Inspiration

In late August Chromatic scales slur and thrum, Ricocheting tree to tree On a million Cicada legs. The scordatura made more brilliant by Layered crescendos of Skylarking bird, and squirrel in sharp exchange…. Except at Brahma Mutra. This first light of defining silence Is the conductor’s inhale, Arms lifted, finger extends ‘Wait-Wait-Hold Now! The arm slashes down into The morning’s polychoral cry and response. Before that prima volta, In the light not yet lush, Before the indefinite pitch of snare drum, Chimes, or Temple Blocks, I enter the silent, sacred space To wander its thousand petals, The colored fragrance of love. There the Black Prince sleeps. He with his Bee-Lords Nestle upside down, Pillowed within pink and purple Phlox, Nodding in accepted weight. This holy moment Of soundless, almost light Prepares the music within. I might become Kabir’s ecstatic flute To play my own Brahma Mutra. I am his ‘bee of the heart- Deep inside the flower- Caring for no other thing.’

One of my great teachers, Daniel Orlansky, quoted another great teacher, Osho, and I was reminded of my first great teacher, Helen.  They have all said or demonstrated the same profound rule in different ways, but when something is completely true, it is true for all time and in all circumstances.  This is one of the few times you can write, ‘always.’  Osho’s first rule of his ‘non-commandments’ was, “Never obey anyone’s command unless it is coming from within you also.”  It’s right up there with, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”  Good and great for all time. There are few commands which remain immutable, whatever the circumstance or age.  What grows interesting is how we choose to hear, and use the wisdom of the iconic.  We change and hopefully how we hear and use the tried and true, changes.  When first hearing the first rule; do not surrender, never obey, unless it comes from deep inside Self, I thought well that’s easy.  I don’t like anyone telling me what to do anyway.  Many years later upon hearing this, I recognize the inner layers that must be attended and heard in order to know if it is coming from within me.  Am I mirroring someone else?  Am I reacting in rebellion? Am I taking the easy way out, sliding along with the group?  What is my true voice in this moment?  Where is my courage to stand up for that voice? I also question the synchronicity of when old and loved things in our life re-appear.  Is it by happenstance?  Or is there some personal wisdom needed at this time by this seemingly random event?  The age-old question of fate or accident meet to be met only in my choosing. In case you have not seen Osho’s list of ‘non-commandments’ here……

Wind moves the tall grasses, opening a slender swath at the spine of the hill. I trespass her narrow path, feeling her breath in my spine. Her inhale pauses, whooshing out in exhale. Our attunement grows so perfect she is the breath of my beloved, as I am hers. Every healing longed for moves between our inhale and exhale, conduits of life force. Beckoned to the top of the hill, I pause with inner arms turned out, head and palms stretched back to surrender offerings to the sky. My breath/her breath, the logos, surrendering everything without, holding all within. This earth’s breath, so assumed we do not build her shrines, nor meadow-statues, yet she is patron saint of givers & high-livers, friend & neighbor, mothers-fathers, and every lover persuaded by her dance. Would that I will conjure this moment for my death. Call it to me as simply  following the wind down from the high crest into the shadowed meadow. There, in a long windswept exhale, weight falls away, stone is cut from stone, and the iron link unfastens.

This hour is holy.  Why?  Because I choose to be wholly in it.  No pun, please.  Summer in New England is precious because there is never enough except when we stop to be it, to match our spirit to its own. Part of summer’s sacred-Self is that it removes longing for an unknown future.  My prayer is that a minute from now, two days from now, it will still be now.  That indeed is a holy indictment, one where I remain alive and present only to being in this now.  I’ve noted that when future circumstances, or a sense of anticipation, or anxiety rise up that ‘the now’ freezes and disappears.  It’s like a film, running across the eyes obliterating the present repast.  What was an exquisite moment of ‘being’ becomes ‘what does my ego want?’ What will these unknown circumstances require? What will I compare them to? How shall they affect the coming days? Time brings me nothing.  To wait for something creates an energy of not having.  Time is not continuous.  That view is only superimposed by looking back.  Time is deceptive, as we think there is something more than ‘now.’ Only by comparison do we think we had a happy time or a sad time.  When we compare, the ego lives loudly, not a bad thing, just a smaller point of view.  When we compare, we are not peaceful.  There is always that sense of this is better than that.  I like her more than him.  I wish I were back there, not here.  Anticipating a future moment assumes that time will stop when it arrives.  My plans will be served.  I will be happy then. We cannot make time work.  We can only be so fully present that past and future are holy within us, opening……

Lacuna, what a wonderful word!  It’s a particularly wonderful word at this time of year when we can be it, as well as see it.  It’s meaning is a hiatus, or blank space- possibly as in a vacation.  It can also be an intercellular space, and-or a small pit or depression, like those in the back hip bones.  What fun to say, “I’m in lacuna, or going on lacuna.” That could mean, “I’m outta here.”  Or “I am the blank page….life will write the day, not me.” There’s another wonderful word which resonates with lacuna, it’s the Sanskrit, ‘pratyahara,’ meaning “the conscious withdrawal of energy from the senses.”  Certainly one must try and do this if one is to become a blank space.  Pratyahara, as the fifth step, or limb, of Patanjali’s eight-limbed Ashtanga Yoga system, can be elusive because there is little consensus on how much withdrawal is appropriate.  Is it similar to Savasana?  Yes, but more.  Savasana is a first stage of relinquishing and letting go the body, allowing breath to take over. When working with pratyahara, is that an oxymoron?  Can you ‘work’ something of this nature?  Do we think we should, be able to disappear completely into the deepest subtle layers of the body, withdrawn from the outside world -just this side of death?  Since it is summer, and I’ve opted for profound quiet space, or more to the point, my body has demanded it, I’m interested in how far down this can go.  Lately, I’ve felt I’ve been at the bottom of a well.  It’s not a bad thing.  It’s not something I wished for, or worked for, it just is.  It’s as though the last year of going at a greyhound’s racing pace needs inner balancing. Some people might call my state a ‘walking……

The almost perfected-moon rises, Pale in late afternoon cloud Pinked with sunset’s reflection, Claiming her sky. From twilight’s descending lavender She grows dense and hard-edged, Her rabbit face pentimento revealed As Sol drops below the horizon. My almost perfected-Self Rises within Growing potent and full Despite forsaken promises Long gone dreams Dead-end journeys. Now, now this moment facing Gaia Face to face Grace ripens Redolent, burgeoning Re-generating light through cycles, Revealing will and desire.