Mutiny Meditation

When the Soul
that is You
chose a Body
to inhabit –
maybe next
go-round
you’ll take a
little more time;
just kidding –

perhaps You didn’t
foresee the
Mutiny of the Mind
that may have
bound Your Soul

in chains of
Reason,
shackles of
Scientific Method,
handcuffs of
Objectivity.

Now Your Soul
languishes in
solitary
confinement,

while your Mind
busies Itself
collecting
Fears,

as if it’s some
sort of
Numismatist of
Melancholia.

Try this:

Place that Body
comfortably,
probably seated.

Imagine Your
Heart opens
and Light comes
pouring out,

filling Your
Body until it
escapes out
Your pores,
and soon

You are sitting
in a globe
of Light.

Aha!

It is Your
Soul
that has escaped!

Commune
with It,
bathe in It,
douse your
Fears with
gallons of It.

Let’s see
what happens.

(Photo by Daniel Mingook Kim: UnSplash)

 

I Beg of You Holy Ones

Perhaps, like me,
You’ve been
taught that the
Conscious Creativity
that birthed
what We can’t quite
capture or contain
when We say
Love,

That Lover
who warned us
that dividing
the Mind of
Your Beautiful
Soul

into compartments
of Good and Evil
will feel like
Death,

when Your
Adorable Soul
was woven from
Light,
to find Adventures
in the Art of
creating Life

that will never
stop expanding
into Libraries
and Galleries
and Dancehalls
and Theaters
devoted to
Exhibitions
of Beauty

that deny entry
to the Cadres of
uniformed Priests
who have been hired
to place signs
in the aisles
reading
Good or Evil.

Denied entry
because
Exhibitions of Love
have no use
for such signs.

I beg of You
Holy Ones,
take off
Your uniforms and
put on these
robes sewn
from Light.

And, for goodness sake,
let Beauty
burn away
Your Fear.

(Photo by Mateus Campos Felipe; UnSplash)

 

Creation

When I speak of
The Creator
It’s You
I’m thinking of,
and my own
Self,

since There Is
Nothing but
The Creator,

Whom some call
All That Is and
some call
Love.

Which is why
when You
set forth to
Create
that poem
or that canvas
overlayed
with shimmering
images or
that dance
playing
holy havoc
with Your hips or
that song
breathing heat
drawn from
Your beating
heart,

You can be
certain
it is already
there, waiting
for You to
reach in,
pull it out, and
embrace it,

since There Is
Nothing but
The Creator,
All That Is,
Love,

You have nothing
to fear.

(Photo by Ahmad Odeh; UnSplash)

 

The Rock Star and The Rabbi

A Beatle
once said,
“All You need
is Love.”

A renegade Rabbi
said,
“Love One Another
as You
Love Your Self.”

Friend,
how much clearer
do You need it?

You’ve been
instructed by
John and Jesus –
who cares who’s
more popular? –
to Love
Your Self.

Your habitual
gambits –
shame and
comparing Your Self
to that List
of nominees
for the
Hard Workers Hall of Fame –
are useless here.

The Rabbi and the Beatle
are adamant:

You must
Love You.

The Real You.

And that’s just
The Beginning.

Now you can be
a Rock Star Rabbi.

Now You can teach Us
how to Love
Our Selves.

Let’s get this
party
started.

 

Wise Guys

Some spiritual
Wise Guys,
the same religious
Mafiosi who
insisted on
calling the
Burning Love
that blew Itself
into All That Is

“God”

as if such
Incandescence
is of the same
rank and order as
Thor and Zeus and
Aphrodite and
Hades,

those same
Wise Guys
insist
that to be
afraid of
“God”
is the birthplace
of what they call
Wisdom.

If they were within
a heavenly mile of
Wisdom
they would know that

It begins with
Love
that wants to
pull You close and
kiss Your
face

until You breathe
enough of It
that You know

the very idea
there is a
“God”
who wants to
keep You frightened

is the only
Hell
that ever
existed.

(Photo by Ariful Rahman; UnSplash)

 

Asking for a Friend

Who is braver,
that squirrel
tightroping
across Your
clothesline,
or
that spider
dangling by
a filament
the size of
a baby’s hair?

What is more beautiful,
a rosebud
sprinkled by pollen
the color of moondust
or
a string of bubbles
filled with a
breath
blown by Your
first grandchild?

What sounds more heavenly,
the cry of
the Great Grey Owl
or
the melody
floating through
Your neighborhood
from the bell
of a tenor sax
being blown
by the white-haired
sole survivor
of a trio
that used to play
in Paris,
who now lives
next door?

Speaking of heaven,
is is said that
St. Peter guards
the gate.

Who gets in,
You
or
St. Francis of Assisi?

Photo by Maryna Nikolaieva; UnSplash

 

Pebbles and Dust

Hats off to the
Poets and Painters
Who help us see
the Beauty

in even the
small,
ordinary
pebble
lodged
between the
soles of
Your foot and
Your sandal.

It’s a gift
to know how
to find
beauty
even there.

But what of
the dust
beneath
Your sandal?

From which,
an ancient penman
wrote,
The Creator
formed
Your frame
and blew
Life
into it.

The Truth
in this bit
of fancy
is this:

Even dust
beneath
Your feet
bears more
than Beauty.

All That Is
touched by
the Breath of
The Divine

must also be
called
Beloved.

(Photo by Andre Alexander; UnSplash)

 

Be The Moon

You Love
The Light.

It’s the Sun,
it’s the blue waters
of Oahu,
or Jamaica,

the delight of
bare skin
on sand, or
on a beach towel,
with a book.

You Fear
The Dark.

It’s a pair of
orange eyes,
staring at You
from the end
of the beam of
Your flashlight,
when You’re
walking with
Your dog.

But don’t You Love
The Mystery of
The Moon?

When Light
spills over
The Dark
in Ways and
Hues that
Poets and Musicians
can’t get
enough of?

Be The Moon.

(Photo by Aron Visuals; UnSplash)

 

A Gnat’s Shadow

Sometimes
You behave as if
You’re serving
a life sentence
for the crime of
being You.

No possibility of
parole, and
You’ve made
the rest of us
Your probation officers,

especially
the ones who
imagine
they are
assigned, or
deserve to be,
the assayers
of Your guilt
or innocence,

beginning with
Your parents,
then Your
teachers and
preachers and
bosses and
spouses,

as if they were
appointed by
some celestial
court of
last resort,

when, in fact,

Your Being
is made of
Light,

a Flame
that scorns
the Shame
that wrote Your
sentence

like a
butterfly
scorns
a gnat’s
shadow.

(Photo by Calvin Mano; UnSplash)

 

Smite My Forehead

Smite my
forehead,
I’ve had it all
wrong.

I’ve imagined
a Maker
Whom I
was meant to
search for,

in meditations, or
sacred libraries, or
kneel-in
prayer closets.

As if He, She –
okay, THEY –
intended our
lives to be
one
long
game
of Hide-and-Seek.

I may have
found
something:

Perhaps
the Maker
longs to
look for
Us,

in our
goofy romances,
our
sweaty games,
our
brush-stroked paintings,
our
dervish dances,
our
Marvel movies,
our
beautiful, beautiful
Books.

Perhaps
our Maker
adores Us
so much
They want
nothing more
than to see
What
We can
Make.

(Photo by Ari He; UnSplash)