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CharlesC Jul 2016
He speaks of
ending of outrageous life
but he fears the dream
the undiscovered country
the dream as his rub..
Living in a sleep of death
that is our rub
which some discover of late
is our fearful dream..
So in respect of dear Hamlet
we long for waking
for new awareness
of real life awaiting..
Soft you now, fair Ophelia
hear our voice...
HAMLET: To be, or not to be--that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep--
No more--and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep--
To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprise of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action. -- Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia! -- Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.
Jul 2016 · 285
Extrication
CharlesC Jul 2016
How do we extricate ourselves
from the complexity
the multiplicity and diversity
that insists as reality..
Extricate we must
if we are to discover
a real Self supplanting
our illusive separation
relieving the searching
for the missing joy..
Searching and suffering
seem  as our paths
until a vital discovery:
we are the joy for which
we search..
We are extricated..!
Jul 2016 · 206
THERE
CharlesC Jul 2016
As dawn arrives and sleep departs
THERE in the new day arises
as the Here of sleep seems to dissolve..
The real world we knew yesterday
THERE it is once more..
Thus the default pattern of our days
asserts its unquestioned truth..
What is THERE to prompt a question
on whether the question is settled..?
Perhaps it is that ancient trickster death..
Death in innumerable disguises
in this moment or the next..
Death seen as coming and going
a temporary coloring of something..
Hence the question of that something..
Something we seem to have always known
but apparently forgotten in all those days
of locating ourselves in that insistent
THERE...
Jul 2016 · 332
Affinity
CharlesC Jul 2016
Let us find short stories in verse
with words lifting
conflict inside Wholeness..
Such verses are teachers in print
whose words dissolve in our reading..
Opposing poles of experience
challenge and exhaust
the mind's desperate
wish to explain..
At last in surrender
we find affinity  
with the new Light
now revealed...
Jul 2016 · 378
Independence brings freedom
CharlesC Jul 2016
In this political season
with harsh volleys filling our screens..
Independence allows the screen's perspective..
As the movie characters castigate and exaggerate
the independent screen..our real Identity
experiences itself..and those rapidly
exiting colorations...
Jun 2016 · 197
Forest and trees
CharlesC Jun 2016
A religion reflection..
Immersed as we are in
brambles and thickness
knowing well the trees of
cliched forest and trees..
Each tree quite alone..
But for this moment
let the cliche speak:
Please find a clearing
experience a Self removed
from clustered beliefs
about separate trees..
Make your Discovery
then return
to the trees..
Find them shining
as real Trees...
Jun 2016 · 308
The Seer
CharlesC Jun 2016
The high import of
finding ourselves unmixed
with darker things
things which seem to divert
notions of luminous I am..
Let us then become Seer
seeing all else as seen..
We have created two poles of
enormous yet temporary worth..
I am the Seer
with new freedom as felt
and I must linger a while
without remembering
all I have left behind..
I will rest here this evening
this lighted waystation
safe from memory's recall...
Jun 2016 · 238
What is it..?
CharlesC Jun 2016
That in which appearances appear
in which every-thing appears
as an appearance..
Trying here to shake the objectivity
which seems impossible
short of Silence..
But our everyday intuition
tells us that there is __
in which we experience every-thing..
And this
__ we find
to be permanent
not that which comes and goes..
Our language constricts and hides
that for which we are searching..
Ending the search
reveals our
__
our unnamed Identity...
Jun 2016 · 283
A twig of love
CharlesC Jun 2016
"If God is God, God isn't good.
If God is good, God isn't God."

**These words ring out
as life's challenge
to a Different experience..
Our settled beliefs
from innocent years
'tho threatened
by struggle and loss
still may shout
of independence
with attachments intact..
Yet the occasional
fright and unease
of a missing something
begins our search..
From going to and fro
in the earth
from walking up and
down on it
to at last discover
our beliefs can burn
in a tired ash heap..
A twig of love
from the ruin springs
and we recognize:
That which we
always have been...
prompted by the play, J. B. by Archibald MacLeish...
Jun 2016 · 3.0k
I am John Proctor!
CharlesC Jun 2016
ELIZABETH:  John, it come to naught that I
should forgive you, if you'll not forgive yourself.

We struggle as did John
to find an identity
that is not shrouded:
a most persistent persuasion
of our separation..


ELIZABETH:  There be no higher judge under
Heaven than Proctor is!  Forgive me, forgive me
John--I never knew such goodness in the world!

PROCTOR:  God in Heaven, what is John Proctor,
what is John Proctor?

Our self inquiry comes:
Who am I..?
What am I..?
I am..?


PROCTOR:  You will not use me!
I am John Proctor!
You have made your magic now,
for now I do think I see some shred
of goodness in John Proctor.

**His discovery appeared
on his horizon
as does our own:
Freedom!
Identity!
Peace!
I am...
see Arthur Miller's "The Crucible."
Jun 2016 · 257
Mistakes
CharlesC Jun 2016
These are anathema in our splitting culture
A sign simply of failure and the ego's wound..
Following comes a stressful resolution
to avoid in the future these pained indignities..
Yet it seems there are winds of change
arriving daily and flagging mistakes as gifts..
A mistake may point to the path underfoot
as not your path..and more of value:
your real destination is not on this path
or any path..you have Arrived...
Jun 2016 · 329
Simulation...are we?
CharlesC Jun 2016
Perhaps science is nearing
the truth that we are..
Saying without naming
that Consciousness came first..
Within and as Consciousness
everything arises and becomes
a Simulation..a seeming Other...
And this Other
made of  Consciousness
may choose to simulate its Other..
This simple understanding
burns the confusion binding us all
through eons of time...
"There's a billion to one chance we're living in base reality," Elon Musk said tonight on stage at Recode's Code Conference, meaning that one of the most influential and powerful figures in tech thinks that it's overwhelmingly likely we're just characters living inside a simulation.
Jun 2016 · 206
Stained glass
CharlesC Jun 2016
What is so appealing..?
It seems this glass
covers it All
the landscape entire..
Those artificial boundaries
are superimposed thought
with the message:
nothing left out
nothing unimportant..
Boundaries seem to fade
announcing their departure
and separation's
myth...
my blog with photos:  polarityinplay.blogspot.com
CharlesC Jun 2016
Her question to which I answered
no, not yet..
Late spring rains with waterpower
forming as hail to cut and slash
then to surround and seep
scaling trickles to rivers
uprooting and re-routing
with fractal consequences..
The smooth wholeness of water
iterating with breakage and re-forming..
Creation's waterway...
walking prompt...
May 2016 · 841
Enthusiasm
CharlesC May 2016
Sometimes we are told
enthusiasm the ego fires..
but in examining more carefully
one such enthusiasm
we might find its make-up
as a temporary oasis
in the luminous field
to which it seems
to point..
Yet indeed misuses seem thriving:
ego's opportunities do unfold..
But for now
the pointing just mentioned
seems so much more
appealing...!
May 2016 · 345
Something to be done
CharlesC May 2016
The first step seems to be
escaping from the exile
which something seems to be..
The exile is the feeling
that an impossible task looms and
I have been chosen so wrongly..
The exile remains until
some recognition of freedom
says that the exile is in me
and not me in the exile..
It seems we must allow the exile
whatever it is
and the thought that upholds
to simply be
and eventually melt
into a sea of freedom...
May 2016 · 350
the black squirrel
CharlesC May 2016
pranced and climbed..
and those gravely stones
bounding the yard..
oil drops on the pavement
spread and shaped
a reminder of how
fossils transport
and pollute..
all of these
perception and memory
are of consciousness made
with such wild and varied
colorations..
please add your own
from this your moment
to include
a poem entitled
the black squirrel...
meditation while walking...
May 2016 · 330
Beginning in Silence
CharlesC May 2016
Observing everything unfold
the world's colors and forms
the body's hidden sensations
all shining in the Silence
of beginning..
The cloud kangaroo
leaping and disappearing..
The chirping welcome of spring..
Memories and thoughts
arriving and departing..
All beginning and ending
in the Silence
which we are...**

(a walking meditation)
May 2016 · 313
I am a Turner
CharlesC May 2016
This is the name
he proudly savored..
Coaxing new pattern from
places hidden in wood..
His singing lathe
persuading the grain
to reveal what
has never been seen..
If the forest might speak
it would say of
this good man:
by  his gentle turning
he has transfigured
our branches and scraps
into beauty and love...
Remembering a friend, Steve DeJong...
May 2016 · 191
In the moment
CharlesC May 2016
It seems there is this
about the X generation
with their GPS devices
interested in closeness
only in whether
to interrupt the straight road
with a new move
left or to the right..
Their focus seems to be
on the territory not the map
realizing the map
is not the territory..
Evolving awareness this
may be..
Perhaps all of us
have reached this point
on our maps
and it is time to taste
an unknown territory...!
reflection after a visit by my grandson and friends...
May 2016 · 222
Speak as your real "I"
CharlesC May 2016
Speak as your real "I"
**Who are we really
each of us..
most seem to answer
with answers which name
or automatically point to
some immediacy of
each body and mind..
hopefully a teacher
within or without
on each path
reveals the falsity
of such confinement..!
a receipt of this
astonishing news:
you are not
after being convinced
for these decades
the I of your
cold assumptions..
and moreover henceforth
you can speak
without leaning on
the I of your discomfort
but now with
sweet freedom as
your real I...
May 2016 · 506
Short burst of weather
CharlesC May 2016
A quick storm it was
followed by these
inadequate words..
Thunder and bits of hail
splashes on roof and roadway..
Then soon enough
birds chirping celebrated
a welcome sunlight return..
Remembering the cast shadows
temporary covering of light
an appearance of separation..
Perhaps the birds recognized:
there was no absence
only this short
burst of sunlight...
CharlesC May 2016
Why not see

awareness as expanding and constricting

of our common consciousness..

We then hasten to see that most folks

live lives of constriction

believing their consciousness

is strictly their own..

Constriction has its importance

in a most persistent solid world

finding common sense in gripping

those life and death demands..

Meanwhile if we are so bold

making here a concession to time:

Awareness waits patiently

poised as the space between these words

for our joyful discovery

of an expanded version of myself

and my knowing henceforth

that that is what I Am...
May 2016 · 250
the little story
CharlesC May 2016
listen to the small self stories
in almost all conversations
especially in our culture of separation..
not knowing who we are really
in this moment
the only moment we can know really..
in the little story
past happenings and future imaginings
these delusions of time
are allowed to tell us
who we are
as suffering accumulates unchecked..
a waking revolution
may be in the offing
as we listen to the
chatter of birds
on this May morning...
May 2016 · 422
Quantum words
CharlesC May 2016
These flow
in the moment
rising in Consciousness
of Consciousness made
explosive freedom..
We must capture
quickly
pen in pocket
before they flee...
Apr 2016 · 229
Late Spring Snow
CharlesC Apr 2016
This stranger arrives
introducing May
perception with thought
coloring presence
green and white..

May-be
perhaps May
seen in green
protruding through the
covering white snow..
A green precursor
a guide to
a persistent spring..

Snow as Silence
lightly landing
white
diffusing color and form
awaiting explosion
in May
two days away...
Apr 2016 · 320
Dimensions
CharlesC Apr 2016
The rectangular screen
I see on my iPhone
is the screen upon which
multitudes of images appear
two dimensions on display
pretending as three..
Three dimensions
assumed for decades
as reality out there
perceived from within..
But now in our time
dimensions diminish
and we discover
our true Nature
abides in joy
when we recognize
dimensionless I am..!
Apr 2016 · 338
Let it flow
CharlesC Apr 2016
Going with the flow
is the advice offered
but do we really
identify with this stream..?
Or find more fulfilling
to let it flow
within my stillness
experiencing the freedom
of the  flow
the river never the same
coming and going
flowing in what
I am...
Apr 2016 · 463
A lifestory
CharlesC Apr 2016
I am the body
I am the mind
this is youth's discovery
an ego identification:
I am unique and separate
expressed with enthusiasm..
For most this seems
as a lifetime identity..
But for some
and potentially for all
a shock of falseness
breaks into youth's dream:
I am not the body
not the mind
I am transparent
as Awareness..
This is new birth
waking to reality
as it is here and now
and always has been..
Now as Awareness
I pervade all
I am..is All...
Apr 2016 · 239
We Observe
CharlesC Apr 2016
Creating as we observe
giving our attention
to the world as it is clothed in
such multiplicity..
Our perceiving seems passive
but we are taught that
perceiving precedes perception
and perceiving simply names
consciousness..
Still we hesitate
after decades of seeing
in our conventional way:
the world out there is separate
from myself in my body..
Yet the new Understanding
may mean we are reaching
the final frontier of discovery:
We are creators
observation is creation..
Are we soon to experience
a wondrous truth...?
We are not only observers. We are participators. In some strange sense this is aparticipatory universe.  
~~John Archibald Wheeler, Physicist
Apr 2016 · 430
Listening to the notes
CharlesC Apr 2016
as they come into Silence
I keep a soft focus
on the notes..
For now I am not the notes
I am the Silence
as the notes appear
in sequence and multiplicity
in the Silence..
Silence has taken a brief form
soon to melt
leaving only Silence...
Mar 2016 · 254
The White Robe
CharlesC Mar 2016
In our separation
in what appears as real life
we see colors and many things..
Our birth and our customs
brought this shading of what is..
Now a sentinel in white
silent and welcoming yet
frightening on this morning
of unexpected encounter..
A sudden removal
of our veiled confusion
all now is seamless
but we cannot stay..
Returning outside
running in joyful alarm
we now know who
I am...**

Mark 16:5  And entering the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in a long white robe sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed.
Mar 2016 · 702
Equality
CharlesC Mar 2016
It is so easy it seems
to look in wrong places
for an understanding of this
most illusive word..
Multiplicity and diversity
seem to demand that we comply
with their evident variety..
Enter our laws prescribing
orderly equality with
success most limited..
Moralities are defined
as good here and not there..
Religions find inequalities
in their prisons of belief..
So...we are waiting it seems
for Equality to speak
with a luminous presence
out of which flows
illuminated diversity
bringing Peace at last
to confused searching
in wrong places...
Mar 2016 · 175
It seems
CharlesC Mar 2016
Two powerful words
fitting our reality
of an apparent
self and world..
Two words reminding
of what is truer:
Consciousness
Awareness
Self..
Out of These
is made that
which seems...
Mar 2016 · 353
Hope in Suffering
CharlesC Mar 2016
How to address this biblical bit
which has meant the future
enduring and waiting
hope against hope
repeating the reading..
But no..
We need experiencing
what is not thought
recognizing I am
that eternal Self
experienced only Now..
But then the amazement:
experiencing the suffering
as hiding the wake-up
prompting and pushing
at last perceiving
suffering is made
of Self..
Hope now finds itself
as Remembering...!
Feb 2016 · 1.1k
The Cluster
CharlesC Feb 2016
It is a cluster
those thoughts
feelings and perceptions
which seem to define
the individual I
my separate self..
After our birth
the mind steps forth
applying ****** form
to the cluster..
A cluster in separation
comes with the
unease and longing
which we all suffer..
Prompting a search
as two-edged sword:
the search reaches
for objects
and is unsatisfied
again and again..
Until in futility
a morning dawns
with the knowing
I am already
more than the cluster
and amazingly
the cluster is
made of That
which I am...
Feb 2016 · 470
A jailhouse disguised
CharlesC Feb 2016
We all seek freedom
freedom as happiness
and as we search
our chains are unnoticed..
It is perception
which fosters belief
in a separate self
a jailhouse disguised..
Forgiveness is new sight
at long last
we see the lock and bars
as only belief
fogging the truth
of freedom
overlooked until now...!
CharlesC Jan 2016
When unease arrives in normal places
why not erase seeming past things
realizing these have somehow
become other separate..exhausting..
and now with cleansing relaxing
with homebound light
allow entry of new things
or even welcoming anew the old things
to experience the new shining
of things once more...
Jan 2016 · 558
With eyes wide open
CharlesC Jan 2016
Pray she insists
with eyes wide open
open to perceive
the world as it seems..
The suffering and joy
out there
reflecting what we are
within.. an apparent
separate self in
resplendent display
cannot hide and with
compassion and grace
transforms in a moment
self becomes Self...
Jan 2016 · 277
Left and Right colors
CharlesC Jan 2016
Science tries to find the facts of perception
in the lenses and processing of each eye..
Our materialist research and findings
are satisfying to some..but
what of our experience of perceptions
within and actually made of
Consciousness..?
Colors become vibrations
within and made of..
Vibrations..temporary and changing
coming and going
each very different
in its rising
within
and
as...
prompt at:  polarityinplay.blogspot.com     :)
Jan 2016 · 186
Knowing the 5
CharlesC Jan 2016
Let's now confront the question
what do we know..really?
Do we know anything more
than experiences of sensing
as our 5 senses sense..?
We know the seeing
hearing
tasting
touching
smelling
and seem not to know
that which is sensed..
Are there things out there
objects of sensing
maybe so..maybe no
can we know these..really?
Such musings
radical but simple
point to our Awareness
which we are..really...!
Jan 2016 · 424
Dystopia
CharlesC Jan 2016
This word we find is pointing to a reality
quite unpleasant
applied to many stories in books and film
with imagination darkened..
Such alternate worlds are so portrayed as a
reality alien
but may we not say it is a reality all our own
right here and right now
a reality born of the widespread belief in
a separate self..
Jan 2016 · 255
GOOGLE is on your side
CharlesC Jan 2016
If you are on one side
Google is there..
On the other
Google aligns with you..
Our information explosion
in quantum speed
provides one-sided power
new to our time..
Arises the temptation
to claim truth
on this side for now
until Google of a sudden
joins the other side..
Duality seems strengthened
until we contemplate
the futility of separation
on this our
most painful level...
Jan 2016 · 422
Lightness of Being
CharlesC Jan 2016
is what we long to experience..
Lightness a suggestion of relief
from our weighty culture
where struggle's contractions
seem to fill our days..
Lightness of course
refers to what is heavy
but also points to the Light
in its name and to
Being which we know
as our true Self...
Jan 2016 · 376
Multiverses
CharlesC Jan 2016
In the science of our time
there is a reported flagging of expectation
for new cosmology discovery..
With science's point of view
not altered since the Greeks
a continuing immersion in
objectivity and assertions verified..
Despite powerful instruments  seeing
the birth of inflation in the big bang
a suggestion of multiple worlds
this explosion of diversity
also suggests futility in discovery
of newfound truth..
So..
we may  be waiting for science
to redirect its gaze with new purpose
of finding that which is observing
the vastness which centuries have seen..
Turning around to discover
a background awareness experienced
at last as real Seeing...!
background at polarityinplay.blogspot.com
Jan 2016 · 548
Problem solving
CharlesC Jan 2016
No problem can be solved from the same
level of consciousness that created it.
~~Albert Einstein*

Perhaps this ranks with his
revolutionary relativity..
Pointing to the futility
of dualistic searching
in all times
especially ours
as confrontation
and violence
paint our lives..
Transcending to the
level he mentions
is to discover
new being
with separation
slinking away from
a lighted fire...
Dec 2015 · 239
Time
CharlesC Dec 2015
On this
the year's ending day
our news is filled
documenting highlights:
another year approaching
its end..

Then from a friend
comes the photo above
and a question that leaps:
whether this image is
sunbreak or sunset..
Perhaps
we should demand
at least for a while
to know only that
this miraculous photo
images..yes.. both..!

Now returning to
what's in the news
portraying each year
the sharp knife
of time
splitting and separating
in seeming truth..
Yet knowing now that
this timely photo
points to our longing
to something we seek...!**

Thanks, Elaine..
image at polarityinplaylblogspot.com

Happy New Year to all my HP friends..!!
Dec 2015 · 509
Abidance
CharlesC Dec 2015
is our home place..
we need to know
this place is
not a place
it is the still
before and during
and after the storm..
the storm then stands
but does not know
its winds and furies
are really made of
our Abidance in
the still...

Happy New Year...!!
Dec 2015 · 602
2016 Big Metaphors
CharlesC Dec 2015
What might we see
in the background
with the big stories
as foreground
in this
the dawning new year..

Social media connecting us all
viral and instantaneous
a quantum heading..

Virtual Reality teaches
how reality is sourced
in consciousness..
like dreaming and waking..

The Cloud is consciousness
with discovery that the smart home
is made of the Cloud..

Autonomous driving
soothing for congestion and stress
Autonomy names Awareness
and driving derives..!

Cars polarity powered
cleaning the choking
plugging in and wiping clean..

A day of reckoning of greed
recognizing the separate self
egos are fading..

Smartphones a temporary
interconnection finds
way station en-route to
our Real Self..

A new billion
entering the conversation
waking to commonality
of our shared Self..

Artificial intelligence
tools of the mind
rising within and as
Consciousness
I am...
For WIRED magazine article prompting
this writing, see:  polarityinplay.blogspot.com
Dec 2015 · 703
Afterglow
CharlesC Dec 2015
A day's December sun
creates a distant glow
a reminder of summer days
with prairie stalks reaching
and grasses spreading below
in feminine earthy warmth..
The gift of sunlight
expresses our awareness
being and knowing itself..
This vignette of life
unveiled in memory
now veiled but glimmering
an eternal reminder
this afterglow
on a December day...
image at polarityinplay.blogspot.com  ..
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