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Mar 2015 · 596
Caterpillar Note
CharlesC Mar 2015
In the spring sun
a lone caterpillar struggles to move
in greening grasses and fall's leaves..
Tormentors arrive these ants
riding with desire and possibility
for their own timed sustenance..
Out of sight now..
Will the caterpillar transform
enduring these thwarting aims
and give someone a glimpse
of beauty in time to come..
Or...has beauty been witnessed
this struggle in a moment of
springtime warm...
Backyard note while sitting in
springtime sun...
Feb 2015 · 457
Pen and Sword
CharlesC Feb 2015
Manuel Garcia is our writer
assigned to a nocturnal ring..
His world saw external failing
but failed to perceive
a larger Self remained..
This Self saw a world in wholes
not in partialities of thought as
he his dangerous moments met..
His way was most direct
in wielding pen and sword..
Automatic instincts blanked
a weary brain's slow words..
He knew of his knowing
a chance was all he sought..
Others watched his slow demise
imploring but then a shrug..
They had failed to see
his wielding of inner beauty
his living pen and sword...
See Ernest Hemingway's,
"The Undefeated."
Feb 2015 · 460
Prodigal hunter
CharlesC Feb 2015
Venturing to that other land
they from a savage culture
which gloried killing the
noble eternal lion
and other stately beasts..
To that attraction they came
searching the land for that
which would grant a happiness
a happiness eluding them in
self-engaged lives..
Only one of the three
was to obtain the gift awaiting..
The gift of Fear.. genuine Fear
entering his self and penetrating
his wasting artificialities..
Authentic Fear
became the key
No..more than a key
a Fear transforming..
This his glimpse of
real happiness..
Grace unveiled...
"For the first time in his live
he really felt wholly without fear.
Instead of fear he had a feeling
of definite elation."

"Macomber felt a wild unreasonable
happiness that he had never known
before."

"Macomber's face was shining."

from Ernest Hemingway's
"The Short Happy Life of
Francis Macomber"
Feb 2015 · 385
in the Forest
CharlesC Feb 2015
A fair teacher
is a Tree..
All at once
appears my branching
splitting
bifurcating
seeming to claim
differentiating
with shadow
with pain..
Our separate selves
these branches mimic..
Yet our teacher
insists in haste
branches are coloring
my inner vibrating
look anew!
see me whole
and be my Joy...
Feb 2015 · 469
High mountain snow
CharlesC Feb 2015
At last
after piercing the darkness
a smile and that whiteness..
departing the hyena
the knowing death..
departing the quarrels
death wrapping words..
those writing beacons
shaded with death..
and brief happiness
rising from death..
At last
a smile and such
whiteness..
and the hyena's
welcoming cry...
Referring to Ernest Hemingway's
The Snows of Kilimanjaro
Jan 2015 · 291
Walking
CharlesC Jan 2015
One step then the next
being then becoming
how does one be
and arrive...?
Jan 2015 · 810
A common cold
CharlesC Jan 2015
A common cold seems as slithering
from person to person
coming to rest in a particular victim..
The mind races backward searching for
the hiding places from which this misery
sprang forth..
But we know, don't we, that our only reality
is NOW.. and so the purpose served
by the mind's searching for those faucet germs
that drafty room:
these identify this search
and all searching
as defenders of life's
separations and
what else?:
a common cold...
Jan 2015 · 334
Like
CharlesC Jan 2015
This word seems to permeate
those youthful conversations..
Implying without intending that
their present word picture
does not stand alone
but that other pictures
with similar countenance we
might find if troubled to see..
This fractal practice has
entered our discourse
through many serving
yet unconscious
young prophets...
Jan 2015 · 463
Overflow
CharlesC Jan 2015
Overflow

Thus the overflow from things
pours into you.
Just as a fountain's higher basins
spill down like strands of loosened hair
into the lowest vessel,
so streams the fullness into you,
when things and thoughts cannot contain it.
From the Book of Hours II, 10..Rainer Maria Rilke
Macy and Barrows, A Year With Rilke
Jan 2015 · 2.1k
Stimulation
CharlesC Jan 2015
With our searching
searching the world
for the new
new opportunities
new relationships
new meditations
new spiritual paths..
These bring rewards
temporary with
unhappiness and
new searching..
The wise have
counseled that
we are what
we are seeking..
So our searching
seems as simple
stimulation for
locating our Self...!
Jan 2015 · 1.1k
I Choose to Begin
CharlesC Jan 2015
I love all beginnings, despite their anxiousness and their uncertainty, which belong to every commencement. If I have earned a pleasure or a reward, or if I wish that something had not happened; if I doubt the worth of an experience and remain in my past--then I choose to begin at this very second.
     Begin what? I begin. I have already thus begun a thousand lives.

Rainer Maria Rilke  (Early Journals)
Happy New Year, everyone...!!!
Dec 2014 · 415
Christmas Eve
CharlesC Dec 2014
On this Eve
she is there
etching those many
dark lines outlining
what appears as
so many separations..
Those many names
inns without rooms
the frivolous and fancy
of passing generations..
Yet there is
the generous background
the light that shines
before the etchings
darken the light..
Except for glimpses
outside the inns...
Merry Christmas, All..!
Dec 2014 · 404
Space
CharlesC Dec 2014
As awareness grows of our very own innerspace
which we find embraces all of our perceptions and
we further understand that perceptions are all that
we know or can know of what appears out there
each of us then finds her true self as this space
which astonishingly creates the perceptions
of whatever it is that is out there...
Dec 2014 · 368
The Guide
CharlesC Dec 2014
We each encounter
our everyday guides
assisting our discovery of
our real Identity..
These temporary guides
provide brief assists
for an embracing
of her
our own inner Guide..
She who alone knows
who I Am and
the path I must take
and abandon...
Dec 2014 · 667
Non-locality
CharlesC Dec 2014
This is a condition
of our true Self
along with others
infinite and luminous
and simply Awareness...
Non-locality cannot
be known by the mind
so how do we approach
and experience this
placeless place..
The words immediate
or simultaneous
or quantum leap
may be hints
to help us recognize
a simple pull.
CharlesC Nov 2014
He Is Just So Weird she said
young women after greetings exchanged
this comment not intended for my hearing..
A voiced contribution to world conversations
taking place in that moment..
A voice it seems from a separate self
reaching for common experience
on a level where difference reigns..
Then another encounter
he said Who Cares? his response to
an inaccurate greeting of Good Morning
as our watches recorded PM..
Thus chronos time took a rap
in a culture where chronos reigns..
We might wonder at the messages of
many other conversations occurring Now
on Thanksgiving paths...

Happy Thanksgiving to all...!
Nov 2014 · 845
Adam awakens
CharlesC Nov 2014
Adam
is each of us our name
naming in androgynous sense..
Each filling holographically
our multi dimensions..
body mind and universe
assemble in our Now
coloring awakening Adam
who is realizing at last
an eternal identity
new Awareness of who
am I...
CharlesC Nov 2014
The leaves have fallen leaving dark lines
reaching skyward in praise of a new season..
These dark thin lines leave room for the passage
of light lifting the veiling of summer leaves..
We see more directly that the light beyond
penetrates and surrounds us here..
Our infinite essence breaks through..
is remembered...
Nov 2014 · 744
The Obelisk
CharlesC Nov 2014
What is the secret
of this obelisk
we are to uncover..?
That:
The French historian
The hieroglyphs
The Rosetta Stone
The ancient civilization
The Philae lander
The Rosetta orbiter
The shadow
The Solar System
and
the comets
All of these
are simply made
of the SUN..?!
Philae is the island in the river Nile on which an obelisk was found that had a bilingual inscription including the names of Cleopatra and Ptolemy in Egyptian hieroglyphs. This provided the French historian Jean-François Champollion with the final clues that enabled him to decipher the hieroglyphs of the Rosetta Stone and unlock the secrets of the civilisation of ancient Egypt. Just as the Philae Obelisk and the Rosetta Stone provided the keys to an ancient civilisation, the Philae lander and the Rosetta orbiter aim to unlock the mysteries of the oldest building blocks of our Solar System - comets.
CharlesC Nov 2014
Do not go gentle into that good night
Dylan Thomas, 1914 - 1953
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Used in many movies as a theme...most recently in the new
"Interstellar" movie...Any interpretation..?
Nov 2014 · 349
November light
CharlesC Nov 2014
The leaves have lost their color
yet they shine in occasional
November light..
We see much in which
former color seems departed
yet all is made of inner light..
November is the time
we learn to see...
Nov 2014 · 726
The old board fence
CharlesC Nov 2014
Steady it seems
through many seasons
discolored orderly straight..
anchored in earth
an endurance recorded
in our memories..
But now considering
what we remember
as a veiling of a fence
real and shining
and by forgetting
our fence prepares for
winter wind and cold...
Nov 2014 · 303
Saturday waiting
CharlesC Nov 2014
Remembering
a quiet porch with
table and chairs
empty and waiting..
These a frequent witness
of conversations
children's excitement
dog and cats..
But now emptiness
a filling quiet
not waiting Now
quiet only knowing
the joy of knowing
itself...
Oct 2014 · 366
A yellow leaf
CharlesC Oct 2014
remains attached
through autumn winds
which fell others..
a high perch
overlooking Halloween..
Will I watch
on the frightful night
from my high vantage..?
or a sudden drop
to lawn or gutter
a carpet then for
young tramping feet..?
These fearful questions
we all ask
until remembering
what we truly Are...
Oct 2014 · 988
Raindrops
CharlesC Oct 2014
The rainy day ended and a walk revealed
many lone raindrops on leaves and branches..
Water had been reconfigured from its flow
its pooling and singular constitution..
Now we saw individual drops as prisms
each its own reflection and color of light..
Such we are with our makeup of water
each of us a prism and
each of us Water...
Oct 2014 · 330
The Cave
CharlesC Oct 2014
Who are those
sequestered and quiet
choosing dancing shadows..?
Who are those
alive at intersections
pressing their interests
with laughter and tears..?
Who are those
hearing the cries
serving the hungry
with engaging grit..?
These hardy questions..
Now a pause..
Do these pale
next to this question
asked of all these:
Are you Aware...?
Oct 2014 · 454
An October walk
CharlesC Oct 2014
It seemed November with cold mist
exchanging places with clarity..
After heavy rains filling the rushing
spraying rapids of the mud drenched creek..
This running path and meeting of runners with
isolating earplugs but with smiles appreciating
damp outdoor exercise of this late day..
The path revealed rock walls which were
serpentine in slanted perspective
with graded light in enclosing forms..
A college soccer game in the chill
warmed only by the bright lights of
the scoreboard..
These October etchings splashed upon
a presence most intimate with these
fleeting impressions...
Photos at polarityinplay.blogspot.com...  :)
Oct 2014 · 335
Bidding time to be still
CharlesC Oct 2014
the energy of doing
with care in detail
memory recalls failures
and come predictions of
future dark outcomes
in all of this
time seems as taskmaster
calling the shots..
at last arrives in-sight:
separation now rules
so let us return
to presence and rest
bidding time to
be still...
Oct 2014 · 529
An inkling in Time
CharlesC Oct 2014
Center of all our experience..this we know..but
looms a question..when time appears in its solitude..
lone standing..independence declared..it also echoes of
separation..suffering..of a brevity with loneliness tinged..
and hope departing..we ask and wait for something
unknown..clocks persist ticking on and on..gloom directs
sitting on a storied park bench..then lo an inkling..time is
not found in this experience while sitting..mind rebels
at this most outrageous inkling and shouts fraud..but
the inkling is a message with eternal dressing..and
a primordial center our experience Now claims...
Oct 2014 · 749
Rainy day
CharlesC Oct 2014
observing
of raindrops falling
in a gathering puddle
this rainy day..
variation and intensity
the drops disturbed
but the surface
seemed to claim
a oneness with each
of the falling drops..
then a hesitation
a placid return
a brief sun
claimed its oneness
with many other
falling variations...
Sep 2014 · 461
Fluctuation
CharlesC Sep 2014
as autumn dawns
her Friend in
simultaneous departure
and these words
arise from white
naming cooler sun
shrinking days and
shimmering leaves to
accompany her Friend
in one fluctuation
of season's end
and beginning...**

a blue heron's departure...
a bit of revision...
Sep 2014 · 299
September light
CharlesC Sep 2014
cooler autumn sunlight
shines through the colors
of summer leaves
with endings in sight..
endings which wrap
and proclaim definition
to bright sun's
diffusing rays...
Sep 2014 · 1.1k
The Red Boat
CharlesC Sep 2014
Our morning inquiry
asks when are we
finally to see that
we are waves in
an ocean of waves..
until this inquiry
we seem to reside
in our red boat
as red separates
from deep blue..
is it today
or does our boat
need a fresh coat
morning brushstrokes
red glossy re-new..
awaiting then
another morning's
inquiry and invite...
Sep 2014 · 583
We are walked
CharlesC Sep 2014
reaching the trailhead
a decision made
seemed sudden
not timebound..
little sunlight remained
but something energized
a decision to
enter the trail
to reach the end
before darknight fell..
the original plan
was otherwise
rendering this decision
as a surprise..
does Awakening work
in this simple way:
enough of planning
charting and maps
no more procedures
and books to follow..
the Now decides
and we are walked...
a Sunday evening walk...
Sep 2014 · 359
Evolution
CharlesC Sep 2014
when I saw
in a photo
of a dog
named Amber
a look both
forlorn and
penetrating
I set aside
my reading
to consider:
what is new
about this dog..?
is there more
here than I
saw in my
boyhood dog
Joe..?
or was Joe
a partner of
my self
in separation
preparing for
days of conflict
and growth..?
Joe ran and
chased and
our laughter rose..
now in silence
pause and notice
Amber's gaze
reaches back
stirring memories
and two dogs
perhaps just one
now mirrors my
own evolution...
Sep 2014 · 556
Chihuly's slant
CharlesC Sep 2014
his glassworks
of enflaming color
do not display as
central balance..
vertical symmetry
reserved for more
sturdy times..
we might ask
is truth best told
as slant
Emily so in-formed..
the creation we muse
is always slant
slant color shading light..
for without color
beauty fades...
Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
Emily Dickinson
CharlesC Sep 2014
Let yourself not be misled by the notes
that fall to you from the generous wind.

Wait watchfully. Hands that are eternal
may come to play upon your strings.**

Early Journals
Sep 2014 · 495
Not Two
CharlesC Sep 2014
we have always
searched and found
Two..
but in our age
Advaita is rising..
rising with questions
what where and when
attempts to locate
that illusive "I"..
the mind explores
in familiar haunts
but energy flags..
this good news:
the search failed
not finding
is finding..
and the prize
Not Two...
Advaita means not two....spirituality from India..Bala are you there..?
Sep 2014 · 590
Laniakea
CharlesC Sep 2014
this hawaiian dream
of a feathery supercluster
connecting strands of light..
one feather for now
but is this one
of one bird
in one flock..
our minds wander
and weaken
no answer there
Who am I...?
Until now, the Milky Way was believed to be one galaxy in the 2,000 that make up what's known as the Virgo "supercluster." But as the new map shows, the Milky Way's 100 billion stars are actually part of something 100 times bigger: a supercluster of galaxies astronomers have christened Laniakea, meaning "immense heavens" in the Hawaiian language. (image on Google..!)
Sep 2014 · 465
The clenched fist
CharlesC Sep 2014
teaches
that we and our world
are contracted and clenched..
as we notice this clenching
our suspicions rise and we ask
is this why we are lonely
could there be more..if only..
so a search begins and
we find with chagrin
only more fists and this:
our search also is fist
this discovery of import
ends our search in a flash:
Relax now into that which
has never not been...
Sep 2014 · 487
Just to sit...Jeff Foster
CharlesC Sep 2014
"Just to sit, without expectation, with someone who is in pain or grief or fear, without trying to fix them in any way, or manipulate their experience to match your idea of how they should be; just to listen, without trying to make things better in the moment, without playing the role of 'expert' or 'enlightened guru' or 'the one who knows best'; just to be totally available to the one in front of you... this is the essence of true healing..." - Jeff Foster
Sep 2014 · 398
Language of Awareness
CharlesC Sep 2014
There is a directness
in our experience of awareness
after the mind surrenders..
Simply a knowing which
shuts out all of the eithers and ors
a language of silence..
A language which requires
no subject and object
yet it includes all of these..
A unified field it is
which spends our days
awaiting our humble
flash of recognition...
Aug 2014 · 600
Concessions
CharlesC Aug 2014
Our daily concessions
to those illusionary
separate selves:
lifetimes of weekdays
in working worlds
these convince us
that we know all
there is to know..
But for those hints
which simply arrive
midst all the toil:
we cry out
now I Know...
Aug 2014 · 468
Sunflower talk
CharlesC Aug 2014
I heard her say:
see the dark thicket
directly behind
there my symmetry
lies truly hidden..
but my advice
with favor you hear
as you encounter
my life today:
that thicket you see
do not dismay
it has a message
of more import
than I can say...
Aug 2014 · 479
shrink and blossom
CharlesC Aug 2014
a visit to starbucks
and I tore this cupband message
claimed by oprah winfrey:

"You are here not to shrink down
to less, but to blossom into more of who
you really are."

this sunday pm gift
embeds the question
the perennial question:
who am I..?
perhaps also asking:
what am I..?

could life be so simple
as engaging the mind
tangling with these
most simple queries..
and finally surrendering
allowing at last
an Awareness to
blossom and proclaim:
this am I...
Aug 2014 · 2.7k
The Pear
CharlesC Aug 2014
a pear it was
hanging alone ripened
awaiting a fall..
her experience then
many years remembered
a radiant shape
a pear and not
with an afterglow..
now the memory
one simple viewing
intercedes with a
Knowing hers alone
within which her
life finds flow
compassion lives...
Aug 2014 · 552
Watching
CharlesC Aug 2014
we watch a stream
encountering its banks
or the progress of
mowing of grass..
and feel the interacting
one side and its other
the stream with the bank
the bank with the stream
mowing and grass
separations joining
until watching tires
bows and dissolves
to Awareness
which Knows only
itself...
Aug 2014 · 578
the cat and I
CharlesC Aug 2014
the cat in the sun
warmth with ease
interrupted by a
swallowtail soaring
circling
the cat stirs
from her quiet
something ancient calls
and in a close circle
a leap to join
merge with the path
but alas for the cat
an impossible wish
and now
just the sun
and rest
but now a bird
on the feeder..
all these distractions
from the sun
our distractions
the cat and I...
Jul 2014 · 514
morning rain
CharlesC Jul 2014
rain falling this morning..
walking away in the rain
a hemingway ending..
the rain encloses walking
seeming quiet resignation..
love found but now lost
the mind stretches
finding elementary comfort
in sheets of dark wetness
the rain..
yet is the rain hiding
the closeness of Love..
and is the mind sensing
but not understanding
this closeness in rain...
(ending referred-
Farewell to Arms)
Jul 2014 · 1.1k
The Grammar Secret
CharlesC Jul 2014
those parts of speech
learned very early
taken for granted
now might serve
to trigger an entry
to Happiness
to Beauty
to Awareness..
subject and object
are the benchmarks
of the dualistic world
and with dissolution
we become Aware..
the object's existence
is our senses
a simple stimulation
and nothing more..
with externals dissolved
we then find
the subject has
no object and so
makes an exit
leaving only That
which we are...
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