Time Out for Love
Ta da! Introducing Jesse (13) and Mimi (11), my two kids.
When Jesse was four, I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. "Everything!" he replied, without missing a beat. And then there was the time when Mimi mounted the living room table, raised both hands high overhead and declared, as if kicking off some kind of invisible Olympic ceremony: "Babies... and gentlemen!"
When it snows, they think snow angels. I think shovel.
Thomas Edison had it right: "The greatest invention in the world is the mind of a child."
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 07:44 AM | Comments (0)
April 28, 2008Prisoner of Love
I am a prisoner of love,
completely captive,
bird whose wings wish only
to fan the face of his Beloved.
What need have I to fly?
Where in this world can I go?
Bound with the invisible thread of devotion,
I pace my inner courtyard,
rave silently beneath a local moon
and wait for his return.
To call this a jail is a lie when all I want to do is
crawl further in,
dig my tunnel deeper to the one forever guarding me.
A prisoner of love, yes!
That's what I am!
Howling at the half moon, screaming for the full,
I turn my self in,
keep turning myself in and in and in
to the only one worth being in love and alone with.
Why dream of other times and places
when the one who has the key is knocking at your door?
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 09:51 PM | Comments (0)
April 27, 2008The Falcon and the Falconer
I am the falcon,
you are the falconer.
Always I am coming back to you,
my soaring skyward just a strategy
to gather speed for my ultimate return.
How you have trained me is a mystery --
the way you've tamed my restless heart.
It is not with fear. I do not fear you.
It is not with food.
There is prey enough for me
everywhere I fly.
It is more the way you offer me your arm,
a place to land, a second skin,
scented with the wild musk of one who waits for me,
what I would be if I would be a man.
It is a wonderful game the two of us play --
this coming and going,
this circular ballet.
Each time you loose the loops around my legs
and signal me to fly, I remember
what it is to rise for the first time.
It is here I find my rest, my home.
Untethered, still I do not move,
needing only to be close to you, my Falconer.
It is this that beats my wings, releases me to sky,
rides the unseen currents of the air
and though I notice other things:
the tops of trees, a cloud, a nimble rabbit on the ground,
all I see is you, holding out your arm to me,
even as a thousand other falcons overhead,
each within your view,
circle closer, spiral down, descend,
yet still I know that I am next
and this
is the perfect moment
of my return.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 07:54 PM | Comments (0)
April 24, 2008The Inner Game of Life
Tim Gallwey, author of the Inner Game of Tennis, the Inner Game of Work, and a number of other brilliant books on what abides at the core of a human being, speaks about his experience of meeting Maharaji and the value of Knowledge. Well worth viewing. Six minutes is all it takes.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 07:58 PM | Comments (0)
April 13, 2008I Take Requests
Think back a few years. Maybe all the way back to high school. Did you ever call your local radio station to request a specific song?
Pre-iTunes, pre-Google, it might have been the only way you could have heard that particular song at that particular time.
And when they played it -- prefaced by the over-caffeinated, way-too-slick, DJ saying something like, "We're sending this one out to Gino and Maria in Brooklyn," you got shivers up your spine.
Well... I invite you to think of this blog as your local radio station.
In other words, I take requests.
All you need to do is click on "Comments" below and let me know what topics you'd like to see featured in the future. (If you don't want your request to be seen by others, simply click on "Email me" in the sidebar and only I will see it).
I'm assuming, of course, that you have a sense of what this blog is all about. If you don't, take a few minutes to scroll around and read some of the previous postings -- or click on "About this blog" in the sidebar.
By the way, I'm not promising a thing.
Maybe your request will be way over my head. Maybe your request won't be my cup of tea. Or maybe I've gotten 87 other requests and won't be able to get to yours until 2011.
Then again, maybe yours will be the perfect topic pitched at the perfect time. You'll never know unless you try.
Your move...
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 12:06 AM | Comments (1)
April 11, 2008Just This Crazy Laughter
Now that you have ruined what I thought was my life,
what do you want me to do?
Sing your praises?
No can do, I'm mute.
Shout something timeless from the rooftops?
Sorry, I cannot move.
Write poetry? Impossible,
my hands are shaking and so is the ground.
Oh Friend,
it's clear my life is very different now
than what I thought it would be when first we met.
An ocean of unexpected tears I have become,
a fool,
a lunatic walking on moonlight,
singing, singing, singing.
This is not at all what I thought it would be
the first time I saw you.
It's a billion times better than that.
Even if my story could be told no one would believe me.
I have no proof,
not a single shred of evidence,
just this crazy laughter
and the kind of late night sighing that comes
when there is nothing left to say.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 07:55 PM | Comments (0)
April 08, 2008An Interview with Maharaji
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 08:04 AM | Comments (0)
