Tag: Oneness (Page 2 of 3)

It is the Sunrise

June 12, 2013 / Tom

There is a vile moment in your experience when you realize, for the first time, that she is not the woman you thought she was. The antidote for that poison is the awesome realization that you are not the man she thinks you are. The smile that crests your lips is the Sunrise.

There is that sickening moment when you realize that the one you’ve trusted most knows your every weakness, and is suddenly allied with those parts of you. There is relief in that beautiful moment when you realize that your weakness has always been your greatest strength. The tear that trails down your face is the Sunrise.

There are those moments when you miss the ones you love and you’d give anything for one more hug, one more kiss, one more “I love you.” There is comfort found when the ones who love you hug you tightly, kiss you with joy, and scream to the listening world “I love you!” That comfort is the Sunrise.

There are those moments when you look back at certain times in your life filled with sadness and despair and begin to feel them again. There is joy when you return to this moment and find it was all worth it. That joy is the Sunrise.

There are those moments when you are filled with anger and your thoughts are focused on vengeance and retribution. You find strength when your breath returns and the gates of your heart open widely to let the love return. That strength is the Sunrise.

There are moments when you feel so lost that you are not certain you will ever find your way again. Find peace in the moment you realize just how found you are. That peace is the Sunrise.

Before every Sunrise comes the darkest part of night. Don’t wake up for the Sunrise, wake up for the darkest part that makes the Sunrise explode into your soul. Feel the coldest part of night before the warm light touches your skin. Know the dead silence of night before you hear the songbirds of the brand new day. There is so much beauty in those places we think are oh so ugly.

And the beauty we find? Well, that is the Sunrise.

Peace.

I. Love. Just. Being. Me

June 5, 2013 / Tom

There was once an ideal so great it seemed indestructible to me. It stood tall in the landscape of my life, and dominated my horizons even in those moments when I felt small and cold in its shadow. I measured my worth in its presence, often wondering if I could ever stand as tall as the person who had dominated my life.

Ultimately, I failed her and her me. It is remarkable what one can discover when the velo di amore is lifted from the eyes and replaced with la nebbia di avidità.

That is often where we find ourselves when a great promise becomes a lost ideal. I found myself a rudderless vessel unsure of each footstep and lost in an abyss of yesterdays, tossing and turning in a vast sea of uncertainty often sailing against the winds of my own heart. The very moment when you watch everything you once cherished and idolized become consistent with everything you wanted to remove from your life is the very moment when the ideal is lost, and often the very moment when you realize your life is no longer the dream you once held dear.

I had no idea what I was in for in that holy instant when the rains came and the flood waters descended upon my world. The walls closed in on me, and my heart sank into the black depths of despair. Gone are those who said you were their son. Gone are those who only hours before had said they loved you. Gone are those who called you brother, and gone is the one who promised you an eternity.

Everything goes. Everything vanishes. Everything returns to the dust on which it was built. Your life ends, or so you think.

I felt as if I was helpless, alone, and that I’d been left hanging in a place of which I had never been, in a way in which I had never experienced. I cried tears so salty that they dried my body of its substance, and sobbed so loudly that I had stirred the gods from their deepest slumber. I searched for reasons, and although I was told why from her, I realized that nothing I had ever believed in was real. I soon lost my sense of who I was and what I was doing.

It is, however, a moment of great opportunity. Some of us seek distractions and support from religion, others seek the same in substances. I simply wanted to watch and to learn. I wanted to seek out the illusions I had constructed in my life and end them. I wanted to suffer in order to end my suffering. I wasn’t going to find my joy in a Bible, or in a bottle; no I would have to find my joy in a place few of us journey into deeply in a way I had never tried before.

That is what I had decided to do. Search. Watch. Learn. Most of all I worked hard at not interfering with the process. Soon I began to see patterns that failed to serve me at my highest place. I saw my consistent need to blame myself for the failures. I saw the mistakes I made in not standing up for who I was and what I wanted in my life. I saw the error of not loving myself, and in not simply accepting my fears, my desires, my needs and my loves as wonderful manifestations of who I am. I allowed myself to be suckered into living a lie; her lie, their lie, and my lie. I followed my heart that said “I love you” without testing the waters in her mind to see if they were too shallow, too cold, or simply not aged enough to dive into. I allowed myself to believe her lie, and soon began living it as if I owned it. Worse, I began admitting to it as if it had really happened.

I began seeing the pedestal I had constructed to place her and them on. That pedestal was a dangerous construct, it puts others in a place of being worshipped unjustly while placing me in a place of worshipping others unfairly. I failed to see my worth, my value and my sense of divinity. It was no wonder I couldn’t see them for who they were.

Mere dust. Nothing more.

There came a time, though, when the proverbial flood waters receded and my ark came to rest on a mountaintop. The rainbows appeared and I let my cargo go free to wander those places I had never seen. It is there that the veil itself begins to unravel, and it is there that the pedestals crumble and the dust blows away. I began to see less with my heart and more with my mind all the while beginning to see it all with something I once searched for but had never truly found.

That part I was always seeking was, truly, that part that was always seeking me.

I began to see that there is truly nothing more valuable to a human Being as the relation I have with my Self. I began to see the things I once held so dear as nothing more than illusions. I began to let go of those swirling dust-devils I once held as gods upon a pedestal and they, in turn, began revealing their truth. I was never what I was told I was, and I was never what I wanted to be. Because I wanted to be it so badly I believed it so easily. In the end the lie was revealed, as was the truth. There is only I, and I am beautiful in every way.

They are just people, and not always just people. They are having their own experience as they have every right, and I have no real need to interfere with that which does not interfere with me. I don’t need their love to feel love, and I don’t need their acceptance to feel accepted. That was a losing proposition that I started years ago, and the faux me could never live up to the ideal that the real me had never agreed to.

So, now all I promise is me…in the flesh and in the spirit without pretense and without some false sense of what you want. You will either love me or not, and I don’t pretend to be able to make that choice for you. I love me, sincerely and without hesitation, as a man with perfect faults and incredible potential. I love what I am doing right now; taking a whirlwind of feelings, translating them into words, and sharing them with anyone who has the fortune of reading them. I love exploring parts of me that were once oppressed and hidden living up to ideals not mine and am often ecstatic about what I find in the process. I love jumping out of proverbial airplanes and free-falling, often unsure if the parachute I packed will ever open even while being sure that I was the one who packed it and no one else. I love being alone when I want, in great company when I can, and in exploring the liberation I’ve found in the broken shackles that now lay littering the place where the pedestals once stood. I. Love. Just. Being. Me.

Period.

I love writing about what I want to write about without worrying about being censored by someone who doesn’t accept me and who will never defend what she can’t accept.

I love that I am no longer afraid.

I love that I can experience this life in the way I wish to experience it without caring about the judgment of others.

I love that I no longer see the “old me” as bad because I no longer see the old me at all.

I love that I can now live in the present moment whenever I choose, undaunted by the desires of others to resign me to the box they created years ago.

I love that I can explore my journey while looking in the rearview mirror, unafraid of the judgments some will place on my experience, and without needing their approval.

I love the fact that sometimes I am deeply saddened by missing those I once called “family” even as I am extremely happy in the knowing of the love I have for them.

I love my children and the relationship I am forging with them. I love that they love me, and that I am acutely aware of the awesome miracles that they create in so many moments, in so many ways.

I love the friends I have discovered, both new and old alike. I love seeing the world with them, and in having our experiences together when the present themselves.

I love that I can be alone for days without worry and without despair.

I. Love. Just. Being. Me

Oh yeah, I said that already. Oh well, I hope to say it many more times before my time here is through. After all, there is no better proof that I love myself then in my ability to love you even if I can’t be “with” you. I love the fucking rain. I love the humidity. I love the cool breeze now lightly caressing my back through my open sliding-glass door. I love my cat who is now rubbing her body on my leg. I love the other one who is watching to see if I’ll pet his sister (they are competitive that way).

I love the fact that I am pro-peace and not anti-war. I love the fact that my oldest wants me to teach her meditation. I love the fact that I love.

And, of course, I. Love. Just. Being. Me.

As you can see, the experience of suffering can be a great friend. Losing something you love can also be a wonderful experience. Seeing what others are doing while also seeing who they are can be a wonderful experience. You soon see that they are just like you, having an experience, and even if you don’t like how you feel in what they are doing you can always find love for them because they are just like you. Even if they pretend to be better.

Take care of yourself and let them go. Those who don’t serve your purpose will drop away like rotting fruit from the tree to serve another purpose. Remember, that fruit is only rotting to you, to others that fruit will be a deserved feast, a welcome meal.

In the end what will only be real is the love you have for you. In the end, the only reality you will have is that you are a wonderful part of the Universe designed to manifest Its beauty. Adore yourself, and become your best friend.

Peace.

If You Can’t Take It With You, It Doesn’t Mattter

May 29, 2013 / Tom

I have been fortunate in my life to have been challenged by many people along the way. This story is an example of such a challenge.

This is a conversation I had with a conservative Christian woman who was slightly older than I am. It began as a group conversation about the checkered history of Christianity, to which I was offering factual accounts of atrocities created during that history.

The woman walked up to me afterward and said, “I’d really like to continue our conversation. You kind of peeved me a little bit.”

I’m pretty used to that reaction, so it no longer offends me. “How so? If I may ask.”

“Well, you seem to quickly point out the evils of Christianity, but you don’t mention that all religions have such issues in their history. Why not talk about that?”

Without wanting to get into a much deeper discussions of why it seems all religions have such a tortured past, I stuck to the subject at hand.

“I don’t believe that’s true. I don’t seem to remember much history of Buddhist atrocities, or of Buddhism’s evil side. I haven’t read where there were Buddhist inquisitions, or Buddhist crusades, or forced subjugation of people by Buddhists. It may be there, but have you ever heard of any?”

“No, I haven’t. But give it time, Buddhism isn’t that old.”

I kind of blinked strangely at that comment, and she must have seen it.

“Right?” she added.

“Actually, it may surprise you to find out that Buddhism is about 500 years older than Christianity. And it’s killed far fewer people. In fact, the vast majority of people who have died because of Buddhism have died because their Buddhist.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that.”

“Check it out if you want, but I think you’ll find it’s true.”

“Ok, so let’s go with that. I can also say with some certainty that Buddhism doesn’t contribute to society. At least Christianity does that.”

“Can I ask you some questions,” I went on. ” and would you answer honestly? Keep in mind that I am not asking questions to compare Buddhism to Christianity, but rather want to see if Buddhism contributes to society.”

“Yes, ok, go ahead.”

So, I asked her how many people Buddhist monks have murdered, or of people who have been murdered in the name of Buddhism.

She replied, “none to my knowledge.”

Then I asked how many nations Tibet has invaded.

She said “none.”

So I then asked her how many Buddhists the Dali Lama has ordered to attack non-believers.

She said “none to my knowledge.”

“Then haven’t Buddhists contributed something to society? Isn’t peace something we all can contribute?”

It appeared she had no choice but to say “I guess so.”

Not satisfied with this end, she then started with the clarifiers. You know, the “contributions I mean are jobs, money, income, wealth, prosperity.”

“Can you take money with you to heaven when you die?” I replied.

“No.”

“Can you take your house, your car, or your TV with you when you die?”

“No.”

“Can you take any part of your wealth with you when you pass on?”

“Nope.”

“Can you take peace with you?”

“Yes, I hope so.”

“Then isn’t the very thing that Buddhist monks contribute to society the ONLY thing you can take with you to heaven?”

She again seemed to have no choice but to agree.

“Does it seem strange to you that the very place your faith says you can take peace but not wealth is called “paradise”? Doesn’t it seem ironic to some degree that the Master you believe is the Son of God is also called the ‘Prince of Peace’ and not the ‘Prince of Job Creation’ or the ‘Prince of Sound Finance’?”

She then put her hand on my shoulder, said “thank you” and walked away. I’m not sure what, if any, effect the conversation had on her, but it seemed to confirm in me what I’ve seen since my earliest memory. Peace is the answer, and love is the way to peace.

We all have our own personal Bodhi trees, and for me mine has been the many times I’ve sat simply watching. Watching others. But mostly watching myself. Watching myself in moments of suffering. Watching myself in moments of ecstasy, or regret, or sorrow, or joy. Watching myself when I am challenged and when I am not.

It isn’t easy being a human, or another other physical being on this planet. Yet it can be. We just have to set our sights on that star of Peace and Love and hold our course even when the wild winds blow and the waves try to crack our hulls. We can…

So maybe we need to consider something taught as a matter of life by even the lowliest of Buddhist monks. It we can’t take it with us in our passing it really doesn’t matter. If we can’t hold on to it when we close our eyes for the last time perhaps it isn’t worth holding on to beforehand. Perhaps we have been taught incorrectly, and perhaps each of us, if we listen, can change.

Lessons Learned in Letting Go

May 25, 2013 / Tom

It felt good to let go, to watch her walk freely into the world on the path she had chosen for herself. Her smile was evidence of a just Universe, her life since then proof of something wonderful. Yes, beautiful things can come from the ugliest of places.

Letting go wasn’t easy for a man who loved her so. Her soul spoke to him in a language he had never heard before but, somehow, easily understood. His heart beat out her name not only in the most silent of moments but also in the middle of the storms they had created together. It was their minds, however, that could not reconcile to the music they were hearing.

He had become a willing student of observation and what he observed in the process of letting go was a formidable truth. He could see the tricks his ego would play on him, the anger his mind would create as a method of self-protection. He could also hear the requests of his heart and feel the pulsing glow of a love that was true from the moment he saw her. The choice, he knew, was his. He could listen to either.

What he believed she had done became irrelevant after a while, replaced by a simple belief that all things spoke a truth all of their own. What had bothered him as their minds battled one another wasn’t her, it was the truth that in the divine trinity of human love their minds simply were not meant for one another in this lifetime. He could love her deeply in his soul without hesitation. He could caress her in his heart for eternity. He could not, however, dance with a mind that was hearing a different song.

She was not wrong. She was not at fault. She was her perfect self whose mind danced to a beat of a song he could not hear. Her dance was perfect even if he could not follow the moves, and it was perfect even if he found it impossible to learn. As the dust swirled around him he lost touch with her soul and could no longer hear her heart beating in his chest and anger filled the vacuum. He was angry with himself, falling to the common ledge of self-loathing and doubt. He filled the void in the only way he knew how, and he could feel his mind and body slowly falling into the ego’s trap of fear. He began to resist everything, and in doing so he began to attract even more things to resist.

Life had taught him to observe, and it had also taught him the value of experience. He knew he needed this experience even if he could not say why it was necessary. So, he simply went where the currents took him and watched. He could see what was making him unhappy. He could see where the weakness was, and even if he decided not to change his condition in the moment, he was discovering the value of the experience. No tear was wasted, no moment of anger was spent in vain. He knew that one day he would tire of walking in shoes that never seemed to fit on a path that was either too rocky, too narrow or too boring for him to enjoy.

Sadness was created for the experience of joy. Once we experience sadness we understand the value of joy and we can choose which path we wish to take when presented with the option. This expression we call “life” is nothing more than a series of options given to provide us with experience, and we are the Master of our own destiny; the Creator of our own reality. We often fail to realize our own power as Master and Creator, but once we not only realize that power but observe it in action we begin to see the error of blame and judgment. As he began to observe his own dance and how perfect it was, he began to see hers as perfect too. As he began to see the value of his own independence, he began to see the value in hers. As he began to see the perfection of his own needs he began to see the perfection in hers.

What he discovered was probably the greatest discovery of his life up to that point. Letting go is not about forgetting. It is not about anger, or fear, or hatred. It is not about being wrong, or being right. It is about remembering. It is about love. It is about acceptance.

He had discovered that when one finally accepts himself he cannot help but accept others. He had discovered that when one finally loves himself he cannot do anything but love others. It all began to make sense to him finally. The Jesus of the New Testament did not command us to “love one another” for the neighbor’s sake, he did so for our own. He did not “so love the world”, he so loved himself that he could not help but love the world. All of it. Even the tax collectors. If we choose to see God as “Love”, then the Jesus written about certainly was God’s son sent to remind us that we are, too, Love’s children.

It seemed that what Buddha had found was not the rejection of attachments as a path to enlightenment. Instead, we find peace when we accept everything. That’s real love. Forgiveness is not an act of loving someone else despite themselves, it is in loving yourself despite yourself. Self-love is not a sin, it is a wise mastery of everything around you. Self-mastery is not about discipline, it is about acceptance. Forgiveness is nothing more than an act of acceptance, of love, and soon it all becomes one big non-thing.

It all becomes about selfishness. No, not the type your parents warned you about. Instead, this type of selfishness revolves around the focus on self. He had found that when he was happy he had great ability to make others happy. When he was not, he could ruin the best of moods. He began to see himself as the pebble and the universe around him as the lake. He could create ripples, and he could change the Universe around him with one thought translated into one action. He could ruin a field of bluegrass with one dandelion, or he could plant the daisies that brought the world to life. So he began to focus on self, to become more selfish, because his experience and his Universe depended on it. He began to see the meaningless of his human condition even if he wanted to experience it. He could choose which he would experience and which he wouldn’t, and as he began to change his mind, he began to change his world.

There is great strength in each of us, a great power that often goes unrealized in this experience. We don’t just use only 10% of our brain, we also seem to use only 10% of our power and most of that is often wasted on living in the dreams of others. You will begin to see this the moment you decide to be selfish and to take control of who you are and the life experience you are having. The Sun does not have such great power because it is trying to be the moon, and you will never find yourself in the hearts, minds, or opinions of another.

He could remember the moment he had found her soul again. He could feel her heartbeat once more when he closed his eyes and felt the silence all around him. He could see her smile and laughter in his mind’s ear and he knew everything was perfect. It was at this moment that, with a slight exhale, he let go. Not of her, but of that part of him that held on to the egoic ideal of what should have been. As the smile and laughter of hers blended into a smile and laughter of his own, he knew. He had let go of everything in that moment, a moment worth remembering.

If it is true that one cannot add to a cup already full, he was happy for the experience as he emptied his own. Experience is nothing if never exercised, so in letting go he also found the desire to move on. He had smelled the flower whose fragrance would forever remind him of possibility. A wave retreats to make room for another, and he had found the desire to splash in the surf again even if he would enter the water as if for the first time. With that he entered in the direction of the Sun a place greatly affected by the moon knowing that he was exactly where he wanted to be.

Peace.

Removing the Shackle

May 11, 2013 / Tom

Ever just want to scream something so ridiculously crazy that the world would just have to sit up and take notice (I was thinking “I love you” would do the trick)? Ever just want to hug the stranger next to you in such a way that they had to hug you back?

Ever just want to not eat until some idiotic wrong was righted in the world? Ever just want to stop alongside the open highway and climb that rock face that is taunting you as you drive past?

Ever wonder where the shells that you hide under were created? Ever wonder why you say “I’ll start tomorrow” the very thing you want to do now?

Who the fuck put this shackle around my leg?

Right. I did. Sure, someone else may have handed it to me. Someone else may have even taught me how to put it on. Yet the fact that I am still wearing it is all my choice. If there is a lock on it, I put it there and I can remove it. All it takes is resolve and the simple choice that I will not be tied to this place any longer. Then I have to actually bend down, remove the chains, and freaking fly.

Put down your chemical weapons, the ones you use to assault your mind and body daily, and dance freely in your insanity. Throw away your bricks and mortar, the very means you use to defend yourself against shadows, and actually risk being free. Stop seeking protection from the “powerful” and realize your own power. Stop giving others the power that you were granted as a birthright into this physical world. Make them responsible for themselves and give yourself the choice to live. Hug your lover. Make love in the rain and don’t stop until you simply cannot move. Kiss your lover in the middle of a city. Hug her in the throes of an argument. Do the unexpected. “Be notorious!”

I, frankly, am sick of being my own version of the status quo. I’m sick of the rules. I’m sick of being told fucking is a dirty word and that there is a process to everything. I’m tired of walking in the direction the signs tell me to, and I’m sick of being told where to stand and where I am permitted to stop. I’m fed up with borders and nationalities. I see much more order in chaos than I do in the mundane assimilation of my soul to someone else’s way of life.

I will live in honesty and truth not because it is expected of me, but rather because it is who I am. I will live debt free because to owe is to be enslaved. Once I have filled in a hole it will never be dug into again. I will relish life in its simplicity, and I will love hard and die when the time is right. You will not scare me. You will not deter me. You may hate me but you will never change me.

I will not fly a flag or worship a statue. I will not follow your silly superstitions and I will not fear the tales you tell. Demand I bend to your lash and I will stick it up your ass. I will not honor the manly creation of God or the Godly creation of man. I will simply experience, and I will climb the rocks I choose and hike the trails that call my name.

There, shackle removed. Your turn.

Feel Me

April 24, 2013 / Tom

“Imagine,” she says, “my arms around you, my tongue tasting you, my heart beating next to yours. Imagine the wildness in my eyes, the beast escaping my parted lips as we embrace in the wilderness of love’s sweet creation. Imagine the calm roughness of it all, the sweat pouring from our brows and mixing there, in that infinite field of pleasure we call “us”.

I can feel your body in my arms, my love. I can hear your sweet breath in my ears as you whisper those sacred passages uttered from the deepest parts of your soul. It is not my ears that hear, or my fingers the feel, or my eyes that see. Something else is guiding me toward that part of you no one else can see.

Give that to me, my love. Discard the burrs and thorns you have collected as you made your way here. Throw away the shields you have created to keep yourself basking in the illusion of wholeness. Open up those once-closed arms and let me nestle beside you, in you, around you. Feel that warmth of the Sun rising within you and the waves rushing around you. Feel the sudden coolness as my touch inspires you to find new heights and seek new pleasures. Do not think, but feel. Know your thoughts as passing clouds and realize your feelings are the breeze that pushes them away. Experience this and make it your religion. Know this and worship at the altar of Love.

Forget your body as the water flows out of you. Let go of your senses and know them to be the essence of Heaven making Itself known. Bathe me in who you are, and let me kiss away the scars as you drop your guard forever. Be true to that thing called “us”, and know that there is truth in what you feel in your Mindfulness Reach out for my hands and they will answer you. Claw at my back and hear me beg you for more. Let me taste you in your moment of glory and let me forever be found in those enlightened spaces. It is there that I will shine, and it is there that you will know who I am.

Your Warrior has come for you, and in the bare nakedness of our Beings we have found each other. It is not the flesh that beckons us to climb. It is not the mind that begs us onward. There is no spoken word where we stand. Rather, you will know me in the chills that run up your spine as I trace the contours of your breasts. You will know me when you feel the hardness of my desire enter you. You will know me when you close your eyes and feel the tingle starting as I beg to take a drink.

Truth is found in those moments where body, mind and soul dance together in perfect harmony. Imagine that moment when our bodies scream in pleasure as our souls splash and dance in the puddle our melting minds have created. Imagine the perfect synchronicity of our rhythm as we move together. Imagine the throbbing of our flesh in the moment we see the sparkle in each other’s eye. Then feel it. Feel it with all of your heart and make it known that feeling is the truth. Then the fog will lift and we will see each other, as the there and then become the here and now.

I am waiting for you, my love. With impatient patience I am waiting for you to crest the summit and smile in my direction. I am waiting for the lust you inspire in my heart to become the truth of our souls. I love the journey I have taken and the place I stand now because it all is leading to you. I honor the health and the scars, the wins and the losses, as words written leading to that chapter where you are waiting. I read my story with a smile because you are in it even if I haven’t gotten to that part yet. When I do, the words will flow like beads of sweat from our enraptured skin. We will find it all in that space we call “us” and in that moment we call “now”.

Take this place we are in now and cherish it as the path that leads us to that first real embrace. See the Phoenix rising above the once burning pages of this experience, and see me, the Lion, smile forever adoring the time he has spent with you. Know that as I wrote this your voice was in my mind and your essence was swirling around in the green-hued center of my Soul. Know that I do not know your name but I do know who you are and I will recognize you when the time is right. Know that as the pages turn to that place where our stories combine that we are not writing fiction. Know that I am smiling right now as I can feel you, that unknown hand outstretched as a respite from a journey hard-fought and well-taken. As you read this at some time in some place not yet seen know that I am as sure of you as you are of me even in the throes of complete uncertainty.

Perhaps we have met. Perhaps we have gazed into the starry sky together and felt the pulse of life around us. Perhaps we have never seen each other. Neither of us can be sure, but certainty will be the gift we receive the moment it becomes available. There we will float hand-in-hand in the River of Life, eating of the same fruit and dancing in the wilderness among the trees we have planted.

Be well, my Lover, I am here. There is little doubt when hope becomes real, or when a prayer is echoed in our footfalls and answered in the intertwining of our fingers. Be there, even now, and find me there. Be still and find focus for the mist will burn away in the glow of destiny. Find your truth and stick to it even when the lightning and thunder of a world gone mad distracts you, and when the winds steer you off course know that you can always look within and find that star that will guide you home.

Walk well, and in the most still of moments hear the rush of the ocean beyond what you can see. Rise up and pick the fruit off the trees that bend their branches to you. Take off your shoes and feel the Earth hug your feet. Slowly drop the threads that hide you from me until, as our paths cross, we both stand naked to no one but each other. You will, there, find great pleasure in the tip of my tongue, the movement of my fingers, and the hardness you crave as the ecstasy seems too much to bear. We will bathe in the torrents as the rains bathe the dust from our skin and clothe us in a new reality. Come, know it all and be prepared to scream your prayer as unintelligible words to an unknown god. They will be answered.

“LIVE”

April 3, 2013 / Tom

In the end, none of this will matter.

I will be some old, decrepit shell of who I am now laying on some tomb of cloth and comfort looking back and wondering why any of this mattered to me at all. I will look at my frail arms and wrinkled skin and wonder what I was working toward. I will think about the hours working out, the time spent with my mind buried in a book somewhere and I will ask “why?”. I will look at the coldness of the room around me and remember the memories of making love and of the feelings created in those moments, wondering if it was all worth it.

And then I will smile, and that smile will be the answer.

I will know in the end that God does not exist.

I will see in the end that whatever I thought God was simply was a dream conjured up by the minds of men who simply could not help but try to name the unnamable. I will see that while I was busy worshiping a figment of man’s imagination I missed what God was. I missed Her in the trees as I walked. I missed Her in the songs of the birds and in the sounds of a stream rushing to the ocean. I missed Her in the autumn’s unforgiving coldness and the warm renewal of spring.

In the end I will find that I was so busy looking for life out there that I missed the life in here. I will see that the reason I closed my eyes in prayer was so that I would not look anywhere but within me for the answer. I will find that I am, and always was, the Creator, and that anything and everything was possible had I only sought to make it so. I had the power to heal. I had the power to live. I had the power to be.

I will struggle to move my head enough to see around me, only seeing walls; the same walls I’ve always had around me. I’ve built them, carefully laying block after block until I finally found myself bedridden and without the strength to lay another. I will shed a tear at the meaningless of these stones, suddenly realizing that I simply did not love myself enough to be free. I will remember my many protestations of freedom, but as the end slowly casts its light upon me I will realize how imprisoned I was. I will see my chains in the many “should haves” and “what ifs” my mind sends forward in the stark realization that I never truly lived.

Then I will silence my mind as the walls disappear around me.

I will know then that I was never the body, or the mind, or the beliefs, or the faith, or the failures, or the successes. I was never a husband, or a son, or a brother, or a father. I was what created, and experienced, all of those things.

I will then begin to see what I never knew as God in my body, in my heart and in the way I viewed things. A woman will come in my room to help prop up my weakened head, and ask me if I need anything. I will see what I never knew as God in her, in her smile and in her actions of care and compassion. I will see God in the pillow that now supports my head and in the woven fabrics that now cradle my aged body. In fact, I will see God in everything and realize that there is nothing I am not.

I will see God in the aloneness that I feel, in the waiting and in the moment. I will remember God in the strength I once had and in the strength I now possess. I will hear God in my breaths and in the gaps between them. Again I will smile.

There will be a chuckle as I see that I have experienced the Universe and that, yes, the Universe has experienced me. That laugh will come with a sigh in the realization that it was all so perfect even as my mind now finds fault in what I did not do.

Had my religion been experience I would have been in church every moment of my existence. Had my faith been in “what is” I would have not needed faith at all. Had my mind been focused on that practice I would have easily kept God’s day holy. Each and every moment is God’s day, and presence is the way we keep it sacred.

In the end I will see it all, and in the end I will shout out to me now and say, “LIVE” and beg for a baptism into experience where a priest is found in everyone and everything and the truth is found in each and every step of my life. As my head sinks into the chilly waters of doubt I close my eyes to save them from the sight. There, I feel my heartbeat loudly, and feel the tug of the surface pull at me.

Then I am raised, as if from the dead. As my head breaks the rippled surface my eyes open and I am born. Not born again, but continuing the process of birth that will end the moment my eyes close for the final time. I give thanks for the dream sent back in time by me at the end. I give thanks for the voice echoing in my head commanding me to LIVE. I give thanks for the uncovered truth of who I really am. Then I take a step toward…

To You, The Unknown

March 19, 2013 / Tom

Somewhere in the warming spring breeze I can hear her. Like a whisper she moves through my soul, into my heart, slowly caressing my mind with loving verbs while embracing my lips with her own. Somewhere beyond the mountain in front me she must be there, looking at the elevation and wondering if I, too, am there.

I am, my love. I am here. I am waiting. I am listening and I am seeing. The scars you see have prepared me for you. The wounds you see bleeding are not wounds at all, they are openings for the light to enter. See that bandaged place? See me remove those barriers to the light and watch me shine. See the untouched parts of me, those vestiges of a future only seen in the present moment. Protect those sacred spaces so that I may stand there naked, without armor or a veil of any kind, as your man without a question in a space where there are only answers.

That mountain in front of us must me climbed and at the summit we will meet. There we, those two blocks of ice, will begin to melt into one another as our sweat, our souls, and our tears merge into that one puddle of Being we were destined to become. We will walk together through the hottest fires, the coldest winter storms, in both shear bliss and utter despair. We will walk together through the white and the black, the light and the darkness, both of us drawing swords against those dark demons that would devour us in the fractured corners of our minds; both embracing those moments where there is no battle to be fought. We will touch the sky and dust the white clouds from the blueness while kissing the stars; making love in the moonlit glow of the dream we have allowed to be.

There, a kiss will bring a smile, a laugh, and a beginning. A new Universe born in each embrace, in each caress, and in each challenge our humanity will offer. I will enter all of you as you embrace all of me, and I will hear your heart beat through different ears, see your smile though different eyes, and feel you through different senses unblanketed fear but shrouded in love.

Yes, my Unknown Love, the climb is worth it. The bumps and bruises you will feel as you climb, as you stumble, and as you begin your climb anew will heal as my arms hold you tightly to my chest once you reach the summit. If you get there first, wait for me, I am coming. If I get there first you will find me sitting still, smiling, as you find renewed strength and life just at the sight of me. You will come, yes you will, and you will never leave.

No vows will be necessary as our lips speak the only words necessary. No promises will need be issued as our dance will speak the only truth we will ever need to know. We will have found ourselves, our moment, and our testament to the journey we have made. We will try to keep the Sunrise in our eyes as we remove the barriers to our Now, to our moment, to our dance. Laugh, smile, and know we are here.

Now, I look for another handhold on that mountains face and honor the mountain. With each pull upward I hear that whisper in the wind. “Your soulmate is out there, struggling as you struggle, seeking as you seek. At the top of this mountain you then realize that ‘what you are seeking is also seeking you.'”

When Love comes suddenly and taps
on your window, run and let it in but first
shut the door of your reason.
Even the smallest hint chases love away
like smoke that drowns the freshness
of the morning breeze.
To reason Love can only say,
the way is barred, you can’t pass through
but to the lover it offers a hundred blessings.
Before the mind decides to take a step
Love has reached the seventh heaven.
Before the mind can figure how
Love has climbed the Holy Mountain.
I must stop this talk now and let
Love speak from its nest of silence. ~Rumi

The Space Between (Songs of Inspiration #2)

February 22, 2013 / Tom

The space between

The tears we cry is the laughter that keeps us coming back for more

The space between

The wicked lies we tell to keep us safe from the pain

I sit in my car at a stop light with the laughter of my little ones behind me, tears streaming down my face. Tears sometimes are the echo of the heart not specifically pointing in any direction but somehow facing inward, reminding us that there is something warm beating within us. Tears are not always tales of sadness or remorse but are sometimes stories of healing, of potential, of a glorious birth that is about to take place.

In my mind I stop and look forward yet behind me. I see the desolation, the destruction, the wreckage of what could have been. I see the wisps of black smoke rising above the moments in my life where fear had sheltered me from one storm only to create a far more destructive one. I see the litter strewn about my life and the burned out shells of books that could have been so beautifully written and read. I see the partially burned out pages moving with the dust devils of my memories, roughly being jostled from one resting place and swirling upward violently before coming to rest in another.

These swaths of living hell are not all I see even if they are the first things that have captured my attention. Wounds will do that to you. Those pieces of yang will distract you from the pieces of yin that also lie in this path. In order to see them you must learn to look beyond what time and conditioning have taught you to see and then you must open your arms to embrace it all. This isn’t about rejecting the periods of darkness that have kept you company in your nights, it is about embracing the light that comes in the spaces between. It is then about realizing that the darkness truly comes only in the spaces between the light. It is then about accepting both as a part of your day, part of the moment that is you.

I then saw the fields of flowers interspersed in the charred remnants of my moment. I began to hear the singing of birds above the crackling of burning embers and the life dancing about in my story. I could begin to feel the love above the ashes, and smell the fragrance of the roses, the carnations and the orchids. I could feel Life in it all and I smiled through the tears as the laughter of my little ones echoed around a mind no longer dulled by the numbness of a dream only I could create.

I could see the black clouds adorning a full, blue sky and realized that yes, the moon does shine during the day too. The tides go high and then low just as life ebbs and it flows. We don’t measure the tides by the height of the sand yet I have chosen to measure my life by the abundance of sadness. What if I was to measure it by the presence of love; focusing on the area of flowers and of the mellow beauty in the songs of the nature around me? What if instead of seeing the patches of destruction I saw the vast areas of loving awesomeness that made them so noticeable? What if I changed my focus, changed what was the space between?

The space between

Where you smile and hide

That’s where you’ll find me if I get to go

What if I choose to let go? What if I chose to act on that feeling I have when I look into her eyes? What if I chose to smell the roses instead of running from the dying flames of a past that is no longer there? What if I simply held her hand instead of thinking about then? What if I decided to dive into her, to walk that distance that separates us and erase that space between? What if I kissed her into a smile, coaxed her from her hiding place or simply went there with her? What if I…

…acted a little less like a boy beaten and a young man faulted and more like the being I want to be?

The questions mount, filling up the space between the gaps in my breath. I look at my empty hand and I wonder what it would be like if her fingers filled the space between my own. I wonder what would happen if there was no space between our lips, our mouths, our bodies. I can imagine the beauty in the space between our footprints in the sand as we walk hand-in-hand kicking the foamy surf forward. I wonder about the beautiful realization that occurs in the space between our eyes as we look into each other’s soul, and in the space between the heartbeats we share in a long, loving embrace.

I wonder about the words we could write in the space between our story of now and our story of tomorrow and, yes, I wonder about the space between my story of then and the moment we are sharing. My mind circles around the space between the rising and the setting sun, and the darkness that comes in the space before the sun rises again. I also wonder if I would ever know the sun if it wasn’t for that darkness, or notice the beauty of my life without the ugliness. I wonder if I would ever know the beauty of a loving hand in my own if not for its absence.

We’re strange allies

With warring hearts

What a wild-eyed beast you be

I can hear the endless fights and the countless debates about things. Things. I can feel the intimacy slip through the spaces between wrong and right, of listening and talking. I can hear the striking of the arson’s match setting the artist’s canvas on fire and the writer’s book to flame. I can hear the tears as the breath escapes our very mouths, and hear the fingers part as our hands fall to our sides and our gazes turn from what could have been.

I can sense it coming. Isn’t the testament of devotion and of love the beginning of the storm? Isn’t the wounded mind wracked by what it has seen surely cursed to war with the very heart it seeks to know and to love? Isn’t a bruised heart like the broken mast of a floundering ship in a raging storm sure to sink in the sea of its own devices? Isn’t a tired body sure to burn in the fires the mind has set?

Or are those things the very beginning of rebirth we seek? Isn’t it just a matter of awareness, of seeing the opportunity to embrace the beauty and be reborn? Is it just a matter of seeking something different?

The space between the stories of my life gives me enough room to experience it just as the space between the sky and the ground gives us enough room to fly. A horn blows from a car behind me allowing me to realize that the space between the red and green light at this intersection has allowed me to find some clarity in an otherwise hectic morning. I look in my rear-view mirror at my little ones in the back seat and notice the space between the tear on my cheek and the smile on my lips.

Perhaps we find our greatest experiences in the space between. Perhaps we find our wisdom there. Maybe we begin to realize our own truths as we begin to realize the spaces between. Maybe the greatest parts of who we are resides in the spaces between the illusions and delusions we have created about who we are. Maybe my soul has always been singing the words I now hear in my mind spreading across my soul like the light from the Sun cresting above the morning horizon.

The space between

What’s wrong and right

Is where you’ll find me hiding

Waiting for you

The Short Story of a Simple Truth

October 18, 2012 / Tom

He just knew.

If anyone asked him why he was in love with her, he simply replied “I just am.” If someone asked him how he was able to deal with the distance between them he would reply, “I just do.” When his friends wondered how he could deal with the weeks between seeing her he simply shrugged and said, “I just can.”

His replies had become simple over the years. When they began he would describe elaborately to all who would listen how much he loved this woman. He’d demonstrate his loyalty for all who would watch, and he would get into long discussions describing his love for her when he was challenged. There was no doubt in anyone he knew that he loved her, and that he was her man, and he liked it that way.

He had mellowed over the years. Soon the distance between them would close, and the time between visits would be nil. They had been committed to each other for a number of years now, and the years had converted what were rough seas into calm waters. She had healed him and, in some respects, they had healed each other. Now this man and this woman walked together in ways many would never know, many times simply to be with each other in a moment that would become eternity.

His once elaborate protestations of love were his truth. He had never known such passion for another human being. He felt something when he saw her. He knew all he need to know when he was with her. He needed nothing when in her arms and asked for nothing in their moments of passion. He felt her in every breath and saw her in the beauty all around him. In their moments apart, he could feel her hold him in the pink-hued clouds of a summer sunset. He could hear her whisper to him in the sounds of a running stream. He would smile at the thought of seeing this or that with her, and would vow to bring her to these places in their moments together. He wanted her to see his world and to know him through these things. Once she was there with him he could revisit these places in her absence and remember.

Once he feared. He feared her and in giving himself to her. He fought her, and she fought him right back. He tested her, and she refused to accept the test. She was not them, she was beautiful and smart and everything he needed. The nightmares and demon-voices would warn him and he would react, and she would fight him hard. He hated those voices, and he hated the terrors they brought to him. He knew the truth, and he wanted to believe.

Then he resolved to embrace the truth and own it. He stood firm and fought back against the onslaught of fear and insecurity. This time instead of fighting him, she was fighting next to him, like a warrior princess alongside her prince standing with their backs against the wall ready to win or die trying. It was in this battle that they found each other, and where that unbreakable bond of trust and love was made whole. He learned he could trust and have faith in her without question and she learned of his incredible strength and resolve in love despite facing the haunting face of his own demons.

When the dust settled they were standing there, hand in hand with their lips embracing each other tenderly. There they found freedom, and there she taught him more than he had ever learned. He proved to her the depth of his love for her, and for her that meant the world. He would never steal from her who she was but would instead stand guard and protect her without question. He would not control her, he would fiercely protect her independence. He would never need ask her for a thing, for she would freely give of herself to the man she loved without worry and without question. The Yin and the Yang met there, where they stood, and that was enough for the Universe to sing loudly.

From then on, when someone asked him why he was in love with her, he would simply reply “I just am.” When someone asked him how he dealt with the distance between them, he simply replied “I just do.” When someone asked him how could deal with the weeks that spanned between their moments together he simply replied, “I just can.” They were simple answers, particularly for this man so known for his elaborate responses.

Yet they were elaborate to him. They were very detailed in describing the indescribable. They described the gratitude he had for the gift that was her. They described the salvation he found in a woman so strong that she not only fought him but fought for him. Those simple replies encompassed an eternity of emotion and a never-ending spring of love within him. He couldn’t describe any of this to them, and he felt no need to anymore. Instead, he would hold his tongue and find her. There he would hold her, kiss her, touch her and make love to her in a way that fully described how he felt. Their eyes would speak a language no one else spoke, and their bodies would dance to a song no one else heard. It did not matter to them here in that place where they stood, where they laid, where they danced together in unending ecstasy. They had found each other and they were present in the moment they had created. All else had ceased to exist.

In their lives they had found a short story of a simple truth. Their entirety, their Universe, and the enormity of who they were could be found in three simple words they never failed to speak to each other. “I love you.” Those words righted a world that had once gone mad. Those words solidified a truth that spanned a million moments. Those words rang true for the eternity they described and the Universe they created. They lived it, they breathed it, and it became everything.

♥