Is it really
As simple
As remembering love,
Acknowledging
The love in being
And that being is love?
–
Is it as simple
As turning one’s head,
Looking inward
To the source
And seeing
That source is love?
–
Is it that simple
To notice the beautiful
Hidden before your eyes,
Hidden in plain sight,
Love at your centre
Brimming where it has always dwelt,
–
Love waiting with open arms
For you to see
And be one
With your heart,
Finally coming home
To the home you already are?
In the this singular world,
This individual,
Personal reality
In which I am centre
And no other exists
But as myriad watching faces,
(Equally individual
And no less personal,
Yet experienced by me
As face, not world),
I see my thoughts
Only my thoughts,
And you see yours,
Only yours.
And we will never know each other,
For you,
As I
Are master artist,
Applying a veneer
To all
Upon which our thoughts alight.
And we’ll never really meet
Or experience
The truth
Of our separate realities,
For all I see is me
And all you see is yours,
Except in the richness
And depth of our being
Where we are undivided,
Sharing wholly
The abundance of love.
I am lifted upon a cloud
As light as love
As playful and transient
As love,
Making no mark upon the world
But indelible significance.
For what else lifts us
In the body?
What else
Conveys the clouds,
Makes the moon the delicious moon
And the sun magnificent?
Even when we are down,
Crowded by thoughts,
Living beaten
By the throng of our thinking,
Still we are lifted
And still we are born
In the world and of the world,
Love in everything
Despite our tenacious denial.
How long can we hold
To absence, and the idea
Of heartless universe?
A lifetime, perhaps?
Or perhaps,
There is instantaneous recognition
That loves fills
And always has.
In the feeling
All that was future
And past
Is gathered
To the beautiful, unfolding now.
You,
Withdrawn from scattered self
With eyes only for the world
And the things in it,
Are returned inward
To yourself,
Finding that you are whole
As you have always been,
And full of love
For every wrong turn
That lead you to the truth.
Never were you parted
Never were you alone
Never were you distant
From wisdom’s place
And the heart song
Singing
Life’s simple authenticity.
You are the outpouring of self,
Fresh and new and crisp
To the world
And joyous
In the living of it.
Love sees you
Dwelling shameful,
Harbouring secret thoughts
Too ugly to own,
And puts its hand upon your shoulder,
Turns your face
Towards the sun
And whispers
‘You are not alone in this
For I hold all in warmth,
And all your shameful thought
Is but a heavy weight
You need not lug about
Nor even believe.
Come out
From the shadow of your thinking,
There is no weight in love
Only fullness
Of the heart absolved
And the infinite wealth
Of joyous being.’
Turn
From the tired old trudge
Into limitation,
Where the mind conjures
Ever decreasing lack
And multiplies of hardship.
Turn towards
The vortex of love
Spinning perfect
In the centre you forget
While straying in the dream
Of you as lonely entity,
You as lonely, separate fact.
This infinite you is limitless
And born anew,
Fresh and ever fruitful.
It calls the thoughts,
Enrobes them rich,
Colours them
In love’s ubiquitous energy,
And spins them
In upward spirals
Bringing more and more
And glorious more
In never ending
Expansion of being,
A potential
That cannot be reached
But can be
Reached into
And rode:
You,
Forever uplifted.
You need not love the self
For the self loves you.
Relax, forget about the work
Of loving, it’s not yours to do,
For the self loves
Your every limitation.
Stop attempting the impossible:
You cannot conjure love
Through will and the toil of thinking,
Just chill
For you are loved already,
Wholly and infinitely,
No part of you left out.
See you are bathed in love,
See that, only see,
Then sit back
And do absolutely nothing.
The garden is ripe with being
For sunlight
Diffuse through haze
Illuminates
And encourages
All green things
To be
Ever more themselves.
And like the plants
I expose my skin
And open my pores
And breath in
That light,
Absorb
The sweetness offered
Unconditionally,
And drink in life
Knowing, as it is mine
So it belongs to all
Whose hearts beat
And in whose veins sap rises,
And in even the static selves
Of soil and stones
And things thought inanimate,
Nevertheless
A pulse of being still thrills.
We wear our race like a heavy cloak
Painting our skins with uncomfortable ideas.
We wear our gender like lead boots,
Stumbling in discomfort proclaimed as ease.
We wear our sexuality like a brightly
Coloured mask.
Our religion and politics
We wear as indomitable rightness.
Our point of view
Is an impenetrable stone castle
Fortified until the last soldier is killed.
Our countries are emblems
For which many will die.
So many are the dividing lines,
The fractious ideas,
For we are tribes
Of a broken mind,
Switching allegiances
Like a fickle tide forgetting the moon,
Changing our image to suit,
Gritting our teeth
In gripped identity
Held as a fist
Shaken at the world.
Are you for or against?
⁃ the what does not matter
In this politics of imagery.
Is it possible we are mistaken
In our hell-bent
Desperation to be somebody?
Could we be
Loose in all the periphery
Of our difference?
Could we see that we one in our being
And the rest is but a jumble of ideas
To wear, not for the war of it
But for the fun of it.
Where is even rightness in this?
Perhaps nowhere
But within the expanse of our boundless self
Containing nothing but the infinite.
Under soft February light
Where warming ethers
Carry earthy scents,
I remember my spring self
Among crocuses.
And yet again my heart is lifted
By the tide turn
Of day-length stretched,
Being motivated
To peep as a myriad
First shoots.
And yet again
The soft spell
Light upon my heart
Shimmers hazy
As sunbeams diffuse
In the mellow heavens,
And I can’t quite tell
If this space myself
Is me or the world
Or just spring’s fluid
Billowing out from itself.
distilledvoice 