no bounds

I love the breath that breathes me.

When I love the breath that breathes me,
I become the breath that breathes me.

When I become the breath that breathes me,
all boundaries fall away.

extrusion and exclusion

If you believe your god is the only god, you are automatically at war. Never mind that you say your god is love.

love and evol

As a holy joe, you are a schmo.
Sinking into dark, you are a snark.

Jesus and Beelzebub are brothers,
Chasing round and round that tree
Until melding into pancake butter.

Now that takes the cake!
Battered and buttered,
we make our way.

gone, gone, gone beyond, gone way beyond

Christianity as a method of salvation loses all its efficacy as a method when that method becomes a reality. Once one leaps from a springboard (the method), one no longer needs the springboard. One is in and one is the reality one was springing for. To go back and get the springboard is foolishness. One does not sit and worship the springboard.

In another but similar context, the Buddha said when you get to the other shore, you don't carry the boat around atop your head. Once the method has become a reality, one no longer needs that method. One is no longer a Christian, a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Whatever. One exists as the reality for which one was springing.

no theocracy

"The color of water is the color of its vessel." (Junayd, 10th century)

Water also assumes the form of its vessel. Hence, the great differences among religions, philosophies, and thought systems, and among the individuals within each of those consciousness systems.

Same water. Different colors. Different forms.

I reckon the Great Ah-Hoo-Ah-Hoo-Ah did not desire to set up a state religion. The Theos wants no theocracy.

two tines tuning

The tuning fork that we are consists of one tine of pure animal and one tine of pure spirit. The call is for both tines to vibrate fully, openly, and simultaneously. Trying to be a "respectable" animal will not and does not work. Nor does constricting one's soul for fear of full flow-through of spirit.

Animal awareness and spiritual awareness are different from shrivel-ized awareness. The first two see (and exist in) full Being. The latter, the state of ordinary consciousness, vibrates hesitantly and weakly and resides in death.

Fully animal and fully spirit simultaneously: this is the way to fly. We are embodyings of spirit. We are spirit embodying. We are these two simultaneously.

What is the sound of two tines tuning?

the realm of the highest human endeavor

1. The Not-Even-One, the One, and the dualistic Two which we embody ("on the one hand and on the other hand") merge to make the Three, this interwhirling we call life. 
2. General consciousness dwells in and as the dualistic two. 
3. Intuitive awareness opens to and as the Three. 
4. The Not-Even-One can be felt as, through the Three, one approaches the One. 
5. The Three is the realm of the highest human endeavor. 
6. Opening to and as the Three consists of one part attitude and three parts Grace.
7. Humility, will, faith, intellect, and love make up the attitude. The Grace is free.

trinity

0 - wu- nothing - source - father/mother
1 - yu - something - emanation - son/daughter
2 - t'ai - everything - interflow - holy spirit/chi

3 - wu-yu-t'ai - trinity - perichoresis

easter

I love Easter. Life arising out of Death. All of Nature displaying this pattern mysterious yet familiar. Famil-iar: in the Family. Even and especially our very God, Source and Wellspring of All, volunteering to go through this Recycle to show Us how It is Done.

without sin

"Sin" is not a popular term and is open to ridicule by those who reject an out-moded Christian paradigm based on guilt. To me, sin is still a viable concept and useful construct, but in the emerging cosmic citizenry paradigm (which includes Christianity), it is defined more realistically. No longer are we penitents flogging ourselves with penance nor the rebellious daring all blaspheme -- two categories of being which the old conception of sin produced in abundance.

Sin is separation. Sin is cutting oneself off from one's full being. Rather than opening to cosmic citizenry and full participation in the interflow of being, one shuts oneself down, proclaims oneself a separate tiny kingdom, refuses to open to the synchronous and the synthronous.

I know. Folk are fond of saying that sin means "missing the mark." Same thing. Separation. Separation from the mark. The shot arrow thunks off target or off bulls-eye.

When we are no longer whining petitioners or rebellious buttheads but actively involved as cosmic citizens (in Christian language, Christ consciousness), we are no longer separate. We have opened into a realm that is without sin. Our Source is within us and we are within our Source. We do not stand aside to look at It. We are It. And It is us.

excerpt from the anthropological study of phenomenological endeavor

"He said hello to the Morning Jesus. The Morning Jesus is calm and bright, good sunshine colors. Humorous, the Morning Jesus is humorous, laughter in his heart. Not like the Evening Jesus who is blue and silver. The Evening Jesus descends on him like a cloud of dreamful sleep." (From the Anthropological Study of Phenomenological Endeavor)

humus humor human

Humans: a cosmic experiment whose outcome is yet to be known, except by the Great Ah-Hoo-Ah-Hoo-Ah whose end is only a fresh beginning and whose beginning never was.

amniotic sac

Self-reflection: absorption in the echoes bouncing off the thin, tough, and shifting membrane of the imagination.

heart and sole

Heart in the cosmos,
feet in the world of men,
I make my coffee,
I dance and sing.

the preachers of yore

The preachers of yore, of my childhood, whether on Sunday or one of those hot eternal Revival summer nights, would get up in the pulpit, the cockpit of the church, and give chase to that same old fox, the fox without which those little churches would not exist.

He, the preacher was always a he, a woman could play the piano but not preach, he would unleash the ravenous hounds of hell, fangs dripping with fox-ripping saliva, followed closely by the four apocalyptic horsemen thundering on fox-stomping hooves. The fox? Well, it was you, of course. You that put Jesus on the cross. You that killed the only beauty in the cosmos. And the hounds of hell were breathing down your neck and if they didn't finish you off, the horsemen would stomp your sweet ass to nothingness, are already stomping.

I learned a lot from those preachers. I learned the power of imagery, of story, of mythology. I learned the power of words. I learned the power of rhythmic repetition, of a speaking cadence that caught folk and bound them into one attentive ear. I learned the power of creative imagination and its effect upon the physiology, of creating images that lead one from heart-pounding stress and ache to soothing waters of eternal bliss.

We might leave church and revert to our worldly ways but for an hour or so we were tightly knit as one body and the world made sense and our sins were forgiven and life was good.

A salute to you old preachers and revivalists! Masters of your art! My first tutors.

the eternal pacman

I am
the Eternal PacMan
chomping life
while monsters chase.

A golden sun
with pie wedge mouth
devouring all before me
monster in disguise.

The monsters are hungry suns
floating down thin corridors
to have their turn
at chomp . . .

circumincessio

the rooster crowing
the hen clucking

the flower opening
the corpse rotting

the lotus blooming
the root mucking

the spirit fleshing
the matter at rest

I Am This
The Eternal Interplaying

jingo

When we say
it's this or that
we've now shat
in our own hat.

When we say
it's them or us
we've become
a spiteful cuss.

When we say
it's mine or mine
we believe
we're now divine.

on heaven and hell

Early thought was that hell existed below (beneath the earth) and heaven existed above (in the sky). That gave way to a belief that both heaven and hell are inside of us. Now we open to the understanding that we are embodyings of the cosmos. We are the universe universing. Where does that put heaven and hell? Hell is when we continue to encapsulate ourselves in our seed husks while being pulled to open and flower. Heaven is when we open to the flowering of the universe that we are and move beyond the shuffling zombie existence of a  seed refusing to die and be born.

night words

These words came this night: "If you wish to be a Christ-ian, you must achieve the point of view of Christ. Your soul is your point of view."

science and awareness

I am amused that science is proud of its hard-headedness in relying upon data, then engages a mooshy-headedness in explaining that data.

Take a step back from science and you will see that it is so: there is data and there is story.

And furthermore, he said, rolling back his sleeves, only certain kinds and types of data are admitted. Bias is already built into the system.

When certain kinds of data are not admitted, the story is stunted, the bed we lie in short-sheeted.

But ha! some of you may say, rushing to extol the virtues of science and all its benefits. Never mind that. I know, I know. I simply point to its shortcomings.

thy grace

I struggle to rise
from the mud I am,

making a cup for
receiving thy grace.

The cup becomes a chalice,
thy wine inpouring.

Chalice, wine merge
cup and spirit as one.

We laugh
arms around shoulders
and walk together drunk.

the first and second birth

The first birth is into the world of matter, where one is a 25 to 28 foot worm coiled in an encasing whose main concerns are incorporation and defecation while “making a living” and recreating with other worm-coiled encasings. The second birth is the opening of the eye of the soul and an increasing “aptitude for theophanic vision” (Henry Corbin’s phrase). The first is the surface or prosaic world. The second is the world of mythopoetry, where the Invisible reveals Itself to the soul’s vision.

the banana school of zen

I belong to the B.A.N.A.N.A. school of Zen: Bare Ass Naked Awareness Now Awarenessing.

in-dense-ification

We are light indensifying. This in-dense-ification is our wounding and our challenge.

legs on the angel

When I first awaken, I am in the diaphanous, transparent, or celestial mode. I have not yet formed into and as this physicality. In this mode of light and open consciousness, I comprehend more deeply and more fully the nature and origin of this universe and life. It is a gnosis, a knowing. The soul that I am smiles in loving appreciation.

It is at this time that I can read the writings of the true philosophers, the mystics of intellect and comprehensive awareness, with their meanings reverberating through my soul. I listen with a deep ear. I hear. I see. I join in.

As the earth night moves toward dawn, I am born more fully into my body, this body, the one typing. I settle into, center in. I smile with its familiarity, its weight, its aches, its promise as a sturdy embodying for active practice of the gnosis, the knowing. Legs on the angel, so to speak.

As the body gets more tired toward mid-afternoon, the celestial mode tends to fade yet not disappear. Physical fatigue and cosmic consciousness seem to have an inverse correlation. It is at this time I practice patience with myself. I smile as I remember that it is hard embodying as a human. I breathe and ask for help and move on.

standing on a plank in infinite space

Engaging in polemics in politics, religion, and philosophy is akin to standing on a plank in infinite space and proclaiming the virtues of that plank as the righteous and only true place to stand. All other folk standing on planks are seen as raving fools while you, on your plank, embody Truth.

my theology

My theology:
1. "I saw him as I was able to receive him." (Acts of Peter)
2. "The look by which I know him is the very look by which He knows me." (Meister Eckhart)

going to ashes

Decades ago I found that arising at 4 a.m., sitting quietly and going to ashes, all agenda and personification extinguished, allowed an arising anew, a flaming of energy moving into the day.

cosmic citi-zen-ry

The transformation of the human species to cosmic citizenry comes with a price. The hard-won independent egoic self must be surrendered to that-which-breathes-us. Surrender is not a word we wish to hear. Not to worry. What is surrendered is returned ten thousand fold. Without surrender, we are shoveling shit against the tide. With cosmic citizenry we have hope, we have grace, we have the full energies of our Source in our favor. We become Source-erors

ride with your essence

Death is not the cold body on the ground.
Those are the remains.
Something has escaped.
Be that which escapes.
Before the escape.
Ride with your essence.
Die before you die and truly live.
When already here, there is no place to go.
Live and love and laugh with the Cosmos.

on walking with God

There are those of us who experience a close relationship with our Source, the Wellspring, God -- an intimate friendship which has nothing to do with fundamentalism, literalism, or any other schism. Should we apologize for this, for not "advancing" into the post-post-modern consciousness state of regarding Godfulness as superstition? I think not.

theosis

It is not that theology is obsolete, then, but that it still is, and for an unpredictable length of time, in the embryonic stage.” Emile Cailliet, “The Literary Mind and Religious Responsibility” (his emphasis). In Stanley Romaine Hopper (Ed.), Spiritual Problems in Contemporary Literature. New York: Harper, 1957.

While only half a century has gone by since Cailliet wrote those words, I sense the embryo stirring into birth. Theology is being born anew. The former “study of the theos” was just that: an objective study of, with the theos (God) as object under scrutiny. We fell into the fallacy of separation, that we are somehow standing outside the universe and “objectively” observing “it.” We somehow forgot or never understood that we ourselves are a wave in this mighty ocean with no circumference or measurable depth.

The new theology is not “theology” at all, but theosis, the deep knowing that we are identical with that which we continue opening to understand. When the “religions” begin to model and teach this, a new era of spirituality will blaze the land.

religious

Despite protestations to the contrary, everyone of us is religious, swears allegiance over and over to an object of worship. Whatever you attend to the most is your object of worship, what you idolize.

radiance

"The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." (Matthew 26: 41) While I understand and see the validity of this statement, it is not the final word. What is flesh but the spirit embodying, flooding it with radiance and light so that the two are one? The flesh is as willing as the spirit is strong. Synthronicity is at play here: flesh and spirit "sit on each other's seat" simultaneously. Synthronous and synchronous, they move as one.

emergence

What is Christ if not a symbol of our own mythos, our own story, our own birth, trials, crucifixion, death, and rebirth, our own ascension to cosmic awareness and responsibility? We are Christs in the making, emerging from our chrysalis to meet all crisis.

our kin beyond all ken

Of all stories my heart has heard and sung I most cherish one. The one creating heavens and earth, the one hiding in plain view, the one within, our kin beyond all ken, born as a human, borning even now. This one floods our hearts with joy, even in our sadness. For what is sadness but the weight of the world, a weight released when opening to the radiance of the birthing of the one. The unborn has become the born. The light dispels the dark. Once again. And forever.

the Ertia of the Maker

Caught in the battle between the Maker and the Unmaker, I cast my lot with the Maker, with Ertia rather than Inertia. (Yes, yes, I know the need for both. No need to lecture me on that. I speak of wider realms.)

The Inertia of the Unmaker leads to the great harmonic hum, the background noise in which souls blend into forgetfulness, the tinnitus of the Cosmic Ear, where nerve has become nirvana. Spare me that! I choose the Maker, the one of creative endeavor, the one always advancing out of inert mud into fiery spirit.

The Maker and I are partners in this endeavor, this rising up beyond both mind and heart into unknown realms. If battle cry we have, it is but one: Beyond!

since both

Since both "external" objectivity and "internal" subjectivity rest upon fabrication, speak who the fabricator is without fabrication.

tossing God

God is no object, to be tossed aside like a spurned toy from one's childhood. God is a living breathing dynamic force, the pulsing of your heart, the fires of creative ecstasy, the surging power of your being. God cannot be tossed aside. The God that can be tossed is not the eternal God.

exile

God is not dead. We have exiled ourselves.

trinity

The Origin and Maintenance of this Universe? The Dark (Great Mystery) births the Light. The Light rejoices and the Light and Dark mutually Embrace. The Embrace gives birth to Love. The Dark, the Light, and Love: Holy Trinity.

depth

Just as there is a depth to the Bible which a literalist reading does not begin to comprehend, so it is with the Qur'an. The eye that sees the surface of the water does not begin to comprehend the denizens of its depths.

Wrestling with the Angel (Genesis 32: 24-32)

What does it mean to wrestle with the Angel? For certain, it means to not retreat into one’s secluded room of favored icons nailed to the walls. It means to risk one’s soul in standing firm, toe-to-toe, mirror image of the Angel, countering every move. Hopefully this grappling where one’s hip is put out of joint will turn into a tango of smooth embrace, where leading and following merge into strong content. No dead relaxation here though. The music and the dance can change at any time.

what jesus might have said

What Jesus might have said:
Sink or swim on your own, you buzzard vampires,
drinking my blood and eating my flesh!
Quit wearing my hand-me-downs,
weave your own no-seamed robe!
Stop snacking on your everlasting supper,
jump up on your own cross!
Claim your own sunship in the cosmos,
hope no one builds a religion around your ass!
Walk around the walls you’ve built
and horn blow those suckers down!
Let’s go! Get with it! If you want to follow me,
I went that ‘away!

wellspring

I bought this Bible in June, 1957 just prior to leaving for Parris Island boot camp. It went with me all through the Marines and is still with me. Well read, it speaks to me ever more deeply even now.

as souls of this world

As we consider the infinite number of worlds in the cosmos, each world governed by its inhabiting souls, we might wonder how we are doing here, with our world. As souls of this world, we are faced with darkness and division, confusion and hostility, with forces of annihilation. We are a relatively new world and the outcome remains uncertain. As souls of this world, we embody the Light. It is our true nature and is not only our means of protection but of transformative projection. As souls of this world, we radiate Light into this world. Light is not oofy-doofy fluffy-puffy. Light sends darkness scurrying.

And lest you neo-Taoists disapprove with insistence that the light and dark interflow, I speak of the Light which illuminates all disapproval: the Light beyond both light and dark. This is not a philosophical issue. This is Life.

As souls of this world, we are called into action. The action is simple and powerful. We continue our action every moment with every breath. We embody Light.