An Intellectual Exploration Of Nature, Creativity, and Existence
For the familiar singing of flighted friends
For the caress of etheric invisible which blows during the equinox
For the soft sustenance, the stem cells beneath my feet
The rugged giants of compassion swaying gently with me
The cool blood of life dripping down and from the stones
The ancient faces of rocks, they are the bones
Standing silently on the edge
We are never alone
Circles and spirals
They are the cycles
Ebb and flow
To and fro
I am grateful.
Knowledge is not understanding and words are not the truth.
Understanding happens when you feel the bulldozers rip sacred soil as you feel your own flesh being torn apart. When you shed tears as you witness a dying bee cling to a clover flower with such true and authentic Love. When you take your shoes off and feel the roots growing from your feet into the earth. When you witness a beautiful sunset. When you see the clouds as your own thoughts. When you have seen the soul of a rock and consciousness of a tree. When you see all plants, animals, streams and mountains as your equals; as your brothers and sisters. When you encounter a rattlesnake on your path and tell it “I am sorry for what we have done, please forgive me.” When you nod in acknowledgment to the bird in the sky. When you smell the freshness of rain as the plants smile with glee. When you caress the delicate lace of ferns and grass as if gently touching a lover. When you melt into oneness and nothingness with nature. When you let down your ego. When you surrender. When you save worms from sidewalks. When you sway with a tree in the wind and marvel at lighting storms. When you no longer fear nature but accept her. When you realize how loving nature is. How kind plants are to give us fruits and berries.
Only when you shed tears and tremble with pain as you witness clearcutting, dams, mutagenic-pollution, tainting of purity. Where you long with all your heart the chatter of coyotes instead of barking dogs, the whisper of wind instead of zooming cars, the smell of fresh rain instead of dryer sheets, the sight of stars on a dark night sky instead of streetlights, the rolling sensual hills instead of terraced development, soft fertile soil colored with lichen and moss instead of concrete and asphalt
There is a better way.
There is a better way.
And it does not involve intellect. It involves wisdom. It was our intellect that got us here and it will be our wisdom that will save us.
While in the house, I found an insect on it’s back slowly moving it’s legs in futility. I investigated and found it to be a dying bee too weak to right itself. I thought “if I was going to die I would want to be outside on the coolness of the ground under the warmth of the sun”. So I gently scooped up this little bee and went outside to put it on a clover flower. It was too weak to hold on so it tumbled off. I picked some clover flowers to place near it. The way I saw it embrace that flower brought tears to my eyes. This is the definition of Love. The way a dying bee loves a flower. The way the flower loves the sun. The way I love the bees and flower. This is Love. If only people knew this Love at a more conscious level.
Alas we are all little raindrops in a waterfall of which will soon join the same river of life they emanated.
I am free.
I am here.
I am now.
We are flow.
We are one.
Beauty in all.
All is one.
Everything and nothing.
Now only exists.
Truth is free.
Sun always shines.
Wind always blows.
Wisdom is here.
Wisdom is there.
Ebb and flow.
To and fro.
Infinite potential abounds.
Life is free.
All flows energy.
You Can Never Improve Nature,
Only Humanity Needs Improvement.
Erik Satie is an under-appreciated french pianist from the 1880’s who composed music unlike any other. This unsual music reflects the peculiar man behind it. Satie would only eat white foods, carried a hammer for self-protection, had a thing for umbrellas and was ridiculed as a less-than-diligent pianist in the conservatory.
In listening to his music, we are taken to a melancholic and introspective space within the mind.
When I close my eyes and allow his popular Gymnopedie No. 1 to infuse my consciousness like tea leaves in hot water I am taken to a world that is always rainy with grey clouds. I look out my windowpane to see a young girl dressed in color walking a dog while holding an umbrella … A sense of connection with unattachment. The flowers outside my window enjoy the rain. But there is a loneliness to this mental space the music creates. There is a sense of loss coupled with an acetic independent hope. A dichotomy of a silent mind with introspection. A balance of melancholy with contentment. There is a sense of growing age that makes you look upon your years in retrospection. Furthering the dichotomy is the sense of static micro-centric time while the broader world continues on with the irregular ticking of a loping antique clock.
What once was and what will be.
In listening to his Gnossienne, we are taken to an equally rainy world. A place where deep introspection takes place. Our mind meanders through a dreamy space where we see the archetypes of humanity from the soft to the hard. In most all of Satie’s work we feel the push and pull of polar dichotomies. As we drift and flow we scale peaks and descend into valleys. We feel a melancholy angst of loss. Perhaps this reflects his potentially tormented heart from the early relationship dissolution with his one and only love in life. We can feel this heartbreak as we project our own losses onto the experience of the music.
Lone tree on hill is loudest.
The free wind blows through with full wisdom.
Tenacious, independent, strong tree.
The rocky resinous soil it grows.
Layers of bark like sacred pages.
I am a man of passion.
I am a man of light.
I am a man of transmission.
I am a man of fight.
I am a man of action.
I am a man of might.
I am a man of conversation.
I am a man of elation.
But it is times of silent reception,
Where I derive power.
I stand here with open hands.
In the darkness of the night
With my feet firmly in the land.
I take off my glasses
To not see the masses.
Rain comes down
Dripping to the ground
Washing away my ego
I am nothing
I am everything
The soil turns to mud.
I sink deeper.
I look through the rain towards the sky.
I sink deeper.
I feel the soft grass and rugged leaves brush my hands.
I sink deeper.
I smell the earth and the purifying scent of sage.
I sink deeper.
I hear the chatter of coyotes and the whistle of hawks.
I sink deeper.
There is darkness.
I am enveloped and free.
I am of the earth.
I am in the earth.
The heartbeat is loud. Her warmth is comforting
Roots grow through me. I am torn apart. Holes. Time passes. Contentment, happiness relief. My breath slows to the scale of glacial mountains. My consciousness swings outside of physical constraints. Like being pushed on a swing by an invisible hand. The pendulum swings progressively wider until there is no swing, only cycles. Faster and faster a vortexing whirlpool develops. I am the eye.
There is no movement and all movement.
No sound and all sound.
Nothing and everything.
Presence and future-past.
There is humming that reverberates in all of my being like a transformer on an electrical line.
With every exhale there is death and with every inhale there is birth.
What tremendous responsibility until you realize they are all the same. Animals exhale that which plants inhale. Trees exhale that which humans inhale. A spinning top, there is balance. Only the hologram exists. Feeling through others, is this compassion? I feel what they’re going through. I see through your eyes, hear through your ears, and smell through your nose. I understand your mental processes, your emotions. I feel your pain, heartbreaks, love, aspirations, losses, grief, ecstasy, joy, warmth, coldness, anger, rage, softness, gentleness, courage, peace….
So much to absorb. You have to be eaten by the earth to be able to absorb. Ever cell must split to allow experience to permeate fully. Tears fall while I dance with joy. The forward hope of exiting the womb with the finalness of dying and entering back to earth.
I close my eyes but I see.
I dampen my ears but I hear.
It’s so loud. It’s so bright.
Let it go. Let it go. Let it go.
Dissolve and expand. Salt melts into water. Ice melts into ocean.
Melt into oblivion; into everything.
You won’t remember when you remember everything.
The spiral encircles outward as images pass by with incomprehensible speed.
This is why they say the universe is expanding.
One after another.
Birth and death.
The odometer keeps ticking.
Calendars keep turning.
Muscles twitch like when in dream state.
Don’t forget to breath.
Momentum and inertia.
Dissolving into unification.
The rain drops turns to river turns to ocean.
Sitting on the hill
I am this soil
Enveloped in fog
I think I will sleep
In waking there is warmth
My ears hear the morning sun
My pores open with receptivity
Finally the haze begins to clear
Like a stiff winged butterfly after metamorphosis
I am free.
Atoms in crystals
Drops in clouds
Trees in forest
Words in books
Humans in society
Collective wisdom
Through existence
Mere presence
Equates absorption
Osmotic entrainment.