pure magnolia
Save the humanS

Pure Offerings
They look like white mammoth butterflies,
Perched with nothing better to do than
Show off their metamorphosed beauty.
The magnolias are in bloom.
Born in bloom,
This towering, flowering tree is right
In the stern gaze of General Lee.
A living monument to behold
Where otherwise one would catch carved stone down
This historic Avenue
But today the rigid General has given
Up his pedestal to the pure offerings of blossoms
June stops her tears and clears her eyes
The pigeons dive for dinner

Greece under my converse
I did it with complete confidence that it could be done - a climb to the highest point with high top chucks, at one point they were the highest pair of black canvas high star shoes in all of Greece.
No reservations while others took minutes to strap up their waterproof, ice gouging, ultra hiker 6000 boots,
No hesitations when even our guide slipped and was injured, nope, not one when I stayed behind to assist him, carry his bags, and get snow to ice his injury.
Up and down in two days and all Chuck could say was “let me know when you need a break Mike cause we can run circles around those overweight Tims – come on let me at em” They did it too, boy they did. What? the water that did seep in provided some extra cool and cleansing to my sweaty toes, and the rubber that rubbed off a bit was just to carry the experience further, a trophy, a scar to be proud of - like a knife fight or wrestling crocodiles. And that’s Mt. Olympus – Zeus’ biceps, triceps, and pecks flexed with the snow capped curves and rocky ridges, his seat was taken over by a bunch of foreigners who gulped thinner air and carried digital cameras. Temporarily. For all who make it to the top respectfully hand over to its caretaker and only take back the pebbles that get stuck in between their toes. On the way down the pines patted us on the back because they also know only One can throw lightning bolts with the accuracy of justice.

How about being at the highest point one day and the lowest point the very next – sea level, 2918 meters to 0. Sarti, the second peninsula in the north provided slim recuperation time – my legs needed it and my converse needed to air out. Yet hiking along the sidewinder roads along Greece’s ancient fingers provided a different kind of air – the kind men of the sea have multiple words for, they swear and sail by them. Our goal was in mind too – our very own private beach to lie out and camp for the night, and so my legs didn’t buckle but to carry the rest of my body to the sand we staked out. The radioactive quartz contrasted the ice sea – its one of those things you just have to jump into head first.
The night was ended with bread, beans and rice under the night’s sky – with billions of worlds watching us and us watching them and hopefully no one watching our illegal campfire.
See the barnacles and snails? The water was so clear that it turned blue, it’s like the sky doubling over on itself – for all infinite things carry a similar color. Wait, did you see that thing? – I think one touched me... it did. I didn’t know brine shrimp were so brave.
Nearing the afternoon we pack up and aim towards town along the path where our shadows give the dirt a chance to cool off. Bus leaves at 5:30 – its 5:10 now, yeah? You want a crepe? Is there chocolate on my face? That was the best banana chocolate crepe one could ask for sitting under the awning of a café. Across the street is his competition, and probably his uncle, selling exactly the same thing at the same price but with a different name tag – different colors. Sorry, the red and white had me sold. Wait a second, what time is it? We quickly pay, Ciao and a wink returned and we’re off. To the bus stop around the corner where we sit down on the bench and wait for the bus to come.
And wait for the bus to come.
I think we missed the bus. No we didn’t. we were only 4 minutes past 5:30. We didn’t. Those crepes were good. Is there chocolate on my face – why didn’t you tell me! I think we missed the bus. Go ask them...
I don’t want to, they’ve been staring at us since we got here. These guys with tight jeans and mustaches – drinking frappes and beer all day on the corner. You do it, no you do it….I DON’T SPEAK GREEK!
We go to some other lady and she informs that the bus came and went and evidently we were eating crepes. Oh well, next bus is tomorrow at 7am. YOU mean tomorrow as in after the sun goes down and back up again – that tomorrow where Omar has an exam at noon? Oh ok, thanks dear. This is expected when you decided to go backpacking without a watch, but we’re adaptable, right? The ATM is out of cash and all we have is enough money to pay for the bus ticket back to Thessaloniki – a 4 hour ride that cost us 13 euro each to get here.
Our food money is down to maybe a euro and a half – couldn’t even buy another crepe and its only 6 pm…..what to do, what to do…
I got it! lets go up to the main road see if we can hitch a ride
But they don’t do that here in Greece, I mean, its rare, especially with a bunch of sunburned foreigners – come on.
No, we’re going to try at least for an hour, then we can figure out what else we can do. I’m pretty sure someone will stop – in the back of a truck or whatever, we’ll get some place where we’ll have more options.
We throw down our gear at the top of the road – look both ways along the lined asphalt where we can see for miles on either side. Nobody. I grab a stalk of dried grass and start to chew on it while Omar is lying out in the middle of the road. Minutes later a car is coming and we’re waving – they wave back and keep going, no, they actually accelerate. We got a routine down, thumbs up, money in hand – Thessaloniki?
An old Greek native comes strolling up the road behind us. Silence. He has the aged skin and the sun worn shirt and pants, a mouth grown never tired of feta cheese and olives. The long eyes stared miles ahead, Thessaloniki?, I must be using the wrong accent, or maybe it’s the chocolate on my nose. What was funny was that we were pretending that we meant to be standing there at the top of the single lane road with all our bags, like this was our destination. Yet, it was that we were a bit ashamed of the whole thing, for his presence caught us up in deep reverence for the simplicity of old, as the experiences and wisdom floated before us - we were too ignorant to see past our situation as apparently left behind in a quite town which we perceived as having nothing we could use or want. We were nothing to him because we had already turned our back and our desires rushed to be anywhere but here, we weren’t there and he didn’t see us.
Fewer cars went by than minutes and even fewer gave any sign that they understood what we were doing.
Up pulls a four door fiat with a burly Greek from the same road behind us coming out of the town. Thessaloniki? – hop in
and we didn’t step twice about it
Introductions and pleasantries were due - all in Greek of course and then not much else to be said – he was going where we wanted to go and had 3 extra seats. Theres something satisfying in traveling 100mph in a car with a man you don’t know sitting next to you smoking cigarettes like they were after dinner mints. Minutes of uninterrupted silence – slowing to let the curves do what they do and slowing to let the goats do what they shouldn’t do.
A stop at a café: Frappe, Coke, Beera?
No, no, but thanks, ok?
Ok, coke then
The drivers buying – quite men are the most generous if not but to give the silence a turn to talk.
We continue on with smiles hurting our faces, the sunburn didn’t give it away? I’m American. More silence and wind banging on my window because its wants a ride – wouldn’t you get tired of chunks of metal flying through you at ridiculous speeds?
Thessaloniki in an hour and a half and I believe we beat the bus that never needed us anyway. The old man was Poseidon reminding us that what’s behind us is just as important as what’s in front.

To be continued…..

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."
"Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."
Albert Einstein
US (German-born) physicist (1879 - 1955)

Tradition

The Tao does not speak of itself
So the Two came forth to describe but One
The One body is a mountain – knowing sun and shade
The One body is a stream – being swift yet still
The One body is a pine – yielding but strong
Harmony with Yin and Yang, there is nothing wrong
The landscape is forever intimate, knowing when to stop and begin
The One body is never divided in Yang and Yin

GOING HERE
Some people just can’t sit still – they got to go all around in circles, see this and that, and forget about that stuff under their feet – what’s that? Oh, its HERE. Well excuse me for butting in but I’m HERE, where are you? What’s the problem with just stopping for a second, or even for a day, but sorry to trouble you for you got the whole year planned out and you can’t be bothered to stop until you get there. But where are you actually going? Well you can run in circles all you want but what happens is that you end up forgetting yourself, because you’re never completely HERE to think about it. and what’s the trouble with just stopping for a moment to see your reflection, no not the mirror to see how you look for the dinner you have tonight then you got to make sure that its all tidy and in order on the outside cause you know that its got to cover up what it really looks like on the inside. what it is – is that your afraid of what might reflect back to you when you stop – so you keep going only to let yourself forget about it until one of two things happens: either all this mess builds up on the inside, where the pressure becomes too great cause you haven’t been paying any attention to it – then – boom the mess is released in a fury of tears and you’ve lost control - you are forced to feel all that which you have been running from – well, not forced to because its natural, just that you have been delaying all those little guys saying we need attention and your just delaying having to deal with them, and then finally they all get together and protest and break down the castle doors and demand to get their issues resolved – they just want justice. That’s option number one and I’ve seen it happen. Option number two is stopping for a minute and letting someone like me talk you into just sitting for a minute and playing a game called who can be silent the longest – allowing you finally to arrive to that place you’ve been running to, you thought it was behind your back but now its in front of you. The HERE is telling you to take off your shoes and stay a while. The Here is telling you how to deal with those guys lined up behind that big door you put up, one by one. whispering in your ear that you are all you ever need and that you’ve got it right HERE. Both options are difficult, but one involves a lot less suffering to learn an important lesson – I cant tell you, I cant, but what I can do is point you in the right direction where we don’t have to be running anymore, where we don’t have to have a check list to make it look like we’ve gotten things done – because once you sit to let this hurried you take in some oxygen, take in some serenity, then you just might realize that you’ve done it all before and it always seemed the same, I mean you didn’t actually go anywhere at all and you’ve been carrying all this suffering around so why not try something new that is actually doing nothing at all, but then you might find out that you were doing this all along – nothing. So why waste the energy when you don’t have to do anything for the same results? If you put all that energy into HERE, then you might actually go places…..I’ve seen it.

The beautiful lights reflected daily
Pregnant women and pastels
Grey men and grey beards
Walking sticks and hobbles
The ones in neck braces
Children with chocolate on their faces
Triplets and twin smiles
The ones sitting and holding hands
Asian ladies and Mercedes
Enthusiastic stylists and invitations
Coffee cake bakers and talkative shoppers
The cashier offering nickels
Task givers and task takers
The teenage music fakers
Last minute lecturing and tea searching
Business men and business cards
Motorcycle couples thinking hard
Black men in plaid and black ear hair
The Cell phone glued with gold flair
Large sunglasses and divorced mothers
Angles sparkling and walking in the sun

A visible night
There’s a people that’s invisible
That’s why we’re here
We offer our solidarity
For eye opening light to be there
We accept the aching bones
The lone concrete for this night
For my brothers and sisters
Who don’t deserve to live in fright
For a country that we’ve never seen
For a people that we’ve never met
The possibility of pervading peace
The sustainability of one society
We go without certain needs
Even our prayers prayed on their knees
That’s why we’re here
We offer collectivity
For soul strengthening love to be there

Listen, Sweetheart
Do I seem the same
Look at the eye that remains,
For eternity.
The green blankets just cover,
My salutations,
Under my breath I bless.
We walk for shade,
And put on sunglasses.
Never questioning the brightness,
Which sustains and grows,
With an intensity only One knows.
Lets not forget,
The little balls of light,
Which dance and sing,
When our thoughts hold their hands.
Looking something like this -
The squiggles and the straights,
To form sense in cooperation,
Yet still barely blanketed with green.
Now some will lay,
Absorbed unconsciously playing,
With the fluffy energy that tickles,
Asking only for the barriers to be broken.
The sun shines,
And only the ones in the way create shade.
Didn’t you know, sweetheart,
Sunglasses are for the blind.


Shining Questions

Everything shines in its presence
Love knows no distance
Light smiles of tranquil tones
White footprints not alone
A seeming breeze
Stirs a question out loud
Where was I, just now?

One love

All we need to know
One eye, one sight, one truth
One love
One step, one path, one word
One love
One earth, one body, one purpose
One love
Multiple moments converge into one
One chance, one effort, one action
To know one
One love
It takes one
One death, one life
One man, one woman
One love
One passion, one fruit
One moment, one memento
One love
One child, one miracle
One creator, one destroyer

One heart

The words of Lao Tzu:
In order to contract,
It is necessary to first to expand.
In order to weaken,
It is necessary first to strengthen.
In order to destroy,
It is necessary first to promote.
In order to grasp,
It is necessary first to give.

To my dearest
To the paths that present themselves
You are not the path
To the words that weave themselves
You are not the word
And to the thoughts that arise out of silence
You are not silence
What are you all doing here?
I invite you elsewhere
To my eyes that keep watch
You can retire
To my ears that stiffen their drums
You can relax
And to my back that straightens it all out
You are relieved
Duty is your calling, yet
Duty you do not call
I need you inasmuch
As I need to realize I don’t need you
The master is ready to serve
While the servants are eager to master
Such is the law abiding light
Those who carry it, have the lesser need
I cry let the light shine
I cry in the ignorance of your night
To my tears which have been held back
You can flow

Silent Student
What is all around can be found
In daily stepping
Observing without sound
Actions of masters who have managed so far
Teachers that don’t even know they know
What am I in this mess
Absorbing it so fast
The wisdom can not be put in words
The words only imply wisdom
But what I feel is beyond:
My thinking mind - My daily tunnel vision
Hovering between sound and silence
For the deepest lecture means nothing
Without the silence - which teaches just the same
When I find the boundary between the two
It will describe my state exactly
Because I’ll know the only boundary that exists
Is the one I’ve constructed
Sound is the same as silence – I’ve found
But these words try to imprison my ideas
With the overabundance of speaking lips
That creates an empty sound
I prefer taking silent sips
From the silent tea that awaits silently
To teach me

blue ridge mountatins - lonely pine
Save the humanS

Over stepping
why are we afraid
of the eyes of passer bys
we may reflect ourselves
I'm tired of the taboo
of feeling something
I'm not supposed to in you
anxiety breaks bridges of experience
of true feeling we're never
told about
there's no doubt
we bury our treasure deep
inside
we weep for attention
yet receive with apprehension
trusting illusion over intuition
confusion over realization
becoming beggars on the path to peace
we distract ourselves with waiting
over stepping simple bliss release

Her Sacred Cavity
the void gives rise to that which is erected
space provides room for existence
that which receives can hold the sending
spontaneity lends its self to structure
whence do all things come and go?
being nothing, now we have something
emptiness knows existence
through being filled in
alas! members need a place to sit
which comes first -
the breathing in or the breathing out?
Substance is nothing - no thing
how else could we measure it?

Love is-

It is very difficult to actually define what love is. We may try to define it in terms of what love is not. Love can not be contained; it is nothing made of molecules. Love is not taking anything; it is not wanting. Love is never the cause of unhappiness; it is not a weakness. Love is not sexual in nature; it is not of the physical senses. There are many conventions which we may attach the word love to – but the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Love is indeed so simple that we make it all complex and wishy-washy, and we get in trouble when we try to define it with our limited terms. It is just as crazy as defining what God is – can we really put it in a box of conventions and hand it to someone else – we say “here is my love, look, don’t you see it?” Oh, the trouble we get ourselves into. Indeed we feel pain at this misunderstanding.
To feel love is to feel everything – who can describe that? Jesus said “God is Love”, well then Love is God. It is the one thing we all have, yet go about looking for. What we really desire as humans is to give it – for the more we give away the more we open ourselves to receive it, though it is not something we can run out of. It is the all underlying cause of our life – for we search for that which makes us smile – to be happy at the end of the day. And this is realizing that we are in love – in love with life. Love is the eternal fabric of our being – and the single most ‘thing’ that we realize is worth living for. When we hear all the business of that we are all connected somehow – well love is that connection. It is more than the connection, but the page in which we write our words on. It is the canvas that we paint on. So how is it that we are not all brimming with love in bliss with each other? We see the fascinating colors and objects painted in this world – yet we easily forget that none of it would exist without the painter – and the painter wouldn’t be able to paint without the underlying canvas which allows the paint to be visible. The canvas is love, for it gives us a chance to experience life while humbly staying in the background. It asks not to be recognized. To the one who can see beyond the pretty colors, love presents itself! And we say “Ahhh, it’s so simple and it was there all along, how did I ever miss it?” Use whatever metaphor you like, for love can be found in everything.

Most of us have kept the dove of our spirit bound in a cage, it has forgotten how to fly. It has become weak without exercise - this is the stagnation of the spirit. This is the deeper cause of our sufferings - for the beauty of the dove is not to be kept in a cage - it is to let it fly out into existance and experience. Let us have no desire to keep it for ourselves, for true bliss is not to be contained.

"Both music and poetry lead us to what this world is about, which is a dance." - Alan Watts

Bible thoughts for today -
Mark 16:15-18
Then he (Jesus) told them: “go into the whole world and proclaim the good news to all creation. The man who believes in it and accepts baptism will be saved; the man who refuses to believe in it will be condemned. Signs like these will accompany those who have professed their faith: they will use my name to expel demons, they will speak entirely new languages, they will be able to handle serpents, they will be able to drink deadly poison without harm, and the sick upon whom they lay their hands will recover.”
Interpretation according to Michael:
Accepting baptism during the time of Jesus was accepting the truth of the spirit. It is a first step to outwardly accepting that we are more that our bodies and ‘baptism’ was the ritual for this, using the cleansing and renewing symbol of water – which is a powerful symbol in almost all religions.
Signs will accompany those who have professed their faith – this profession is the total acceptance of the realization of who we actually are. By professing we are doing more than speaking out, we have no doubt – we have understood a greater truth and are amazed at the bliss we have found! There is no other way to express our new found love but to profess it unto others through every expression of our being.
With this realization we are able to live through the greater Will of God, there are no limits, no boundaries to our minds – miracles can be worked. But actually they are only miracles to those who have not opened up to this greatness – deeming what they see to be impossible! That is what we call miracles – but to the spirit, there is no miracle at all – only actions coming and going, for no definition can be placed on God. What it comes down to is that the realized soul is beyond suffering – for they will be able to do what most perceive as fatal, handling snakes – drinking poison and such. It is even more amazing that we are then bestowed, through right discernment (only because our discernment is the same as Gods), the power to heal through the laying of hands. This similarity also follows most other spiritual / religious thought (reiki). The dispelling of demons was also another way of healing disease – for in that era unexplained medical conditions were thought to be caused by demons. Indeed, that is why the bible is thick with cases of when Jesus expelled demons. Though what is illness other than a malady of the spirit caused by ignorance?