Winter Honeysuckle (A Poem)

Winter Honeysuckle

(A Poem)

by

Bruce P. Grether

“Did you see the Winter Honeysuckle?”

“No. Oh. Wow! Beautiful . . . is it?

Plus, it smells so. Amazing.”

Speaks to me like an unexpected chuckle,

Like the fact I’m actually a Wizard;

One of those 2 blue ones lost in the East.

“And that’s the finest finest thing

In all 3 worlds, to be:

Have you heard?”

“The least of these will be . . .

. . . the greatest of the East.”

“Ah. It’s all about this World Axis

That connects things below and above

With that single greatest thing

This gift . . . this beating heart

. . . in every breast.

This living light from every green leaf

At the heart of everything . . .

. . . that we call Love.”

“Like the Sun itself, it has

This inestimable power . . .

. . . . opening from & to Source.

Where abide, beyond Time

Beyond Space itself . . .

. . . Singularity’s flower.

The # 9 unfurls from your brow

To spread its protective hood

Like unfolding petals

Broadcasting fragrance of Now –

Where, indeed, it’s all good

From Noble Gases to Heavy Metals.

Beyond judgment

Of all things seen & unseen

Winds of Change that you can SEE:

Creating, maintaining, transforming

Fluttering pages of this scientific magazine

Revealing this authentic me . . .

. . . the Naked Singularity.

Back into embodiment from

Those churning spiral galaxies

To the garden deck where flowers sing

+ the planetary heartbeat drums . . .

. . . there lives

The shy brown cotton rat

+ the mockingbid shuffles

The Major Arcana of his wings.”

Back to where you’re asking me,

“Have you seen the Winter Honeysuckle?

So . . . remind me! What are the names

Of those 2 Blue Wizzes? Are we them?

Him and me?

Or does it really matter . . . ?”

Alatar & Pallando:

the Blue Wizards went East with Saruman,

who then was not bad at all, & those Blue Wizards

Never returned,

Though Saruman most definitely did,

Or did they

All 3???

Do I pause often enough

To suck into my aroused nostrils

Fragrance of galactic clusters stardust

Of this Winter Honeysuckle!

Blooming even more of a spectacle

With this Full Moon, last night;

Plus, if I’m not mistaken . . . the Sun

In Aquarius, thus these blossoms

Pour forth fragrant starlight –

The luminous fluid dreams of galactic beings!”

“HUSH! Listen closely. Your own heart . . .

IS One with inaudible

Whirring of quarks

The Center of Silence.”

Breathe IN the stillness . . .

That stops Time & opens Space

Around all that could disturb

Your deep peace.

Release. Thus evolve.

Hummingbirds & bees

Feasting upon

Divine nectar of this Carolina jasmine,

Supposedly so toxic

As the vine contains strychnine,

Yet like all else that abides

Within Creation’s lambent glow

This poisonous beauty must have its place

Within adamantine brilliance

Cupped between loving hands

Ferocious brilliance

This Point-Zero.

2.11.09

Listen To The Voice Of The World…

The great aboriginal American teacher Black Elk said Life moves in Circles. Well, of course… and as we listen to what I call "The Voice of the World," this actuality gets repeated repeatedly. Among the most deceptively simple-seeming yet deeply profound and highly insightful wisdoms of all is "The Center of the Circle is everywhere, and the circumference of the Circle is nowhere found."

    
      Even quantum physics and current cosmology agree: the Center is everywhere. It's one of those sort of counter-intuitive, yet kind-of-obvious realities (reality is always plural) that in such an expanding, inflationary Universe as we find ourselves, though everything is moving away from everything else--there is no single Center from which it is all racing away so fast. No.
      Curiously enough (curiouser and curiouser!) the Center is literally everywhere. You are there and so is everything else!
      Kind of like the Great Spirit, or as I prefer the term, the Great Mystery. It's everywhere, in everything. No exceptions. In fact, those amazing Egyptian Blue Lotus flowers that I often rave about in recent years, also display these realities…
      These sacred blossoms demonstrate the challengingly-simply fact of non-duality or Oneness. Nothing is actually separate from anything else; in fact, the idiotic ways that we believe in separation are the root cause of all suffering. You cannot actually say what Oneness is in words. It simply IS.
      Only you can see these Blue Lotuses demonstrating it, though they appear to be two separate flowers, they originate from that single mysterious unseen Source, deep in the liquid void the Egyptians called NU--like everything in existence.

      Don't take my word for all of this philosophical rambling. You see, like the immortal Jim Morrison, I'm at Sagittarius, a Zen Archer--so I can hardly help being a lover of wisdom. But why not just look at the pictures here and listen to your own heart on such important matters as the Circles of Life and Oneness???

Magick Morning (A poem)

Blue dawn hills misted,
Moist--I've emerged from
The Blessed House of Love
Into the Garden of Paradise…

Chee-POOO! Chee-POOO!
Twit/twit/twit!
Tzee-eee-eEEOOOoo!!!
Chee-POOO! Che-POOOOO!!
Twit/twit!… Twit/twit/twit!

Here in this quiescent turn
      of the yearly wheeling,
Birdsong frets through trees
Bearded with Spanish moss
Of ghostly conquistadores,
      more enchanted than lost.

The gravel path crunches quietly 'neath my clogs
Eloquent of heavy misting,
Not quite rainfall
Despite dripping from eaves
Of the new metal rainwater-collection roof.

There's a future:
It's here… you may touch it
In the pace of this open heart.

Chee-POOO! Chee-POOO!

The Gault Site Tour, Part 2

Following our view into the pit of the actual current dig--where those dedicated diggers patiently probed into the ancient past--with the rest of the tour group we shared lunch under some huge shady trees on that meadow. What a fantastic experience, with tingles of time-travel to boot, and even that lunch with the kind of nice folks interested enough to make it there! A splendid time… in a most special place.
      I'm so grateful that Tomas wanted to go. I knew he's do it without me if I didn't. Only what is life about? If you're blessed with such a perfectly suited partner, you'd best be grateful and do things with that person… even things you otherwise might not! Don't miss an opportunity for yet another shared adventure, is what I've learned.
      You see, I'm a wimp about the heat and indeed it's been especially brutal this year, though we're both fascinated with natural history and science. Let me not complain about the temp--instead let me express my gratitude for that day and for Tomas to share it with.

      Another matter--not unrelated--is our relationship to creatures here in the beautiful Garden where we live. Among the bounty this year have been plentiful baby lizards. There are the green anoles, commonly called "chameleons" hereabout; spiny lizards, the striped kind(?). Sometimes an amazing alligator lizard! Even the Mediterranean geckos that are quite shy and mostly just appear on the kitchen window screen in the early AM when the inside light attracts the moths they hunt…
      Part of all this is how much I love the road runner (one of those creatures I mentioned in my Power Animal blog not long ago). Yet, it's been rather savage: that beautiful, intelligent, predatory bird struts through our yard and snatches up our baby lizards. I won't even mention what he does with them before he eats them.
      Oh sure, it's Nature, you say? Well, I will not post the photos Tomas took. They're a bit too brutal. Of course, that IS Nature, and this kind of hunt has been going on for at least several hundred million years. Only I may not want to watch, OK?
      Yup, it's all part of that Oneness I often rave about. Still, I feel what I feel.
      Just as "I AM what I AM becoming."

The Mind's Eye of the Heart -- A Poem

Maybe those canny Egyptians were right…
Perhaps the brain is useless:
What if the heart really is the seat of intelligence
Where our Central Soul abides?

All seasons of life as Cosmic Fools --
Dying and reborn again from mud,
Deeply rooted reside
Where the life-force of the lotus lurks
All through winter months:
Inconstant as the Moon
That's really the only constant --
Changing the rules.

The dragonfly nymph
Leaves the empty husk of its emergence
On a stalk beside
The whispering pools.

The Gault Site Tour, Part 1

Last weekend Tomas and I drove to a fairly remote area well north of Austin for a tour of the Gault Site, home of the Gault School of Archaeological Research. Initially I was not so excited at the notion of tromping around in the heat of our current drought, days often over 100 degress Fahrenheit. However I AM a major fan of mammoths and I knew that mammoth remains had been excavated there.

      Turned out to still be fairly pleasant (at least in the shade!) around 10 AM when we got there, temp rising fast though. Thank goodness before too long our guide led the pack of 30 or 40 folks downhill into a ravine shaded by towering broadleaf trees where the temp dropped significantly. Plus, this was the site of the actual dig itself.

      Gosh! On the way to the current excavation site under a canvas roof, we were shown an image cut into a mossy rock surface, believed to be made by an 18th century Native American artist, of a church! See?

      This didn't seem entirely thrilling considering the decimation of aboriginal peoples and cultures ever since the first Missions were established ihereabouts. Still interesting. Far more amazing to me, the next stop brought us to a marker where the remains of a baby mammoth were found.

      Whoah! Just as I did at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, when I stood on the spot where Chief Crazy Horse was assassinated, I felt a tingle all over my entire body. It seemed as if timelines radiated from my matter in every direction to/from the Universe simultaneously. The place has a memory! Or is it merely in my cells? No diff, probably… "As Within, So Without," you know?

      Turns out this meadow with some magnificent big trees, holds phenomenal amounts of midden material--that is prehistoric garbage dumps going back at least 13.5 millennia, maybe even 15 thousand years or more. Includes remains of the oldest known architecture in North America, in the form of a square "floor" of stones.

      OK, I'm ready to find a bit of shade:

      So before we adjourned for a picnic lunch under one of those fantastic big trees, we got a glimpse of the dig proper… these dedicated diggers have unbelievable patience, removing the dirt crumb-by-crumb like ants! Over 2 million artifacts have been removed from here, including the oldest artworks in the Americas in the form of engraved stones.

     You can see these folks at work, as we did, and I almost felt like a voyeur peeping in on some sacred ritual:

      Amazing stuff, as the Folsom culture that produced such beautiful flaked blades flourished here, and we got some cutting edge info (pun fully intended!) on dates for humans in the Americas--could be 15,000 to 25,000 before present.

      Unless of course you count those Atlantean tourists--ahem!

      (More next time, in Part 2… meanwhile you can look at www.gaultchool.org)

The Mandevilla Deva

Blossom as you climb upwards in perfect balance upon gravity. For gravity, as you are aware, is a gift, not the cause of any suffering. Resistance to gravity that may cause imbalance can bring about challenges to your equanimity.
      As your blooms open while you ascend in the process of living, your inner colors are revealed to be shared. Your heart is exposed.
      So do not fear; feel instead the surge of intensity that means you are totally alive in this Garden of Paradise!
      Breathe deeply and allow this to calm the pace of your radiant heart--allow the wondrous collaboration of heart and lungs to remind you of your deep cellular connection with all green growing things.
      Your blossom, the inside-out exposure of the colors within your heart, reveals and demonstrates the deepest roots that connect you with all living things of this Garden planet.
      Indeed, there is a single Ancestor for all stardust in the common point of origin for everything. However, Life on earth, of which you are a self-selected representative, has a host of original Ancestors.
      You are the Holy Child of this Holy Family of Life.
      Your stardust, the sacred matter that emerges from the great surge of Love itself, does the dance of living.
      Life weaves the fabric of existence; existence is woven of Life. For Life is all that is. And yet in the Garden there is the story of Two Trees--for the chance of discovering and learning that One pulsation comes and goes through both.
      All numbers are for the opportunity to learn there are no numbers.
      There is, rather, truth.
      Truth emerges from the deepest root of stardust; sprouts and grows, unfolds and unfurls, send forth leaf and blossom, as it climbs in perfect balance upon gravity--without resistance or effort, rather it simply dances. Blooms.
      This Holy Child you call the Mandevilla makes visible the colors within the heart you share.
      Keep silence and feel this.