Category Archives: release

Now

01 Wednesday Aug 2018

Posted by in abundance, adventure, becoming, courage, devotion, discomfort, dread, fearlessness, freedom, honoring, learning, movement, mystery, nature, pain, poems, poetry, release, stillness, strength, transition, welcoming, work

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He slams the door behind him.

You think, Good riddance!

When next your heart stops and breath catches,

out comes a gasp, What have I done?

Melting down, falling to bits, the world goes

from complete sense to non-sense,

and it is on that iceberg of moment

(and each drifting ice island following)

when wondering, Is this true?

might most gather you back together in a form

strong enough,

wise enough

to hold all the sensations and feelings

threatening to tear you to pieces

to be with Now,

an actual fullness of Life

for which you have the grandest capacity.

Flock

26 Thursday Jul 2018

Posted by in becoming, break out, change, community, courage, family, movement, poems, poetry, release, the road

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He

a sheep

like us all

walks, one day,

in a new direction.

Sheep don’t do that,

leave their flock.

In this he becomes a black sheep

turning away from name, money, easy street-

which isn’t so easy.

With him, now, he carries weight

of blame, criticism, and no one bothering to ask

why.

Years, many, pass.

His children grow, not knowing the stories he never told,

seeing him as just another sheep folded into the flock.

They wander for a path of their own.

One, separating from the rest, looks back

wondering

why he never asked why.

Family legacy

28 Thursday Jun 2018

Posted by in devotion, family, loving, poems, poetry, release, Sight, story, strength, work

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Undefined,

perpetually assumed,

the answer to the question

of family legacy.

Is it money?

Name?

Philanthropy?

Power? Fame? Title?

Accomplishment?

Keep digging. It resides

well beyond the surface of things.

Might it be anger, abuse,

enslavement, enslaving, addiction,

a thick poison, barely visible

and acutely sensed?

Might it be secrets held, shames and generations of fear?

Likely, aspects of these remain

and are being carried-

whether chosen or not.

The question then emerges from distant,

unvisited places, whispered

as warm mother to sleeping infant,

And what would it be for you

to transform

such a legacy, slowly, steadily,

with loving devotion

so as to soften- just a little-

the burden of a misunderstood life

with a dash more kindness, and fist full

of intent.

Far from easy, and miles east of glamorous,

that work may be your simple, impossible,

and singular gift

with the breath you borrow

here,

one day at a time.

A slurry of nettles and skunk

26 Tuesday Jun 2018

Posted by in becoming, break out, change, Creating, discomfort, learning, nature, poems, poetry, release

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While sitting in a slurry of nettles and skunk,

a confused mess of fury and grief,

I had to remember,

remember those I know well who will do anything not

to change.

Clenching to what doesn’t grow,

but metastasizes, brings more comfort

than trying it all, somehow, differently.

Yet the questions have yet to be born in them,

and time, with practice, has taught them not to find any stirring

since the familiar is the balm that keeps the abyss

from glistening up and pulling them under and out,

as it is for me now from the slick, hard cornered rock

I seem desperate to hold.

Time and body say, release this faithless fight and self-loathing,

those committed shackles of the past,

and give in, set adrift and enter

what is unimaginably larger than the Seen.

Symptoms

13 Wednesday Jun 2018

Posted by in becoming, Body, change, Found, learning, listen, movement, poems, poetry, presence, receiving, release, welcoming, wonder, work

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Aching back, pounding head,

weakening eyes, softening memory,

anger, nightmare, spasm..

Symptoms.

What loves to be complained about

over tea, through the phone,

aloud aloud somebody hear this, oh please.

Imagine turning attention around,

bear chewing his tail-

Wake to me!

Symptom becomes lotus

opening

from murky waters into light.

Manifestation of inner

to outer,

an offering

a medicine

a gift.

Pain is not for pain’s own sake.

With suffering,

we alter to listen.

Awareness reaches up,

roots down,

grows.

Twenty-five years on

19 Saturday May 2018

Posted by in adventure, becoming, break out, dark, devotion, freedom, friends, gratitude, honoring, Infinite, learning, mystery, nature, night, poems, poetry, receiving, release, the road, welcoming, wonder

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Not until the attentive itch

do they exchange glances to mean

It’s Time.

And off we pile into the car, heading deep

into night and whatever flight waiting

with breath, rolling, in the wings.

Winding round and up and up and round

through dark and sensation

into rolled down window sweetness of valley grass and oak,

Stumbling, graceful, grit of dirt road scuffing,

spinning under 2 a.m. sky and flopping across hillsides,

the stars, sharp and grabbable,

become a spiral

spiral

spiral

as alive to be tucked in a pocket,

as hover, massive and in reach, directly overhead,

as rest in mind twenty-five years on.

Stumbling

10 Thursday May 2018

Posted by in change, listen, movement, Music, poems, poetry, receiving, release, the road, welcoming

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Stumbling,

having missed a pebble for the story in your head,

breaks the monotone

in favor of dripping notes tangled, soft,

attentive.

Dipping into that honey, the stream beneath the firehose flow,

entices a hidden music into the aching

and sharp places, wounded from too much narrow focus.

Broadening,

that song- touched by your welcome-

changes things.

The rest

06 Sunday May 2018

Posted by in abundance, becoming, devotion, family, honoring, movement, mystery, night, poems, poetry, prayer, presence, receiving, release, welcoming, wonder, work

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An initiation ritual,

in the dusk-scape of dream,

of shared finery, costume, camaraderie,

and non-blood family

emerging from here, over there,

here, here, there

unexpectedly,

for the me before me,

with a gathering of eager others,

to mark time with life.

Saying no, no but I am not she

not anymore

no–

But as beads pass over head, and colors add up,

layers of feather, bone, cloth

none mine

each display on this body

currently

a light in mind shifts-

not for me

but she

who may pass through, closing

beginning years, finally,

in step with those knowing when it is meant to happen.

Dressed, prepared, without doubts,

I walk the procession.

To celebrate.

To say goodbye.

To welcome all the rest.

Thirteen-step boogie

06 Tuesday Mar 2018

Posted by in abundance, adventure, beauty, break out, discomfort, Infinite, learning, movement, mystery, poems, poetry, release, wonder

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Having lost touch with the beauty of chaos

a fogged vision sewn of fear

and the iron-grip of hoped for control

eventually forces bursting rolls of laughter, or

sphincters tight enough to pop

(not so pretty- quick, turn toward the pansies planted to your left).

If remembrance of having a tail to shake breaks through,

that romp, leap, roar and thirteen-step boogie

will plunk soul back in wild order

and life’ll flow naturally once again.