As it is

As it is

Oneness

that is the experience

of your Self..

your real Self..

not the bifurcation

which you and others

have always thought

you to be...

tree roots

tree roots

they penetrate the pipes
irrigation and sewers..and are ever
seeking it seems..new paths to 
water fulfillment..
(some patching this morning of
irrigation line by our friend, Jeremy..)
this is a seeking which seems to promise 
that seeking will bring a reward..
these roots are as we..also seeking
water or ocean or that which denies
limitation..we see in the root's seeking
a similarity confirming a truth..
so..we need to turn..and find
the roots also turn..to discover now
search paths never end..and more:
the water we seek..we and the roots
is not to be sought..but what we Are...

appearance

We need to get used

to the truth of this word..!

it provides entry

into the new paradigm:

mind over matter..

consulting our experience

amazingly we find

appearance is all we know

or can know about

everything out there

in our household..world..

or universe...

fascism...briefly

fascism...briefly

it lies at the core of each of us..
the root..is the appearance of
fundamental separation arriving
soon after birth
and continuing strongly..or weakly..
in life..until it is known..
ego is the modern name given to
this primal experience which
is a necessity for health and growth..
ego reality is that of the body
as observer of that outer world..
which is our cultural consensus 
our view of things..most of us seem to
live and die in this unquestioned
consensus of who we are..
ego unleashed can become more than
positive personal identity..a tool for
a unique self engaging a troubled world.. 
the ego can compound the suffering of
separation..reaching for any means
to end the suffering..which increases
our dangers..dangers to self and others..
the only solution and remedy
lies close at hand..yet distant it seems
in our consensus reality..
we must identify the ego's reality
as insufficient for a life well lived
and recognize that it simply veils
something much more:
an identity unbounded and filled
with  peace and grace...

synecdoche

synecdoche
[si-nek-duh-kee]
ExamplesWord Origin

a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part, the special for the general or the general for the special, as in ten sail for ten ships or a Croesus for a rich man.

synecdoche

it is metaphoric
with holographic meaning
assuming a relationship
between part and whole..and part..
and by extension:
a polarity.. in which
the part lies within
is known by
(and this is the leap to be made
for truth and one's happiness)
made of the whole..

Nevermore

Nevermore

gently tapping 

at my chamber door

came this bird

as one word..

the word seemed to say

not your old booklore

not some visitor

not the darkness there

not the whispered name..

but simply perching

and waiting..this word in

 my silence..terrified..

I sat on my cushion

with my imaginings

with my memories

some perfumed..

and the word repeated

not these..not these..

a question arose

of biblical import

and in desperation

 I implored about the

balm in Gilead..?

 the word repeated..

upstarted I demanded

departure..leaving my

loneliness unbroken..

and even to this

the word repeated..

the word still sits

above my chamber door

awaiting my waking

from my life in shadow

floating on the floor...

  

Poe...The Raven

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48860/the-raven

Words

appear discretely

but seem to grasp us

by the throat

insisting they are

most fleeting

and simply point

to the thing

to which they

point..

What is that thing..?

it seems as

something between

something dancing

and shouting:

don't pin me down...!

for Almagre Review..

Issue 6, Veterans Issue (Winter), Submissions: OPEN

Our sixth issue will be dedicated to veterans and their experience as told through fiction, essay, and memoir.


A Second Graduation.  (in progress)

We all remember the tossing of the caps..this celebration of accomplishment and endurance.
And in the spring of each year since, we are reminded of our own graduation by many similar expressions of exuberance at military academies, and elsewhere.  This iconic ritual is gratefully remembered, and marks what I like to call our "first graduation."
Our freshly printed diplomas, signed by the Superintendent, stated that we were prepared to
participate as leaders in our nation's defense.  More preparation followed in branch and service schools to ensure that details were absorbed for accomplishment of many specific missions.

Some of us did not return from the Viet Nam war, for which dark clouds loomed as we graduated.  Others lived to observe the notable failures of this war, even as they fully supported their comrades in arms. A few declared openly the discomfort they experienced by their own participation in a war which, for them, lost all meaning. As a result of these varying experiences, questions arise as to how well our preparation served us for encountering failure in our life endeavors. Would an education more fully informative of the so-called negative aspects of life--mistakes, futility, egotism, duplicity--have improved our understanding in this early stage of our lives, and the stages to follow. Or is experience the only real teacher of such things?  To be sure, however, such  teachings seem most significant as we approach a vital "second graduation."

Which brings me to my suggestion of the need for a "second graduation" from the Academy, or  really from any institution attended by future generations.  The second graduation is unique to each individual, and might even precede the first!  Simply, the second is a recognition of that dimension of each of us which observes the multiplicity of activities, the good and difficult times, through which our lives seem to move. Our attention to the activities themselves entangles and diverts our attention from this most important realization. Although a maturing process likely occurred for most of us, and glimpses of a new graduation no doubt were perceived, it seems that something more of an awakening is necessary.

Perhaps retirement is a time when such awakening  takes place.  There is a Japanese military tradition referred to as the "dismissing your loyal soldier," by which is meant an expanding perspective of reality, a birthing of widening contexts, leading to  a new self identification..transcending the duties which had so long filled our foreground. This self identity has always been truly ours, however veiled by those many situations requiring immediate and dutiful attention.The beauty of this recognition is that former times might then be revisited and experienced with much more color and fulfillment. Also, a new freedom may seem to hone our critical thinking faculties, reaching new possibilities of insight and service.  In other words, we might discover that all activities, past or present, are actually made of that wholeness now recognized by a second graduation.

The cadet hymn, "The Corps" sings of the "thrill that your presence imparts."  The "presence"  refers to the Academy's rich traditions, particularly the Long Gray Line, which indeed underly the excitement of our first graduation.  The thrill might, and should, then  expand to a larger and living presence, the gift of a second graduation.

There is only presence
a rich oneness
which is our identity
standing and witnessing
and creating of itself 
life's many separations..
Paths of separation
of resisting and seeking
seem to veil our identity
allowing only brief tastes
of the presence we crave
and words fail to disclose..
But the thrills on life's paths
present a window
which when cleansed
illumine our way home...
~~CC

World Building..

World Building..

fragments 
are initial stimulations
seeming as discrete until
our experience disagrees..
context swallows content
and our fragment spreads
and re-identifies as the world
or the universe..or a song.. 
yet..remaining a fragment
a fleeting perception:
world building...
~~CC


References:

John Frame's Fantastical Sculptures (Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FC0bjESy_k

Instead of thinking of experience as a collection of objects or nouns, feel only in terms of verbs. Instead of thinking, ‘I know such and such’, feel, ‘There is only knowing and I am that’. Instead of thinking, ‘I love you’, feel, ‘There is only loving and I am that’. Instead of thinking, ‘I see the tree’, feel, ‘There is only seeing and I am that’.  ~~Rupert Spira


Panel Presentation/Discussion:  "World Building through Art" - What is world building and why is it important in art, film, and literature? Join artists John Frame and Virgil Ortiz and Professor Natanya Pulley in a facilitated conversation about creating complex, nuanced, and real fictional worlds in their respective bodies of work. Facilitated by Professor Steven Hayward. A pre-talk reception will be held at the Fine Arts Center on September 13th at 4 p.m.  5:30 pm, Packard Performance Hall, 5 W. Cache La Poudre St. Free to the Public

The Crossing

The Crossing

it seems 

a line to be crossed

a completion to be made

acknowledging truth..finally

of mind over matter 
with our inborn projection..

it is a river to be crossed

a small boat through hazards..

hazards of insistence that

the material world speaks

for itself

evolving and sourcing

rising before our eyes..

 we await a next move..

easily are we immersed

in lively appearance..

we occasionally back off

noticing our untruthful

immersion..but soon 

clamor and curiosity

render our small boat

stalled on this side..favoring

a crossing delay...

Certainty

Root my being in certainty
So I witness you without fear.
Even as the waves of blood crash over me
And the worlds char in fire.

~~Rumi

floating away

floating away 

from a personal "i"
which occupies our days..
so many schedules and accounts 
to be settled..
it has long been so
that our i seems stolen
by habits and chores..

one morning
we might float away
to observe from a distance..
an out-of-body excursion
in which our personal i
morphs as I..

solidity spreads and softens
and we find without effort
a new I..which all have
sought..lifelong..but 
beneath habits and chores
are darkly concealed...

Know thyself...Study nature...(Emerson)

a dream too wild*

resistance is receding 
with clarity in bloom
boundaries are softening
rationality for a moment 
is brushed away
and experience shines..
teachers..now and past
are placed in our paths
and heard with new eyes..
teachers within..at last 
are accepted with joy..
understandings of self
stand in stark contrast
with toxicities without..
new perceptive twists
recognize real roots
and burn the brush
which for centuries
has dimmed our view:
a dream too wild...
~~CC

*from The American Scholar
Quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson, The American Scholar:

8)  Thus to him, to this school-boy under the bending dome of day, is suggested, that he and it proceed from one root; one is leaf and one is flower; relation, sympathy, stirring in every vein. And what is that Root? Is not that the soul of his soul?--A thought too bold,--a dream too wild. Yet when this spiritual light shall have revealed the law of more earthly natures,--when he has learned to worship the soul, and to see that the natural philosophy that now is, is only the first gropings of its gigantic hand, he shall look forward to an ever expanding knowledge as to a becoming creator. He shall see, that nature is the opposite of the soul, answering to it part for part. One is seal, and one is print. Its beauty is the beauty of his own mind. Its laws are the laws of his own mind. Nature then becomes to him the measure of his attainments. So much of nature as he is ignorant of, so much of his own mind does he not yet possess. And, in fine, the ancient precept, "Know thyself," and the modern precept, "Study nature," become at last one maxim.
The ancient precept, “Know thyself,” and the modern precept, “Study nature,” become at last one maxim. 

ICE

ICE

has come to name a

stark no-tolerance..

an icy wind suggests

a rising fear

in far places of those

considering  a path

as did our ancestors 

for escape to freedom..

lady liberty with torch

reminds us of our

primacy of welcome..

welcome and rules 

write their

inseparable history..

when rules preside

in a stringent way

welcome is hidden

but never absent

knowing

the rules will die

as they pretend

a life of their own...

your flame

your flame

consists in burning the illusion

of your own separation and showing

others the same illusion under

which they suffer..

this simple knowing is

the fire that fuels all traditions

but often 

the heat and light of the flames

go unnoticed in favor of

a thickening blanket of smoke

hiding the flame

under a grasping belief

in the illusion...

Way-Stations

Way-Stations

There are many who find comfort

on their journeys

by way-stations which are

ready to assist..when approached..

There are presences there

which color experience..and are

engaged as life unfolds..

Moreover..mindfulness seems

daunting and distant for many

who relish way-station relief..

Religions have relied on this

most natural desiring:

Providing figures of faith..and

stories to map and locate the

Light and Happiness 

we all seek..

Yet..in ancient and modern days

a wondering has arisen in some

about a path more direct 

bypassing those many

way-stations..which..having served

now seem to delay arrival..

and..are dissolved by discovery

that these stations are made of the

Light and Happiness 

we all seek…

~~CC

CC - As we have seen from some of Madisyn's Dailys, she is a spiritual person.  But with this presentation she takes it all the way.  What she says below is not exactly new, 'tho.  What is your opinion with the substance of this??
CP

http://www.dailyom.com/cgi-bin/display/printerfriendly.cgi?articleid=4854

Character

Character

Character or characters
are the creation..
but our perceptions and thoughts
conspire to deceive..
drawn and attached
we are enamored with the 
momentary pleasures
not recognizing that 
these pleasures are momentary
simply colorations of the
hidden aim of all journeys:
discovering true Pleasure...
~~CC



"Let there be softness towards the character. When there is a reaction to who you think you are then the character is judging the character—this reinforces the mistaken identity/separation story. Being in observer mode replaces the habit of buying into the "me" story. It needs to become really clear when the observer is active so that there is an awareness of watching the character without any comment. And when that softness towards the character arises naturally, you can know that the observing position is becoming more familiar. This is really key as it trains your system to not plug into the "me" story. The personal story is seen with softness and this causes it to lose its potency as a story."
~Jac O'Keeffe

Endlessness

Endlessness


https://thisunlitlight.com/2018/07/28/and-there-was-endlessness/

words resurrect

words resurrect

solid..local..limited

we live our lives

with confined beliefs..

experience of truth

expands

and transforms the

quantities of limits

to qualities of 

movement..

we depart from words

and find vibrations:

unhinged..and

describable only

in primitive ways..

words resurrect...

Gratitude

Gratitude 

is the aftermath
of a recognition of that
which we truly are..
it is a transformation
of what heretofore
seemed to attract but
remained quite separate..
there is new illumination
in our recognition 
that that also
is made of what 
we truly are...
CC
   

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.

MELODY BEATTIE

Nothing?

Nothing?

complexity abounds 
as we try to understand the heavens
in old tried and true ways..
the universe accelerates its expansion
so we must conclude there is something
more than the matter we see
pushing with extraordinary vigor..
naming that something as dark matter
existing in universal darkness 
is apparently beyond our viewing..
we conclude: emptiness is not empty..
and nothing is no-thing..but..?

these many thoughts..among many more
promise only unending searches 
using science's outdated lenses..
enter a new lens:  
the consciousness-only Scope..
where it is discovered that everything lies within..
is known by..and is made of consciousness:
consciousness is our reality..not all those things..
things are our fleeting  thoughts and perceptions..
yet our scientists are reluctant to cast off
their deep-seated learning..and in surrender
discover..at last..the truth 
for which they are searching:
emptiness and no-thing 
contain vast possibilities..many appearing
many..not...


CC, TS, et al - Here's more science based fodder for you deep thinkers.
CP

Q: Is empty space really the same as nothing?

A: We know that the universe is very empty. The average density of space is about one atom in every ten cubic metres – far more rarefied than any vacuum we can achieve on Earth. But even if you take all the matter away, space has a kind of elasticity which (as was recently confirmed) allows gravitational waves – ripples in space itself – to propagate through it. Moreover, we’ve learned that there is an exotic kind of energy in empty space itself....
But of course this raises another question: how much of science is going to be accessible to the human brain? It could turn out, for instance, that the mathematics of string theory is in some sense a correct description of reality, but that we will never be able to understand it well enough to check it against any genuine observation. Then we may have to await the emergence of some kind of post-humans to get a fuller understanding.
These are excerpts from:

https://dailygalaxy.com/2018/08/deep-space-of-the-cosmos-theres-a-mysterious-energy-latent-in-it-which-can-tell-us-about-our-fate/

Pure Light (after Rumi)

We are darkness and God is Light; this house

Receives all splendor from the Sun

Here, the Light is mingled with shadow.

Do you want your light totally pure?

Leave the house and climb onto the roof.

- Rumi

Stop! she says

Stop!

she says..

in progress

https://gangaji.org/blog

a car approaches

a car approaches
and passes..
sight and hearing
pass into hearing 
and memory
now fading and
leaving behind
only memory
now fading and
leaving behind
an emptiness
filled with possibility
including another
car approaching:
these moments 
brought to you
by your gift of 
fleeting perception...!!

Watercoloring

Watercoloring

This relative world..it seems.. is

 of solid and weighty disposition

 reported by our perceptions

and our remembered images..

All providing a constancy which

 we leave unquestioned..

That is the bedrock

the sum and substance

of all we know..and can know..

or so it seems..

Old words and new words

describe this sensical truth

which is lauded and etched ..

It is left to the watercolorist

to wipe away the words

and apply a light wash

emerging from a canvas 

of emptiness..

turning her face 
to non-relative

truth...

Blockage

Blockage

a writer writes

with rapt attention to words

attending special nuance

erasing and rewriting..

this is attention to content

it is thought control

and self identification

as a cluster of thoughts..

then come sensations

of contraction and limit

slowing the writing

stemming the flow..

so..seemingly we must

recast attention to the 

space between words

allowing the words to

dissolve or burn

and await new thoughts

from an empty place...

Journeying

Journeying

is not one journey
nor is it many..
it is the movement
of your self
within and as
your Self..
~~CC

QUESTIONS:

How would you summarize your life journey?

What is the relation between journeying and searching?

How does self-identity apply to a journey?

Is travel significant to you?

QUOTES:

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
– Lao Tzu

Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

All I wanted was to live a life where I could be me, and be okay with that. I had no need for material possessions, money or even close friends with me on my journey. I never understood people very well anyway, and they never seemed to understand me very well either. All I wanted was my art and the chance to be the creator of my own world, my own reality. I wanted the open road and new beginnings every day. 
― Charlotte Eriksson

I am no longer afraid of becoming lost, because the journey back always reveals something new, and that is ultimately good for the artist.
― Billy Joel

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.
---Ralph Waldo Emerson

A book is as dangerous as any journey you might take. The person who closes the back cover may not be the same one that opened the front one. Treat them with respect. 
― Mark Lawrence

The only journey is the one within. 
― Rainer Maria Rilke

The seeker embarks on a journey to find what he wants and discovers, along the way, what he needs. 
― Wally Lamb

The beautiful journey of today can only begin when we learn to let go of yesterday.
― Steve Maraboli

End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it.” 
― J.R.R. Tolkien

There are many journeys.  There are those in which we are
travelers observing the world from conventional windows of 
mind and body.  There is another which entails a recognition
that we are the openness of an awareness not confined to the 
conventional windows.  Life's purpose resides in observing
the various journeys in our life experience, recognizing that our 
way of "seeing" influences what we see. Journey examples 
reside in many places: travel journals, artwork, literature,
science, scripture, and with modern teachers who appreciate 
the value of the Journey as an approach to self-realization.
We have the advantage of the web in being exposed to these
perennial teachings in a most powerful new way.
--CharlesC

Hope and Despair

Hope and Despair

despair lodges raw in the body

which is deemed separate..alone

a contracting pain of

a weighty thing..

a darkness which admits

no suggestion of hope..

but hope seems to persist..

armed now with discovery

of new identification

of a white field which 

surrounds and penetrates

the weighty thing..

 allowing resistance to resist

the white foothold gently

is placed..hope enlarges into

knowing and seeping into

an emerging surrender...

the vast blue sky

the vast blue sky stands

 as the consciousness-only model

the model of truth we seek..

we have arrived after

many long centuries in which

other points of view have sustained

civilizations..their rise and fall..

the model of materialism has

dominated science and thought

reaching impressive heights..yet

intuitions are venturing questions

of blue appearances in the clouds

clouds of words and 

models outworn..

like a small airplane looking

for a hole to punch through

and sail to a destined port..

the clouds are the habits of

centuries which impede the 

recognition of truth..

fearful of the vast blue

we allow cloud covering

to delay the day

of plunging into truth...

Out of Stillness (Rumi)

I was happy enough to stay still

inside the pearl inside the shell,

but the hurricane of experience

lashed me out of hiding

and made me a wave moving into shore,

saying loudly the ocean's secret

as I went, and then, spent there,

I slept like fog against the cliff,

another stillness.

~~Rumi

the ego- cloud

the ego-cloud

anger can do it
addiction and absorption also
have the capacity to veil

seemingly completely

that which we are..

it is the ego-cloud 
covering and

gaining authority in 

situations of separation

of which we are attending..

could it be..really..an invitation

to perceive a lining of light

or..the screen behind the movie..

the ego-cloud then may disperse

and be discovered as a gift

from grace...

born again

born again

a religious charge and warning

but more simply for our day:

an awakening to who we are

and who we have never not been..

it is new clarity from

removing the deceptions

which religions have tended

to offer..

it is to discover a self

not confined as we

so often are taught..

and to walk a new path

accompanied by a

new understanding of

peace...

unmarked boxes (Rumi)

God's joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box,

from cell to cell. As rainwater, down into flowerbed.

As roses, up from ground. 

Now it looks like a plate of rice and fish, 

now a cliff covered with vines, 

now a horse being saddled.

It hides within these, 

till one day it cracks them open.

~~Rumi

finding all boxes 

unmarked

we back away

and find our

newborn Self

cracking each box...

~~CC

snapshot

snapshot

on this sunny occasion

I with my iPhone became

an observer..positioning..

for not-posed snapshots..

in such manner

the photo shows the

in-between..those moments

when a knowing re-asserts..

 a masking responsibility

softly subsides..

sometimes it is a photo

of longing for home

beyond a distance...