Foreign shore

Foreign shore                                                                                

The dot of an umbrella thwarting

the mighty sun and the rain – imagine that! 

The ball of an eye containing mountains.

God (You say) is the Ocean of Love.

Why on earth then, is Love such a rarity?

If it shines everywhere, falls like rain

and I don’t know enough to strip down

and run around in it, why then

is there such a longing in my soul?  

One cup of wine – I get weepy, incoherent.

Imagine an Ocean of It!  I’m too small to drown,

too lightweight, too hard-shelled

to soak It up and sink to the bottom. 

Grimly, I clutch that bit of debris

known as other-than-Ocean, floating,

ever floating, upon the surface

of my obliteration and liberation, tossed up

again and again onto the wild, foreign shore.

Otherness is illusion, Meher said. 

You and I are not we, but One.

O child of God, otherness is illusion.

You and the Ocean are not two, but One.

Sprawl and tangle

Sprawl and tangle

Imagine a path not a path 
for a pilgrim to follow but, a path 

which follows the pilgrim;
freely chosen yet, prior and post,

with strings attached, a woven web 
in a realm obscure and deceptive,

every effort and action determined
by the soul's karmic sprawl and tangle.

Unable to choose wisely or freely
yet, unable to refrain from choosing,

inexorably wrought by the cast of a die
to live it, accept it, acquiesce

and yet, somehow, make it better,
holier, humbler, nearer to the goal.

Everything is necessary, my Beloved says,
until it is no longer necessary.

Everything, my Beloved says, is necessary
until it is necessary no longer.

O child of God, you are free, like Eruch, to choose
to become the slave of your Beloved

                          

Chanji

Chanji

He found you in Chowpatty
washed up on the beach

by life's betrayals, cruel vicissitudes.
You were ready to drown by then,

not caring if you lived or died.
He persuaded you

to go a-travelin' with Him.
Apparently, the Way is so narrow

there's only room for one
to walk it at a time

which doesn't mean
we go it alone

but, that we must become one
with our traveling companion.

Chanji, by the end of his days, 
was one with You, ready for drowning,

not caring if he lived or died
as long as it pleased his Master.

O child of God, nothing ever changes . . . it just gets larger --
more height, breadth and depth than we could ever imagine.

                  

The last resort

The last resort

Most people come to You
(You have said) as a last resort.

There's a fundamental wounding
in coming to You, a violation of the self

in even our most timid of intimacies with God
or any of His manifestations.

In Your infinite mercy, You draw us past
our intuited fear and allow us our first

quavering steps toward annihilation,
gathering us in, tucking us under Your wing.

But, even after we become Your lovers,
years later, we often come to You

in pain and fear only when our most familiar
worldly comforts have been tried,

exhausted and found wanting,
our last resort yet . . . because

within every surrender, every intimacy with God,
incrementally, now and then, here and there,

moment to moment, there is a fundamental
wounding, a violation of the self as we move

so timidly -- a gesture, a word, a few steps,
an embrace -- closer to our own annihilation.

O child of God, come unto the Ancient One,
the last resort, the final refuge of the soul.

                   

The cleft of flesh

The cleft of flesh

It shone through, Mani said.
It shone through.  Your divinity.

Particularly as the coat frayed;
split-seamed and threadbare.

Your lovers clamored those latter days
for the nectar of Your presence --

It shone through.  And nowadays
in a random soul, coat perforated

by the casual sorrows of human existance,
the loneliness and the long night-vigils,

whose faith and the thread of Your Light
have kept stitched together,

It shines through.  Shines through.
With God's Light behind every star

and space a threadbare cloak,
so through the cleft of flesh

the Light pours into this dusky realm.
Cleft, o lovers, for thee and me.

O child of God.  There was a glow,
said Mani.  There was a definite glow.

                     

An unnumbered lifetime

An unnumbered lifetime

An unnumbered lifetime in its sixty-fourth year.
Unknown the destination . . . nor how far away.
I gauge the distance by the depth of my fear.

No milestone to mark the highway from here;
no house of rest at the end of the day.
An unnumbered lifetime in its sixty-fourth year.

When shall the harbor lights of home appear?
I labor and pray to keep demons at bay
and gauge the distance by the depth of my fear.

An unsteady hand sets the course I steer.
Each crucial point pitches my soul astray.
An unnumbered lifetime in its sixty-fourth year.

If courage emerges as conviction grows clear,
if peace comes to those who trust and obey,
I gauge the distance by the depth of my fear.

Not for the faint-hearted, said my Lord, Meher.
Unknown the destination . . . nor how far away.
An unnumbered lifetime in its sixty-fourth year.
I gauge the distance by the depth of my fear.

                       

The cabin in the woods

The cabin in the woods

The windows are frosted over
and made of that primitive glass

that distorts every image but, through it,
shivering in the dark, I see a roaring fire,

a food-laden table, bottles of wine.
Why can't we go inside? I ask

the companion who brought me.
In due course, he answers.  Once we enter,

he says, everything turns back to zero.
Everything will cease to exist 

except that roaring fire which is,
at this moment, oblivious to itself.

We'll all go back . . . to begin again.
The only way for that fire to be glimpsed,

to be desired and pursued,
captured and savored

is for it to first be viewed
from the outside looking in --

through these narrow, muddled,
distorting panes of glass.

O child of God, every moment has its value.
There is no place to get to.

                            

Thread the needle

Thread the needle                                                                         

How many miles to Babylon? the children chant.

Three score and ten, comes the reply.

Can I get there by candle light?

Yes, and back again.  And back again.

All there is to do in the game is laugh and run

and hold on tight – as the line weaves

and circles back  and, one by one,

thread the needle, one by one. 

How many miles to Babylon?  Insurmountable

the distance, millenniums away and back again

yet, the game has wafted down as the children chant,

their queries if not replies resonating

in quickly-beating, childish hearts; run, laugh

and hold on tight.  Lord, we want to know –

how far and how we might arrive

at our destination and return home again.

All there is to do is to laugh and run, hold on tight.

Thread the needle, o child; thread the needle.

O child of God, play the game, hold on tight,

though the journey seems uncharted and endless.

                            

Random photos from past and present

Athens Group at 2001 Southeast Gathering

Brother Barry -- check out on Youtube, esp. Good and Faithful Servant

Brother Brent

David McNeely recently at Lakeview Kitchen

Lilly "Black cat on a rampage" Finch

Brother Ben

Mom

Nancy and Debbie

Brian at Sheriar Bookstore

Lily, Odette, Kathy and Sam

The Darnell Boys -- Elijah Neesmith, Caleb Darnell, Gus Darnell, Austin Darnell, Patrick Wiese -- Check out on Youtube

My prayer-cupped hands

My prayer-cupped hands

Muslim men in the East, I'm told,
smoke biddies channeled

through cupped hands --
Mohammed having forbid tobacco

to ever touch their lips.
This is the kind of love song

with which I nightly serenade my Beloved,
exploring the convoluted ways

I might obey my Lord
and savor the smoke at the same time.

It is the illusion of our maneuverability
that keeps paradise just out of grasp.

Until I become that fabled ant
beneath the elephant's foot,

my cleverness and desire will ever reach out
for the birds in the bush and let loose

the one captured and singing
in my prayer-cupped hands.

O child of God, obey your Beloved and refrain
from the lies you tell yourself daily.

Recommended -- Alice Klein's first book of poetry

      While I was at the Center last weekend I visited Sheriar Bookstore and bought Alice Klein's book of poetry, What the Heart Wants.  I enthusiastically recommend it.  These poems are deep, painfully honest, lovingly rough-edged and open-hearted.  They are also expertly written and presented.   Published by Sheriar and available at various Baba venues.  Jai Baba, Brian

Death poem

Death poem

I hope to pen a farewell poem, jisei
(in the Zen-haiku tradition)

my very last day on earth but, I'm thinking --
why wait?  This empty page tempts me

to leave it blank beneath the provocative title
but, that's not the story -- not the whole story.

You have given me -- are giving me --
words with which to fill in the blanks,

tainted to be sure, approximated,
strained through the human brain and heart

but, divine in origin, intent and gravity.
I find my voice when You begin to speak

through my throat and fingers.  O Lord,
may the last poem we write be love divine

put impossibly into words, my part being
the unread, empty spaces between the lines.

O child of God, pray your death poem to write
someday in the dust beneath your Master's feet.

                           

Meher Center October 2013 - Photos by Debbie Finch

Long Lake at sunrise

Boat house at sunrise

Guest house living room

Guest house kitchen