Once you've filled your car with what you think is most vital, in the real possibility of a forced evacuation from your home because of the fires, you get to sit and look at and think about all the things you might not have any longer, and what you can't save. It's all just stuff and can't hold a candle to your life. But it's sobering just the same.

Life is an accumulation of events, relationships, people and places, but it is all memorialized by stuff.

As you look around, you see things you would be hard pressed to replace, things that would be impossible to duplicate, and you become aware there is a myriad of things you don't even remember or know would now be lost to you.

When they come pounding on the door, telling you it's time to go, you realize the un-importance, the futility, the minuscule value of all your stuff. You come face to face with all you have infused with meaning.

It has been said, there is no meaning in reality; only what we bring to it. Your life possibly being threatened, brings that into clear, unobstructed view.

What's clear, what's real, what's meaningful, is what's always been real and meaningful. Only this moment.

Ah.......This!

There are a lot of people asking other people, these days, what they believe. Do you believe in climate change, the death penalty, God, war, abortion, lying? As if beliefs matter. They don’t. The world is made and functions under laws—-or the word no one wants to hear anymore—-rules. The laws are, for the most part, fixed, immutable and consistent. Your mind is rapidly scanning through all the known data to disprove what I just said. We don’t like black and white, true or false subjects with no wiggle room. Take it up with gravity. If you step off your roof, you are only headed in one direction.

The rules of man may appear to provide that wiggle room humans seem so fond of, and yet, they are rules in the first place because they are vital to a life well lived. And while the transgression of many of them may not have the immediate finality of gravity, their violations still have consequences.

This is not the place to make a list of all the negligible laws man should or shouldn’t mess with. The Old Testament, the Koran, the Talmud, already narrowed the list of immutable to Ten. Jesus reduced that list to Two.

Governments struggle everyday with their own lists. But if you pay attention to history, there has always been one thing among men held to be absolute: his word. Everyone has heard the saying: “If a man loses his word, he has lost everything”. There was a time, if you were caught stealing you would lose a finger. Get caught again, a hand. But get caught not keeping your word, other men would kill you. This is how important and sacred moral integrity was held. It’s the whole basis for trust. So when did lying, about anything and everything, become excusable?

We are currently in danger of losing our moral ground. We see it most clearly in our public officials, talking out of both sides of their mouths, saying one thing and doing another, not fulfilling their promises, and not holding each other accountable. Even sadder, we the public allow it. Why? Probably because if we call them on their stuff, they’ll call us on ours.

We have a boatload of sins we need to clean up and atone for, but I suggest the boat would be a lot lighter if we would address this one thing in ourselves: Being our Word.

The laws in our psyche are as strict as those in the physical universe. When we choose to violate, not what we believe, but what we know to be right and wrong, we have a failure to be. If we don’t keep our internal agreements, where are we going to stand when the wind blows?

Be Impeccable With Your Word, the saying goes.
How much impeccability do we bring?

We have Reasons, and we have Results.
Which table are we playing at?

I can begin to understand why my grandmothers said they had lived too long, having seen too much, and, knowing they could do nothing about the rampant, growing cultural insanity all around them, preferred the the company of their Maker. And sooner rather than later. “I’ll be glad to get to my heavenly home,” one of them uttered often. “The nerve of some people’s brats,” the other one commented regularly.

We keep thinking we can have a better world, that it will naturally become a saner place, simply because we all gain new knowledge and better sense as we all grow wiser with age. Well not all of us, and not really. Knowledge is not what will save us from ourselves.

The news continually gets worse as more people find new ways to disregard and insult their fellow man, their planet, and their fellow species. Many assumed the morals and values that formed civilized societies would pass easily to each succeeding generation. That worked when everyone agreed to consensus and when humanity’s spiritual account was not in bankruptcy.

But this is the age of disagreement, of me, me, me; mine, mine, mine. You're wrong. I’m right, I’m right, I’m right. This is the age of “what I have is more important, more valid, than who I am”. Even “who I am” has been hijacked to be a statement of ego, rather than a checklist of what I’m made of. The value of value has been devalued. Mankind is literally asleep at the wheel.

In this country, at least, which has the most privilege, many spend their free time watching reality TV, which is anything but reality: Marriage Bootcamp, Beverly Hills Housewives, the Apprentice. When you substitute revenge and demeaning attitudes for actual soul sustenance, what can you expect but moral and spiritual starvation.

These things that teach us nothing but diminishing others, judgement, and justification, leave us with laziness, ignorance, fear, and completely void of compassion. Our over-sensitivity makes us insensitive.

But my grandmothers weren't right. The answer is not to escape this living. It might be understandable to want to, but our whole purpose in coming here is to be here. To learn to live consciously. To be a Christ, to be a Buddha, a Mohamed, a Lao Tsu; not to argue over which one or to be be mere followers. Creation needs beings who are fully human, and humans who are fully conscious beings. Ones who are in partnership with creation. There is no such thing as Hover. Only we are responsible for our own evolution. We are either expanding or contracting. Consciousness doesn’t happen unconsciously.

The teachings tell us everything happens in opposition: higher-lower, inner-outer, positive-negative, yin-yang. The world operates on a dualistic level, but the unifying of dualities causes healing.

We are ignorant of the difference between physical and spiritual space. We are emotional, intellectual, physical, and spiritual beings. It’s time to work on all aspects of ourselves. It’s time to wake up, to be in charge of our egos, instead of them being in charge of us. If you need more parenting, do it yourself. You have everything you need. Only we are responsible for our own evolution.

We are naturally negatively charged, and tend to dis-empower. We need to support each other winning, regardless of like or dislike. It’s time to empower each other. It’s time to be the enlightened beings we were meant to be. Conscious beings are required.

The only game is consciousness,
not what you think,
not what you believe,
not what you feel ought to be.

The only goal
Is to lose your mind,
to pierce the veil,
to operate from behind the curtain.

You are the one you have been seeking,
but you only get to know that
from Silence,
from the heart of silence within you.
Be still and know.
​Sh-h-h-h.....

She stood on the corner,
waiting to cross at the light,
in her fluffy, flowery, ruffle-trimmed summer dress,
reading a book,
an opened, bright yellow parasol resting on her shoulder.
Her entire profile was awash from behind with sunlight.

A dozen thoughts crossed my mind
as I turned in front of her
and drove past.

The whole incident,
which seemed like an aberration,
lasted only seconds,
but my satisfied, bemused grin,
and the feeling of gratitude she occasioned,
lasted the entire afternoon.

Something stirs today.

Not like the cars I hear,
rambling in the distance,
rushing to and fro.

Not like the tires
on the gravel lane next door,
or the buzzing of the weed-eater
on the next block.

Not even like the creaking
of the aluminum siding on this house,
as the sun raises its
over-night temperature.

No. Something stirs within.

I like to think of myself as
possessing alacrity, as energy ready
as the doves that chase
the marauding blackbirds from their field.

But I respond to the day
only after my inner soup has simmered.
I will serve no me
before it's time.

The owl calls to a silent night.
Clouds drag their capes across a marble moon.
A fox vaults a neighbor's fence,
And I prepare for slumber's tune.

When I lay down I can give up
All the fortresses I built this day.
When I give up I can lay down
All the foolishness I put into play.

To be but a whirling dervish
For the Maker of us all.
This is the desire of the heart,
No matter how often the fall.

The river flows from its own source,
The salmon fights that flow to reach hers.
Man often rides from his source,
Like an equestrian wearing spurs.

But the soul is on a journey
To return like those salmon on the run,
And won't entertain resting
Until that race is won.

When my head is on the pillow
I align with the owl in the glen
And all the other beings
Who know their true origin.

And when I touch the silence
Of the clouds across the skies,
I awaken each tomorrow
With fresh devoted eyes.

While I stir my tea,
another part of the world
goes off the rails.

While I talk to you,
confessing my sins,
more of my planet dies.

While I hug my children,
someone in Baton Rouge
shames us all.

You have always always
been an allowing God,
willing to wait for our Atonement.

I really hope there are more
than a boatload of us left,
for the final ride home.

I bet you do , too.

What would you have me say?

My own words don't often satisfy my thirst.
They too often speak
Only of lack and complaint.

I want to acknowledge
The joy and satisfaction
Knowing you brings.

You live in and through
Each one of us,
But remain so hidden.

We hide you so well.
Let me reveal your reflection.
Speak so I may hear the roar of your silence.

The Calliope plays in the background
Like a rune cast by a muse,
Like a wave washing clean
The grains of sand in my memory.

When I am fully here
The aroma of the sea,
The glow of the moon, are all I need,
And the sound of silence has its own beautiful voice.

Sing me a poem
Like a babbling brook.
Dance me an ode to joy.
And then let my gratitudes
Outnumber the stars in the night.

I am the Calliope.
Play me.