hoping it would survive. I mentally struggled with it to stay in life. In many ways, you become one with the bird and give it a human consciousness or at least an awareness and desire to survive.

It seemed like a long time, but finally, it raised its head off the ground where it had fallen and moved around a little and stretched and fluttered its wings and then with a little more rest it flew away.

There is no other word for my reaction other than “rejoice.”

Little "creature beings" have a profound effect on our lives if we let them. Look at the joy that puppies engender or the comfort felt from a purring kitten. How about the sound of a morning songbird as we stand in the warming and awakening light of dawn or the awe of a Bald Eagle in flight?

I thank the All That Is for these great gifts and on this morning especially for the life of a tiny hummingbird.

A Memory of the Desert

Many years ago I lived not far from the Anza Borrego desert in California. It is the largest state park in California and the second largest in the continental United States after Adirondack Park in New York.

The park is named after Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza and the Spanish word “Borrego,” for bighorn sheep.

Eons ago the desert floor was an ancient seabed, and it is to this day festooned with tiny seashells. I was amazed at this when I visited the area and camped there to experience the wonder of sunrise and the hot breath of the desert when no one else was around.

It was a poetic inspiration for me, and the result was a poem entitled, “Carrizo Wash.”

A desert vast to see and feel
What is true and what is real.
But streaks and scratches on the land,
Did tear the nature from the sand.

It’s tracks of cars — tire scarred,
Old bed of sea now wheel marred.
Barren dry, yet full of life,
Eroded by the weather’s knife.

Granite grays and sandy stone
Black basalt and sun-bleached bone.
Sages grow in pale hue
And green and cream rendezvous.

Fossil dunes from tranquil past
Beneath a sea that didn’t last.
This solitude with crusts of shell,
What ancient day felt your knell?

Thou sacred sweep, what is worse:
No ocean cover or man’s traverse?
Intruding sounds in paradise
Make this silent place die twice.

I’ve not been back to that desert in California, but I wish I could; not to intrude, but to enjoy and share its history. It was a moving experience of ancient time and modern awareness. I remember slowly walking, step by step, as my weight crunched the ancient shells and I felt an intruder into the pristine nature of this atavistic space. Wherever I stood, I could feel the ocean currents and the tides of ebb and flow, but also the ones of time.

I walked gently away from the shell-crusted dunes and left with a memory of profound wonder.

Channel Surfing

Every time I flip through the channels I asked myself many questions. Why would I want to ever keep up with the Kardashians?

Why is it necessary for Trump to put snitches in all of his cabinet departments?

Why do we need to upgrade, improve, and more weaponized our well trained and well equipped military when we say all we want is global peace?

 Why would anyone want to go out in the wilds naked and afraid?

Why would I want to watch a half-hour of making air-fried Donuts?

Why would I want to watch anything on FOX fake news?

Why do I watch television anyway?

Common Sense

Many years ago the school board in Altoona, Pennsylvania had a policy allowing historical or religious documents to be displayed for 25 days in the school building.

The Ten Commandments was the first posting.

The caveat was that no document could show disrespect to an individual, ethnic group or religion.

Then the school board learned that the Baha'i faith, Wicca, atheism and gay rights history were to be displayed, they quickly voted unanimously to stop considering documents for display.

Rather than take away the words or images and icons of various beliefs, because they are controversial and rather than hide them in textbooks on dusty shelves, perhaps the school board should have considered festooning the school with many documents as they walls could hold. And while they're at it, hang the paintings and pictures of the great teachers from many beliefs.

Moses, Mohammed, Jesus, Vishnu, Gandhi, Zoroaster, Chief Seattle, Buddha, MLK and many more. Our children then and today need examples of inspiration, not intolerance and fear.

Put up or Shut up!

Come on Mr. President, put up or shut up.

It is wrong for you to continue to say Trump Tower was bugged by President Obama when all others in the know say they see no evidence to support your claim. State your evidence or let it go!

What you are doing to the American psyche is divisional, and it is discrediting to the office which you hold. It is time for truth; not Trump truth. Your diversionary rhetoric may have worked in the business arena. It will not succeed in the political forum called democracy.

Trump's Rally

Believe me!  I try not to do this, but the President of the United States is speaking about the 9th Circuit Court, and he is vilifying a Hawaii Judge’s decision to temporarily halt his plan of people coming into the United States from six Muslim countries.

It’s a rally in Tennessee. Behind him with every pause of applause are the bauble heads of obeisance.

Believe me, I am trying to give Mr. Trump a chance, but common sense, discernment, facts, and the Constitution stand before me as the bulwark of righteous defense.

Yes, I agree with many that we need a change in our political system, but we don’t need to destroy what we hold sacred to accomplish it.

Blizzard

Isn’t it wonderful how the blizzard came in, left its mark and then moved on?

We, humans, do the same. We make our statement, leave our mark and then move on?

Two of my neighbors showed up with snow blowers. Without asking, each did a half of my driveway and moved on. I called each with profound appreciation.

Weather is neighborhoods. When climate gets involved, it screws things up.

Now You Know

240-years ago the United States was a brand new, independent nation, but it was small. In the early 1780's the rugged line of the Appalachian Mountains was keeping most of the young country bottled up on the east coast, but not for long.
   
Rugged settlers began to push west into the territorities that would soon become new states. One of those new states was called Franklyn, named in honor of Benjamin Franklyn.

Its first hardy settlers were mostly hunters and trappers who faced continuing battles with Indians. The area was within the boundaries of North Carolina, but hundreds of miles from any state protection and services.  When the new settlers asked for protection, the North Carolina assembly saw that this would be expensive and told the settlers to go it on their own. To emphasize their point the North Carolina lawmakers cut the territory out of the state, and ceded it to the U.S. Government.

So in the 1780's, the setlers tried to form the state of Franklyn, elected a governor, adopted a constitution and formed a general assembly, but now, North Carolina wanted the territory back and its legislature voted to repeal the act of cession.

The frontier settlers said no and continued to call themselves Franklynders, but statehood collapsed into confusion and finally in the 1890's the issue was settled and Franklyn entered into the union as part of the new 16th state. Tennessee.

See and Tell

I saw my first Robin of the 2017 season yesterday. It was 18 degrees.

Expecting the first blizzard of 2017 winter season in middle March tomorrow.

Somethings off!

The harmony of life and music

Music is the wonder-filled vibration of the Universe.

All music is vibrational grace. Music is the tonal breath of harmonic awareness, and it is different for each. It can be a single sustained note that affects us. It can be a chord, either a dominant or a diminished one, but it must be a harmonic of our being. Then we not only feel and hear the music, but we are it for the moments of connection.

How else can you describe the joy of classical music for some and the abhorrence of it by others? How else can the twang and story of folk tunes and country songs reverberate within some and distance others with distaste? Music must vibrate in unison with our spirit. If we feel nothing, then the music’s vibration belongs to somebody else’s appreciation.

Have you ever listened to a melody and it was you in the intimacy of recognition? You grabbed it. It held you, and it was yours forever. It became your song and the perennial invocation of conscious emotion every time you heard it.

Musical vibration in all its finite varieties and glamorous harmonics hold us in an invisible embrace. Tonality and its root vibrations remind us of the Source so that in our forgetfulness of daily life we might choose to remember that material existence is temporary. Life, as we know it, is experiential and designed only for spiritual growth resulting in the evolutionary At-One-Ment with the Source.

Have a musical day.

The Muse of Spring

We've had a couple of days of warmth here in the East; maybe snow on Friday. Warmth is always a harbinger of what's to come and spring always brings out my muse.

In The Air

© 2009 Rolland G. Smith

The ache of spring is in the air

Despite the chill of winter’s fare.

I see it in the buds of trees

Whose pokes from ‘neath the twigs do please.

For me a sadness in each spring

When birth and growth cannot re-bring

The energy of parted souls

Whose lives we shared with gentle strolls.

But then I know, I truly know

Life’s light forever keeps its glow,

for when complete, form goes away

And spirit laughs and plays the play.

We who stay must understand

That short or long life’s ever grand,

And ceases not despite the shift

of back and fourth in cosmic drift.

But back to spring and its rebirth

With life profound from sentient earth.

Both warmth and light do bright the stage

Releasing all from winter’s cage.