Tag Archives: release

Looking Out, Looking In

Posted on by Standard 12

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I have a bone to pick, but it sticks in my throat a fish rib I keep eating with no hope of digesting. There’s no point to the rant I offer you. That’s what makes me wring my hands with an emotional wash that still smells of fumes and rotted fish. I know the answers you’ll give me to every question I could ask. So why ask?

Knowledge is a devil if there ever was one. Gives you comfort while it steals your security in endless mind games you can’t stop tricking yourself with. I hate you for filling my head with the knowledge of who I am. Light and gold. Miracles and love. I look down at my costume and want to rip it till I’m naked. I can’t escape my frightened thoughts that burn me in a lava flow, erupting in my brain and filling my mouth with an eager malice. You could have told me in the beginning that ignorance was not only bliss, but a quaalude cocktail that would’ve left me sleeping; a contented mongrel, in a sewer heap that knows no better. Now a youthful, hungry anger boils in my belly and it’s more bitter than death no matter how many times I swallow it down. But there be the rub. Poison is best drawn out and all wounds must be opened to cleanse them of their infection. That is how I feel: raw, open, infected with my own awareness of thoughts that poison my spirit.

For the love of me, you say. It was my choice you announce and I could beat you within an inch of my own life if I weren’t plagued by the truth in it. It eats at my mind until I’m smashing the beds and tearing up my brakes in the car. You should’ve told me to leave when I came through the door. You should have said the price for awakening is sanity.

A work in progress from The Writer’s Church hosted by Marj Hahne. Piece Inspired by “Dear Corporation” by Adam Fell.

Images from a Train: Sunset in the Farmland

Posted on by Standard 11

The sunset rolled in on long lines and parallel shafts of deepening orange. The clicking of the rails, with the steady rocking, left my limbs heavy in the seat. Tracters were rolling toward the barns outside my window and the swallows had taken up vigil on telephone lines. At day’s end even the birds know it is best to simply sit and witness.

Images from a Train: Omaha

Posted on by Standard 4

We arrived at daybreak into Omaha. The station is under construction and there are pieces of its past and future, arising together, before the platform. Sleep came late, but the sun was welcome. Coffee wafted down the corridor from the dining car and few were up yet. Feet and arms littered the aisles as I slipped from the car to the fresh air of the platform. The stone and masonry were still wet from the night’s dew and the conductor pulled tight his coat. Passengers lit up for this brief stop and the long rays of the sun caught the smoke rising, as I turned to walk the station.

As I look at the images now, I wonder at all I did not photograph. Pieces of time and movement that still drift upon my mind, as if the cars were still moving in my head.

Images from a Train: Motion

Posted on by Standard 5

In the distortions and flashes I see my image. The bridge of my nose another geometry in a flashing landscape. Coal has already passed on the previous cars – strapped lumber, too. The rails are one of the few places in the country where a passenger goes last. Passenger trains stop for all the cargo that moves. Milk and oil tankers, flatbeds of slate and shale and bales of grasses for cattle lands. Graffiti is a color smear against the gun metal.

My reflection comes and goes between the cars and I realize this is true of all of me. I am what exists between each thought, as life exists, flashing between each car.

Little Girl Swirling

Posted on by Standard 10

I attended my cousin Brent’s wedding in Chicago. This was the flower girl. I never got her name. She danced and twirled loving the feel of her dress and the power of her boots. When you are five everything goes together, because it’s never about the appearance, as how good you feel when you see yourself in it. So if you feel good about the dress and you feel good about the boots, well then, they must go together.

Boys, I’m sure, have their own thing, but for little girls it’s all about the dress. When I was her age I had a chocolate brown satin and velvet dress for special occasions. I wore it with black, patten leather Mary Janes. The skirt twirled deliciously when I spun. I’d stand in my parent’s bedroom where there was a full length mirror and dance and pose at myself. I wonder sometimes how it is we lose pleasure in our own beauty. As children it comes so naturally, but then as we age, we seem to forget. Maybe it’s the dress. Lose the swirling skirt and you lose your way. You lose the ability to be carefree and dance about for no other reason than it just feels good.

I watched her for sometime. It’s hard to turn away from that sort of magic.

Soar

Posted on by Standard 13
Gulls at Johnston Lake: Photo by Noelle

Gulls at Johnston Lake: Photo by Noelle

What if it is all to get us to let go of the cliff ledge? What if we’re all being shaken off our belief we must have security, predictability and knowledge? Every hardship a challenge to the internal structures we create to define who we are, how everything works and what is true and real?

What if all of this is for our awakening? To encourage our understanding of freedom, rather than a lesson on imprisonment. To forget everything we think we know and let go of the ledge. Free fall and trust we will fly. What if it’s the reason we chose to live? We wanted every single moment to happen, because our spirit already knew it could soar.

Coyote

Posted on by Standard 4
Free Bing photos

Free Bing photos

Early, before the sun is up. Breakfast half eaten against the back drop of autos heading into the city. I hear them yelping between the motors in the nearby field. The night was cold for summer, giving rise for them to howl for autumn.

I am pressed and clean for the day ahead, but their barks call to my wildness beneath the suit. All these routines and order, economies, mortgages and regulations. I stand at the window and listen. My heart beats faster with the next call and I realize it is not order I am hungry for, but the feel of dirt and the grass beneath my feet. To run and howl with abandon with my kin.

Alas, a deep final breath at the sill, as I turn from the window, checking my coyote spirit as I head for the door.

Intuition

Posted on by Standard 7
Sunset on Mt. Falcon: Photo by Noelle

Sunset on Mt. Falcon: Photo by Noelle

“What I am actually saying is that we need to be willing to let our intuition guide us, and then be willing to follow that guidance directly and fearlessly.” Shakti Gawain

Play

Posted on by Standard 14
Algae at Johnston Lake: Photo by Noelle

Algae at Johnston Lake: Photo by Noelle

“The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.” – Carl Jung

Growing Waking Up

Posted on by Standard 11
Reposted from Meditation Masters Facebook page

Reposted from Meditation Masters Facebook page

When I was married, I was asleep
This was no fault of my husband’s
I was waiting for my life
I blamed this on my husband
Wisely, he ignored me
So I stewed
Small things like paint and paper
Make a big difference
Glue and art classes
Masterpieces on walls
Plaster and glass
I saw a path and it grew
Which led to my divorce
And my friendship with my
Ex-husband
Sometimes goodness comes
Not from demanding something
Be something else
But rather awakening to what is
Really feeling and touching its
Roots

This is how you grow, waking up