Leadership

Leadership

The good kind..that is
Emerges from empathy
And empathy emerges
From recognition 
By the leader..of the
True Nature of the
Appearance of separation..

The other kind emerges
From a mental model
Of  overweening separation.. 
This belief spurs conflict
And weakness all around in 
Sallying forth to meet a
Common aim...

Virus and Free Will

Virus and Free Will

The virus
Is a display 
Of interconnectedness
Seeming to be everywhere
In quantum quickness..
The glaring question is
What now of free will..?

We are now in lockdown
Against the preferences
Of most of us..
Responsibilities are now
Not local..and our confinement
Does not appear to be ending..
Our only choice veers Inward

To recognize..at last 
An infinite measure of
Free Will...

Amazon book review...(John McIntosh's latest book)

Brevity and clarity!!  These are watchwords for this new book by John McIntosh.
The world is actually hungry for such a book, but the source for the hunger is
very seldom recognized.  However, there may be change brewing in the time 
in which we are living.  We have reached a point in the conventionally realized 
history of the planet that our growth and practices of living are no longer sustainable. 
This book provides a direct trajectory for any of us to recognize this so-called history 
as the content of what John calls the Grand Dream.  The Dream is a persistent one, 
claiming an independent reality which has been convincing to so many for so long. 
This false reality results from a strong belief in separation, mythically represented
by the story of the Garden of Eden. Illusory though it is, as a dream, familiarity 
with its content assists in the self-inquiry and surrender necessary for awakening 
to the Reality of our true Self.  The cyclical nature of this Dreamed history, John 
explains as the cycles of Patriarchy and Matriarchy, with the latter emerging in a 
Great Shift, carrying a possibility of a widespread Awakening from the Grand Dream.  
This is a Perennial message communicated in modern terms, and available for 
everyone, regardless of background...and simply entails the discovery that our 
searching for relief from our hunger lies not in the Dream, but in recognition of 
our true Self..which has always been Present...If you are ready, you can't go wrong 
with this book..!!

Amazon review...
https://www.amazon.com/review/R3DYDLXYFUA6M2/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

Mountain Days. (with John Muir)

We Are Rich

When our experience includes
Nature's special gifts..
Gifts which point our way
To that which is Eternal
In each detail...



"Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, inciting at once to work and rest! Days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us God. Nevermore, however weary, should one faint by the way who gains the blessings of one mountain day; whatever his fate, long life, short life, stormy or calm, he is rich forever."

- John Muir (1838 - 1914)

The Snapshot

The Snapshot

Pretends 
To be evidence of
Permanence..after all
If we return to the scene
On the day following
We might see and agree 
With the snapshot's claim..
It seems there is continuity
In the world out there..

We allow the appearance 
Of fixity of the Snapshot 
To detract from the Truth 
That the Permanent resides
Without appearance and 
Eternally within...

Shadows of Evening

Shadows of Evening

Distinct and lengthening
Shadows of evening
Allow a discernment of 
What by habit we notice
As separate:  we and shadows
And an external fading light..
Herein lies an evening insight:
We seem to live as shadow
Not recognizing that we are
Not formed without Light
And we..as shadow..are 
Only shading of Light...

Morning and Blackbird (Morning Has Broken)

Each morning
Is the first morning..
Each blackbird speaking
Is the first bird..
Out of our waking
Spring our joys and sorrows
Until we remember
That which is First...


Morning Has Broken

Morning has broken like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken like the first bird
Praise for the singing
Praise for the morning
Praise for them springing fresh from the Word
Sweet the rain's new fall, sunlit from heaven
Like the first dew fall on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where His feet pass
Mine is the sunlight
Mine is the morning
Born of the One Light Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning…


"Morning Has Broken" is a Christian hymn first published in 1931. It has words by English author Eleanor Farjeon and was inspired by the village of Alfriston in East Sussex, then set to a traditional Scottish Gaelic tune, "Bunessan". It is often sung in children's services and in funeral services. Wikipedia

Solitary Confinement

Solitary Confinement





“In spite of language, in spite of intelligence and intuition and sympathy, one can never really communicate anything to anybody. The essential substance of every thought and feeling remains incommunicable, locked up in the impenetrable strong-room of the individual soul and body. Our life is a sentence of perpetual solitary confinement.”
― Aldous Huxley

Solitude..(with Rainer Maria Rilke)

Solitude

Does not depend
On the absence of clamor..
But first appreciation
Seems borne by silence..
Carrying a recognition 
Available to each of us
That Solitude introduced
May be a portal to
Our Self...
~~CC

Solitude Will Be a Support

It is good that you are about to enter a profession [the military] that will make you self-sufficient and set you on your own feet. Wait patiently to see if your inner life narrows in the grip of this profession. I consider it to be a very difficult and challenging one, for it is greatly burdened with conventions and allows little room for personal interpretations of its duties. But in the midst of these very unfamiliar conditions your inner solitude will be a support and a home to you. It will be the starting point of all your journeys.

~~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Our Fallen Dream..

Our Fallen Dream

Is 

The Dream our Self 

Has entertained for

Eons..brought on by

Beliefs in separation..

Our  inevitable fall..

Thus..

Our Self remains asleep

As separation maintains

Its persistent persuasion..

Oppositions play..

Yet..

We are treated in moments

Waking as I Am..

Yet..

We sink soon 

Resuming the fall...

Our Fallen Dream...

Yet..

Are there not signs

In these stressed times

Of a new Morning...?

Give me your hand..

Book of Hours:  I, 59    (Translation by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy)

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going.  No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

~~Rainer Maria Rilke

Gas-lighting

Gas-lighting

This term has leapt 
From a '40's movie to
Our present time and place..
Simply those tactics
Of lies and deception to
Cause others to accept
An alternate reality..not their own..
An expression to serve us
In our need to understand
Our  politics with virus 
In our story today..

The cure of our malady:
Recognize the Screen 
On which this modern version
Of the old movie is playing...!

Good Gas-lighting piece...
https://forge.medium.com/prepare-for-the-ultimate-gaslighting-6a8ce3f0a0e0

“You must learn one thing:
the world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.”

― David Whyte

Jesus Christ Superstar

Judas

Stands as we stand
Framing this story
In time and place..
And asking questions
With no answers 
Then or now..
What's the buzz..?
To know who he was
We need only 
Know who we are..
Each must sacrifice 
Our outward beliefs..
Turn inward to recognize
a Superstar...!

VOICE OF JUDAS

Every time I look at you I don't understand
Why you let the things you did get so out of hand.
You'd have managed better if you'd had it planned.
Why'd you choose such a backward time in such a strange land?
If you'd come today you could have reached a whole nation.
Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication.
Don't you get me wrong.
I only want to know.

CHOIR
Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ,
Who are you? What have you sacrificed?
Jesus Christ Superstar,
Do you think you're what they say you are?

Lyrics...

https://www.stlyrics.com/j/jesuschristsuperstar.htm

Meditation...Zen style..

“If there is anything Zen strongly emphasizes it is the attainment of freedom; that is, freedom from all unnatural encumbrances. Meditation is something artificially put on; it does not belong to the native activity of the mind. Upon what do the fowls of the air meditate? Upon what do the fish in the water meditate? They fly; they swim. Is not that enough? Who wants to fix his mind on the unity of God and man, or on the nothingness of life? Who wants to be arrested in the daily manifestations of his life-activity by such meditations as the goodness of a divine being or the everlasting fire of hell?”        

~~D.T. Suzuki, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism

Forest Paintings... (by Deb Komitor)

Fallen But Not Forgotten

Such is the appearance of death
And such will be ours as we 
Remain in the grasp of the fall..
Yet the fall is only appearance which
Begs for our remembrance of All...
~~CC

 


The Forest Never Sleeps

The forest dresses in 
Towers of darkness
Veiling light which birthed
Its many beginnings..never
Sleeping..Knowing of this... 
~~CC

Eternal Life in the Forest

Before our eyes..new life is observed 
Emerging colorfully from death..yet
We know this color will also fade
Inviting us to pause as we wonder:  
What might always be New...
~~CC

 


A Mindful Meander

The forest invites us
To meander..to recognize that
We are Here and Now..as we
Happen into those many
Recesses of darkness and light...
~~CC

 


Wandering Off The Path

Creating a new path which is entirely 
Your own..there was curiosity and perhaps
Some fear..you claimed this path had never 
Been tread before..then you were Startled:
You have forever been walking New paths..
~~CC






 


Trusting Where the Path Leads

There are many possible
Stops for rest..on forest paths
Where we set our feet..
Resting reminds us that
All paths pass through Here...
~~CC






 


 Living Waters

Small streams and falling waters
Sometimes are surprise encounters in
A forest of surprises..we meet to
Remind us of flows within deep water
Which is eternal.. does not flow... 
~~CC





 


Natures Tapestry

The face of nature appears
As a tapestry..and  can offer
Coloring and shaping of our Self..
Otherness dissolves and
Real Beauty arrives...
~~CC





 


In Times Like These

The forest instructs:
Please observe my changing
Shapes and colors..and Know
These are made of my Eternity..
My cure for all your infections...
~~CC






 


Pool Party

We need to observe fish in their
Pools..their awareness always of that
In which they live and thrive..then
We might Recognize our own Pool..
This Recognition deserves a party...!

READINGS..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLDOSfmoAfA

Resilience

Resilience

Covid-19
Has gained our attention
Attention in terms of
Dread..anxiety..boredom..
An unexpected lifetime
Experience which has a
Global sameness..of sorts..

Restrictions and constrictions
Imposed from without and
Within..responding to an
Unpredictable dark force..
Resilience is oft cited as
Our need to recover the
Size and shape of our
Lives before..

Yet..might we stand back
From imposed constrictions
Recognizing ourselves as 
Witness..The calm face of 
Resilience..and allow the
Constrictions to uncoil 
In their own time as
They surely will...  




Definition of resilience. 1 : the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress. 2 : an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.

One Step Into The Light. (with Moody Blues)

(The inward path
Recognizing our Light
As what we Are already
And always have been..
Untangling 
For now to allow our
Light to show us
Our Self..
~~CC)

"One Step Into The Light"

One step into the light

One step away from night

It's the hardest step you're gonna take

The ship to take you there

Is waiting at the head

Of the stairs that lead up through your opening mind

Above the dark despair

Shines a light that we can share

Close your eyes and look up in between your brows

Then slowly breathing in

Feel the LIFE FORCE streaming in

Hold it there, then send it back to him

All the old things are returning

Cosmic circles ever turning

All the truth we've been yearning for

Life is our saviour, saviour, saviour, save your soul

The river of LIVING BREATH

Is flowing through the SUN

He was there before the earth began

The world will drag on you

Use his love to pull you through

Find the mission of YOUR LIFE and start to BE

All the old things are returning

Cosmic circles ever turning

All the truth we've been yearning for

Life is our saviour, saviour, saviour, save your soul

There's one thing I can do

Play my Mellotron for you

Try to blow away your city blues

Your dreams are not unfound

Get your feet back on the ground

The TRUTH will set us FREE, we cannot lose

We cannot love, we just have to CHOOSE.

Friends - For a pleasant change of scenery from today's drudgery on TV check out Visions of Paradise by the Moody Blues.  One Step into the Light by the Moody Blues has a spiritual theme for our transition to the Afterlife.  Hope you enjoy both.

Charlie P.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hprKBU9btN8&feature=youtu.be

Mind-Fullness

Mind-Fullness

Fullness 
Is an experience of the
Eternal..of Grace..
And these are impersonal..
But when recognized
Are filtered and expressed
By the mind as creativity..
And in those times in life
When a personal focus is 
The order of the moment... 



Mind is the activity or agency through which and as which consciousness appears to itself as objective experience.

~~Rupert Spira

A man at roadside..

A man at roadside.. 

This seems long ago
But not so long I guess..
There was a man
Of rugged countenance
And flowing hair
Seated at roadside
Relaxed in his being
At the beginning of
My ascent on a 
Sunny park trail..
No word was spoken
Yet more than words 
Were the eyes
Making brief contact..
A gaze really
A knowing gaze
Not to be forgotten
After these years..

Memory colors our
Present..Now..beyond
Moment...

the riverbank..

the riverbank..

we all seek an invulnerable
happiness and peace..
in our seeking we are led
to many currents and bends
on the seeming river of our
lifeline..until that day of
fortune..when we leap to the
bank of the river..and notice
the stillness and peace of a
new place..to recognize now
I am the bank..have always
been..and that old river now
through Me..passes in review...


"Throughout the earth there are ancient forms, forms incorruptible and eternal; any one of them could be the symbol I sought. A mountain could be the speech of the god, or a river or the empire or the configuration of the stars. But in the process of the centuries the mountain is leveled and the river will change its course, empires experience mutilation and havoc and the configuration of the stars varies. There is change in the firmament. The mountain and the star are individuals and individuals perish. I sought something more tenacious, more invulnerable. I thought of the generations of cereals, of grasses, or birds, of men. Perhaps the magic would be written on my face, perhaps I myself was the end of my search.”

- Jorge Luis Borges (1899 - 1986)
Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings

Resurrection

Resurrection

The experience of

"I Am" ..alone

Without encumbrances

Indeed is.. our

Resurrection..those

Encumbrances are shed

In the experience of

Crucifixion..wherein

An eternal flame

Consumes all beliefs

In separation..

Allowing our walking

Walking Free today

And in all our days...

The Jellyfish (after Ursula K. Le Guin)

"Current-borne, wave-flung, tugged hugely by the whole might of ocean, the jellyfish drifts in the tidal abyss. The light shines through it, and the dark enters it. Borne, flung, tugged from anywhere to anywhere, for in the deep sea there is no compass but nearer and farther, higher and lower, the jellyfish hangs and sways; pulses move slight and quick within it, as the vast diurnal pulses beat in the moondriven sea. Hanging, swaying, pulsing, the most vulnerable and insubstantial creature, it has for its defense the violence and power of the whole ocean, to which it has entrusted its being, its going, and its will.

But here rise the stubborn continents. The shelves of gravel and the cliffs of rock break from water baldly into air, that dry, terrible outerspace of radiance and instability, where there is no support for life. And now, now the currents mislead and the waves betray, breaking their endless circle, to leap up in loud foam against rock and air, breaking....

What will the creature made all of seadrift do on the dry sand of daylight; what will the mind do, each morning, waking?"

- Ursula K. Le Guin (1929 - 2018)

The Lathe of Heaven

The still point...(with T.S. Eliot)

The polarities are playing

Until we inquire

And find only

the still point..

We are the still point

And the still point

Is dancing when

We  are on our stage...

Quantum Perseption...

Quantum Perception..

Scientists report on
Their experiences in
Quantum..
And they demonstrate the
Priority of perception in
Their surprising findings..
They find appearances 
Corresponding to who 
They are..Surprise..?
Yes..Unless we are attuned 
To a new  Identity..
That when recognized
Knows only the appearance 
Of things...





"Quantum objects present us with a choice of languages, but it’s too easily forgotten that this is precisely what it is: a struggle to formulate the right words, not a description of the reality behind them. Quantum objects are not sometimes particles and sometimes waves, like a football fan changing her team allegiance according to last week’s results. Quantum objects are what they are, and we have no reason to suppose that ‘what they are’ changes in any meaningful way depending on how we try to look at them. Rather, all we can say is that what we measure sometimes looks like what we would expect to see if we were measuring discrete little ball-like entities, while in other experiments it looks like the behavior expected of waves of the same kind as those of sound travelling in air, or that wrinkle and swell on the sea surface. So the phrase ‘wave–particle duality’ doesn’t really refer to quantum objects at all, but to the interpretation of experiments – which is to say, to our human-scale view of things."

-  Philip Ball (1962 - )
Beyond Weird

Shadow of Doubt

Doubt

The lesson now for
All traditions
Religious and not..it seems..
Is that beliefs and practices
Which you have fostered 
So long..always carry their
Shadow of Doubt..

Our own experience tells us
Why this is so..
Beliefs and practices live
In the realm of our minds
Cast in separation modes..
Replacing mind with Mind 
Yes..Drops the shadow...




The difference between doubt and negativity is great. They look alike; on the surface they have the same color, but deep down the difference is unbridgeable. First, doubt is not negativity; neither is it positivity.
Doubt is an open mind, without any prejudice. It is an inquiring approach.
~~Osho

See:  https://o-meditation.com/2020/04/02/blessed-are-those-who-doubt-osho/

A Stretch of Land. (with Barry Lopez)

A Stretch of Land

When our mind is aware
Of a stretch of land
A map comes forth in
Many variations
Of measurement and
Enumeration..
Maps are masks which
We do not recognize
Until a nagging something
Asks what can be known
By removing the mask...



"Whatever evaluation we finally make of a stretch of land, however, no matter how profound or accurate, we will find it inadequate. The land retains an identity of its own, still deeper and more subtle than we can know. Our obligation toward it then becomes simple: to approach with an uncalculating mind, with an attitude of regard. To try to sense the range and variety of its expression—its weather and colors and animals. To intend from the beginning to preserve some of the mystery within it as a kind of wisdom to be experienced, not questioned. And to be alert for its openings, for that moment when something sacred reveals itself within the mundane, and you know the land knows you are there."
- Barry Lopez (1945 - )
Arctic Dreams

Silent Friend. (Rainer Maria Rilke)

"Silent friend of many distances, feel

how your breath enlarges all of space.

Let your presence ring out like a bell

into the night. What feeds upon your face

grows mighty from the nourishment thus offered.

Move through transformation, out and in.

What is the deepest loss that you have suffered?

If drinking is bitter, change yourself to wine.

In this immeasurable darkness, be the power

that rounds your senses in their magic ring,

the sense of their mysterious encounter.

And if the earthly no longer knows your name,

whisper to the silent earth: I’m flowing.

To the flashing water say: I am."

- Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926)

Quarantined Joy. (Cell 54...Anwar Sadat)

Quarantined Joy

(Below is a wonderful writing about Sadat's
Recognition of his Self..in conditions which
most consider quite difficult..He says his
Cell 54 experience was the happiest time
of his life.)

The possibility lives 
That we might Recognize the reality
Or better..the Reality..of our lives..
While in restriction..in cells..
Quarantined..
Some find their Reality
A Reality of Happiness..of Joy..
When the material universe outside
Is denied..attention hesitates but
Reverses in a way not before 
Experienced..to find the Treasure
Of all our searching heretofore...
~~CC

In Cell 54, I could only be my own companion, day and night, and it was only natural that I should come to know that ‘self’ of mine. I had never had such a chance before, preoccupied as I had been with work in the army and with politics, and hurried along by the constant stream of life.

Now in the complete solitude of Cell 54, when I had no links at all with the outside world—not even newspapers or a radio—the only way in which I could break my loneliness was, paradoxically, to seek the companionship of that inner entity I call ‘self’ …

Through that feeling which came to be an indivisible part of my very being (and which, though unconsciously, remained with me all my life), I was able to transcend the confines of time and place. Spatially, I did not live in a four-walled cell but in the entire universe …

Inside Cell 54, as my material needs grew increasingly less, the ties which had bound me to the natural world began to be severed, one after another. My soul, having jettisoned its earthly freight, was freed and took off like a bird soaring into space, into the furthest regions of existence, into infinity …
~~Anwar el-Sadat, In Search of Identity


For more see:  https://www.theculturium.com/anwar-el-sadat-the-solitude-of-cell-54/?utm_source=The+Culturium+Newsletter&utm_

Common Sense..

We've heard the saying
Common sense is not
Too common..
What is the wisdom contained..?
The wisdom is hidden
As the wisdom displayed
Is the wisdom of the street
Of the hustle and bustle 
In the lives we have known..
The common wisdom lies
Elsewhere..though it is close..
What is common is the Presence
In which any lessor wisdom is
Unmasked as flitting thought..
Presence is our only
Common Sense...!




John Butler...Use your common sense
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbzzdw1jehU&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR38zg-CIFcfF6R_vqPo_OJE_EOfazeQRfw4YA93iKqnJet5ZcrcSWpGC00

Entanglement

Entanglement..

These are days
Of pungent experience..
A virus in shadow makes
Fearful appearance in
Our perceptions and 
Imaginations..these
Appearances have gone viral
And fill our days..
Until..we stand back
Witnessing our entanglement..
And as we disentangle for 
Just one moment..to Recognize
OurSelf as..Unentangled...

In a darkened crevice..

In a darkened crevice
Between rugged rocks
We sometimes find
An emerging voice..
Light and shadow
With fragile connection
Seem to claim the
Story of difference..
And if we stay with
The story..as we depart
Walking away from the
Crevice..we may be 
Hailed to return..
Return to an inner place
Which dissolves the
Difference..and reveals
The Beauty we missed
As we walked away...