Collapse of Worldly Wisdom

 

COLLAPSE OF WORLDLY WISDOM

 Copyright 2021 Don Ray.  Feel free to print and share.

In moments of fear and panic and distress our worldly wisdom breaks down and we are left without a clear course of action.  For a moment we experience the futility and pointlessness of this temporal existence.  For a moment we cannot deny what really matters, we cannot ignore our helplessness.

In moments of despair and panic and overwhelming grief we lose track of all the contrived priorities that dictate our daily behavior.  Grief and sorrow will occasionally be overwhelming.  Despair and desperation will on occasion enter our lives.  This carnal world is too far removed from the Kindom, our human creations and contrivances are too irrational and arbitrary, for anyone with any awareness of soul to not sometime succumb to the temptation of despair and depression.  In our temporary panic and our momentary shirking of worldly routine while we accommodate the loss, the sickness, the shock, we are simply acknowledging the contrived nature of most of what we take so seriously when all is going well.

Occasionally we must toss out the routine schedule when grief and shock beset our soul.  Crises do not lend themselves to rote and routine.

The sick loved one, the news of the accident, the shock of the loss, these need to jolt us out of plans and routine and complacency.  

We fool ourselves into taking our worldly obligations, plans, and routines so seriously, but on occasion the shocks and fear and grief and sorrow do not allow us the luxury.  Worldly events grab us and turn us and force us to gaze at the gaping Void between this temporal - carnal world and the Kindom for which we unconsciously long.  

Soon enough the routines of the world will again preoccupy our thoughts.  But for a moment allow that glimpse of the wretched condition of this carnal - temporal world, dare to look into the seeming Void between this place and the Kindom.  Your grief and sorrow may momentarily overwhelm you.  But you will pass through the trial with a sharper image of the Destiny Home we long for, an image putting this momentary human world into perspective, an image revealing the surprising presence of the Spirit of that-Destiny Home even here and now,  a presence providing the strength and loving reason to continue on.

Copyright 2021 Don Ray.  Feel free to print and share.

Coyote Creation

 

COYOTE CREATION

Copyright 2021 Don Ray.  Feel free to print and share.

On ridge, hoping for a glimpse of the little coyote family

Heard them last night, a soft little collection of yips, not far away I suspect.

The sharp angle of penetrating light of rising sun sweeps orange down the west walls of the valley, rich greens of the cool shadowed valley floor soon to glow with yellow summer sun.

Yeshu (Jesus) wept over our condition, not just our suffering and misery, but the spiritual condition that fosters that misery.  What happened?!  Were we really once in the Garden?  Did we really once know a life and place without fear, a place where no form had to have big ears to hear predators or sharp fangs to penetrate flesh?  Is the nature of this present temporal world in response to our chosen nature, a reflection of our chosen condition of collapse into ourselves?.......a reflection of us, we elements of the collective consciousness of Eve and Adam, boldly entering into the act of Creation, Creation no longer an external work of divine art, but Creation now part of us and we part of it.

Coyote!  I did get to see her!.....trotting fast…..she’s late…..racing along the south valley path toward the headwall…...stopping only twice to look intently in the direction of the center with its heavy cover of brush.  Did the pups behave themselves?  Are they still in place?  Are they safe, these little fuzzy treasures and reason for her existence.

A following pestering magpie marks the coyote mom’s location as she disappears into the brush.  I resist the temptation to follow, this haggard mother having already enough stress.  

Thank You!  Thank You!  Thank You!

There are no answers in this scene, at least none I can yet understand.  But there is sublime ineffable beauty, Purpose evident even though inscrutable.

Copyright 2021 Don Ray.  Feel free to print and share.

 Co

Blanket Man

17/03/2021DRDONRAY EDIT

BLANKET MAN

Copyright 2021 Don Ray. Feel free to print and share.

Look at the street scenes yesterday!  A guy angrily walking along grabbing at imaginary things on the ground and in the air.  Another guy walking along waving his arms as if an arrhythmic drum major.  Madness becomes more and more evident, and the overtly crazy people grabbing at imaginary things and yelling at unseen demons are no more mad than the masses buying and consuming and spectating per the dictates of the marketers.

So here I sit, staring at growing grass on a hillside, undoubtedly subject to being branded the maddest of all should anyone observe me.

I remain distraught about Jim’s story about poor blanket man, the guy who for years has sat wrapped under blankets on the bench near the park fountain.  He got up and fell, hitting his head.  When the hospital staff took off his shoes, his toes came with them. His circulation was so bad, he had sat so long, his shoes had been on so long (supposedly three years, though I don’t know how they knew that) that blanket man’s toes simply rotted away.

Imagine the life in which that could happen!  There he sat, utterly alone, those years on the park bench.  How and where did he defecate and urinate?  Apparently people occasionally brought him food.  Has anyone but Yeshu (Jesus) ever loved him?  Did no parent love him?  What happened in his mind there hidden under the blankets?  Dear God, his toes rotted off!……while sitting at the busiest pedestrian intersection in the city!  Did no one ever talk to him?  Was he too damaged to talk?  His toes rotted off in his shoes as I walked by innumerable times!  What kind of society is this?!  What kind of people are we?!  What kind of person am I?

It seemed so natural to not bother blanket man as he sat in the heat of summer and the cold of winter under his mountain of dark blankets.  

Was there security under those blankets?  Was there ever a smile under those blankets?  Was it just blank under those blankets?

Isn’t it reasonable to seek shelter under a mountain of blankets when seeing the madness of this world?  Was blanket man that much more isolated than the rest of us?  

Did the emergency room staff throw away his blankets?  Does anyone cry over blanket man?  Could any tale more succinctly capture the modern state of our nation?  For whose sins is blanket man paying the price.

There may or may not be any hope for blanket man as he tries to walk on feet without toes.  But if we can hear of his plight and not feel some stirring of compassion and ask how this could possibly be, there is certainly no hope for us.

Copyright 2021 Don Ray. Feel free to print and share.pyright 2021 Don Ray. Feel free to print and share.

Silken Tide

 

SILKEN TIDE

 Copyright 2021 Don Ray.  Feel free to print and share.

Sunlight flows across the valley floor like warm water washing over and down the western walls.  

So clean is the morning, these few minutes of welcome light that allow birds to sing and young deer to dance before people tear the scene with our noise and clumsy unawareness.  

The earth and this valley welcome the sun, eternal cycles embraced once again, the brief celebration of life and creation quickly pirouetting through the  columns of light and shadow before the noise of traffic and the din of vapid conversation send Life into hiding for another too busy day.

Already sun glares and noise blares, the sublime moment having slipped into abeyance, awaiting the next opportunity when Spirit can safely play.

The ebb and flow of Presence is too gentle, too soft, to intrude upon our noises and plans.  It slips in and out of the lagoons of morning light as a silken tide, each morning providing opportunity, each morning offering itself for our healing and blessing, but never demanding that we accept its gifts.  

 Copyright 2021 Don Ray.  Feel free to print and share.

Ripples in Time

 

RIPPLES IN TIME

Copyright 2021 Don Ray.  Feel free to print and share.

So on this day of blue and green and birds and crickets a little flying insect just lands on the back of my hand having apparently fallen dead out of the sky.  What a curious thing to happen, an event tiny in its physical dimensions but of as yet unknown temporal dimensions.  How far into the future will information of this quirky little natural event stretch?

We are prompt to measure the physical dimensions of any object anywhere between the size of a quark and the size of the universe, but what of an entities temporal dimensions?  Even to measure physical dimensions obviously there is some minimum of required temporal extension, for what is “physical” if not just a word to describe form that persists over some time?

We cogitate without resolution over the mystery of time, but the “mystery” may actually arise from little more than the fact that time is a dimension along which we cannot see.  Whether we view time as perpendicular to the physical dimensions we can consciously observe, or as an unexpanded - hence indiscernible - dimension, or some other mental or mathematical construct, its nature entails that its extension remains invisible to us.  

Yet still we can imagine.  We can imagine physical forms coming into existence, the planet coalescing, the seed germinating, the cloud condensing.  If we dare, in our imagination we can look further down the length of this time dimension and see the cloud vaporize, the tree fall and rot, the planet evaporating under the waves of heat from the nova.

As we can turn the object to look at its various sides and surfaces and dimensions, we can in our imagination examine the breadth and length of the temporal dimension of any object…..or idea, or political system, or life.

Physical dimensions and gravity of any object provide some extension across space.  Temporal endurance and effects and influences provide extension across time.

Interestingly, obliterating an object in no way eliminates its gravitational influence across space.  Turn the planet to dust and its pull on the universe outside the dust cloud remains undiminished.  

What about influence across time?  Does every event and action and choice leave an unending wake in the following universe?  If we could see along the dimension of time how far would we have to look before every last ripple of influence from that insect falling dead out of the sky onto the back of my hand is completely  erased from the universe?  Obviously as long as anyone can read this essay the potential influence of that tiny event continues.

How distant in time would we have to look before we could see the universe in a state utterly unaffected in every detail by the fact we once lived out our life on this little blue  planet?  

If we could see into and along the temporal dimension, if we could see beginnings and endings of not just material objects but the beginnings and eventual distant endings of every consequence of every word and idea and decision and choice,  would we alter our words, ideas, decisions, and choices?

A tiny insect fell dead onto the back of my hand.  How inconsequential and promptly  of no subsequent consequence that is.  But perhaps at a future moment someone is reading about this very insect, its tiny and brief life prompting a thought or boredom or turn of a page, but its influence, like the gravity from the dust of the vaporized planet, extending across dimensions of space and time.
            Perhaps we should at least try to peer down the invisible dimension of time, and in so doing glimpse the distant, obscured, but undeniable ripples of our lives.  In so doing perhaps we can come to take a little more seriously our decisions and choices, so inconsequential,  so momentary, so mundane, and so eternal.

Copyright 2021 Don Ray.  Feel free to print and share.

Intention of Attention

 

INTENTION OF ATTENTION

Copyright 2021 Don Ray.  Feel free to print and share.

Glorious.  Critical angle sun spotlights the willows on the opposite side of the pond.  The ducks’ iridescent green heads shimmer in the low angle sun.  For these moments beauty of God’s Creation insistently interjects its reminders into the maelstrom of sorrow over the human condition.

There is this holy realm where all flows together, this realm in which life arises and individual consciousness flickers, then there is the human realm, lost in its machinations and contrivances, the serene flow shattered by individual conscious elements acting in ignorance and self-absorption.

The human elements of consciousness, buying because spending money is like a drug, buying for the sake of buying, buying anything bright and shiny and colorful, even if they already have three or four or five of that thing.  These human elements of potential (even if not yet realized) consciousness, lashing out in anger at any constructive input that might encourage change, no matter how lovingly the input is delivered.  These humans, blissfully unaware of each other, each making their plans with utter disregard for impact or consequences…..these dangerous, beautiful, infantile, precious children of God.

Patient, patient, the waiting of their Creator,

their Creator so denied and ignored.

Inevitable the self inflicted dooms and disasters,

inevitable and imminently avoidable.

Consciousness must wait for now,

for consciousness is a chosen thing,

an optional condition,

its consequences too inconvenient for most people’s tastes.

So the sunrise goes unnoticed,

the mindless purchasing continues,

the consequences compile,

until the next tragedy or disaster unfolds,

perhaps then a few,

a remnant,

turning, repenting,

accepting the gift of consciousness.

 

But there is no separating attention and intention.

Should one accept the gift of consciousness,

should one turn from mindlessness and embrace mindfulness,

should one choose to cultivate attention,

there is no escaping the responsibility of intention.

 

“Repent!” cries the Meschioch,

“Turn!”  “Turn from your path of blindness!”

Accept consciousness.

Allow yourself to give attention to the Greater Creation,

allow yourself awareness of the marvels and wonders that lie beyond your self focus,

and choose your intention to accompany your newfound attention.

Copyright 2021 Don Ray.  Feel free to print and share.

Portal of the Soul

 

 

PORTAL OF YOUR SOUL

 Copyright 2021 Don Ray.  Feel free to share

Oh ye lost children, so busy with your plans

So embittered,

So unknowingly lonely,

So damaged,

So willingly blind,

So desperately unconscious.

 

On a hair trigger you stay ready to lash out at any and all who might impede your goals.

With walls of bitterness you preclude understanding of each other.

With retribution you assault those who would teach,

your words eschew healing or compassion.

 

So your faces reflect your self-imposed exile,

Grim and determined,

Scowling and taut,

until social situation dictates donning the mask of a smile.

 

So unnecessary, so unnecessary,

almost all your suffering.

Such a small dose of compassion and tolerance would go so far.

 

You are too busy talking to listen to your own heart.

Such lessons it could teach!

Accept your loneliness, learn from it,

That you may pass through it.

 

Slaves one and all, enslaving each other,

society trapped in illusions and delusions.

Little wonder anger and bitterness permeate the moments of honesty,

when you can doff the smile,

when the daily charade can momentarily cease.

There, in the moments before exhausted non-sleep,

listen,  

listen to your heart,

listen to the distant music that would enter the world

through the portal of your soul.

 Copyright 2021 Don Ray.  Feel free to share.

Impossible Yearning

 

 

 

IMPOSSIBLE YEARNING

Copyright 2021 Don Ray

Feel free to share

Is the deep Unity and Communion to which the human spirit is called fundamentally not realizable on this earth? 

 We exist in our isolated shells of consciousness, our severely limited conscious experience chained to physical dictates and sensations.  From this constrained viewpoint we then make our clumsy and generally unrecognized stabs at interpersonal communion and unity, these stabs often as not dictated by sex drives or survival instincts, whether social or physical. The results are almost always breakups, separations, rejections, boredom, divorces, cold indifference, divorce, affairs, or murder.

We see the occasional saint or prophet or messiah who for a time enthralls the masses and sets loose a momentary trend of peace and love, but at the drop of a hat the resulting institutions and concomitant distortions lead to war or jihad or schisms or corruption.

The party breaks out in gunfire, the family sits in stony silence, the society collapses into vigilante  violence.

An evidence-based assessment of history and sociology would well conclude that our hearts are pulled toward a Unity that while it may appear to flicker for a moment in history and relationships and nations, it never quite ignites to attain a sustainable combustion.  

We would do well to be realistic about this, not expecting too much of the peace talks, the marriage, the date, or the new preacher. We would do well to accept the tease of warmth from the flickering embers of Communion, but not take them too seriously, and certainly not rely on them. 

But conversely we should not deny our longing for Unity and Communion, in whatever guise we may title it.  We should fully accept our need and the hunger and the emptiness.  We should pursue the sting of that driving hunger with laser like focus.   But we should look not to party or people or the public.  We should look to Source, the Source of the longing and the Source of fulfillment.  We should take time from the relationships and activities that provide only momentary tastes of Communion and Unity and immerse in the gift of Deep Communion and eternal Unity that promise to embrace and endure, Communion and Unity real and foundational, abiding when the prophet is charlatan, the friends are fickle, the spouse unfaithful.

Enduring Consciousness

 

ENDURING CONSCIOUSNESS

Prelude:  ‘Tasha curls up in my lap.  Perfect spring moment.  Bodhi sits at my feet.  ‘Tasha looks around, the turns of her head barely perceptible on my lap.  The morning sun quickly warms the back of my neck while a chickadee emits its mechanical sound.  Surely there are any number of more important things to do than savor this moment.  Surely there could be nothing more important to do than savoring this moment.  

The moment extends, eternity intrudes, and I am wrapped in an instant of timelessness, the relentless flow of time momentarily escaped, my soul bathing in a backwater temporal eddy.

There is an inarguable and profound fact we trenchantly deny.  All physical forms and existence disappear.  The only thing that has endured throughout our entire lives is our individual consciousness.  If we are to rely on anything, if we are to plan on anything, if we are to invest in anything, shouldn’t it be this one thing we know that actually endures?  

We invest in our homes and bodies and structures and careers, all the while watching them inexorably disappear. Even our intellect is destined to fade and fail, but even that does not release us from the continuity of consciousness. Our greatest fear is of death, and for the explicit reason that it seems to entail the end of the continuity of our consciousness.

Yet for the most part we invest nothing in our consciousness. We exercise the body that provides a localized sensory home for our consciousness, we build homes and jobs that shelter and feed the body that carries our conscious experience, but consciousness itself we do not exercise or build.

It is our personal conscious experience that will watch our homes and bodies fall and fail, yet even then we will often as not pay no heed to that enduring consciousness, letting it wander untethered and undernourished.

All the physical trappings of body and belongings are not us and are not enduring, yet our consciousness focuses on those vaporous forms.  Self-awareness, inner peace, chosen intention, these are the investments that directly benefit that single essence that is guaranteed to stay with you as long as you live.  Upon exploring and exercising the potential of consciousness you may discover that it is not even temporally bounded by the body and brain that are revealed to be merely a passing chrysalis form and rudimentary tool for interface in this transient physical world.

Just a Moment

 

JUST A MOMENT

Copyright 2021 Don Ray

Feel free to share

 

Warm sun on neck.  Cool air on face.

Trilling birds in trees.

This is no time for poetry,

no time for allegory or indirect insinuation.

This is too intensely real to be captured by imagery or analogy.

This is life for the living,

too beautiful to be described or represented.

 

“Be alive” call the birds,

“Be aware!” cries the wind,

“Don’t let this moment slip away like so many moments given to goals and objectives.”

 

Remember the intensity of childhood perceptions,

bright eyes noticing the roughness of the wood of the utility pole,

“mere” grass and leaves and breeze worthy of notice.

 

So soon gone the moments,

and not long afterwards the memories with them.

 

Mourn them not,

for they have to pass on to make room for this moment.

 

Penetrate this moment and discover it is the gateway to all moment's,

The grand pinnacle to which all the preceding moments in your life have led.

 

Nothing in your past is gone, 

it is simply here,

each moment past a building block upon which this moment stands.

 

All the tears and laughter culminate in this moment.

Don’t let them be for naught.

 

Currency of the Soul

 

CURRENCY OF THE SOUL

Copyright 2021 Don Ray

Feel free to share

 

Shadows race down the hill toward our lives,

making it all the more imperative to soak up the sunshine.

There will be ample time for labor and mourning.

Savor the breeze while you can.

Not one shared moment of love and affection will be regretted.

 

Waste not the moments in trivialities,

let not mere entertainment fill the precious time.

 

Let communion and meaning fill the days,

Labor aplenty will always be available.

 

Time given to prayer,

to relationship,

to love,

to God,

is never time wasted.

 

Time to projects and goals may pay disappointment or dividends,

and that investment is obligatory and inescapable.

 

But time given to compassion and connection with Wholeness,

that is investment that always returns riches and wealth.

 

Patience and faith are the currency of the soul.

Compassion and generosity are their investment vehicles.

Life itself in all its depth, breadth, and meaning

is the dividend.