Deep Dreaming, Day and Night, Twin Stars

One of the most beautiful dreams I've ever had in my life started with the peeling of a sunburn from my shoulder to my chest until I had uncovered my ribcage, looked in at my beating heart and pulled it out.

I looked at it and said to myself,

"...next time be more careful... do not lose track of your dreams. If you think you are lost now, wait 20 years and guess again at a direction you cannot discern. Pay attention to your dreams because they will not go away. They may be hard to see but they will never go away. If you refuse to see, they will gnaw at you like wondrous motions of the body, a mystery that eludes and confounds and inspires. They will foster in you the sense that something isn't right, that something is lost, that something forgotten must be recovered. There will be an aching space, an unnameable space that is ever unfulfilled. They will linger in every moment. Save yourself the heartache and don't lose track of them; once they are deeply buried, they are difficult to unearth."

It all starts with a glance...

... and the next thing I know I'm rearranging furniture...

I can change my entire living room/dining room in less than a few hours. It's kinda nuts. I moved my first sofa when I was seven... little did I know then I would be slinging furniture as a form of therapy for the next leg, or two, of my life.

I've been going through a kind of separation lately; leaving an old version of myself in the compost of recycled stuff. It's not that difficult to do really, it's like math: straightforward, intuitive. The odd thing is, when I look at the equation of my life straight on, my eyes go wiggy and I lose my concentration.

Someone once said to me that I was the most intuitive person they'd ever met; in a dark place I would always find my way home. In some ways I envy the person motivated by the logical brain, there are days when I could surely make use of it in my own life. It's not that I don't live by logic, it's just my own special logic;)

I'm of two minds about my stuff: I love my stuff, my stuff is beautiful, my stuff is a reflection of my interests and an occupation of various kinds, and conversely, all this stuff could burn to ash and I'd never look back, it's just stuff, stuff is a distraction, stuff is not life.

It's a funny thing, living this life. I watched a program on channel 2 the other day about a family that's lived most of their lives on a thirty-three foot boat, sailing the world. One kid born in Australia, one in the U.S., another in Iceland... Thirty years at sea. Something they said struck me deeply... They said if you want to set sail, set a goal, a departure date; everything else in your life will fall into place around it. They said your life will take on a new clarity and reflect your new priority.

So here I am, reconnoitering... sitting on the brink of my life, enjoying a position of freedom and a full vision of myself and my desires. I have complete lateral movement. I choose to be myself, utterly, completely, honestly, openly, without fear. The confusion ends now, I focus my will into the shape of my new life.

I promise, on this day, one year from now, I will have a handle on my next move... the move into a life at sea, away from the staid, torn version I am living now.

Blessed Be.

Dangerous Prayers

by Sara Regina Ryan

Deliver us, O God, O Truth, O Love, from quiet prayer
from polite and politically correct language,
from appropriate gesture and form
and whatever else we think we must put forth to invoke or praise You.
Let us instead pray dangerously—wantonly, lustily, passionately.
Let us demand with every ounce of our strength,
let us storm the gates of heaven, let us shake ourselves
and our plaster saints from the sleep of years.
Let us pray dangerously.
Let us throw ourselves from the top of the tower,
let us risk a descent to the darkest regions of the abyss,
let us put our head into the lion's mouth
and direct our feet to the entrance of the dragon's cave.
Let us pray dangerously.
Let us not hold back a little portion,
dealing out our lives—our precious minutes and our
energies—like some efficient accountant.
Let us rather pray dangerously—unsafe, profligate, wasteful!
Let us ask for nothing less than that the Infinite ravage us.
Let us ask for nothing less than annihilation in the
Fires of Love.
Let us not pray in holy half-measures nor walk
the middle path for too long, but pray madly, foolishly.
Let us be too ecstatic,
let us be too overwhelmed with sorrow and remorse,
let us be undone and dismembered...and gladly.
Left to our devices, ah what structures of deceit we have created;
what battlements erected, what labyrinths woven,
what traps set for ourselves, and then
fallen into. Enough.
Let us pray dangerously—hot prayer, wet prayer, fierce prayer,
fiery prayer, improper prayer,
exuberant prayer, drunken and completely unrealistic prayer.
Let us say Yes, again and again and again.
And Yes some more.
Let us pray dangerously, the most dangerous prayer is
always yes.

Hallelujah

By Leonard Cohen

Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music now, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Baby I've been here before
I've seen this room and I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
But love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Well, maybe there's a God above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you
It''s not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah...

We Must Call A Meeting

by Joy Harjo

I am fragile, a piece of pottery smoked from fire
made of dung,
the design drawn from nightmares. I am an arrow, painted
with lightning
to seek the way to the name of the enemy,
but the arrow has now created
its own language
It is a language of lizards and storms, and we have
begun to hold conversations
long into the night.
I forget to eat.
I don't work. My children are hungry and the animals who live
in the back yard are starving.
I begin to draw maps of stars.
The spirits of old and new ancestors perch on my shoulders.
I make prayers of clear stone
of feathers from birds
who live closest to the gods.
The voice of the stone is born
of a meeting of yellow birds
who circle the ashes of smoldering volcano.
The feathers sweep the prayers up
and away.
I, too, try to fly but get caught in the crossfire of signals
and my spirit drops back down to earth.
I am lost; I am looking for you
who can help me walk this thin line between the breathing
and the dead.
You are the curled serpent in the pottery of nightmares.
You are the dreaming animal who paces back and forth in my head.
We must call a meeting.
Give me back my language and build a house
inside it.
A house of madness.
A house for the dead who are not dead.
And the spiral of the sky above it.
And the sun
and the moon.
And the stars to guide us called promise.

Prayer for a Tenspeed Heart

-Barbara Hendryson

Let the fire of my body
propel and warm me
and let each darkness
reveal its plenitude.

Let the hills
flatten under my wheels
and let the eloquent curves
yield up their good surprise.

Let my heart be obstinate
when I need to climb
and let my lowliest gears
restrain my spinning down.

Let there be flatland, too,
and into that glittering place
let me stretch with the heart of a lover,
at full speed, blind and intent.

Thank You For Hearing Me

Thank you for hearing me

Thank you for loving me
Thank you for seeing me

And for not leaving me

Thank you for staying with me
Thank you for not hurting me

You are gentle with me

Thanks for silence with me
Thank you for holding me

And for saying I could be

Thank you for saying baby
Thank you for holding me
Thank you for helping me

Thank you for breaking my heart
Thank you for tearing me apart

Now I've a strong, strong heart
Thank you for breaking my heart

*Lyrics by S. O'Connor/Reynolds

circling, circling, circling round

the sea is the sky is the sun is the ground.

Solstice Prayer

"We welcome summer and the glorious
blessing of light.
We are rich with light;
we are loved by the sun.

Let us empty our hearts into the brilliance.
Let us pour our darkness
into the glorious,forgiving light.

For this loving abundance
let us give thanks and offer our joy. Amen."

-Micheal Leunig,The Prayer Tree