Poetry Unread in 39 Years
Last night, while cleaning out my home office in preparation for selling my house, I found an old notebook filled with bits of poetry -- words I had written 39 years ago during the time I lived in one of Prem Rawat's ashrams -- a time in my life where I had majorly unplugged from the world to "go within." Each verse of what follows stands alone. There is no particular order to them. It is not a single, coherent poem, but rather bits and pieces of a moon-howling jigsaw puzzle that was my life when I was 33. Please don't try to make sense of this stuff. Just feel it. Just let these blasts from the past wash over you. Maybe a single phrase or line will speak to you -- or even sing. In the end, methinks each and every one of us, no matter what form our life takes, is on a quest to find what's real. Part of that process, it seems, has something to do with getting in touch with our thirst for the divine -- that deep, inner, ancient longing for love that truly moves us.
I sit in the cave of myself,
alone with my breath.
There is no one else here
in this cool, dark hollow of my soul.
I sing your praises.
I hang the seeds of treeless forests
in the heaven of your Name.
Night falls around me
like the arms of a lover
widowed by daylight
and seeking the warmth of another.
The one who yearns for God must die
like flowers to the fruit,
must fall to the root
around the tree of life that gives me shade.
He walks on water,
I walk on ice,
and when I lay my head at his feet
I remember there is no place left in the world to go.
Here. Only here.
How deep can I look into
anyone else's eyes?
Only to the place where they are looking for you,
unafraid of what they'll find.
Words are only burrs on the path
through the high country brush with God.
Homeless,
with only a few stars to guide me,
I am a bum in a roadside temple,
cheater, whose deck of cards
has long since been stolen.
There are angels buried in my flesh.
I must be in love
or is it insane?
Who can receive me?
Who is deep enough
for me to disappear into?
He joins heaven and hell
with a wave of his hand,
his breath, the wand,
his smile the ground I walk upon.
Void of all tears,
sworn to silence,
I lose everything, once again, but myself.
Oh song-studded boy of bothersome beauty,
fall to the feet of the only one here,
bring what you've stolen,
peel your skin like grapes
and offer it as cloth
so he might wear what once was you
for a twilight ride through the country.
Suture the ragged wound closed,
let all your scars be roads to follow home.
Like a breeze through lace curtains,
enter softly
and stay with me a while.
I bend because
he has removed the weight.
I am melting,
I am burning at both ends,
and what I see by this flickering light,
is enough.
How can the desert flower thank the sun?
It cannot speak, only bend in the breeze of his passing.
Oh Master of my soul,
you have ignited the brittle tinder of my heart.
The closer I get to you,
the more I see how far away I am.
Who else listens to me when, speechless,
my heart begins to sing? Who?
I have gone to meet you in your secret place,
but when I arrived, neither of us were there.
Forget about ashes on your forehead,
let your whole body be consumed in flames.
Who can this Master be,
the one whose path is strewn with rose petals?
PremRawat.com
TimelessToday
MitchDitkoff.com
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March 28, 2019What Storytelling Themes Most Intrigue You?
IF YOU HAVE THREE MINUTES TO SPARE, please respond to my new online storytelling poll. I will be launching a series of Wisdom (storytelling) Circles in Woodstock, NY on April 10th and am curious to find out what storytelling themes people find most compelling.
PS: You do not need to live in Woodstock in order to respond to the poll -- especially since I will be taking this on the road in the Fall and also teaching people how to facilitate Wisdom Circles in their own homes, towns, cities, or organizations. Thanks, in advance, for chiming in. Much appreciated!
Here's what people are saying about their Wisdom Circle experiences.
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March 08, 2019We Were Made For These Times!
What follows is an extraordinary call of the heart by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. Not only is it worth reading, it's worth reading aloud -- so you hear it and feel it as well as see it. Then, you get to decide who you want to share it with -- and how. This is a piece of deep, soul-inspired, primal writing that deserves to travel to every corner of the Earth.
"My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.
You are right in your assessments. The luster and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.
I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind.
Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.
In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails.
We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn't you say you were a believer? Didn't you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn't you ask for grace? Don't you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?
Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.
What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.
One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these - to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.
Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.
There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate.
The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for."
Dedicated to Steve Soffer who reminded me this morning about how important this piece of writing is.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes: American poet, post-trauma specialist, Jungian psychoanalyst, and author of Women Who Run With the Wolves.
Storytelling for the Revolution
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 02:44 PM | Comments (4)
March 04, 2019Stand Still. Stand Very Very Still.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 07:37 PM | Comments (2)
