Awhile back it occurred to me that
Lietta and I have lived longer in life
with each other than we have with
any other person in our lives.

Now this is not uncommon for anyone
who stays in a relationship for a time
even longer than time spent
in the birth families of our own.

Such being the case
long ago but not so far away
we found that intimate place
where couples learn to love

I do not think she and I
simply stumbled upon it
but were prompted by intimacy.
The how is not what matters

I was at first captured in awe
and wondered if there was risk
in profound mental magic
unhampered by shoulds.

Lietta was not afraid of it
Such was her business of living
and knew we were intended
to find what we found.

Now I know that such
strange and wonderful places
hover most everywhere
waiting to reveal themselves

Let me say it like this:
we found a clearing
in our mental woodland
north and west of everywhere.

As if hiking in our thoughts
along on a trail beside a river 
until the trail climbed away
up the side of a large hill

We followed the trail of thoughts
until we passed
through a line of trees
into an open grassy clearing.

Into the center of the clearing
we stood in foot-high sweet grass
And found a meadow inviting us,
daring us to pause and rest awhile.

As we sat responding
to the urge of united solitude
something caught our attention,
hummed between us.

I slowly turned to smile
and found her staring at me.
I stared back and into her eyes
And felt her thought

She reached into my own mind
And touched my enlivened thoughts
“I know what you are thinking husband.”
“And I you.” I replied.

That was a long time ago
when our sacred courtship commenced,
founded on the empathic reality
Of conjoined minds.

Since that time we have found comfort
in our natures and resolve problems
finding ourselves empowered
By the profound intimacy of empathy.

People of The Book
are afraid
of divination.

They are superstitious.

They are afraid that
the devil hides in cards,
moves plastic eyeballs
on Ouija boards,
flips the sticks
on the I Ching
and takes possession of
the Rune Stones.

These are literalist Christians.

What they think
they should teach you
is what they do not believe
you already know.
Their fear makes them afraid
to seek The Divine
by divining.

Yet many of these
same believers
will not hesitate
to speak of moments
when they’ve felt
spiritual guidance
in their lives
through the same
divining process.

They may even tell you
about it with tears
in their eyes
as they talk
of their own
personal experience
of mystery.

You may encounter someone
from this kindergarten
who tells how they
have opened the Bible
to a random page,

How they moved
their finger down
to a random verse
and found something
specific or timely
to their need.

For them it was
God’s spirit
moving them
to find God’s truth
for their issue
of the moment.

The Book never says
anywhere
that the dreams
You dream
must come
from The Book.

But in The Book
there are warnings
against divination,
wizards
and familiar spirits;

things and practices
that cannot
and should not
be trusted.

But those who
live by The Book
do trust and practice
spiritual divination;
written words
as spiritual communication
of God.

“But,”
they will also say to others,
As they strive
to defend The Faith,
“God doesn’t communicate
with people
in that manner
anymore”

Even their book disagrees.

Abraham’s servant requested
God’s help in knowing;
who God wanted
to become
Isaac’s future wife.

In The Story Book
Abimelech learned that
Sarah was Abraham’s wife
in a dream,

Young Joseph dreamt
the interpretation
for the well-being
of Pharaoh’s Egypt
and his own Israelite tribe,

Gideon acted upon a dream
and defeated
the Midianites,

Daniel’s book is full of
dream interpretations,

The husband Joseph’s dream
assured him
it would be okay
to take Mary to wife,
and again later
to take the child Jesus
to Egypt.

But, they say
the book condemns
all divination as occult
and a tool of the Devil.

Scribes and priests
who wrote The Book
condemned divination.
condemned guessing
when it came
to the will of God.

Because they were
the only ones
who could read
The Book
with authority.

They told their true believers
what was in the book.
Their true believers
did not know
any better.

They still don’t.

I do not see us a born identity intact.
Soul yes … mortal who-I-am, no.

The first moment at birth 
we begin taking in cues and clues 
as to where we have arrived 
leads us to a wonder within 
and not mortal words we have yet to learn
to compose into phrases 
and to speak out loud”Who am I?

“We seek identity 
using resources at hand. 
This is our Eden
our first home 
we perceive 
with wide-eyed innocence
 and abounding curiosity.

We assume things 
0what we imagine 
visible things
sights and sounds 
and make assumptions 
where we are, 
who we are 
how we belong.

Some assumptions and imaginings
 prove incorrect 
and we fall 
from our little Eden, 
cause there are venues of error. 

We weep and give up our Eden,
enter a world 
ever stranger.
We have begun nourishment 
from a tree of knowledge 
able carry with us out of Eden.

We leave, 
more questions 
than answers, 
curiosity intact 
and journey through 
the Empire of Confusion.

Our path 
lit by awareness 
not blocked by darkness.
Why?

As new views appears
new promptings are felt. 
Yes, vast tracts
of unknowns
in the Empire.
But we err 
if we assume 
our path to identity 
is not lighted.

We learn to not rush about 
here and there, 
on and off our path
in aimlessness. 
We tread with curiosity 
and affection for learning. 

Our stride is light 
but not as in  tiptoe 
but as in dance; 
lively 
with pleasure of movement 
guided by rhythm 
and balance.

In this way 
calmness and awareness
of loving and being loved 
in the presence  
becomes possible.

Eden perhaps then 
is our constant companion.

I remember years ago
when meeting
with an older couple
as their home teacher.

When I asked about 
her son
I was struck by the answer
the good sister gave me  
“Oh, he’s moved into
the great and spacious building
for now.”
 
I thought that a cool-sounding way
to refer to family Mormons
who had gone inactive
or left the Church.

Then I noticed something
not so cool.
The trite little phrase
could not mask
the pain in her voice
or the pain in her eyes.
 
And I wondered,
was her son merely “touring”
that Great And Spacious Building
or had taken up residence and,
-as Mom feared –
intended to remain there permanently?

She seemed to assume the worst
attempt to accept the circumstance,

move on with her life
sadly planning on the eternity
she desired
– but separated from her child.
 
At that time,
a young Mormon father
with three children of my own,
I had no idea
that within a few years
I would eventually
take up residence 
in that same building.  

I had no idea
that my own birth family
might painfully think of me
in the context
of where I had gone
and the hard heartedness 
that now possessed my spirit.
 
In many families
a separation may develop
that has to do with the
true churchiness  of it all.

This abstraction, 
an actual perceptual difference
in values,
expectations and goals;
is a dissent from
the single true way
of seeing and defining things.
 
“I’m very concerned
about your eternal salvation.”
 After all, in a church-dominated
family relationship
members interact one with another
often with unspoken assumptions
based on an intent
to shore each other up,
it can be difficult
when the inactive member
repeatedly gets tossed
an eternal life-preserver
but keeps moving away from it.
 
Worse,
when a member voluntarily
leaves the Church,
is  disfellowshipped
or excommunicated,
the circumstance may be
both tragic and threatening
– even downright dangerous.

The possibility
that a family member
might be critical
of the Church
and express that criticism publicly
frightens the devout.
Because the loved one
not only 0oved
into the Great And Spacious Building,
but has also opened a booth
and hung out a sign
that says “Apostate,”
or “Troublemaker.”

In my own case,
I became one
who pestered the family
without success …
until one simple fact
dawned on me,
for them
the Church was as true
as it needed to be.

The whole kit and caboodle
of church and programs
worked for them. 
That was all that mattered;  
not doctrine,
not dogma,
not Church politics,
none of those things that
had totally bothered me. 
If it works then
that’s what matters.

It is not up to me
or anyone else
to bring new information that
– if believed –
might harm spiritual contentment
without offering something
equally satisfying
in its place.

To what aspires the small in the presence of their choir?
Nothing less than mere and minimal extraordinariness
therein in lies adoration besought by human ego
much more exhilarating than the kindness of compassion.
‘Tis small-minded to seek the grand show
where to be seen in motion is to be seen in imagined greatness 
The measure of which is shallow unheard clapping.
Such is the hopeful posture of the proud-minded
who would give it all to merely be seen as heroic.

A truth you ought not share
If you do not believe it.
If you believe it and share
You share only your understanding;
Not something assignable to
or possessed by the Divine
Who never authored any books
Telling what to believe and why.

Just you.

Do not create
Do not imagine
Do not think out loud
That you endorse the will of the Divine…
Something you do not know or understand.
You only guard or make sacred your own

Personal foible.

All your privacies are open secrets
To the Divine.
The secrets you believe you have divined
Are nothing other than things
Hidden in plain sight
Since the foundation of the world.

You intrude on social good
If you insist that you are
A solver of religious mysteries
and assume you possess

privileged knowledge

Solitude is not something 
one hopes to have in the future. 
Rather, it is a deepening of what is in the present. 
If you do not look for it in the present 
you will never have it 

The Unspoken 
Mind speaks to mind 
with spoken or written words. 
When heart speaks to heart 
it is with words unspoken and unwritten.

Imagination helps one see 
further than the eyes see 
and hear sounds 
fainter than ears can detect.

The mystical task 
a person must set for himself 
is not to feel secure, 
but to be able to tolerate insecurity. 

As aging continues, 
insecurity makes a greater contribution 
to the process than it did before.
One may fail as an original thinker 
simply because his memory is too good. 
The remedy may then be to bypass memory 
and require that the unconscious feed the muse. 

This may require that 
one perceives unity in the roaring of the winds 
and the quiet song of of a tranquil pool.
How will you keep the fires in the hearth 
burning with the flames of creativity? 
By seeking through spirit effort 
for kindling to ignite.

On character … 
without knowledge of 
or the ability to forge 
laws of right conduct 
you will not forge your character.

All That Is 
is a result of universal creativity. 
There is nothing dead in Nature.
Without intuition 
you will forever feel disconnected 
… or alone.

When the time is right, make your meditations.
When another time arrives, perhaps then it is time to move forward
… or perhaps retreat.
You will know by your meditations.
Do not think before you dream, but dream before you think.
Do not request of your dream carriage a specific thought about which to dream.
Rather, let you dreams carry you where they will.
I you believe that you must think more than you must meditate your vessel is landlocked.
Consider then in your thoughts the far reaches of your journey;
all the places you may decide to visit, observe and experience.
Let not your mind dominate your heart with its mental contrivances
that say, “I am more important than you.”
Those are concoctions by the mind for the mind.
Such are the childish notions
that challenge the wisdom of your heart.
Search far and wide for the sources of your secrets
… and you will understand that those sources are within,
not without.
Search there.

Your heart knows of poverty and can wear it like cloth worn and frayed.
Your heart knows of luxury and can wear it like a warm coat.
It is your mind that knows only avarice.

The wise move with confidence, led by their eyes,
while the fool uses rashness, false courage and tries
to walk in the dark looking only toward
that which his desire agrees to afford.

He knows there are pitfalls he surely must miss
for if he does not he can blame with a hiss
the Maker of Trails with whom fault surely lies
in thinking all walkers will have open their eyes.

“What am I like”? my question asks of those who know me well.
Is what you see what I’ve always been? Is that what time doth tell?
When I was a child were you there with me to learn the things I learned?
If not, then why do I ask of thee to say what you’ve discerned?

When I was a teen perhaps you met and knew me in my youth,
and now you can see if my dreams and plans have led me to my truth.
A young married man in new fatherhood — did you meet me first that way?
When soberness built a fence around the path that before me lay.

A father of children like I’d been was next on the carousel.
Did you know me then when memories of my childhood served me well?
Perhaps we met when my fathering days were spent in labor with teens,
When remembering helped and hindered my role in perceiving what it means

to live in the sixties and not in the eighties — a contrast oh, so great
yet much of my youth — recalled anew– came forth to help relate.
In the middle of life I find myself with askings and replies
so “What Am I Like? What have I become” confronts my inner eyes.

Whatever it was I wanted then when fantasy filled my world,
is now not just a might have been but around me gently curled,
the grown-up manifestation of an acorn now grown tall
with branches broad and leaves of green — an oak amidst the All.

Virtue lives with you though not always seen
within your mind’s eye you ask “Have I been
of virtue, of loveliness, of good report?”
and conscience guilt-ridden spews out the retort.
“You tried once but failed in this part of your plan
to rise to the fullness and honor of man.”

What is all this crying lamenting my age
as if life approaches my own final page
still lacking the virtue I once thought I knew
when younger and wiseless without any clue.
In chanting the praises of childhood all clean
I now without virtue seek what might have been.

“But wait,” Wisdom whispers, her voice full of love,
“My son it’s within you and thrives like the dove
of a peace so eternal, your eyes will not see
how others have judged something formless in Thee.
If you would have virtue, attain it yourself
it’s there plain within and not up on a shelf

where you dare not reach out of fear of new pain
you placed it there — bring it now out once again.
Wear it with honor and joy, Son of mine
it’s beauty is timeless and adorns oh so fine
the body and soul of each one of my sons
and daughters within whom my influence runs.

Wisdom is virtue and not free of charge
yet given quite readily with no price too large.
To purchase my gift with your life’s precious blood
is to nourish yourself with my life’s loving flood
of a knowing and seeing just how things can be
when virtue calls forth all our love plain to see.”

The full moon shone thru the skylight    
bathing the room in shimmering blue and white.
Engaged in a slumbering dream I heard the cry
of your soul driven by desire.

Knowing somehow that a response to your plea   
lay within my grasp, I felt my dream make room for you.
Deep within slumber I summoned a sonata
to the tips of my fingers and began to play a familiar tune.

But not really the one you wanted to hear.
An agony pierced thru to my vision and I awoke,
finding you writhing in an ecstatic agony.
Now in full wakefulness I understood the melody you   
longed to hear so as to assuage what you were missing.

As a hero faced with an urgent task I turned
and gently moved to the place of rescue,
throwing aside the hot coverings and watching
as the blue and white moonbeams glistened on your flesh.
My fingers warmed to their task and the melody of   
desire became a symphony with purpose.

Again I heard the cry of your soul as the music
began a mounting crescendo. Faster and faster my   
body performed its own tocata in pianoforte.
My face grew hot, my lips moist and
my heart beginning to burn with the familiar need.

A song escaped from your heart and the keening surmounted
the last final cliff before you dove with abandon
into the swirling mist of silver adorning the cascade of water.
Drenched to the core, we listened as the roar of the falls thundered.

To contradict truth is to argue with stone
who lives in its firmness while hearing a tone
beyond mortal ears and their power to know
that truth is the substance of spiritual flow

into knowing the what’s and the why’s and the when’s
thereby coming to terms with beyond when time ends.
Have reverence for truth let your ignorance ride
in its chariot of fire in a world well inside

where your wisdom extinguishes much of the flame
before it erupts from your soul to bring shame.
The heart truly knows when an ignorant thought
is competing with wisdom and flirting with naught

but a time left to blush, recognizing the lack
of vision in time to permit you some slack
in the facing of judgment’s stern teaching what’s true
and how you let ignorance give you a cue

to act without thinking before you would know
how ignoring what God knows will leave you below.

What sings in the heart is a part of the woman through whom we come to earth.
T’was a part of her soul, connected within at the time she gave us birth.

The music within, heard frequently as it knocks on the door of the mind
when life’s little moments bring pleasure or pain we recall the ties that bind

to our earliest days when the heart was still filling with newness of mother’s touch
the voice of her thinking in tunes of affection that calmed us oh so much.

Pain cracks the shell that you’ve smugly constructed
to guard understanding by which you’ve conducted
your life with pretending you’re safe and serene —
secure in belief that you’ve already seen

what’s important in life that you must needs retain
so to gather yourself back to heaven again.
But pain is your signal — there’s more to be known
and the harvest continues of all that’s been sown.

Awareness in thinking there’s something askew
that leaves balance unsettled — so having no clue
your discomfort drives words from your lips seeking sound
because silence is agony when doubt hangs around.

A doubt buzzes round tuning into the rot
on the hairline that wedges your armor of thought.
You cease to feel peaceful, secure and content
while serenity’s curtain has cruelly been rent.

No longer is confidence led by conviction
cause doubt brings up worry to find where a fiction
has laid undiscovered but thought to be real
til conflict comes forth with a challenge so real.

A soul you have treasured has failed to agree
with your mighty conclusions of all life must be.
The failure of harmony shakes where you stand
on the putrified pedestal built by your hand

with a naive assumption you’ve nourished so well
that all that’s important is just yours to tell.
When hearing is called for temptation is great
to ignore what’s to hear cause your pride won’t abate

and to shut up your voice feels like humbling pie
with the crack in your armour expanding the lie
that you’ve carried so long it’s become more your king
than the honor of wisdom with you might sing.

Resist the temptation to speak if you will
and I promise you’ll climb higher up on the hill
where the view is harmonious and lovely to share
with the loved ones whose spirit was willing to dare

to confront your opinion with one of their own
that reveals what your smugness could never have known.
Pain cracks the shell of what you thought you knew,
to preserve all the goodness that stays in your view

of yourself as a being of worth and regard
when a time of revealing is shaming and hard
to accept with a feeling that all is still right
and you’ll sleep with contentment when on comes the night.

©Arthur Ruger, 2007

Children in life start with play and delight   
when everything’s new, fascinating and bright.
Smiles and tears alternate thru the days,
a time all exciting for learning life’s ways.

In an absence of cumbrance they watch the parade
of events, things and people, a great promenade.
But them to the momement when restless becomes
the dominant craving for juicier plumbs.

Observing parades is no longer enough.
They want to join in for themselves with such stuff.
No longer spectating but part of the game,
our children step onto the path, staking claim

to share the procession of life’s forward thrust
with steps matching others and growth as a must.
But some march too slowly and can’t stay in stride
as jealous resentment starts mocking inside.

The greater the feelings of falling behind,
whispers the fear, “I’m not the normal kind.
Life’s moving too quickly refusing to wait
while I need more time for increasing my gait.

The marcher slow-footed then steps out of line
feeling loss and betrayal, “What’s there isn’t mine.”
Within the procession a new voice is heard
“This pace is for turtles yet I fly like a bird.

Round in circles I soar while the marchers below
refuse to move faster, their pace is too slow.”
With increasing spirals the soul flys around
enchanted by haste til the procession’s not found.

With a similar madness about life’s steady pace
those too slow or too fast find it hard to embrace.
For a similar impatience imposes its own will
with steps to the side as the price on the bill.

While conforming to group-think is not always wise
conforming to life as it is brings the prize.

A sense of what’s just gives Old Evil alarm
with affliction and fear that He’ll no longer harm.
a crowd of believers all blinded by trust
who refuse to believe in a life merely just.

Their emphatic insistence to simply obey
paves the way for the Father to dividends pay
but in measures quite tiny for an impact so small
against Evil’s enticements to subjugate all.

The just are the warriors who drive Evil down
with their sense of plain goodness adorning their crown.
The blindly obedient give out nothing more
to the masses who struggle with life’s greatest chore.

When chance pays a visit and wants for an act
to occur in an instant with mighty impact
opportunity rises afresh and anew
with the time to seize action, responding on cue.

Tis the just who will triumph with ready intent
to do good to another to whom they’ve been sent.

The just know that moments are fleeting in time,
arriving all primed for response, not the crime
of inaction while pondering just what it’s all for   
and whether obedience is what’s wanted more.

The blind see temptation as part of the plan
while the just know that trial and failure makes man
an improvement in growing from where things did start
with seeking the goodness in everyone’s heart.

The time to do just can approach with a light
that is seen from afar in its glory and might.
Fear not to step forward and greet its approach
with the fruits of new learning inside in its coach.

When the time comes for justly behavior to win
ponder not how you’ll greet it, step forward; don’t sin
by submission to fear often trumpeted loud
to stay blinded securely obeying the crowd

and its thinking that blindness is virtue proclaimed
while goodness and mercy go blindly defamed.

When a time for an action has come and then gone
and you’ve taken no steps for what’s just, then you’re done
with the moment when yours was the chance to drive home
opposition to where the Old Evil does roam.

You can weep for the instant once yours but now passed
and to try to retrieve it will fail at the last
cause your blindness inhibits your sense of what’s right
as a chance to do good passes on out of sight.

What is now is important moreso than you know
if you seize not the moment you’ll not further grow.
To be just is worth more than to merely obey
with a blindness created in Old Evil’s way.

The body becomes idle by command of the soul
thru the mind and thinking that’s part of the whole.
Tis fear and doubt that hampers the will
by accepting an emptiness work might fulfill.
The Mother of all’s a great teacher with time
for planting and reaping a harvest sublime

in coming to know there’s a time and and place
to work or to idle with lack of disgrace.
Disgrace of the spirit’s what weakens our souls
leaving famine and drought to carve large gaping holes
in the form and the substance of quality life
torn to wavering shreds by the unholy knife.


When form becomes rigid, the style follows suit
and lazy is born out of idleness’s root
to thrive as a cancer giving rise to the doubt
that it’s better to work than to make do without.
The mind in its home is reluctant to quit
so long as to work is to make our life fit,

for the time and the seasons with wisdom we’ll know
that from idle to lazy is against Nature’s flow.
The garden of spring still awaits its renewal
tho summer be here, the unplowed has no jewel.
How long will you go with the soil left untilled
distracted by trivia with no purpose filled.

While anger doth dim the light’s lifegiving boon
does reason enlighten to brightness of noon.
Take reason abroad where the field lies inert
unturned and unused serving nothing but dirt.
Turn over your anger and then plant the seeds
that reason facilitates in meeting your needs

to overcome idleness beset so with fright
by working your land from the dawn until night.
With reason and love you must plant your desire
to blossom with nourishment undimmed by your ire
and free to break forth to a joyous age
ignited by love quite untramelled by rage.

Your wisdom bears fruit as by reason you’re wise
and discern where your passion expresses no lies.
To be idle in sulking will no harvest bring.
No time to be wasted with anger as king.
Make peace with your brother, let bygones be bye
for life’s much to short to live mad, then to die.

 
Why are my thoughts drawn so much to the past
where pleasure and pain of remembering doth last?
How is it I struggle to ponder the Now
where life is most vivid but wrinkles my brow

in confusion and wondering just why there is haste
that moves days so swiftly — and they have no taste?
The future is also approaching with speed,
with oblivion’s grave and the thing I must heed.

So into the past I find anchor to slow
the pace of the march played by Now’s singing bow.
The music remembers the living while young
and vibrates the harp from which thinking hath sprung.

A time that was strengthened by youth in its age
of vigor and wishing outside of the cage
that aging doth bring with its ups and its downs,
its joys and its pleasures with smilings and frowns.

Experience teaches a spiritual tune
that prompts us to seek from the holiest rune
a whisper of God in our mid-life-tuned ear
that something else needed is coming quite near.

The future, my Son, with its one final time
when pondering life and its meanings sublime
is needful for wisdom to loosen the bond
of oblivions’s grave and embrace what’s beyond.

This dream of our Founders all around us and real
was fashioned and forged in rebellion’s hot zeal.
With a fire born of need stoked by courage to spare
the Fathers laid groundwork where none else would dare.

In confronting a king, overcoming their fear
they birthed us a nation quite brave, free and clear.
With today’s round of terror and national doubt
about safety with danger all laid round about,

were silence to reign with a whisper to hear
the sound would ring loudly in each person’s ear.
A sound of the dream so successfully bought
would ring louder than worry by terror so fraught.

When ashes remain after towers are gone
with the bitterest dust and grey smoke in each dawn
tis the whisper of dreams held by patriots past
that binds us with hope and a will to outlast

all the hate and the weapons intended to scare
our strong blood and the spirit that we who might dare
to stand strong and united, our souls side by side
shedding tears, giving honor to those who have died.

In our moments of silence with heads bowed in prayer
tis the whisper of freedom that rings in the air.
We’re a spiritual nation with all sorts of clothes
and a myriad of faiths by which God only knows

that we worship together, apart or alone
as a nation, a people, whose actions have sewn
up a fabric of caring and mourning our lost
but still holding together whatever the cost.

To extremists who think that their God harbors hate
we will answer with courage before it’s too late
that a God who is good won’t discern twixt His souls
and the paths which are taken by each in their roles

as believers and doubters in spiritual things
hearing only the goodness that each human sings.
Any god who is pleased at destruction of life
is a god full of falsehood; a father of strife

and a tyrant whose face shows an evil intent
while a bevy of fools think of how they’ve been sent
to the world to strike terror and fear of the sword
in the name of a falsehood who’s nobody’s lord.

There are names for the One who is holy and just
and the name matters little but moreso we must
offer worship by loving each other the same
and withhold adoration to a god full of shame
who exists not in Heaven but only in smoke
whose fanatics too foolish to know he’s a joke
cause harm and destruction while seeking applause
from a world that’s repelled by the stench of their cause.

The god of their making, so cruel and unkempt
deserves only disgust and our lasting contempt.
The dream of our Founders lives on in our hearts
and whispers its power throughout all the parts

of this land, of this continent — even more, of this earth
that the will of our Fathers is given rebirth.
In our towns and our cities we’re out to make claim
on our values, our people and sweet Liberty’s Flame.

The garden of Spring still awaits the renewal
tho summer here the unplowed has no jewel.
How long will you go with the soil left un-tilled
distracted by trivia with no purpose fulfilled.
While anger doth dim the light’s lifegiving boon
does reason enlighten to brightness of noon.

Take reason abroad where the field lies inert
un-turned and unused serving nothing but dirt.
Till up your anger and then plant the seed
that reason facilitates in meeting your need
to overcome idleness beset wo with fright
by working your field from the dawn until night.

With reason and love you may plant your desire
to blossom with nourishment undimmed by your ire
and free to come forth to a joyous age
ignited by love quite untrammeled by rage.
Your wisdom bears fruit as by reason you’re wise
and discern where your passion expresses no lies.

To lay idle in sulking will no harvest bring
no time to be wasted with Anger as king.
Make peace with your brother let bygones be bye
for life’s much too short to live mad — then to die.
A back turned on harmony and what have you then?
Your sorrow and absence for what might have been.

The path is remembering just who you might be
lit by your confusion by which you still see
thru darkness and grope with your fear of unknown
while pours in experience and my, how you’ve grown!


Evil has remedies while folly’s a chore,
for to chastise a fool is to scream at a door
that is locked by opinion, distrust and belief
in a magic quite borrowed to transport a grief


to a place deep inside where not even the fool
can access his secret over which him does rule.
When notions are foolish they’re hardest to see
for they govern conviction as to how one should be.


The secret tyrannical rules with a lie
the rudderless compass-less not knowing why.
To fix others’ pain is not yours to control,
to measure the standard is nobody’s role.


Let fixing be healing un-demanded by you,
but in the hands of Great Father when healing falls due.
Eruption of anger drives open the door
if only for moments that feeling can pour


from the source of the pain kept beneath lock and key
where lies the infection where no one can see.
The heart has pried open the door to the pain
so open with loudness the cry comes again


to be heard by Great Father whose whispering flows
through the doorway to touch what the agony knows.
Cease to be guilty and cease to find guilt.
Intention’s not relevant in what was built.


You punish yourself with a fear loud and shrill
that if you do not then for certain God will.
A punishing God exists not, don’t you see
that punish begins in the thoughts deep in Thee.


It is from our hunger that hunting is driven
as well from our seeking that finding is given.
Pursuit is a blessing in making one swift
yet to stand, not to flee gives your power great lift.


For what is perceived on the surface alone
may hide a great secret you may come to own.
The hidden contains very often the power
to overcome fear when the pain makes one cower.


From moment to moment we find we must choose
from things all quite visible though some we might lose.
Yet coming still closer may offer the key
where a concept much clearer is then plain to see.


As terror pursues can you not make a stand
take courage, know secrets, for freedom’s at hand.
So as you’re pursued know that such makes you swift
but with courage empowered as life’s grandest gift.

Spiritual thought is often expressed in tones of our hearts,
harmonic with feeling, our thinking’s alive when music starts.
Music is magic, the language of spirit, whose gentle sounds remind
of moments with feeling with words insufficient to help us find

a passion forgotten, a pleasure remembered, a tear once shed
in times of before when alone in our mind, our spirit was led
to places of vision where quick understanding of something profound
was ours to enjoy while feelings exploded in musical round.

When musical thoughts come a knocking to enter our feelings of pain,
they bring in their baskets rememberings sweet which had dormantly lain
asleep until needed, a gift from the past come alive in the now
to comfort the child who lay sleepless from worry and not knowing how

to summon the mother who sang oh so sweetly to bring on relief
when mortal confusions and misunderstandings were harboring grief.
We summon our music from memories laden with wisdom of old
when sweetness of melody, power of drum re-ignited the cold

silent flame of desire and the vigor for life in whatever is dealt
a soul up and dancing when hearing the tones for which courage is felt.
Love for the music that dwells within is a mark of wisdom’s presence.
Being wise as the serpents yet gentle as doves is your music in its essence.

Songs of the world dance with songs of the heart to oppose the burden of fear,
with music you more than just hear the Great Father — you feel his presence near.

​​​​​​​ 
    Belonging to life is not yours to decide,
    to deny you belong deny’s where you reside.
    As the river and sea are both separate yet one,
    all of life is within you — that’s how it was done.
   
    The here and the now is just where you reside,
    a part of totality — timeless inside.
    Yesterday’s slave is unable to grow
    but tomorrow’s free man is the one we should know.
   
    Claim back to yourself all the portions that be
    made from experience to portray all you see,
    that leads to the knowing of earth as it is
    as one with your being — not hers and not his.
   
    Living and dying are one and the same;
    one comes in then goes out as on plays the game;
    a continuous round where the soul does expand
    to growth and exploring to then understand
   
    that moments are moments which leave and return,
    for timely is timelessness making us yearn
    to find with each other to whom we belong
    and learning is trying without right or wrong.
   
    Experience is primary and stands as the goal
    to live life with power accepting the role
    designed with specifically just you in mind
    so God in entirety is what you will find.
   
    The life and the death are but one and the same
    as the sea is the river from whence we all came.
   

Awakening slumber from morning’s fresh light
doth beckon to me from my place in the night,
reminding me softly that I’m really here
with songs of the dawn just pleasuring my ear.

I’m never alone in my corner of living.
Abundance surrounds with a generous giving
of substance and form to the life that is mine,
while the soul in its sanctum continues to dine

on the outer sensations and feelings within,
exploring with wonder the vast mortal din.
Aloneness is longing — they’re one and the same
the spark of desire igniting God’s game.

He gives to us souls three-dimensional suits
from which tangibility grasps at the roots
of existence – but only in one of its forms,
self-limited, thereby providing its norms.

By such God presents the wise venue for learning
how being connects with our eternal yearning.
To yearn from aloneness suggests how it’s wrong
to perceive we’re in life but don’t truly belong

to what is not like us yet still plays its part
in harmonious cadence with all in our heart.
In a time and a place where neither exist,
my moment with God in His Heavenly Mist,

was a thought given breath from a source so divine
with a glimpse of perfection for which I would pine.
From that instant forever was longing that grew
to a loneliness wanting to know what God knew.

The longing was needed to gather the force
required for entry to mortality’s course.
My longing and loneliness reached thru the veil
to the soul of another who agreed to travail

and sacrifice pleasure to take on the pain
of easing my longing to return once again.
A woman then offered her tangible portal,
a gift born of love that I might become mortal.

The awakening slumber of morning’s fresh light
doth beckon to me from my place in the night.
I open my eyes with remembering smile
my longing has brought me to earth for a while.

A recollection came to mind while sitting in repose,
revisiting another time when fear in me arose,
while reading what your heart had written, my own feelings blurred,
expecting broken hopes and dreams while pondering each word.

A long song hinting tragedy and “stop before we start.
To go much further signals pain, lets stop and move apart.”
But quietly resounding to a harmony within,
the words flew by without the dreaded sorrow creeping in.

What’s this she’s saying? Seems to be the opposite of “no.”
A hope and dream, a wish’s scream and planting of a glow
arising in my chest you see as I continued on,
and suddenly my fears relented, disappointment gone.

“In this moment” you had written making eagles soar,
“out of this moment”, then I knew, my starving was no more.
With hands a-tremble in new directions, reading moved me on
to life’s excitement, holy yearning, portraits to be drawn.

The length of days in famine’s grip was coming to an end,
“I love you” script in shaking words was what you chose to send.
 

The soul knows its secrets, the body does too.
With an infinite wisdom do both speak to you.
Listen inside, hear life whisper its plan
where to play – and play well – is one purpose in man.

Are not playing and working both one and the same?
Is not testing one’s thoughts a rule to the game?
Challenges question the game into play.
With reason and passion you choose where to lay

a piece from your thinking created within
to add to your portrait of playing to win.
To play is to work with a pleasure to find,
and working is playing with treasure in mind.

Is what made me ill what afflicted you too?
Have you been where I’ve been, do you do what I do?
Is all illness a blight with but one common source
and the consequence meted to all in its course.
Does affliction with symptoms reflecting dis-ease
and the payment of pain and discomfort to tease

come upon us in ways quite the same unto all
with a sense that the sickness is blind in its fall.
Illness doth strike in dissimilar ways
tho the same by its label, it’s impact quite plays
different tunes in each person whose lives aren’t the same,
who’s choices are moves in life’s ongoing game.

Disagreement is sickness that’s blind in its prime
like disease, lack of harmony lives for a time
between souls in dispute who do struggle to win
what’s perceived as a victory though small as a pin.
We will learn by our feelings when we disagree
and find understanding to greater degree

in knowing our opposites, how we compare
when agreement is wanting or even quite rare.
If I know where you stand and the place is amiss
in my own set of values, your thoughts are not bliss.
They’re in contrast and emphasize clearly a split
in our thinking, reflecting that all does not fit

in a tidy container where values are set
in a limit of rightness or wrongness, but let
Mother Wisdom come forth in her powerful gown
of perception that differences don’t mean we drown
in a sea of our discord where winning is king
but where learning brings harmony, living and being.