Speak to us of Children...

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,

and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies,

so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Kahlil Gibran

Enough

I think it is enough,

at times,

to go without knowing

where the end is,

what the beginning - 

so long ago.

Perhaps you have friends

who can whisper

such things

in your ear,

hear little bits of 

messages

in the laughter of children

But mostly we just proceed ahead,

not remembering

how it all started,

where it is leading,

not sure

if we are the waiting animal

or the animal's passing

shadow 

in the grass.

Dorothy Walters

Photo:  Peter Bowers 

The Bright Core of Failure (or.. My Heart is a Saucepan)

Sometimes you enter the heart.  Sometimes

you're born from the soul.  Sometimes you

weep a song of separation:  all the same

glory.  You live in beautiful forms and

you're the energy that breaks images.  All 

light, neither this nor that.  Human beings

go places on foot; angels, with wings.  Even

if they find nothing but ruins and failure,

you're the bright core of that.  When angels

and humans are free of feet and wings, they'll

understand that you are that lack, pure

absence.  You're in my eyes like a taste of 

wine that blocks my understanding.  That

ignorance glorifies.  You talk and feel in

the talking:  kingdom, finances, fire, smoke,

the senses, incense:  all are your favourites! 

A ship, Noah, blessings, luck, troubles that 

pull us unknowingly toward treasure:  look,

he's being dragged away from his friends! 

Nobody will see him anymore.  This is your

story.  I ask you, "Should I talk to this one?

Is he being drawn to me?"  Silence.  That too.  

What is desire? What is it! Don't laugh, my

soul.  Show me the way through this desiring.

All the  world loves you, but you are nowhere

to be found.  Hidden and completely obvious.

You are the soul! You boil me down in a 

saucepan, then ask why I'm spilling out.  Is

it time for patience?  Your bright being.  My

heart is a saucepan.  This writing, the record

of being torn apart in your fire, as aloe

wood most becomes itself when burning up.

Enough talk about burning!  Everything, even

the end of this poem, is a taste of your glory.

Rumi

The True Person

The true person is 

Not anyone in particular; 

But, like the deep blue colour

of the limitless sky,

It is everyone, everywhere in the world.

Dogen

Mother, Silence

Sometimes when life is difficult,

I curl up in my Mother's lap 

and drink her ever-present love

that never has required

a single thing to change.

And when my life requires courage,

or I don't know what to say

or how to be, 

I go to her and

listen with my heart.

My Mother birthed the world

and everything that's in it.

Her wisdom excludes nothing; 

and yet she rushes to my side

if I but beckon her.

What a pure, abiding presence

is my Mother, Silence.  

Dorothy Hunt

photo:  Peter Bowers

Love is...

Love is what gives joy to creatures.

Love is what provides all sorts of happiness.

We were not born from women; love gave birth to us.

A hundred blessings and praises to our mothers ! 

Rumi 

photo:  Peter Bowers

no poem

no poem

no song

no ritual

captures the simple beingness of a stone 

let alone a mountain of stone

but let the stone write the poem 

let the mountain sing in your heart

let the rituals fall like gentle rain to nourish the gods

 inside every stone 

and every mountain

let your soul rise above the mountain 

above the rain

above the clouds

the journey home requires no effort

only willingness to release your claw like grip

on the familiar ground 

then the stone speaks unspeakable truth

then the mountain fills your heart with a silent song

of peace

and rituals sprout wings of surrender in your soul

and you arrive

here

nirmala

the summer day

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean - 

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down - 

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. 

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do 

with your one wild and precious life? 

Mary Oliver

photo:  Peter Bowers

may my heart always be open to little

may my heart always be open to little

birds who are the secrets of living

whatever they sing is better than to know

and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry

and fearless and thirsty and supple

and even if it's sunday may i be wrong

for whenever men are right they are not young 

and may myself do nothing usefully

and love yourself so more than truly

there's never been quite such a fool who could fail

pulling all the sky over him with one smile

e.e. cummings

When your life looks back

When your life looks back - 

as it will, at itself, at you - what will it say ? 

Inch of colored ribbon cut from the spool.

Flame curl, blue-consuming the log it flares from.

Bay leaf.  Oak leaf.  Cricket.  One among many.

Your life will carry you as it did always,

with ten fingers and both palms,

with horizontal ribs and upright spine,

with its filling and emptying heart,

that wanted only your own heart, emptying, filled,

in return.

You gave it.  What else could you do?

Immersed in air or in water.

Immersed in hunger or anger.

Curious even when bored.

Longing even when running away.

"What will happen next ?" - 

the question hinged in your knees, your ankles,

in the in-breaths even of weeping.

Strongest of magnets, the future impartial drew you in.

Whatever direction you turned toward was face to face.

No back of the world existed,

no unseen corner, no test.  No other earth to prepare for.  

This, your life had said, its only pronoun.

Here, your life had said, its only house. 

Let, your life had said, its only order. 

And did you have a choice in this?  You did - 

Sleeping and waking, 

The horses around you, the mountains around you, 

The buildings with their tall, hydraulic shafts.

Those of  your own kind around you - 

A few times, you stood on your head.

A few times, you chose not to be frightened.

A few times, you found yourself held beyond any measure.

Mortal, your life will say,

As if tasting something delicious, as if in envy.

Your immortal life will say this, as it is leaving.  

Jane Hirshfield

image:  Peter Bowers

What's in the Temple?

In the quiet spaces of my mind a thought lies still, but ready to spring. 

It begs me to open the door so it can walk about.

The poets speak in obscure terms pointing madly at the unsayable.

The sages say nothing, but walk ahead patting their thigh calling for us to follow.

The monk sits pen in hand poised to explain the cloud of unknowing. 

The seeker seeks, just around the corner from the truth.

If she stands still it will catch up with her.

Pause with us here a while.

Put your ear to the wall of your heart.

Listen for the whisper of knowing there.

Love will touch you if you are very still.

If I say the word God, people run away.

They've been frightened - sat on 'till the spirit cried "uncle."

Now they play hide and seek with somebody they can't name.

They know he's out there looking for them, and they want to be found,

But there is all this stuff in the way.

I can't talk about God and make any sense,

And I can't not talk about God and make any sense.

So we talk about the weather, and we are talking about God.

I miss the old temples where you could hang out with God.

Still, we have pet pounds where you can feel love draped in warm fur,

And sense the whole tragedy of life and death.

You see there the consequences of carelessness,

And you feel there the yapping urgency of life that wants to be lived.

The only things lacking are the frankincense and myrrh.

We don't build many temples anymore.

Maybe we learned that the sacred can't be contained.

Or maybe it can't be sustained inside a building.

Buildings crumble.

It's the spirit that lives on.

If you had a temple in the secret spaces of your heart,

What would you worship there?

What would you bring to sacrifice?

What would be behind the curtain in the holy of holies?

Go there now.   

Tom Barrett

image:  Peter Bowers

nothing in life is trivial

Nothing in life is trivial.

Life is whole wherever and whenever

we touch it, and

one moment or event is 

not less sacred than another.

Vimala Thakar