Questions 9 or 6 to 3

In the springtime of each year we’ve come to realize that like the flowers of summer we to come to bloom in the fresh morning dew, in the rich loom of the mind- jc

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It was William Blake who stated that the ‘Doors of Perception’ need only be cleansed so one can see the infinite. Could’ve it be that to aid in our questions of life we need only to quiet the left hemisphere of the brain and start cleaning this door with the right hemisphere? Or as Robert Bly called it, “doing our kitchen work“, deflating our ego by performing the work of a simpleton, task that free the mind, holding our thoughts temporarily in reserve, as we earn the right to transcend this door which lays hidden, not known to exist. So in our kitchen work, we labor completely unaware of the task at hand as we scour the mind of fear and loathing. There is faith in this, the faith of the just and downhearted on the path to lite and love.

A New Mythology

“Snow falling in the Mississippi darkness rolling down to the sea.” –Steve Goodmen

Recent events of the last few months still seem as foreign to me as snow falling on the Mississippi Delta. In as much as these singular events have happened before, they attest to our true colors, which are heroic and also a bit blinding at times. Still in other moments we seem to not be able to find our way home to where we owe at least a semblance of the truth. However these days the gods offer us a strange new set of hero’s… health care providers, nurses, bus drivers, first responders… they are the brave and all too few are left to deal with the aftermath. To all of us who maintain six feet of separation from one another we feel inadequate at our position in the ranks. We’ve built a fortress around our hearts and now the battlements must be set on fire

But through the flames and tears, I hear the laughter of children or is it the sounds of wildlife, a multitude of species teaming through woodland, wetland, town and country alike. Birds of all sizes and colors all returning to ancestral lands. The chemical skies and rivers below begin to clear as smog dissipates from major cities all as recorded by the eternal eye of time and space.

Is it really such a surprise that in our absence, nature is capable of making such a recovery to a time and place she knew in another age yet in the distance of only a month or so? Do we really think that we can go back to things as they were? Or should the so-called ‘new normal’ really be an ambassador to a new way of thinking? An archetype to understanding what was once hidden so deep but is on the verge of becoming. A new mythology for the Earth and its children.

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Song of Amergin

With all that is happening in the world, I think back to the Song of Amergin. Besides being poetic and mysterious in nature, it has endeared itself in the hearts of all who see themselves as one with the earth. On many levels, we are the earth’s people and we have her fate in our hands. For she has nurtured all who inhabit her rivers, mountains, forest, seas, and sky. So maybe it’s time to recite our truth as the poet did on these shores many eon’s ago.

I am the wind on the sea
I am the wave of the sea
I am the bull of seven battles
I am the eagle on the rock
I am a flash from the sun
I am the most beautiful of plants
I am a strong wild boar
I am a salmon in the water
I am a lake in the plain
I am the word of knowledge I am the head of the spear in battle
I am the God that puts fire in the head
Who spreads light in the gathering on the hills?
Who can tell the ages of the moon?
Who can tell the place where the sun rests? Who but I know the secrets of the unhewn dolmen?*

*unhewn – (of stone especially) … unfinished – not brought to the desired final state.

*dolmen – a Neolithic tomb or monument consisting of a large, flat stone laid across upright stones; cromlech

Mythology
While reciting the Song of Amergin, the poet by the same name which means ‘birth of song’, steps onto the shores of Kenmare Bay in Ireland for the first time, leading the “Men of Mil” into battle against the Tuatha De’ Danann (Fairy Clan). In his recitation of the mystical song, he calms the seas allowing his warrior’s safe passage to defeat the Fairy Clan. Whereupon, he tricks the Tuatha De’ Danann into going to the underworld where they now reside in the sidhes or fairy mounds. In this, the sovereignty of Ireland is laid claim to.

Thus the song subsequently affirms the sacredness and power of the land. It also implies a challenge to the gods in which the Tuatha De Danann are considered; do not interfere and disrupt humanity.

Amairgen’s accepted into the realm of the mystics and joins the spirit of the Cosmos which commands the elements and holds court over the earth and sky.

Conclusion
The Song of Amergin comes to us as a translation into English in 1905. But other copied have surfaced with different emphases as to certain text and meaning. It’s said that the poem should be taught in schools before the Odyssey or even the Canterbury Tales.

To those with an interest in the druids, it’s implied that the poem has an emphasis on being a druid that Amergin was. But he was also a poet and the poet’s lines occupy a space in each of us pointing to our shared humanity. We are all the Song of Amergin.

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The Natural Bridge

Many take shelter from feeling too much within
Some will tell you it’s a mortal sin
To fly so high and steep so low
Just as Perceval in tales of old
But to know when all else fails
When all is lost down the streets of desire
And the blind eye of regret is all that one feels
You will soon come to a realization that the truest feeling is within the heart
That light and love are born of a sacred vow
And the only real freedom there is, inhabits this very moment
The only thing they can take away from you is the gift of solitude, to fear it, to be deprived of the comfort of one’s own company
And to subsequently demolish the natural bridge to the universe…

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Road Trip

Dear Friends of WordPress,

You may have noticed that during the last mouth or so I’ve spent less time blogging. Nothing wrong, I just decided to take a road trip, as Jack would call it. And this one took me through out the south to places known and unknown. Who knows the riches in words that will fall from this tree. We’re on the last few miles before calling on home to guide us in.

Thank you for your support, JC

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Image courtesy of Pixabay

Hawthorne’s Chamber

The following passage is found in the notebooks of Nathaniel Hawthorne, dated Salem, October 4, 1836, Union Street. To me, it speaks volumes about the human heart and its longing that is every bit as important today as it was then. But what is most enchanting is it allows me to converse with the past as though Nathaniel was sitting right here, at this moment. It is the written word which allows this sublime bit of magic to take place. Every time we open a book or write a letter to someone, we are emulating the philosopher’s long conversation across the miles.

I often come back to this passage time and time again when I’m in need of guidance or should I say, a jewel on the road to awareness. I hope it leaves you with as much encouragement as it has me.

Best Regards, JC

Here I sit in my accustomed chamber, where I used to sit in days gone by… Here I have written many tales, many which have burned to ashes, many which have doubtless deserved the same fate. This claims to be called a haunted chamber, for thousands upon thousands of visions have appeared to me in it; and some few of them have become visible to the world. If ever I should have a biographer, he ought to make great mention of this chamber in my memoirs, because so much of my lonely youth was wasted here, and here my mind and character were formed; and here I have been glad and hopeful and here I have been despondent. And here I sat a long, long time, waiting patiently for the world to know me, and sometimes wondering why it did not know me sooner, or whether it would ever know me at all, at least, till I was in my grave. And sometimes it seemed as if I were already in the grave, with only life enough to be chilled and benumbed. But oftener I was happy, at least, as happy as I then knew to be, or was aware of the possibility of being.

By and by the world found me in my lonely chamber, and called me forth, not, indeed, with a loud roar of acclamation, but rather still, small voices, and forth I went, but found nothing in the world that I thought preferable to my old solitude till now… And now I begin to understand why I was imprisoned so many years in this lonely chamber and why I could never break through the viewless bolts and bars; for if I had sooner made my escape into the world, I would have grown hard and rough, and been covered with earthly dust, and my heart might have become callous by rude encounters with the multitudes… But living in solitude till the fullness of time has come, I still kept the dew of my youth and the freshness of my heart… I used to think I could imagine all passions, all feelings, and states of the heart and mind; but how little did I know! Indeed, we are but shadows; we are not endowed with real life, and that which seems most real about us is but the thinnest substance of a dream, till the heart be touched. That touch creates us, then we begin to be, thereby we are beings of reality and inheritors of eternity.

-Nathaniel Hawthorne

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*Images courtesy of Pixabay

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.

A Noble Heart

I awoke one morning to the sun rising over the horizon where the tree line whispers secrets to the sky. With the aroma of coffee brewing in the air, I was thinking of this day and all it could bring. The possibilities were endless on such a morning. With a cup in hand, I went outside on the deck for my meditation. A gentle breeze brushed my face and I could hear a symphony of birds seducing my ears as streaks of the newborn sun lite the sky like a kaleidoscope.

Christmas… A Kinder Word

Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea… on and on… until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the lookout in the bow, the  officers who had the watch; dark ghostly figures in their stations; but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companions of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad had had a kinder word for one another on that day than on any day in the year; and had remembered those he cared for at a distance and had known that they delighted to remember him.   -Charles Dickens- ‘A Christmas Carol’.

Arianrhod

We began our romance deep within the confines of a world we conjured from the depths of our harmonious souls; a land of green pastures, thick forest; days of bright sunlight; afternoons of gentle rains and at nightfall, a celestial array whose radiance was only diminished by the luminosity emanating from my beloved. Call it Eden, Shangri-La, or Valhalla; we were its only inhabitants and the sole owners of all we felt for each other. The moat around our paradise was deep with swift currents, the bridge drawn and tied up, and no one dared to trespass who might take it away, for we were otherworldly and human prowess ceased to have any power here.