Before All Else

To share
The sunshine of the heart
Is to find
The sun upon your face
And bliss
In basking
In its beauty.

For around each corner
Is a smiling face
Reflecting joy,
Both playful and loving,
And each new corner
Yields still more of the same
Infinite quality.

Can you imagine
A world
In which the heart
Is worn naked
And transparent
In the body,

And everywhere
There are flowers
Glowing
In adoration of the sun?

Well, this IS the world
In which the heart
Finds its place in plenty
And where the mind
Has settled down.

This IS the world
Into which we are born
Through the tool of the body,
Knowing the grit and dank
Of the soil
And yet also
The ineffable reality
From whence we all come.

How could we not share
This truth
Made of light and love,
Beyond the bounds of space
And time
And all we deem heavy?

How could we not share
This warm and tender truth
Of happiness
God-given to us all
As life
Found effortless

Just like the sun
And the flowers -
And really
All forms under
The light loved down.

How could we not share
The sharing
That brought us to ourselves
And to the boundless

And to the truth
That we are love
First

Love first
Before all else.

Equals In Seeing


You cannot really share the light.

It does not travel
from here to there
from you to me
or me to you
as if there was
some sort of ownership
and transference.

But you can rise to it -

find the frequency
of yourself
attune to the light
in another
which is only
the light of yourself

and be
the light you are.

For all
are equals in seeing
equals in light
equals in being
and there are none among us
without this divine capacity
to be
and live
and love
in truth.

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The Precipice

Could it be

That the great precipice,

That peril conceived,

The fall from form feared

Is but an invitation

From fear itself

To ward you from the truth

That the cliff is no cliff

From which you must jump,

But instead

Is the gentlest slope

Like the soft sand

Of a gorgeous beach

Where a warm sea

Reaches to meet your feet

And invite you in

To something so vast

That all your worries

Would dissolve

Into the whole loving truth

That what is you,

What is real and true,

Recognises itself.

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The Thoughts Of Us

When the heart swells

And thoughts are glossed in wonder,

Coming to the world

Wet with love

As if they had drunk deep

Upon the source

And imbibed

A draft’s worth

Of that subtle, unformed substance,

It matters not

What these thoughts are

For all are equal

Under love’s law,

All are painted in love’s sheen,

All are born of love’s significance,

And none are higher or lower,

Weighted bigger or smaller,

Nor judged to be greater

Or deemed to be less than any another.

Like us,

They are materialised

And glossed in wonder,

Coming to the world

Wet with love

As if they had drunk deep

Upon the source

And imbibed

A draft’s worth

Of that subtle, unformed substance.

Like us

They come to life

Imbued with light,

To dance

For the fleeting moment

Of their being.

Myself

Dearest and closest

Most intimate friend,

You are made of nothing

But being.

When I acknowledge you,

When I fall back into you,

I return molten with love

As if you had dissolved

All but the essence of me,

Dissolved all

But that which you are,

Dissolved all

To which I was bound

In mind, body and thought.

And for a moment

And maybe moments after

Or even when moments stretch to hours

And perhaps really

In the truth of timeless always now,

I am free,

Free in being

And free in love,

Free to be myself.

Old Lives

Sometime the old lives rise

From where they lie,

Undisturbed

But fully functional:

Scripts we once called ourself

And followed unconsciously,

Ideas we believed

But forgot we believed,

Whose presence

Steers us

On courses

Now obsolete and irrelevant,

The machine trundling on

In a groove set

Years ago,

Thoughts we ceased to see

Guiding us

In the robotic program

Of our walking sleep.

Sanctity Beyond Arithmetic

The past is littered with casualties:

And mind

Will go back

And count the lost,

And perhaps dwell there

As an unhappy accountant

To that which should have been.

But love is never lost:

The wise

Cast away the past

With all its woe and misery,

And hold only

To principle love,

The heart warmth

That tells of eternity

Beneath the messy arithmetic,

An inward wealth

To right all wrongs,

Solve hurts

And salve wounds,

A truth that swells

As it is acknowledged,

A truth that wholes

And reveals

That beyond and behind

The persistent ills,

Love holds all

In sanctity pristine

And being,

Ever perfect.

The Cow Shed

She goes to the lowing,

Rustling, cud chewing shed

To absorb a bovine energy.

From their eyes she drinks

A liquid stillness, breathes

Their heavy succulent breath

And observes their due drop snouts

Nuzzling and inquisitive.

More than anything

She finds them quite, satisfyingly quiet.

Despite the constant chewing,

Neck rubbing, hoof stomping

And fidgeting on their halters,

They exude

The deep silence of the soul,

A calm watery expression

Of grass transformed

To sweet clover thoughtlessness.

She drinks this in,

Finds resonance,

Matches their quality,

Becomes equally

And sublimely still.

Remember Love

Through the portal of the word

I remember love,

Step inside its resonance.

Truly it is unforgettable,

Yet what the mind says

In absence

Seems to veil

The unveilable,

Distract

From its absolute being.

I remember the love

That loves without question,

The love that simply loves,

Dissolves all in its recognition,

Ever brings forth

More of itself

In joyful abandon.

I remember love

That isn’t a memory

Or static thing

Locked in the vaults of my mind,

But instead

Vibrates with the essence of living,

The all of my heart.

I remember the place, shape

And flavour of love,

The being of love,

Always being

Always loving,

On which all find foundation.

I remember love,

That love

Closer to my heart

Than anything,

The love that does not stand apart

But enfolds

Simply everything.

The Yoga Of Friendship

Dearest friend

I could sit in the silence of our being

And dwell satisfied

In the knowledge

That we are joined in the heart of our life,

For our friendship

Is not based on superfluous traits

But deep seated

And deep rooted

And deep found

In the beginnings of our self

Where we are one:

One, to the exclusion of other,

One, to the exclusion of else,

Simply and only one,

Where friendship is shared

And where all that seemed separate

Is found to be joined

And all that seemed divided

Is unified and whole.