Category: Seeking the Essence

Language is a living thing
Words are packets
Of meanings
They are not empty
Nor are they
Islands unto themselves

Their boundaries
Are porous
The meanings
They consist of
Really lie only
Within their
Territory
Frequently
They straddle
The markers
Of their periphery
Frequently
They fall
Into the territory
Of other words

Words are systems
Comprising of
Multiple meanings
Forming
Enlivening
The territory
of the one
Word

Words often
Can only be
Properly understood
When connected
To contiguous
Words
That helps select
How that word
Should be
Interpreted

Words
Give other words
Meaning
They indicate
What point of view
Is the place
In which
We should stand
The best to see
The meaning
To be selected
From the packet
Of meanings
That comprises
That word

Words are living things
Not in the biology
Of the world
But in the living space
Of the mind
And in the use space
Of society
They are like living things
In nature
For they change in time
They grow and they dissipate
According to their use
And to the meanings
Ascribed to them
By the minds of humankind

As they are used
They change the core
Sets of meanings
That are accepted
As the heart
Of the definition
Of the word
So words change
And in time
May come to be different
And may be used
For something new
They may become
More popular
They may become
Extinct
New words can come
Into being
Thus is language
A living thing

The shape of water
Is flow
For it moves through space
With no angularity

The shape of wind
Is suction
For it pushes
Only when it is pulled
Travels many ways
But always up

The shape of a mountain
Is cooling
For in rising
It avoids becoming
A river

The shape of light
Is expansion
For through this
It avoids
Arriving

The shape of mind
Is production
For it manages
The theatre of life

The shape of meaning
Is reality
For without it
There is none

The shape of the I
Is continuity
For it is a wraith
That links
The done
To the doing
To the to be done

The shape of speaking
Is breathing meaning
Forming wind
Into a gift

The shape of listening
Is participation
For without being involved
You are dead in the world

The shape of work
Is change
Without it
Nothing grows

The shape of the brain
Is building
The world
And its
Relationships

The shape of the heart
Is survival
For without
Food air water
There is no life

The shape of loyalty
Is separation
For it is cohesion
That creates
The in
And
The out

Shape of travelling
Is loss
For the destination
Too often
Overwhelms
The quality
Of the journey

The shape of play
Is liberation
For the rules and goals
Are there
Only to provide
The field
For freedom and fun

Naked Touch
The hand balled up unfolds
Baby eyes stare at the unknown
And know it not
The mother reaches out from the darkness
Hand slowly, hand slowly
To the moment of meeting
Skin to skin; finger to finger
The first contact
A moment of love
Naked touch
One who knows
But greets a stranger
One who does not know
But encounters the other
A memory not of mind
But of flesh

Pure Contact
Is a meeting
With no meaning
An event?
An event of no consequence?
Is it the primary event?
The first and last pure encounter
At-one-ment

Knowing the Loss
Is the search for that moment
The source of religion
Of our hunt for God
The cause of our own sense
Of being incomplete
That which makes us
Eternally alone
The first experiencing of experience
The first experience of experiencing
Gives to us; takes from us
The joy of intimacy
Yet never more than closeness

Hidden Intimacy
Gone is that state
Of being the other
Lost behind the awareness
Of the other
Buried under a landslide
Of processes
Of feeder, of cleaner,
Of teacher, of punisher,
Of protector, of persecutor
The source of the good
That which denies us the good
Our guide, our frustrator,
Our Mother, our mother
That touch; that moment
Just knowing the other
Both togetherness and
The breaking of symmetry
The moment
Of the Birth of the World
When the sound is known
Before anyone is there
As the tree falls in the forest

The Ultimate Separation
When the crowd is there
Everyone hears the sounds
Of life’s happening
We hug one another
And say hello
Across the distance
Between us
And in our togetherness
Is our loneliness
In our deepest intimacy
Lies the space
Of ultimate separation
That allows with no connection
Action without compassion
Rendering the other asunder
In callousness and equanimity

Seeking a Way Home
Yet too it calls to us
To stretch across the divide
Challenges us to be
The greatest we can be
Not loving but empathetic
And to seek a way home
Beneath all that
Which divides us
To that first touch
Not one to one
Just

The night slides in slowly
The sun sinks gently
Behind country trees
And a hidden horizon.
Bird songs quiet
The crickets’ chirping
Partners the stillness
Of the emerging dark
Fireflies dance
A mysterious code flashing
Tiny flames from
An invisible quantum void
The nightfall hides visible space
But reveals the world’s extension
In sounds, each marked
With its own sense of distance.

Here we sit in the transition of time
With our own breath hushed
Our own inner silence
Reminding us
Of states that change
And states that abide
That between the light and the dark
Between breathing out
And breathing in
Lies a singularity
A moment of deep stillness
Easily missed
If time is not taken
To watch carefully as
The night slowly slides in.

The sun of yesterday
Hidden far from our sight
Not known by lucid name
Known by its missing light
A memory almost gone
A flavor in a taste
A smile in loving eyes
Slowness in needless haste
Stillness in blowing wind
The breath within the song
The thought behind the word
The strength within the strong
The face before the face
The unfolding of the flower
The hollow in the bowl
The moment in the hour
My heart cries out to me
Stand back and look beyond
Let the world go, and see
More than water in the pond