stream before bedtime

ah and the sitting here in the silence of the spacious room that is my mind and i sit and listen to my heart beat in silence silence silence and in the background there is a leonard cohen song playing on my sound system lulling me ever deeper into the stillpoint the stillpoint where i long to be this night as the tears trickle from my eyelids as life ticks away away as memories of ann whom once i loved is now just a fading memory and it was a love that was meant to die die die as we all are dying and yet i am not too sad because there is a peace of acceptance beginning to drop like the dew on the grass in the cold of the early morning and i type these words and wonder at their healing power and i will never dwell in the valley of self-pity never never never because it is a selfish waste of precious time no no no i will climb to the mountain from which i can get a viewing point where i shall rest a while and look back at my climb at my slow and winding climb ever upwards ever upwards towards the acceptance of self the only truth the very centre of self the very centre of gravity of all life and this is all we have that journey to the centre or core of self that centre which alone will hold in this mystifying universe this universe ever expanding expanding expanding and i type and listen to the healing words of the lyrics of a song and these words are healing me as they pour like a balm over my soul ah these words are the sweet waters that heal heal and heal ever more deeply and cohen sings on dancing me ever deeper into my soul ever ever deeper like a caver of the cavernous labyrinthine soul and these words are lighting the way down down down and dance me deeper deeper to the end of love and in that end i will surely find a beginning and these are the words that sound out my heart and then the music ah yes the music that enchants my soul that brings a tear with every stroke and caress of string for i need this music to play on and on for i need more healing that once i thought i never needed i need to be cherished and cuddled and comforted in the arms of mother earth in the arms of mother earth in the peace of mother earth in the peace in the peace of mother earth at her bosom at her bosom and i need more more more than a thousand kisses to heal my wounded heart and yet my soul is light for it courts the beauty of the imagination the imagination oh yes the beauty of the wondrous imagination that can enchant the soul to sing its song oh so strong oh so strong and i listen on not alone to cohen and his songs but to my own soul song that sings as these words will out as the truth of self will out as congruence and authenticity play the strings of my heart and they play them sound they play them sound they play them sweet and what a music those strings make what a music what a beautiful music and the truth it lies in the spacious room that is my mind and it is a room that has some seats and chairs and loads of lovely bookcases with those sacred books of knowledge that once my mother bought in the poverty of my youth in the poverty of my youth in those far away times those days almost forgotten when little or so little was such a lot and sometimes when the night is slow i sit and listen to cohen singing a thousand kisses deep and let those words lull me to sleep to sleep perchance to dream and in that dream of death what sleep may come and thus ends this and thus ends this and the rest as they say is silence... and the fading words... a thousand kisses deep...

and the wind and the rain and the need to connect

Self at Mount Oliver Summer Conference 1996

.... and now something moves something stirs within some ancient primordial instinct perhaps and yet and yet it is more so much more so much more it is as if the strings of the heart are being played by the hands of angels by the hands of angels delicate as the touch of tears as they trickle in the crevices below my sore tired eyes and yes there is indeed a deep down passion struggling to be expressed struggling to reach out and embrace the whole world to embrace all in its elemental primordiality to embrace the rains that lash the windowpanes and the wind that howls to catch the wind as donovan had it in a song of all and now let the music of the soul play on play on play on let the music play on and let it never end until we have shuffled off this mortal coil this mortal coil this brittle house of bones this brittle house of bones and there is so much to be embraced if the spirit is only willing if the heart is at ease with itself if the gut is listened to listened to listened to and this is so much needed today for we all want to go beyond the stress beyond the sturm und drang of life beyond the pain that bites beyond the weight of stones the weight the weight that presses down on little people little people whom i teach these weakest of the weak these brittle reeds in our gentle pool of care and yes this something this something deep within this yearning for union for unity with the centre point of all creation with the still point of being with that strong ontological centre of gravity that pulls us like little planets to its supporting sun and still the tears come and still the tears trickle for this life was meant to be experienced deeply deeply deeply and yes there is a deep down well of wisdom from which we may drink and all is a going inward deeply an exploration of the caverns and passageways of what it means to be alive to be truly human to be caring to be caring of others yes oh so very much caring of others especially those significant others and even the insignificant broken people who cross our paths on a daily basis and yes this desire is deep within this mystical desire for the great unity of being and these words cascade out looking for shape but like the rivulets that stream from a larger waterfall of being and these little streams are enlivening and nourishing and sustaining and hope giving and thirst slaking and there is more so much more like the music of bob dylon and that of leonard cohen a music a deep music a music a music which seeps into the soul like water into the parched soil like water slaking the thirst of the parched soil and so the music comes the music comes through their old cracked voices but the music the music is so young so young while the voices are so old and we are told we are told that the music is eternal that the music is eternal that it will go on and on and on and there will be young voices who will come and take up the tune and carry it on and carry it on and on and on and still the wind beats wild on my window pane and the rain washes down the glass in healing rivulets and these old eyes water and i listen and i listen to the music of the spheres somewhere within...