October's farewell

t's a colorful Fall here in the East so I thought this chilly October morning should have a little poetic tribute to the changing season.

I now know why we call them leaves;
Too soon they fall when frosted thieves
Lure their green to red and golds
In colors soft and dazzling bolds.

Leaves drop from age and sometimes breeze
To land on lawns by shrubs and trees.
They drift in circles to the ground
In crinkling, cracking, crunching sound.

O' leaves of branch and bush, behold!
Your service lasts despite the cold,
As quilts of warmth for creatures low
Beneath the ground, before the snow.

Some leaves will sail to lawns serene
Where children's smiles can then be seen
Waiting for the rake and pile
To leap upon and lie awhile.

But soon the crumpled stems and flake
Are raked in rows for match to make
A downey flame and spired smoke;
Incense of honor to the oak.

Then barren trees stand naked, strong,
To slice the wind of winters song.
They lean and bow from bending blow,
When snapping, cracking, to and fro.

I know there is a message here,
Where trees with leaves at end of year
Do molt their husks of leafy sheen
So other seasons can be seen.

Thus trees and man are oft' alike,
In time all shed their aging haik.
What's left from passage is pristine,
As spirit light and spirit green.

To Be of Service

Within the human spirit there is an intrinsic, yet often-obscured desire to be of service. Service can be defined as “instantaneous response to need.” We see it all the time in selfless acts of courage when heroic action is spontaneous in saving a life or some other act of bravery. Philosopher Joseph Campbell calls it “a moment when you and the other are one,” and nothing could change it even to the point of death.

Somewhere deep within our soul being we acknowledge that we are individuals existing in the illusion of time and within an earthly density of a created and collective oneness. We are individual drops in the amniotic ocean of being. We are the individuation of the indivisible. We subconsciously, spiritually, know that life experience is not singular, but collective and somewhere in our awareness, we know that if even one of us minutely achieves, all of us do.

Response to need is a simple process, but difficult to sustain on a daily basis when we have to contend with the duties of living, myopic worry and the ego’s constant harassment for self-aggrandizement. There are ways around the ego’s chicanery, but not many of us choose to be a mystic and master the art of meditation and its precipitate subjugation of the ego self.

So, how to be practical in the request to help?

One way is to believe that “thought” has power or energy. Good thoughts have positive power, and bad thoughts have negative influences. These thoughts, these pieces of energy, can be sent by the mind, in the envelope of good will, to any recipient and it will have an impact. Religions would call it prayer, but holistic physician Dr. Larry Dossey, in his book “Healing Words” calls it a general sense of well being for another and has proven the power of positive thought with scientific experiments.

Our sending energy does not have to be specific but should have the imprimatur of well-being. Since we are part and parcel of the creating Source, we can leave the specifics of the solving to the omniscience of unconditional love, but the power we create and send through graceful thoughts becomes free will energy to manifest as solutions, compromises, and accomplishments.

Another way to answer the call to help is to do so within our sphere of influence for that too will affect the whole. To the observant, not a single day passes without numerous opportunities to serve. There’s the story of the little five-year boy who wanted to help an elderly neighbor whose wife just died. Upon returning home, his Mother asked what did he do to help. The child replied, "I sat on his lap and helped him cry."

Service is as simple as that. Poet William Wordsworth wrote, “…Even the daisy by the shadow it casts protects the lingering due drop from the sun.

Opportunities abound in each moment for us to be of service. Seeing them is important. Feeling them is even better for empathy is often a more significant motivator than intellect. Perform each act of service with the unconditionality of the Source, and the exponential component of service will then manifest for the greater good of all.

A Perennial Quest

Humankind is always looking for evidence of life’s continuation. Some people say “I don’t know,” some say, “No way, this is it.” And others wonder and hope there is something beyond this life.

Many accept through faith, the promise of a heavenly reward.

To me, the All That Is in his/her wisdom has left clues for the curious and proof for the discerning, that life never ends. Nature is the key.

Trees and plants and bushes seem to die every fall. They lose their form when their outer garments drop, yet in the spring, leaves return and life continues with a new robe.

I think the human spirit is similar to the nature of trees and other flora. When done, the host body is cast off, but like the tree a part of us, our spirit,  remains alive, free from the constrictions of density and the many illusions we create.

Spirit is our natural state. Human form or incarnation is one way  the All That Is chooses to experience living through us as us. We are the thought offspring of the Source.

A different view from a picture window.

Recently, at night, I concentrated on the darkness outside my picture window.

Darkness has never bothered me for it is only the absence of light and when you bring light to anything dark, there is an explosion of clarity, wonder, understanding, and opportunity.

As I looked into the black void beyond the window, I sensed atavistic prayers, grants of forgiveness and regrets for past thoughts. I quickly realized these pleas were my echoes and not from others.

There were no judgments in my intense gaze, only the balm of unconditional love. The kind of love we are preached about in the stone chambers of religion.

I stayed with the vision for quite a while, learning, downloading and then I let it pass into the forgiving memories of past choices.

I think we all should look into the darkness every so often. What the light of our being brings to the dark is substantial, creative and freeing. A single, simple smile with the intention of love can change the world.

Little Things

I saw something beautiful the other day. It was a front door of a home. The color was a soft, yet brilliant dark, penetrating red. Its energy moved me to the point of overwhelming pleasure. It was beautiful. Inviting. I wanted to enter the door, but it wasn’t mine, so I left the vision with appreciation instead.

Color is the Feng Shui of the mind. Color releases inspirational endorphins and awareness. Colors motivate personal action into the realm of intention. In that modality, all things can be accomplished.

Always look for the tiny things in and of life for inspiration. Colors, kittens purring, the sound of a trickling stream, smiles, sunshine, bread baking, harmony in music, hugs, touch, and children’s laughter. Remember that troubles and tribulations are part of life’s growth and spiritual attunement. Choosing a positive attitude eases the passage.

On the inner side of knowing, all is as we’ve created it by our collective oneness and the awesome power of thought.

Here's why

You are right; I haven’t posted very much lately. Every day, every hour it seems that Donald Trump is saying something false, or lying, or attacking someone or something that doesn’t deserve it. Our country is more divided now than it was in most of our lifetimes. There are other reasons, but Trump is the great divider and many are blind believers.

I stopped posting every day because if I did, “The Donald” would be the constant subject that I would want to write about and I don’t want to polarize the political milieu any more than it already is. So I refrain until I can’t stand it anymore.

Donald Trump had the opportunity as an unusual President to inspire grand visions for this fractured United States. Instead of positivity, he wastes his pulpit on the petty and the partlsen. Once a person becomes President, his or her pettiness and partisanship should diminish to only ten percent of his or her being. The other ninety percent should be inspiring, visionary, constructive, and noble and active in sharing the basic tenets of our democratic republic. In a recent visit to Europe, the common thread of my conversations with the locals was, “we used to look up to you, what happened?”

I don’t think for a moment that my commentaries or anyone’s dictates or diatribes will change any staunch believer from favoring one side or the other. What I would wish it would do is to engender heart into the heated debates, courtesy into dialogue, truth into talk, compromise into demands and common-good into solutions.

We all must be careful of political cement. It may harden into a form that may not fit the future of our children or our republic.

Thoughts?

I read something recently that has altered my thinking about technology and of about life.

One article suggested that detaching ourselves from our technology gadgets and apps would connect us instead to our real selves because that is what we are looking for in the mesmeric fog of addiction to our devices.

I had to think about that for a day or two. I agree we want to know who we are. So many of us believe that the connections to anyone and everywhere will help us find the personal grail of awareness and thus complete our quest into finding our place in the human gestalt.

The passage when on to say that what we are indeed looking for in our quest is our atavistic connection to the earth; Mother Earth, Gaia, an ancient moniker of the sentient earth. An Earth aware of itself, of us and our actions and the consequences of our actions.

It suggested that to find our passage to a personal understanding of self, we must stop the constant electronic connections, i.e., cell phones, computers, television, etc. and spend the day alone with ourselves, listening to our hearts, to our spirit, and to our souls.

What do you think?

Memory Triggers

I haven't been hiding, just contemplative.

I listened to some music of the fifties and sixties the other day and it brought back many wonderful memories of hops, high school dances, summer jobs and puppy loves and fun times with friends.

I tried to remember if my parents talked about the music they listened too in the late twenties and thirties. Performers like Guy Lombardo, Cab Calloway, The Mills Brothers, Tommy Dorsey, Bing Crosby and the profound Ella Fitzgerald. I couldn't recall, but I’m sure they did.

Music is the great remember-er of happy times or sad times, of lost loves or just of younger times, especially when one is older and listens, by chance, to a song that invokes an emotion long gone in the mind but lifted to the conscious surface of thought with a knowing smile.

For me sometimes flavors are like that too. I cooked some fresh green beans the other day and I tasted one raw before it when into the pot. The flavor brought back memories of family holiday dinners and the goodies on the kitchen counter.

Music, tastes and aromas are the sensory catalysts of memories. Sometimes the aroma of a Pot Roast cooking in the oven will take me back to childhood. The ancient dusty smell of a long-used stage will bring me to plays and performances I saw or performed in as a young man. 

The sound of a trickling and gurgling mountain stream moves me to atavistic memories of lazy days fishing and hiking; even the occasional pipe smoke one comes across these days will remind me of my Dad. Other aromas invoking memories from the past are cut grass, summer rain, dust from a pillow fight, fresh cut lumber, farm barns, familiar perfume, stale smoke, and coal gas in the morning stoke of the furnace.

Spiritually, I suspect that many of us hear the divine din of the universe when we take the time of let go of all the holding thoughts that keep us from knowing who we are.