Dragons Nine

What should one do, stand still in the rain, umbrella open, guarding every inch of your body against the raindrops falling asunder like water in a perpetual storm? Or, maybe one should throw the umbrella aside and splash head-on into the blissful water shouting hallelujah amidst the splashing of each puddle in defiance of the proper way of society.

Ode to Joy… cheerful again

The joyful state, the combined results all states of being bringing laughter to the soul, empathy to the heart and compassion to the mind. ‘Joy’ that comes from the mindful observation of nature and how it’s triggered by the slightest of phenomenon.. positive and negative, right and wrong, joy and sadness; for you can’t know one without its other. Such feelings can come from a variety of stimulus. For me, it’s more often than not, music. Music that captivates me and brings me deep within the confines of life, only to lift me to heights unimaginable by the confines of life.

Oceans

And at the end of the day
When the oceans kiss the sky
And the sky turning the deepest blue
Where the vast array of stars in the night sky
Give sight to the moon holding ancient secrets 
The meeting of an endless ocean to an endless horizon.
It is here that one can embrace the vastness of the universe. And it is here I shall stay... jc

Oh blue ocean seize the day
For the sea will survive when all else fades away
And with our courage, we’ll rise again
In the promise of a new day
For the sea is where we hail from
And where we long to be
And to henceforth, we shall return.

So blue ocean lead the way
And show us what mystery you hath today
For when the ocean swells with surface waves
I will see your name as the north wind lays claim
Tranquil in your deepest blues
Born from the sea.

And when the winds seek to divide
As Poseidon’s trident stirs his great oceans
The gust swells into walls of blue
But I ask, am I not the same as you,
For the sea flows through my veins too
So great ocean I swallow my pride
For we need each other to survive

I sit here in the middle of an ocean, Atlantic it is
You are in the very air that I breathe
Your winds purify the breath and energy I need

A blue ocean is in the mystics eye at ocean’s end
Lead me to a single breath of the wind on the water.

©jc2018-9 … for Little Bird

*Image courtesy of Pixabey

Love and the Particle Accelerator

“Love, what a mess it can bring to your life, guaranteed to screw things up, but what a glorious screw-up. For it is out of this world, of the universe.”
-Joseph Campbell

Febuary

There are moments in time when we try to reassemble life’s rich pageant; assigning the pieces as neatly and securely as we can into a box of our own subjective thinking; a box that hasn’t any room for fresh interpretation. The analysis is so in sync with the cerebral brain that we fail to sit back and enjoy the epiphanies that are present especially when the pieces of this puzzle seem not to fit as we think they should…if our narrative comes together, we call it a miracle, if not we’re disgruntled. We tend not to appreciate that in the perforations of this chaos there are considerations waiting for our attention. It is only when we trip into overload from this temporal way of thinking, thus spilling forth into the mysteries, do we expand our thoughts into the universe of a higher understanding. It is then, I come to realize that what I don’t know is more than I thought I knew and I’ll never know it all. Thus, I stand blessed and open to all there is on the road of perception raining down in the pale moonlight. This is mindfulness at its best, waiting to hand you something you didn’t have an inkling you were in need of.

©jc2018-9

*Images by Pixabay

Orion and The Art of Solitude

“Solitude is not found so much by looking outside the boundaries of your dwelling but by staying within. Solitude is a deepening of the present and unless you look for it in the present you will never find it.” Thomas Merton

The Left Hand Way

“The right-hand path is living in the context of the mask of one’s village. The left-hand way is of the individual quest. So the mask of the individual’s own life pulls against the mask held up by society”.
-Joseph Campbell

“As we drive toward the apex of a six-lane span over the St.Johns river, the wind picks up in gust and the bridge suddenly divides. One turn is a slight turn to the right. The other turn is to the left, a very sharp turn through the yellow cables, as yellow as the morning sun.
-JC

Such is life, two sides of an interchangeable cultural coin as symbols and meaning constantly trade places. What’s in vogue today is out tomorrow as each turns to the other for its’ title. This is a dance and society is leading the orchestra to a beat that holds everyone under its pulsating rhythm of fear. So the music doesn’t change as though someone requests the same song in repetitious frustration because he can’t hear the real song in his soul.

When the flip of a coin is realized and understood one is left somewhere off to the side of the road, disheveled and seeking. The empyrean of pure fire and light at the farthest boundaries of the heavenly sphere await your question; for the gods reveal themselves only when summoned, waiting for you to turn the key and open the inner door to a mythic adventure where demons, dragons, and fairies encountered in the regions of the soul. This is the path beyond the border of societies misinterpretations, the inner life or mythically speaking “the left-hand way.

Our newfound wisdom comes from the inner vision the mystics speak of. It is a lonely path in so far as the mask one longs for from the past. But loneliness soon turns to solitude in this darkness of the soul’s flight and in our emptying out we become filled with the spirit. This is Perceval quest and was only satisfied when he went against the social sanction of not asking questions, as expected of a Knight of the Roundtable and asks the Fisher King a left-handed question, “what ails you, my king”.

Society is a disguise for something deeper that can’t be held overtly for all to see. For many are indifferent and without the subsistence to keep from falling asunder. The older man has discerning eyes and by the light of a full moon whose light is derived from the sun ask the hard questions from which descends the wisdom to see life’s exceptions, discarding all that we cleave to that subsequently blinds us to who we really are. Heaven and earth, left hand in right hand will reveal their bounty as society opens to serve the individual quest. The goal must be a noble undertaking, a pursuit exalted before the heavens to begin at the point where it arcs across the earth. Many cultural layers, many situations, many lessons uncovered and either embrace or abandoned as we ascertain the left side of the self.

©jc2016-9

Photo source: Pixabay

Hey Joe

A friend of mine called one day and stated in a matter of fact tone, “you have to read this book; it will change your life”. The book was ‘The Power of Myth, by someone named Joseph Campbell. I was just divorced and trying to find my way in a strange new world after 13 years of marriage, a world in which I felt as one of the lost boys in Peter Pan. I was ready for something of substance but had doubts as to my friends implied assertion that this one book would open a new world of meaning to me. I was familiar with the works of Thomas Moore and M. Scott Peak so I wasn’t completely unacquainted with the idea of mythology as a psychological tool. But little did I know I was about to submerge into uncharted waters, pushing me intrinsically through the door into the abyss.

Live Life

 “For I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now”
-Bob Dylan (My Back Pages)

The Call

We can’t embrace the warmth of the Sacred Father, the sun, locked in our comfort zone, nor without first venturing through the shadow land of the night, the storm… the abyss, the way of the left, the Nederland Path, which can never be duplicated.
-Heinrich Zimmer, The Art of Indian Asia

The Call is like the neon streets of the night and you’re pulled by faith into an immersed tunnel. And what causes you to follow this ever so faint voice in the wind, but convictions of the heart. And it’s telling you to stop being fooled by the imperious ego, who designated itself king of your life. Now it’s time to step outside your small world as in a leap of faith over a chasm or in setting sail to an unknown shore.