death walk

Intuition told me not to tell him that I was leaving the job, but how could I not. His initial reaction was shock, this man so hungry to cleave onto a female cohort that he entered my mind and twisted it in his direction, this man who'd become my spiritual husband, even while I slept next to the physical one.

I felt the coldness start within a day, and was surprised and hurt. I thought we'd be friends, even better friends, for my not being in that situation. But what happened instead was that he totally shut down to me, and where subtle sweetness had miraculously manifested itself, filling up the emptiness in me which is the product of a relationship without passion, affinity, sweetness (that's another story), there were the barbs of abandonment and dismissiveness. The worst of it was that in his desperation he opened himself up to the influence of the arrogant elitists who plagued the studio. But I needed freedom and some space to follow the subtle trails of essence that would have been overrun in this man's arrogant self assertion and self grasping. I found my way to Buddhists.

Walking across the park to the first lecture I might have been walking along a high Himalayan pass, but the deep, dark chasms I felt around me were within. It is so painful to let a sweet period go, even if you must because of its corrupting, suffocating pitfalls. I felt I walked besides zombies, flesh falling off their horrible faces, the rank smell of death and malice wafting to me in unpredictable slaps. I felt punished and condemned to lovelessness, realizing I'd had to trade my beloved's kindness to retrieve my own soul and find the uncorrupted path. Losing the rich milk of his lovely mind and astonishing powers.

As I walked through the beautiful park in spring, uplifted by its air and freedom even while carrying this sense of death, I started to feel myself surrounded by a circle studded with flames. Each about the size of a large egg, 3 feet away, burning with a happiness and confidence I recognize as a thing of great beauty. I wondered at this appearance, and at the mystery of the source of these powers, and what they meant to say to me. When I needed hope, my mind found it in the form of the fires that burn with love, a love for me, a struggling, lost and sometimes wise flame myself, both broken and whole. I find that at my happiest times I burn like that too, with an incorruptible love that delights in people, in their beauty, wisdom, grace and talent, which whole-heatedly celebrates each burning flame and wishes each soul the ultimate treasure, only burning, not grasping.

What to do about these people, these sexy witch-like men with their strange and charming powers, who seem like they themselves fashion creation while they dream. Whose love and approval means far too much. Will I always take the bait? Haven't I learned that Binah will always tease me with the comely, magical ones, only to take them away, as if I will someday learn that the only one with true existence has no face. The one whose essence is true freedom.

light in motion

An attempt to relay how a being of light danced in a cave.

paintings eaten by chinchilla

Rumi on Refinement

An Invisible Bee

Look how desire has changed in you,
how light and colorless it is.

with the world growing new marvels
because of your changing. Your soul

has become an invisible bee. We
don't see it working, but there's

the full honeycomb! Your body's height,
six feet or so, but your soul rises

through nine levels of sky. A barrel
corked with earth and a raw wooden

spile keeps the oldest vieyard's wine
inside. When I see you, it is not so

much you physical form, but the company
of two riders, you pure-fire devotion

and your love for the one who teaches you;
then the sun and moon on foot behind those.

* * *

While I typed this poem, which makes me feel like the difficult soul work that's gone on in me was more than grandiose delusion, I felt the warmth in my heart grow and break into my chest with tiny cataclysms of ecstasy. Through 9 levels of sky.

This translation, by Coleman Barks, is part of a collection called The Glance, Songs of Soul Meeting.

the darkness of our eyes

cockles

sub basement

R was upset at me for the longest time because I forgot to bring his DS so he could play with it during N's swimming lessons. It's true, the devil exists, in the form of electronic games, or at least the stupidity which allowed me to let this into his life. Short live the game!

After about an hour and a lollipop he started to forgive me, to lean against me as we sat poolside encouraging Nora, his chest bare and cheeks pink from the heat, skin slightly moist with sweat. I see clearly what I don't want to see, his path to transcendence is disappointment, and I suspect he'll be less of a baby once I grow up, too.