Saturday, February 28, 2009
The Apple Orchard
The Apple Orchard
(after a poem by Rilke)
I think it is enough,
this wandering in the descending twilight
beneath these welcoming boughs
once ripe with the sap of new beginnings,
now hung with later promise.
Like us they hold the recollection
of passage from seed
to bloom,
their home of buried earth transformed to the light
of upward reaching arms.
Already they bow
with the weight of coming harvest,
and we too
move steadily where our necessity
takes us, beyond grief or doubt,
final fruition.
Dorothy Walters
February 26, 2009
Here is the Rilke poem which inspired me:
The Apple Orchard
Come let us watch the sun go down
and walk in twilight through the orchard's green.
Does it not seem as if we had for long
collected, saved and harbored within us
old memories? To find releases and seek
new hopes, remembering half-forgotten joys,
mingled with darkness coming from within,
as we randomly voice our thoughts aloud
wandering beneath these harvest-laden trees
reminiscent of Durer woodcuts, branches
which, bent under the fully ripened fruit,
wait patiently, trying to outlast, to
serve another season's hundred days of toil,
straining, uncomplaining, by not breaking
but succeeding, even though the burden
should at times seem almost past endurance.
Not to falter! Not to be found wanting!
Thus must it be, when willingly you strive
throughout a long and uncomplaining life,
committed to one goal: to give yourself!
And silently to grow and to bear fruit.
Rainer Maria Rilke
(Selected Poems, trans. by Albert Ernest Flemming)
(Photo from Panhala)
Friday, February 27, 2009
How He Left (poem)
How He Left
(for John O’Donohue, Who Departed Early)
He already knew all he needed to know.
He had plumbed the depths,
met the strange forms below,
captured their wisdom.
When dawn broke,
the birds caroled
their knowings
into his ear.
He listened,
and understood,
meaning behind the sounds.
The winds carried him
to unmarked places,
revelation swept
over him
until he was filled
like a holy vessel
with radiance
from the ancient source.
These gifts found meaning
in what he gave to others:
the world was his parish,
humanity his flock.
His words fed many.
When his time came,
he acquiesced gracefully
and departed like a bright lantern
carried upward on the currents
into the final light
above.
Dorothy Walters
(for John O’Donohue, Who Departed Early)
He already knew all he needed to know.
He had plumbed the depths,
met the strange forms below,
captured their wisdom.
When dawn broke,
the birds caroled
their knowings
into his ear.
He listened,
and understood,
meaning behind the sounds.
The winds carried him
to unmarked places,
revelation swept
over him
until he was filled
like a holy vessel
with radiance
from the ancient source.
These gifts found meaning
in what he gave to others:
the world was his parish,
humanity his flock.
His words fed many.
When his time came,
he acquiesced gracefully
and departed like a bright lantern
carried upward on the currents
into the final light
above.
Dorothy Walters
February 26,2009
Thursday, February 26, 2009
A Language You Once Knew
A LANGUAGE YOU ONCE KNEW
There will be an invitation.
It will not come tied in ribbons
nor a message streaming down
from the sky.
There will be no Roman candles
sizzling
nor brilliant colors
exploding overhead.
Instead there will be a soft
whisper
in your ear,
something in a language
you once knew
and are trying to learn again.
In order to hear it,
you will need to
put down all your packages,
stop everything you are doing
and stand very still
then wait. . .until something stirs inside.
There will be an invitation.
It will not come tied in ribbons
nor a message streaming down
from the sky.
There will be no Roman candles
sizzling
nor brilliant colors
exploding overhead.
Instead there will be a soft
whisper
in your ear,
something in a language
you once knew
and are trying to learn again.
In order to hear it,
you will need to
put down all your packages,
stop everything you are doing
and stand very still
then wait. . .until something stirs inside.
Dorothy Walters
To hear a reading from this and other books by Dorothy, go to:
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
For the Unknown Self
So much of what delights and troubles you
Happens on a surface
You take for ground.
Your mind thinks your life alone,
Your eyes consider air your nearest neighbor,
Yet it seems that a little below your heart
There houses in you an unknown self
Who prefers the patterns of the dark
And is not persuaded by the eye's affection
Or caught by the flash of thought.
It is a self that enjoys contemplative patience
With all your unfolding expression,
Is never drawn to break into light
Though you entangle yourself in unworthiness
And misjudge what you do and who you are.
It presides within like an evening freedom
That will often see you enchanted by twilight
Without ever recognizing the falling night,
It resembles the under-earth of your visible life:
All you do and say and think is fostered
Deep in its opaque and prevenient clay.
It dwells in a strange, yet rhythmic ease
That is not ruffled by disappointment;
It presides in a deeper current of time
Free from the force of cause and sequence
That otherwise shapes your life.
Were it to break forth into day,
Its dark light might quench your mind,
For it knows how your primeval heart
Sisters every cell of your life
To all your known mind would avoid,
Thus it knows to dwell in you gently,
Offering you only discrete glimpses
Of how you construct your life.
At times, it will lead you strangely,
Magnetized by some resonance
That ambushes your vigilance.
It works most resolutely at night
As the poet who draws your dreams,
Creating for you many secret doors,
Decorated with pictures of your hunger;
It has the dignity of the angelic
That knows you to your roots,
Always awaiting your deeper befriending
To take you beyond the threshold of want,
Where all your diverse strainings
Can come to wholesome ease.
John O'Donohue
To Bless the Space Between Us
Monday, February 23, 2009
The Night House (Billy Collins)
The Night House
Every day the body works in the fields of the world
mending a stone wall
mending a stone wall
or swinging a sickle through the tall grass--
the grass of civics, the grass of money --
and every night the body curls around itself
and listens for the soft bells of sleep.
But the heart is restless and rises
from the body in the middle of the night,
and leaves the trapezoidal bedroom
with its thick, pictureless walls
to sit by herself at the kitchen table
and heat some milk in a pan.
And the mind gets up too, puts on a robe
and goes downstairs, lights a cigarette,
and opens a book on engineering.
Even the conscience awakens
and roams from room to room in the dark,
darting away from every mirror like a strange fish.
And the soul is up on the roof
in her nightdress, straddling the ridge,
singing a song about the wildness of the sea
until the first rip of pink appears in the sky.
Then, they all will return to the sleeping body
the way a flock of birds settles back into a tree,
resuming their daily colloquy,
talking to each other or themselves
even through the heat of the long afternoons.
Which is why the body --that house of voices --
sometimes puts down its metal tongs, its needle, or its pen
to stare into the distance, to listen to all its names being called
before bending again to its labor.
Billy Collins
(Sailing Around the Room)
Billy Collins
(Sailing Around the Room)
(Image from Wikipedia)
Saturday, February 21, 2009
A Prophet's Vision
About 30 years ago I viewed a video of a "trance channel" who predicted that in future some form of extreme heat would be employed to treat cancer. I do not remember the name of the prophet, nor who made the videotape. The other day an item appeared on the T. V. newscast about the use of slender laser wands for the treatment of brain cancer through the use of hyperthermia (high heat)--this treatment seems to be more effective and much less invasive that current methods that involve surgery. When I saw this clip, I remembered the earlier prediction by the psychic I had seen earlier.
Just now I googled the topic on my computer, and found the entry below. This posting was dated 2004, so things may have progressed even further today.
In any event, I felt it rather remarkable that this psychic's prediction had in fact come true.
Here is the excerpt from the google site:
Hyperthermia is a type of cancer treatment in which body tissue is exposed to high temperatures (up to 113°F) to damage and kill cancer cells (see Question 1).
Hyperthermia is almost always used with other forms of cancer therapy, such as radiation therapy and chemotherapy (see Question 2).
Several methods of hyperthermia are currently under study, including local, regional, and whole-body hyperthermia (see Question 3).
Many clinical trials (research studies) are being conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of hyperthermia.
Hyperthermia is almost always used with other forms of cancer therapy, such as radiation therapy and chemotherapy (see Question 2).
Several methods of hyperthermia are currently under study, including local, regional, and whole-body hyperthermia (see Question 3).
Many clinical trials (research studies) are being conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of hyperthermia.
Once again, we are left to ponder the relation of "current time" to "future time"--are they indeed the same, as some psychics maintain? Why do some have access to such information pertaining to the "future" and not others? What is the state of consciousness required to obtain such information? How did Edgar Cayce do it?
Whatever other questions they may raise, such episodes remind us that indeed the world is filled with mystery, that our own limited minds can comprehend only a portion of the mystery, and that such occasional "breaks" in the normal sequence of things is not understood by us at this time.
Likewise, spontaneous kundalni awakening is a "break" in the "normal" (expected) course of things and this departure from the norm implies that "anything can happen." What if our world became filled with such aberrations rather than the "expecteds"? What would life be like then?
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Poem by Tagore
He's there among the scented trees,
playing the notes he has taught you.
Too late for embarrassment, shy doe
nibbling at the forest's edge,
shawled in deep blue shadows.
He's calling you. The flower of your soul
is opening, little deer.
The river of scent will lead you
deep into the trees where he waits.
The bihanga also plays tonight --
do you hear his more distant flute?
Black bees carry the moon's luster
from flower to flower.
The rest of the grove will bloom tonight, I think.
How he looks at you, young animal.
He shames the moon with his own dark light.
Let's bow down before the young Lord,
the deep blue flowers at his feet.
Rabindranath Tagore ( 1861 – 1941, India )
This is another poem from the ancient bhakti tradition, where lover and beloved become one, just as human and divine are linked through mutual devotion. Bhaktis do not ask for anything in prayer, only to be allowed to worship their beloved in their attitudes and practice. In this, they are somewhat different from most western practitioners, who generally offer prayers in which they ask their Lord for something specific.
The shy flute player in this poem is Krishna, whose delicate flute music lures the soul to come away and be lost in the nectar of divine love play: "the flower of your soul is opening."
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Poem by Vidyapati
My friend, I cannot answer when you ask me to explain
what has befallen me.
Love is transformed, renewed,each moment.
He has dwelt in my eyes all the days of my life,
yet I am not sated with seeing.
My ears have heard his sweet voice in eternity,
and yet it is always new to them.
How many honeyed nights have I passed with him
in love's bliss, yet my body
wonders at his.
Through all the ages
he has been clasped to my breast,
yet my desire
never abates.
I have seen subtle people sunk in passion
but none came so close to the heart of the fire.
Who shall be found to cool your heart,
says Vidyapati.
Translated by Edward C. Dimock, Jr. and Denise Levertov)
The above poem is from the ancient bhakti tradition, which focuses on the practice of devotion, lover (the human devotee) and beloved (the Divine essence within.)
"Photo by solidariat)
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
To No Stranger (Mollie Ruth Bottoms)
When I was about 16, I had a remarkable English literature teacher who inspired me to follow the path of poetry. She was herself a transcendentalist who revered the writings of Wordsworth, Emerson and others who sought the ideal in the realm of the "actual."
I am currently preparing for a move to a different location (still in San Francisco) and in sorting out old papers, I found this poem which she had written for a small chapbook published in 1936 by the local college where she taught. I have always been grateful to her for the encouragement and inspiration she provided to me as an aspiring young writer.
Her poem is written as a sonnet, with the rhyme scheme of ABBA, ABBA,
CDE, CDE. It is (I think) much more difficult to write in set rhyme than in free verse. Robert Frost said that to dispense with rhyme was like playing tennis without a net.
CDE, CDE. It is (I think) much more difficult to write in set rhyme than in free verse. Robert Frost said that to dispense with rhyme was like playing tennis without a net.
And the thought of the poem is, of course, the notion that ultimate reality cannot be expressed in words, for it can only be encountered in silence.
I am publishing this poem as a tribute to her
To No Stranger
For here we meet again behind the word,
Behind the phrase, behind pretense of art;
Behind the phrase, behind pretense of art;
And here we know again the naked heart,
And realize again desire's absurd
Futility. And hear again unheard,
Our voiceless songs, drawn quietly apart
From all out noisy singing, dimly start
Upon ethereal soundless sounds that gird
Our slender lives. You and I, my dear,
Have otherwhere in other times been mute;
Forsaken speech to know the noiseless soul;
Have found that only silence holds the sheer
Unreckoned meaning of the absolute,
That only wordlessness contains the whole.
Mollie Ruth Bottoms
Monday, February 16, 2009
About Angels
Recently, a friend and I exchanged some thoughts about the nature of angels and the bliss state. (He and his wife are experiencing a kind of simultaneous kundalini awakening.) Here is what he wrote in response to my comments:
I feel that what my wife and I have explored is actually a mere preview of the kind of intimacy, both individual and group if you will, that occurs on higher planes. ..sharing of love, sharing of bliss, sharing of ecstasy, sharing of thought, sharing of pure BEing. . .such joy and bliss as to make our sexual experiences a mere shadow.
At the time of my original awakening, I too had a sense that in the "after world" (after what? maybe ours is the true "after world.") groups of kindred souls would be drawn together to experience what I called "group consciousness." At the same time each would retain individual identity and personal traits. This state would create an authentic "oneness of being."
I still believe that such will be the case, though, of course, there is no way to prove this notion until we actually experience it on another plane.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Valentine for Those Alone
Valentine for Those Alone Who Did Not Get One
Here is my heart.
It has been quiet now
for oh so long.
It is waiting to see
what will happen,
if someone will sing to it,
make up a song
that only it can hear.
This is my spirit.
It has been waiting for the song.
Sometimes it pieces out a tune
on a piano,
an old guitar.
It likes music.
It wants to be drenched
in some hidden
melody,
the way an afternoon shower
catches you
without your coat
or how you stumble and fall
into the arms
of a rushing mountain stream.
This is my tongue
It is telling you how it feels.
It is saying words
for you to hear,
to know how it is
with
hearts lying in wait.
(Inspired by Joy Harjo's "This is My Heart")
Dorothy Walters
February 14, 2009
Here is my heart.
It has been quiet now
for oh so long.
It is waiting to see
what will happen,
if someone will sing to it,
make up a song
that only it can hear.
This is my spirit.
It has been waiting for the song.
Sometimes it pieces out a tune
on a piano,
an old guitar.
It likes music.
It wants to be drenched
in some hidden
melody,
the way an afternoon shower
catches you
without your coat
or how you stumble and fall
into the arms
of a rushing mountain stream.
This is my tongue
It is telling you how it feels.
It is saying words
for you to hear,
to know how it is
with
hearts lying in wait.
(Inspired by Joy Harjo's "This is My Heart")
Dorothy Walters
February 14, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
This is My Heart (Joy Harjo)
This is My Heart
This is my heart. It is a good heart.
This is my heart. It is a good heart.
Bones and a membrane of mist and fire
are the woven cover.
When we make love in the flower world
my heart is close enough to sing
to yours in a language that has no use
for clumsy human words.
My head is a good head, but it is a hard head
My head is a good head, but it is a hard head
and it whirs inside with a swarm of worries.
What is the source of this singing, it asks
and if there is a source why can't I see it
right here, right now
as real as these hands hammering
the world together
with nails and sinew?
This is my soul. It is a good soul.
This is my soul. It is a good soul.
It tells me, "come here forgetful one."
And we sit together with a lilt of small winds
who rattle the scrub oak.
We cook a little something
to eat: a rabbit, some sofkey
then a sip of something sweet
for memory.
This is my song. It is a good song.
This is my song. It is a good song.
It walked forever the border of fire and water
climbed ribs of desire to my lips to sing to you.
Its new wings quiver with
vulnerability.
Come lie next to me, says my heart.
Come lie next to me, says my heart.
Put your head here.
It is a good thing, says my soul.
Joy Harjo
(A Map to the Next World)
Joy Harjo
(A Map to the Next World)
Friday, February 13, 2009
How to See Angels
How to See Angels
Stand very still.
Don't breathe,
or if you do,
do it silently.
Be in a familiar place,
or else a new place
which feels familiar.
Under a tree by
running water.
Or else in a church
or temple,
where vibrations of
the holy still linger
in the air.
Incense and candles are
fine,
but not required.
If you know a prayer
or a mantra,
this is the time.
Music will help.
Especially kirtans
or hymns.
Look around
for bits of color,
small flashes of light.
Close your eyes
for one brief moment,
then open and turn very slowly.
Listen for something that
sounds like a wooden flute
playing in the distance.
You will feel a
quiet breeze pass over you.
Your cells will brighten,
and you will give a little sigh.
That is when it will happen.
There will be a soft rush of wings.
a blur of shining movement. . .
Everything will light up
as if you are standing
in an aura of sweet feeling.
Now look straight ahead:
an image will appear
at the corner of your eye,
white wings hovering against
Look around
for bits of color,
small flashes of light.
Close your eyes
for one brief moment,
then open and turn very slowly.
Listen for something that
sounds like a wooden flute
playing in the distance.
You will feel a
quiet breeze pass over you.
Your cells will brighten,
and you will give a little sigh.
That is when it will happen.
There will be a soft rush of wings.
a blur of shining movement. . .
Everything will light up
as if you are standing
in an aura of sweet feeling.
Now look straight ahead:
an image will appear
at the corner of your eye,
white wings hovering against
a field of
blue and gold. . .
Your heart will
blue and gold. . .
Your heart will
open
and you will become
two lovers kissing.
When you awaken,
you will find
a single feather
in your hand.
Dorothy Walters
Feb. 12, 2009
(Inspired by Philip Booth, How to See a Deer)
.
and you will become
two lovers kissing.
When you awaken,
you will find
a single feather
in your hand.
Dorothy Walters
Feb. 12, 2009
(Inspired by Philip Booth, How to See a Deer)
.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
How to See Deer --Phillip Booth
How to See Deer
Forget roadside crossings.
Go nowhere with guns.
Go elsewhere your own way,
lonely and wanting. Or
stay and be early:
next to deep woods
inhabit old orchards.
All clearings promise.
Sunrise is good,
and fog before sun.
Expect nothing always;
find your luck slowly.
Wait out the windfall.
Take your good time
to learn to read ferns;
make like a turtle:
downhill toward slow water.
Instructed by heron,
drink the pure silence.
Be compassed by wind.
If you quiver like aspen
trust your quick nature:
let your ear teach you
which way to listen.
You've come to assume
protective color; now
colors reform to
new shapes in your eye.
You've learned by now
to wait without waiting;
as if it were dusk
look into light falling;
in deep relief
things even out. Be
careless of nothing. See
what you see.
Philip Booth
(picture from anonymous source)
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Poem by N. M. Rai
poems
spirit tracks on paper as if
such subtle movements
could be captured
like notes in silent song
n.m.rai
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Spontaneous Me (Walt Whitman)
Spontaneous Me (Excerpt)
The loving day, the mounting sun, the friend I am happy with,
The arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder,
The hillside whiten'd with blossoms of the mountain ash,
The same late in autumn, the hues of red, yellow, drab, purple, and
light and dark green,
The rich coverlet of the grass, animals and birds, the private
untrimm'd bank, the primitive apples, the pebble-stones,
Beautiful dripping fragments, the negligent list of one after
another as I happen to call them to me or think of them,
The real poems, (what we call poems being merely pictures,)
The poems of the privacy of the night, and of men like me . . .
Walt Whitman
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Poem by Rumi
A Community of the Spirit
There is a community of the spirit.
Join it, and feel the delight
of walking in the noisy street
and being the noise.
Drink all your passion
and be a disgrace.
Close both eyes
to see with the other eye.
Open your hands,
if you want to be held.
Sit down in this circle.
Quit acting like a wolf, and feel
the shepherd's love filling you.
At night, your beloved wanders.
Don't accept consolations.
Close your mouth against food.
Taste the lover's mouth in yours.
You moan, "She left me." "He left me."
Twenty more will come.
Be empty of worrying.
Think who created thought!
Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.
Flow down and down in always
widening rings of being.
Rumi
(Image from Fotosearch)
Friday, February 06, 2009
Poem by Rumi
Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of learning.
It doesn't matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you've broken your vow
a thousand times.
Come, yet again, come. -
Jelalludin Rumi
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Poem by N. M. Rai
the walls are thin
translucent
with sky holes
angel voices
can be heard
or maybe it's
just wind
falling from leaves
like rain
in this still
spot within
surrounded
by the world
n.m.rai
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Poem by Holly Hughes
Mind Wanting More
Only a beige slat of sun
above the horizon, like a shade pulled
above the horizon, like a shade pulled
not quite down. Otherwise,
clouds. Sea rippled here and
there. Birds reluctant to fly.
The mind wants a shaft of sun to
stir the grey porridge of clouds,
an osprey to stitch sea to sky
with its barred wings, some dramatic
music: a symphony, perhaps
a Chinese gong.
But the mind always
wants more than it has -
one more bright day of sun,
one more clear night in bed
with the moon; one more hour
to get the words right; one
more chance for the heart in hiding
to emerge from its thicket
in dried grasses - as if this quiet day
with its tentative light weren't enough,
as if joy weren't strewn all around.
Holly Hughes
(Image from Floating Bridge Press)
Monday, February 02, 2009
The Beings Within--The Saint (poem)
1.
The Beings Within
The Saint
is mad for rapture.
She is always turning,
now this way, now that,
like a weather vane
longing for a secret current.
Her Sisters watch her in amazement.
She prays to be spared
such glorification,
but it does no good.
Her destiny is
bliss.
She must be cautious, or she may die
like that Renaissance Man,
"from an excess of joy."
I and my Beloved are one.
Some psychological systems see the self not as one unified persona but as a mixture of various personalities or character types. This series of poems, written several years ago, reflects that perspective.
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Lines from Poem by Theodore Roethke
Some Lines from Roethke
A mind too active is no mind at all;
The deep eye sees the shimmer on the stone
The deep eye sees the shimmer on the stone
The eternal seeks, and finds, the temporal,
The change from dark to light of the slow moon,
Dead to myself, and all I hold most dear,
I move beyond the reach of wind and fire.
Deep in the greens of summer sing the lives
of all I've come to love. A vireo whets its bill.
The great day balances upon the leaves;
My ears still hear the bird when all is still;
My soul is still my soul, and still the Son,
And knowing this, I am not yet undone.
Things without hands take hands;--there is no choice--
Eternity's not easily come by.
When opposites come easily into place,
I teach my eyes to hear, my ears to see
How body from spirit slowly does unwind
Until we are pure spirit at the end.
Theodore Roethke
This is an excerpt from a longer poem by Theodore Roethke, one of the major poets of the last century. He is contemplating the final stage of his life, but from another perspective, this could be a poem about any "death" of the self which in turn leads to the birth of a new spirit within. One could almost see it as depicting the "death" of the prior "small" self which occurs when Kundalini comes and we are made anew.
When he refers to the uniting of opposites, he is alluding to a state common to almost all spiritual initiations--when we come grasp the unity of all things in the universe, a unity which appears to be broken when we exist in the common mortal state. This is also the doctrine of the One and the Many--a single divine reality which is shattered into disparate parts on this plane of existence.
