~

Holga CFN120, Fuji Reala 120mm, iso100

South Carolina

Halloween 2011

Fairview, NC
Early Fall 2011
~

Holga CFN-120, Fuji Reala 120mm, iso100

"The diverse rituals and ceremonies of different religions and cults are intended to release divine love, but they mostly bind the soul to the repetitive mechanism of expressive forms.  Attachment to the rigid forms of external expressions of love to God not only limits the love itself but creates separative divisions between one religion and another.  Therefore the rituals and ceremonies often bind the soul to ignorance and illusory separateness and become an obstacle to real illumination.

The true spiritual aspirant is therefore more keen about the inner life.  Inner life is based on love for God, and it is this love that annihilates all desires, keeping only one desire and longing - that of union with Beloved God.  He has no obsessions for expressing his reverence in any set forms.  Such obsessions twist the real life.  A free soul is never entangled in any of these inessentials, and never allows itself to be overpowered by the separative tendencies released by attachment to rituals and ceremonies."
~
Meher Baba
in Bhau Kalchuri
Lord Meher: The Biography of the Avatar of the Age Meher Baba
MANifestation, 1st ed., vol. 11, p. 3998 - 3999
~

$2 Goodwill Vivitar P+S, Fuji 35mm, iso400

Asheville, NC

Fall 2011

~

erasure poem / scan

lake lure, nc

fall 2011

“I am Wrecked. Thou, O Lord, are Wrecked. All this universe is Wrecked.

There is nothing else but Wrecked. Wrecked is all there is.”

Wrecked Veda

c. 1500 BCE

~

Nogales, Mexico

January 2011

Yashica T4, Fuji 35mm, asa200

Postcard from Waffle House

(apologies to Salinger)

This is me, Mom, sweating on the edge of some crazy blue-hot griddle. My job (my real job, Mom),
what I have to do… is catch the hamburger grease bullets before they slam into the home fries. I mean, if they start running and I look the other way at a girl or something like Alaska, they run wild. Of
course, they don’t know what they’re doing, and I have to wake up in time and catch them and herd
them back with my flipper. That’s all I do. I know it’s crazy, but I herd grease blobs, Mom.

~

Rutherford County, NC
Summer 2010
Vivitar P+S, 35mm, asa200

moon

Such a long cold winter, and now it was April. Still cold as I stood in stillness on the road looking up at the half-moon in the southern sky.  The moon, struck perfectly in two from top to bottom, was quite beautiful.  I could not tell if the un-illumined half was truly visible or if my eyes were playing a trick by filling out the circle because of my own wish for wholeness.

The clouds were high, wispy, and moving quickly.  I stood there watching the moon, looking but not looking, trying to take it all in.  Almost lost in my imaginings, I was brought back by a noise close behind me. I turned to see my Grandfather standing there as if he had been watching the whole time. Impossible, since I had not seen him in many years, but sure enough there he was.

I didn’t give it a second thought since the entire scene seemed so natural.  He came beside me and gazed up at that same moon. We stood there together for a long while in silence.  When I finally spoke I could form only one question. With the innocence and simplicity of a little boy, I just kept looking at the moon and asked, “Grandpa, is the moon really cut in half or is it all there and we just can’t see it?” He smiled, looked at me and said, “It is there, but not in the way you might think it is.”

I took that as such a profound and complete answer that I just nodded, thinking no further thoughts. His dark skin and weathered features told of an inner strength that was as forbidding as it was comforting. I was completely satisfied with his answer. We stood there together in the moonlight on a quiet road in the middle of the woods in the cold night air.

~

Grandfather and I walked along and soon came upon a secluded lake. Its peaceful surface mirrored the beauty of the surrounding woods. We walked to the edge of the water. I stared down at my reflection and saw that I was very old. I turned to my Grandfather in wonderment and after a long moment asked if I had died. He looked at me full face and lovingly said, “Not in the way that you might think.” I was not sad.

Again, I was satisfied with his answer. I simply said, “I understand,” as a sense of knowing began to rise within me.

My Grandfather was at once wise and loving and present to me. He was more powerful than I ever imagined a man could be. I turned to him for more answers as questions began pouring out of me somehow knowing that he would be patient and speak only truth. It was a good thing the night was young. I had a lifetime of questions--some worthwhile, some silly. Grandfather seemed to anticipate all my questions and confusion. He answered them in his own way until I was again quiet. At his unspoken urging, I searched for the real questions of my life. I knew now that I could ask him anything and so we walked on. And I dug deeper.

~

There had been a steady presence at the edge of the woods as we walked along. Sensing this, I turned to see a wolf with knowing eyes and a restless bearing looking straight at me. He had been following us through the nighttime wood as we talked. He moved in and out of our field of vision much as the half-moon still hovering overhead followed our conversation.

Again, silence. Then my Grandfather spoke and asked me if I knew who the wolf was. With my eyes transfixed on the scene at the edge of the woods, I said in a hollow voice, “Yes, it is me.”  Everything that had happened so far seemed in accord so I took this in as well and accepted it. We continued to walk. The wolf continued to shadow us. Sometimes he was ahead of us, sometimes behind us, many times just out of sight. But he was always close. His presence became familiar and comforting. My life review continued to unfold.

~

We built a small fire for warmth and sat close as the dark night deepened. The half-moon continued its journey westward. The wolf hovered. The time for honest questioning had begun. Had I been a good person? Had I been a wolf in this life? Did I do my best?

Had I listened to my heart?

These were questions I plumbed from within. I loved life and thought myself a good person. I had laughed and lived much yet I often ached with regret for hurting others and committing countless acts of selfishness out of ignorance or fear. I resolved to hear the answers since I had come to a place of surrender under my Grandfather’s guidance. I attempted to bare my soul as best I could.

~

The wolf seemed restless while the half-moon played hide and seek through the clouds. My Grandfather gave answers that seemed a mixture of acceptance and challenge. “Well, yes and no,” he would say. “Not in the way that you might think,” was another common reply. His answers intentionally left room for more consideration. Both the relative and the absolute were wrapped within his words so there remained no clear-cut answer, no certainty. Just like the two halves of the moon that night. Both the manifest and the un-manifest were in play when it came to the human condition. The seen and the unseen so how could we know?

“What was real?” I asked finally closer to genuine surrender.

My Grandfather began to radiate an energy that seemed to lift my awareness and focus my attention. His gaze swept deep inside me as he said that it was time he asked a question, “Did you know love?”

That question reverberated a thousand times with a thousand volts of electricity as I took it in. Immediately, a rush of answers echoed back the names and faces and sights and sounds of all the people and places I had experienced and had loved. I trembled and was quiet for a time.

~

I finally said in a quiet voice, “Yes, Grandfather,” thinking we were finished.

Without hesitation he asked directly, “Did you know Divine Love?”

My heart stopped. We had come to this place of tension and unknowing without any warning. Up until now I was proud of myself since I had kept my sanity and my answers had been honest.

“Not so fast,” he said, knowing, of course, that my self-satisfaction had just evaporated and that he had me where he wanted me. “Answer from your heart.”

The wolf stood transfixed in the glow of the fire. Grandfather glanced up at the moon.

Had I known Divine Love? I was struck down, unable to speak. There was no electricity and no echo within. No images of loved ones, no experiences. Only timelessness.

In that moment I was transported back through my life of grasping fear and ignorance. I saw with new eyes how each and every experience encompassed both the sacred and the profane. Dark and light, just like the two halves of the moon. I saw the possibility of knowing Divine Love in everyday life.  I sensed God's mercy and compassion. An extraordinary peace flooded my ordinary being.

As the opened heart ultimately surrenders to love, night surrendered to dawn and promise flooded the sky. I looked toward my Grandfather and saw that he was now standing. His arms were clasped over his heart as his eyes met mine.  He blessed me with an imperceptible bow as he moved from our campfire’s circle of light.  Bathed in waning moonlight, he walked into the woods. The wolf followed.

* * *
painting: Odilon Redon, "Le Bouddha (The Buddha)" c. 1905, pastel on paper, Musee d'Orsay, Paris

grosshabersdorf, germany

july 2011

Germany

Summer 2011

Grosshabersdorf, Germany

July 2011
 
Walking through the village, there are old buildings

and barns and chickens.  Along with prosperous farmers' homes, 

flower gardens and small shops.  Cool summer days. 

A children's circus came to town.  It feels good to pay close attention

just to move through the day with different language, people and customs. 

I love the old parts of the village, the crooked streets 

and the smell of the cow barns.

fairview, nc

summer evening

2011

this is how we live
shadows and light
earth and mountains
hearts open to the sky

the inescapable nearness
of Divinity

sister says throw away the bucket

jump into the ocean

as the wolf drinks your milk at 

midnight and the full moon

laughs

***

Holga CFN, 120mm color print film 200asa

Asheville, NC

Spring 2011

120 holga

spring in wnc 2011

DRAFT notes (from B)

INFUSION

Pear blossoms cover one lawn—
a snowy coat that makes time skip

to keep up. So quickly the April day

goes cold. I think in all directions:

of winter: of fields: of the countryside
abandoned as cities filled with hope, then less,
and less than less—
this suburban lawn
my green winter tea, steeped.

DRAFT notes (from B)

To the Good Life

Of feta, green oil and black olives.
The waves ride high for Ondine

Who thrives on each spumey motion.
Of The Residential Moby Dick Bar and

Breakfast, another anomaly rising from the Aegean.
Of cliff cave, goat gorge, and the fisherman’s

Pet goose that won’t stop hissing
While fresh squid is rolled in cracked pepper.

Of a white bull not named Minotaur,
Free from our violent and mythic occasions.

The Essential Work of the Poet

"The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek." - Joseph Campbell

above from The Power of Myth, by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers

I often use the model above to remind myself of the purpose of life, tempered as it is with myriad expressions of joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain.  Joseph Campbell’s illustration represents the concepts of ego-self and higher self with beautiful simplicity.  I added the red arrow to indicate the all-important movement from the lower self to the Higher Self as the soul makes its way homeward.  Differing terms and various metaphors from an array of spiritual traditions refer to this ultimate goal: heaven, mukti, nirvana, God-realization, union with the Beloved, and others.  Words used within the spiritual panorama are not precisely interchangeable and the teachings are esoteric, but the underlying message is the same: each individual soul is on a gradient toward wholeness, moving in a non-linear fashion toward union with the Absolute.

We each have our journeys, comprised of unique experiences and individualized lessons, and sometimes we feel disoriented, alone or in uncharted territory.  Yet, if we take time to listen deeply and truly hear one another’s stories, we find that we can recognize and even celebrate our common experiences.  We see that everyday life is extraordinary and plays out amidst the grand caravan of souls making their way, imperfectly and often ungracefully, toward the Abode of the One.  We merely need the ability to ‘transpose’ one another’s stories, images and experiences from one key to another, as if we were jazz musicians.  We can then rest easier and feel encouraged when we hear messages from those who have gone before, marking the way home.  This is a kind of Grace.

In my view, this movement is the supreme journey.  It is the only “work” that is real and it is essential to have a teacher and companions.  This allows for a basic understanding of what to expect and is of true comfort as difficulties are inevitably encountered.  Otherwise, life loses much of its purpose.  Seemingly ordinary experiences remain unexamined for their inherent value since, as is attributed to St. Catherine of Siena, “All the way to heaven is heaven.”  Important opportunities for growth and progress are missed.

Accordingly, it is the essential work of the poet to render forth descriptions of varied experience and imagery to help us on our way.  Throughout the ages poets, stationed among us as mystics, shamans, priests, sheikhs, rabbis, saints, sages, jesters and masters from all traditions (and no tradition), have answered this high calling.

Whether it is Rilke’s ancient tower or Basho’s leaping frog or Mirabai’s naked dance, the poet reveals soul and makes our journey conscious.  A slice of the universe is rendered forth - sometimes through the lens of a two-dollar camera, sometimes through the eyes of a child – to remind us of who we are and to sustain us through our fears.  In all this, the poet serves to comfort the challenged and challenge the comfortable.  It is important work we cannot do alone.

I consider it my very good fortune to have shared words, images and sweet synchronicity with the gifted writers of our Wednesday evening poetry workshop.  I found a context and a freedom within which I began to listen more deeply not only to the words of others, but to those quiet unformed sounds within myself.  I began to hear those patterns and prompts waiting to be scrawled onto the page and shared with others.  I learned that I have a voice and a valid way of seeing and saying things.  I learned that I can improve on technique and form.  I can include or exclude light and sound and fragrance; shape nouns and verbs and rhythm; all this so I may dance my dance with the reader.  And with God.   Blessed be.

painted moon

my dear M.,  as i stepped outside this evening i was struck once again by the sublime  goodness of the moon.  its delicate orange crescent in the western sky skimmed the treetops and rained light-without-heat down upon the mountains that rise to the west of here.  toward where you live.  forming a pretty picture on a warm and humid august night while the cicadas sing.  


and i thought of you as i often do.  no secret that i think of you and you probably sense that anyway so i may as well say it.  i thought about you walking around the city and all the activity and music and noise and people and conversation at dinner.  and certainly you are with friends and with people who love you on this crescent moonlight night and there is a lot of good in all that.  


yet sometimes i get a sense that you might be tired from working all day and the activities of the week and with all that effort you may be ready for some downtime.  and maybe you would like to stand and look at the moon for a while and watch for shooting stars or chase lightening bugs.  maybe even sit down on a rock and somehow a small stream of cool water would appear just within reach of your feet so you could indulge, wouldn’t that be something?  


i sure am projecting a lot of silliness here but through no fault of my own since the moon makes me silly sometimes.  and the silliness does not have to stick and i sure hope it does not hurt or cross some boundary that i am oblivious to so it does not sit well with you.  it is only meant to coax a smile.  


anyway i was thinking about you out there in the moonlight and i was thinking how nice it is to talk and just say hello and hope your day is going good. and i like that a lot especially the part when we say a joke or simply talk about what’s coming up next or just the day.  just the moment.  


and i knew i wanted to say that to you but i was also thinking about your painting and i thought out loud that you are a remarkable person and i support you.  


but overall it is probably the best thing to give space so you can paint.  then i thought maybe the hardest thing about painting is to come up with ideas but that is kind of dumb because you have all sorts of ideas but then sometimes even a good cook needs a suggestion about what to fix for dinner because everything just looks the same in the refrigerator and there’s no inspiration coming from anywhere and everyone is hungry.  


then again maybe it’s not a topic at all that would help maybe it is just saying i am proud of you and that i will be here when you get back and i don’t need to hear everything because it will be inside and still swirling around.  maybe just knowing i love you is good.  i should have started with that because that’s the main thing i wanted to say anyway.  


and the moon of course.

Compassionate Father

rain down thy grace upon us

as holy fire upon the planes

   the goodness of thy fragrance 

   the beauty of thy peace

   and the truth inside thy mystery

enliven us thy holy spirit

and enfold us in thy flames

rain down thy mercy upon us

   upon our hearts

   thy perfect love

Gabriel’s Tree

Doves hush the evening air. Honeysuckle

and sage exhale their golden charge.

Ali’s spent form, an orphan tree

the color of paprika, begins to move.

Soft sounds echo garden walls.

Ali arches, lifts, whirls;

Nutmeg, cinnamon, crimson, salmon - familiar

names cannot be used this day as

her remembrance flames: sweet-soft mouth

and shimmering eyes;

ivory breasts…seem close enough to taste.

His spinning still-point falters; delirium bells

tinkle. The world recedes as only rocks

and miniature sounds remain. Ali

begins again.

his burnished face and milky

eyes have seen a thousand moons.

Archangel Gabriel guards eternity

cloaked above this zikr-dance as

gods converse on distant hills.

La il’aha illa’lla.

Dust motes swirl the faded light.

The Angel stands, a trumpet blasts,

the Sufi laughs - as evening settles

lemon and emerald and plum.

A soul on the razor edge of dark

and light calls forth the golden horn.

La il’aha illa’lla.

Holy Mary

San Xavier Mission

Tucson, Arizona

January 2011

"nothing is born fully formed; nothing dies."

in silence

pray me into consciousness,

mother divine

pray me into dust and diamond - 

pray me into rocks and holiness

and rivers.

pray me raw into form.

pray the wheel a-fire,

dear mother.

pray me into formless annihilation

then pray me back again,

my mother.

pray me back again.

There is a sense, at times, that certain things seem to be illumined from within. 

And a ‘knowing’ arises from this.  It is a knowing beyond everyday thinking.  

There is another pattern at work here.  

The Sufi term ‘yaqin’ comes to mind.  At its most basic level, yaqin refers to
certainty and conviction.  

We feel this in our bodies.  And we bow.  Deeply.

Linville Gorge

North Carolina

October 2010

Hill Where the Lord Hides

Finger Lakes

New York

from:  Ramakrishna: His Life And Sayings

"God is the Absolute and Eternal Brahman, as well as the Father of the Universe. 
The indivisible Brahman is like a vast shoreless ocean, without bounds and 
limits, in which I can only struggle and sink. But when I approach the always 
sportive (active) personal Deity (Hari), I get peace, like the sinking man who 
nears the shore.

God is formless, and is with form too, and He is that which transcends both form 
and formlessness. He alone can say what else He is.

At a certain stage of his path of devotion, the devotee finds satisfaction in 
God with form; at another stage, in God without form.

The God with form is visible, nay, we can touch Him face to face, as with one's 
dearest friend.

As at one time I am clothed, and at another time naked, so Brahman is at one 
time with attributes and at another without.

As water when congealed becomes ice, so the visible form of the Almighty is the 
materialised manifestation of the all-pervading formless Brahman. It may be 
called, in fact, Sat-chit-ananda [being-knowledge-bliss] solidified. As the ice, 
being part and parcel of the water, remains in the water for a time and 
afterwards melts in it, so the Personal God is part and parcel of the 
Impersonal. He rises from the Impersonal, remains there, and ultimately merges 
into it and disappears.

His name is Intelligence; His abode is Intelligence too, and He, the Lord, is 
Intelligence Himself."

Sri Ramakrishna

~

...with special thanks to Tom H. for sharing this gem...

Florida

For Kathy

August 15, 1951 - March 2, 2011

~

"Once Ananda, his cousin, devoted attendant, and beloved pupil, said to the Buddha, 'It would seem one half of the spiritual life is friendship with good people, association with good people, and communion with good people.'

The Buddha said in reply, "It is not so, Ananda, it is not so.  It is not one half of the spiritual life, 

it is the entire spiritual life.'"

Buddha, Samyutta Nikaya, Verse 2

+++

om mani kim-chi

Whereas, you, dragon are eccentric and your life uninteresting; and, whereas, you have a non-compassionate and obtuse nature and abundant ill-health; you should marry a monkey or rat late in life.  At all costs avoid the dog.  Whereas, you, monkey (1944, 1956, 1968, 1980 and 1992 or add 12 years), are not very intelligent and unable to influence people; and, whereas, you are an unenthusiastic underachiever and easily discouraged, you should seek a dragon or a rat and avoid tigers.  And finally you, rat (circa 1936 plus or minus 12 years) are un-ambitious and dishonest and prone to spend freely, seldom make lasting relationships.  In summation, you are compatible with dragons and monkeys and should avoid the horse.   

Whereas you, server five (chens restaurant shelby north carolina) have no ability to sense or know higher truth but your lucky numbers are 9, 12, 27, 36, 37 and 47.

west asheville

march 2011

~

yashica T4, 35mm, 200asa

Coltrane’s Freight Train

Over the sixth grade PA system they announce, right after lunch, they shot the president.  Then Ruby shoots Oswald on live television.  This sours little Sammy good and plenty.

Before that, Cuban missiles aiming at children.  Annihilation seems a difficult concept for Sammy.           

                 this is Coltrane's freight-train… 

Bobby lying in a black puddle on that concrete floor asks if everyone is all right.  Sammy starts to wonder, “I’m just trying to keep my side of the street clean.”

Martin and Malcolm.  Then real made-in-the-USA bullets kill real made-in-the-USA students in Ohio.  No words, Samuel.

…no going back and no getting off.      no words.

Sam speeds away from rice paddies in a sixty-seven Chevy, leaving his best friend MIA.

High    hard                energy                         speeding toward that dangerous wreck…

Soak in propaganda from the last good war and the endless stream of those who massacre and rape and torture other human beings.  Those who fund atrocities and those who make us look the other way, Sam.

…the one ‘Trane told me about.

Slick ones, profiteers and strap-on airplanes.  Intractable cruelty.  Sam shouts at traffic from an overpass through his hat.

it’s an all-night underwater swim

Kamikaze shrapnel long hidden in a dresser drawer is cool to big Sammy’s touch. 

no air                     no        map                 no                    time 

We were sunk the moment the grassy knoll lit up with carbine fire, Sam.  We threw a parade, remember?

it’s a cold frame    /          a-train

Then we had to get through the eighties without Lennon.  Now Samuel has to live with himself for doing nothing about it…. 

straight to the abyss. 

…a steaming bowl of nothing.

++++++++++

asheville - march 2011

(yashica T4, 35mm, 200asa)

+++++++

arizona 1911

when starting off to nail something grasshopper if you're lucky that is grasshopper you will eventually reach a point where the nail goes in perfectly with just a few hammer strokes.  tap-whap-whap.  perfection.  i like eight-penny coated nails myself grasshopper for all around nailing but keep an open mind.  finish nails are too finicky cement-coated (brutes ten-penny and above) are just too much unless you have a really big board grasshopper.  forget the times you hit your thumb grasshopper and you move to that unspeakable plane of consciousness.  never mind getting to perfection: tap-tap-tap-TAP to get started grasshopper then WHAM-WHAM-WHAM to finish with your teeth gripping your bottom lip for leverage grasshopper leaving the imprint of the hammer head in the wood.  but the fine economy of stroking the nail into place with three hits grasshopper is something you eventually zen-feel.  the nail reaches full potential and the wood is satisfied grasshopper.  even the hammer is happy.  practice this grasshopper and next week we'll speak of making love to a woman. grasshopper.

~

Yashica T4, 35mm

Oliver House, Bisbee Arizona

(still rife with that turn-of-the century bordello fragrance)