Great Light

My street,

It’s nestled in a nondescript cul-de-sac

Fragment of a designed, esthetically pleasing subdivision; forgettable in its similarity to so many others like it.

There is a discernible absence of Christmas lights this year.

A few wreaths; a few red bows hanging upon random doors,

but an extravagant celebration of the holiday season

is palatably absent.

Would this be an indictment to current times?

Subtle statements in the wake of weathering a decade long economic nightmare?

Has the community sobered to the real challenges of surviving?

Exhausted by fretting the unknown?

Abiding with scarce little more energy to spare than on essentials?

It’s a view; a sad conclusion.

Perhaps yet, it might be the pensive breathe before exhaling generosity.

A mere repetition of the thematic life as a cycle of growth; then decomposition

Even the mighty Redwood will eventually perish and disintegrate .

Into the very forest floor that nurtured it for millenniums.

Comparison is our way of learning

To every feast, lies nearby bleached bones of famine

Learning to appreciate next cycle’s arrival

We become wise in this way

So this quiet darkness may be the nursery of our change

Cherishing good fortune, when it returns home; to the roots of efforts.

In that moment of clarity; see beyond the mask of lacking

The gift of understanding reveals it is “I” who surmise; then decide

If “I” am rich in opportunity; or poor in expectation.

This pause; this seasons ending is an invite

to celebrate the chance

to evaluate values used in filtering what measures happiness.

Stripping away external worthiness standards might just bring back personal treasures

Mewing in the arms of opportunity

Is freedom’s delicate coddling

We’ve named our precious darling liberty.

It can’t be manufactured in some foreign factory

No cheaper, reasonable facsimile can be had.

It dwells in the heart of every human being; even in the bosom of those whose forefathers surrendered that legacy in trade for illusionary promises; like safety from the threat of violence.

In my youth, I was encouraged to believe the opposite of love was hate.

Later, I embraced the notion love was uniquely divine, it had no opposite.

When I accepted love as an open heart to life, did I recognize its opposite was indifference; so much the source of unhappiness.

 I noticed how love was like liberty; it cannot be taken, it is always given away.

The tale goes:

There was a light; part of a greater all the energy there was, compressed into a single great source of light in the center of the firmament surrounded by endless jet black darkness

It became aware of itself as being light, but also that it was surrounded by bright light.

Everywhere it perceived only brilliant light.

It possessed in the very core of its existence an irrepressible yearning to witness its own illumination; its own specialness

So it requested of the creator to allow it to behold its own brilliance

And that wish was granted

It was cast out into the dark abyss without memory of the warming home in the community of brilliance.

In that solitary loneliness, given opportunity as its only companion; so it could glimmer and burn brightly,

Casting its great cascade of light outwards into the uncharted unknown.

In so doing, witness its kinsmanship to all light; possessing quality that added to the whole.

Is it not the same for each of us?

As single flames of light

Sometimes we need reminding

Given chance by darkness

To illuminate our surroundings

With our own unique, unquenchable brilliance

My new line of Note and Greeting cards. Follow the link, shop like a life depended on it! More to come. albert ~

http://www.zazzle.com/sentiment_card-137951066797502623?CMPN=addthis&lang=en&rf=238510248480620301

Lost Voice

   I lost my voice.  Not in the customarily Laryngitis sort of way where a virus invades my vocal cords.  Nor by singing favorite tunes in a higher than usual pitch.  Oddly enough, repetitive whispering puts as much strain on vocal chords as screaming does; but all of that is purely physical apparatus of voice. I’m talking about the voice of opinion had been silenced; and I was clueless to its cause.

   Perhaps clueless is not entirely accurate. If I could muster up some genuine honesty in my reflection, I might admit I saw resignation coming from years ahead. I just surmised that sooner or later I’d become weary with protesting the outrageous; then inevitably it’d arrive without a lot of fanfare. I recognized it was just a question of time before the fruitlessness of shaking my fist at the Gods for what appeared as unrelenting challenge to my happiness would become the norm; no one was listening.  I could puzzle out the merits of enlightenment and wisdom as hard fought products wrestled into possession by formal education. Contrasted to a more subtle raw experience where complaining was a poor substitute for not trying.  As each door of the unknown was thrust opened I only found more darkness; it was up to me to screw up the courage to go into it without permission or assurance that it was safe. 

  I had learned early on, in college philosophy, that all knowledge contained kernels of doubt; strip away the lazily accepted handout assumptions then sooner or later what remained was a pool of questions that snared wandering minds as sure as the gravity of the largest black hole; when experience conflicted with craftily cultivated expectations there’d sure as shooting be dissonance.

  What mattered became a paradox; then an oxymoron, where a point of view defied vocabulary.  A place where words served the symbols of abstract concepts, those being mere propositions formed by conjecture; both true and false.  Words contained worlds of their own interpretation as they were coupled with other like-kind words, resulting in a train yard coupling defying the imagination as to designed intent or purpose; where any position could be interpreted to mean the opposite:  politicians had been playing that game for years, but then no one took them seriously at their word anyway, so it was forgiven.  The trouble arrived when the rank and file of citizenry picked up the practice so then no one could discern what to believe; the worst of it all was, who could be trusted? It ultimately dissolved into the opinion of ‘it depends,’ and to be honest, trust always was a subjective exercise anyway. But we were lured for so long into the false belief that ours was a shared value system with agreed upon boundaries.  Only in the dire-straights of emergency was it noticeable that the thundering cacophony of the crown was crying the same lament: Who’s in charge here anyway?

Soon enough, it became so damn painfully obvious. It was never a singular case of protest about personal situation, but rather realizing discomfort wasn’t anything that made me special.

After that, what was there to say beyond apologizing for misconception?

My mistake.

Each Moment that Passes

Each moment that passes changes you

You do not...

cannot possess even yourself.

How can you hope to possess anyone or anything else?

                             David Carradine as the Blind Man in the 1979 movie Circle of Iron

The Mortal Imperative

   Something made clear to my awareness is the tendency to take life for granted.  It’s not something I think was intentional;  I just seem to be programmed to accept events that happen so often as normal.  Over time, this list of acceptance of normal grows to the point of expectation; there lies the rub of obtained comfort.

  For good or ill parents labor to make the way of their children ‘less difficult’ then their own journey. Rich or Poor that urging seems to exist with most parents I’ve talked to or watched raise their brood.

  I bring this up today mainly because tomorrow I go in for minor surgery on my shoulder.  True there is a risk whenever anesthesia is administered; I’ve known of several cases of minor surgery ending in death.  But the boon here for me dear reader is to share the blossoming insight into my own small-personal-point-of-view into the magical drives of living well.

  These past few weeks in preparation for the event, little instances popped up to remind me of all the many things I do using both arms, (something I will not be able to do after the surgery for some time).  How many of my daily routines included the smooth cooperation of all of my limbs?  Bashfully I’ll admit I don’t give a whole lot of conscious thought into all of the many with afflictions preventing them from doing even the most minor of activities; there it is, I’m self absorbed ~ just like every body else.

  I recognize we’re a contrast kind of creature, so having those bouts of illness should teach to treasure good health; most times it does, at least for a while.  Then soon enough the preoccupations cloud the gratitude and it’s a parade of dissatisfactions that hover near our lips.

  I’d like to say I’ve learned better, but I’m not that wise.  Now I know of better, but that’s not nearly the same thing.  After an accident, or a close call with the end of ‘self’ there is this glow of otherworldliness that lingers.  To look at the conditions so carefully laid out considering them without the author?  I’ve been prone to do just that without being morbid.  Instead of dwelling on the negative possibilities, rather to question what it is I value as so important?

  I’d like to spend more time with the people I love; even if its not in my command to make happen.  I’ve abandoned some of those things that annoyed me ~ I know they don’t matter all that much actually; not enough to rob me of seeking joy.  Of all of that and much more. I must admit I’ve noticed how preciously little time I actually have.  That doesn’t spur me to learn Russian along with Mandarin while mastering Beethoven’s 9th on the Harmonica.  No, nor cultivatating the best of any display of my specialness or concerns.  I’ve even reconciled that these notions and expressions I post on this board, along with gather years of essays, poems and short stories and songs are merely an echo of my not so well articulated voice saying simply, “I was here, and I learned to love.”

 That’s all, but it’s taken me a life time to become so clear on it. I suppose the advice of not taking anything external personal was actually helpful.

I felt compel to put it in our modern-electronic stone so perhaps I’d have something to remind me while I heal.

And you know…..I have this funny idea that what any of us are really about is healing; healing from the delusion that we’re here forever or worst of lies, we have to earn worthiness.  It’s a painful process to be sure, without having concrete examples of what else could this all mean?  But then, getting over terror sometimes is a process much like learning to taking things for granted?  Letting go of any sense of entitlement is where the threshold of gratitude offers the gift to savoring the moment.  You know, to let go without a lot of fuss

I dunno, I’ll let you know what I find over the next horizon if I get the chance. 

Finding your way to the Beginning

Finding Your Way to the Beginning

I’ve not posted as of recent

Not nearly as often as ideas spewed into my speaking mind

 Particularly those topics I discuss with myself within my skull, with no one listening; discussion requires two. Yet, as of late, I have had an experience surface for my attending this whole notion of purpose; be it divine or self-appointed.

   I’ve heard purpose used in a multitude of ways; all as inspiration for the listener to get their act together.  Still, I’ve come to respect the best lessons of life are bought by failure and not happenstance of good fortune.  When it comes to plans coming out, we readily forget past successes as we chew on unfairness of those ripped from endeared clutching.  I’ll add to that observation, I believe for the lesson to have a really lasting impression, there needs to be a certainty that shatters.  I say that with full intention to focus not on failure to meet projected end states; or desires unfulfilled, but rather a personal certainty born upon subjective prediction that failed to meet the reality test.  At those devastations lies the gift of true awareness.

I’ve my own history of taking my-own-darn-sweet-time learning a lesson.  I have adequate scars in all the levels of existence; physical, emotional and mental, attesting to my not-so-clear-headed, slovenly executed plans.  Only in the rectitude of not being asked to leave this earthly plane can I cringe at my foolishness; but in actuality, I was just blinded by my certainty.

Where did I learn to ignore the facts?  Clearly I can’t recall being set down by my parents and advised to follow my own passionate configuration of how the world should be.  Nor was it some teacher advocating the merits of delusional thinking.  The jury is still out concerning my religious indoctrination since I’m leaning towards an acceptance of the general anxiety in that realm for me to swallow their doctrine whole as a template for the order of things.  But I’m not so much looking for a culprit, but rather a point where my beginning had been corrupted.  I am confident I wasn’t always like this, as many would say in their laments.  I also am acutely aware of going from generalities to specifics back to generalities as I ponder the whispering question in my head, “Is this the way of decrepity ?”

  I had been passionately convinced it was just a question of time until being discovered; for me to realize a dream of doing music for a living.  Then, as the fantasy waned by decades of depravation I gladly offered it upon my altar of sacrifice for art’s sake, did I realize my delusion; I moved on to writing with desire to be heard.

No kidding, I was well into adulthood and continued to foster a child’s unrelenting need, no, anguish to be heard. 

Of course, because it was so well rooted into my psyche, I couldn’t  sort it out from the muddle into the open light of actual until it ran its course; like a fever.  But it did run its course, and I was left dry and callous towards the lover who seduced me with promises laced in if I only… (fill in the blank.)

I was once new;

in the beginning 

There were no concepts of necessary

to feel joyful

I just was

Perhaps it was when I started to listen,

To really listen, to the questions asked of me

I noticed

some of those questions were repeated

frequently;

by many

“Why did you do that?”

To my fresh mind

It was a ridiculous question

A playful ruse

to find value in absurdity

It was so nakedly obvious

To see what would happen of course

It’s taken me over a half of a century

to find my way back

to the beginning

To the pure delight of action

a desire to witness

What will change?

 like a firefly on a summer night

Predict the next spellbinding

Brilliant

flash.