(“Reflections”, 2023, original encaustic)
“First there is a mountain
Then there is no mountain
Then there is.”
With a pure stream
Mouth and heart open
Without thought, without care
Taking it all in as a child
Takes to air.
Then time kicks in
The stream becomes
Somehow lost
The mouth and heart parched
As the seeking begins.
Against all odds
This thirst is quenched
Not in the finding
Of something tangible
But in the exhaustion of all effort.
Somehow found
In the middle of a desert
Not a pool or fountain
River or stream
But as an inner well.
And from this well
Like awaking from a dream
All memory of thirst is gone
All memory of longing washed away
In what has simply always been.
(8/14/26)
Cognitive decline
follows chronic emotional neglect
Said the curious student
to teachers of dogma
Said the silenced sage
to muted musicians
Said the silenced voice
to the petrified dancer
Said the theologian
to exhausted bodhisattvas
Said the frustrated ecologist
to traumatized wiccan worshippers
Said the gospel sympathizer
to Old Testament victimizers
Said the scientific systems reformer
to irreligious deformers
Said the green-caste revivalist
to the caste abolishionist
Crown chakra abuse
follows root chakra neglect
because
Root chakra ignore
follows Crown chakra adore
Because my cognitive ethos decline
follows our chronically traumatized
eros neglect
As my disillusion
follows Earth's disempowerment
Re-cognizing humane ethotic decline
follows chronic divine erotic neglect
Not empowering transformation
not enlightening communication's
authentically engaging restoration
Intellectually sagacious incline
following polyamorously amusing
compassion.
Sages sadly sing
LeftBrain dominant songs
of resonant resistance
to crown-caste uppity dispassion
While Muses gladly design
RightBrain prominent dances
for resilient persistence
in root-caste deep compassion.
Iconically perceived bipolarities,
like receptive nuts round assertive bolts,
are all so orthodoxically well
Yet not nearly as paradoxically swell
as ironically received dipolarities,
like liberated convex pleasure poles
consummating concave passion holes.
amid mysteries by which surrounds
nothing is certain but presence
infinitesimal eternalising
energy revolves in space
spirit defines needs
we surrender
living arks
no secret
who
we
are
tao de ching
presence has no form no masks
Suchness in a flower
Suchness in a dog
Suchness in a baby’s eye
Suchness in a slice of apple pie!
Within, beneath, beyond
The true nature of reality,
The essential ta of all dharma,
What is there excluded?
How can there be anything
More or less than simply what is?
How can the all inclusive
Ever be improved upon?
Ever present
Never changing
Suchness
Simply is
(12/25/25)
(“The Longest Journey”, 2017, original encaustic)
Remember now
Without a doubt
The source of all you dream
The source of Life itself
Your home when there was no other
Your home before you ever left
To begin the greatest journey
Your long and winding road
To this very moment
Nowhere else to go
But here and now
Nothing else to know
But this source
Shining in ever new forms
Smiling in the face
Of danger, suffering, confusion, doubt
Shining with the morning Sun
With light that’s never really gone.
(11/15/25)
Simple pleasures
Like all the rest
Will come and go
But without stress
Since they simply
Fade in due course
Without grasping
Can hold no force
To keep us bound
In habits strong
With mind confused
By right or wrong
For what has been
Or soon may be
Just falling leaves
From every tree
Since easy come
And easy go
This easy wind
Our troubles blow
To bring us here
And leave us now
This sacred space
Of nameless Tao
(11/14/25)
Which comes first?
asked Justice Sage
of Peaceful Muse
Divinely inspired Peace
or Humanely expired Passion?
For amusing organic bodies
inspiring sage minds
perspiring pronoia purposes
While DivineSage minds
worship HumaneMuse bodies
anticipating deep sacred meanings
Unveil organic unitarian Muse
purposes flowing toward
prevailing universal sacred Sage
meaningful peace forms
Pronoia Gaia's hypothetical paradox
Gnostic God's metaphysical orthodox
How could SageMind remember anticipating
organically resilient purpose
without MuseBody religiously conjoining
sacredly resonant meaning?
Why would democratically organic bodies
reproduce belonging
autocratically irreligious minds
seduce longing
For sacred AnthroSage inspiring Peace
love songs refueling
Organic EarthMuse perspiring Passion
justice dances restoring
Which sacred longing first
comes organic belonging last?
asked peace perspiring MuseBody
inspiring SageMind passions.
("Peyote Moon", 2018, original encaustic)
The Great Toad
At the gateless gate
I met the Great Toad
Sitting tall and wide
And in his gaze
All my needs were known
And met
And in that moment
I passed beyond
Without a trace
(8/17/25)
Trabaho, kailangan ng lahat ng tao
Upang kumita ng pera na pambili
Ng mga pagkain at ng mga gamit
Dapat na ibigay ito sa lahat ng tao
Huwag ng maging sakim ang mga
nasa gobyerno at namumuhunan
Ibuhos ang kaban ng bayan para sa
lahat ng mga lugar at mamamayan
Maraming trabaho ang magagawa
Tagatimpla ng kape, tagapunas ng
sapatos o tagamasahe ng likod
Kumpara sa petiks at tsismisan lang
Kung lahat ng mga tao ay may pera
Lalakas ang lahat ng mga negosyo
Puno ang groceries, restaurants,
Coffee shops, malls, hotels, salons
Ibuhos ang pera sa kaban ng bayan
Paagusin tulad ng sa mga lawa na
umaagos sa mga ilog at mga talon
papuntang karagatan at kalangitan
Ibubuhos muli ng langit sa mundo
Upang umagos muli sa mga sapa,
paulit ulit na ganyan din dapat ang
Trabaho, na paulit ulit sa mga tao
Joy is found in money
Nor yet on things any,
Joy is conditional somehow--
On whence it comes and how.
I may balloons buy to feel happy,
My friend, by selling them,
Another one by bursting them,
For sure, joy is a strange puppy.
For, my joy never for long last,
As it wears out fast,
And more balloons do make me blasé
As more and more I chase.
But bliss
Far from joy is,
Like perennial strings
From deep within it springs.
One has to just tap it, no more,
And it flows from one’s deepest core.
_____________________
Free verse |10.02.2025| joy, bliss
The opposite of life
is death
The polar opposite of eternal health
is terminal disease,
with unease perhaps lying/truthing
in-between timelessness
and untimely demise
So too,
my opposite of steady compassion
may be your unsettling dispassion
Elation v deflation
of all these oppositional answers above
as clear
as unclear appositional questings
below.
What is my opposite of suicide?
Self promotion?
Ego inflation?
Having all my consuming needs
fully answered?
Or
maybe some uneasy questing
timeless mind
and spacious body
in-between healthy Now
And death-defying
death-denying
death-defining
death-despairing
death-despoiling
AnthroLove Here
Remains part of EarthLife There
whenever tomorrow comes
Now?
As Me curiously questioning
feels like our lonelier half
of We not yet
finally answering?
What could appositionally rebalance
death's final answering Earth-climate
and life's open questioning Anthro-culture?
What is the opposite of lively ruminations
and deadly ideations?
What lies contentious truths contenting,
In-between EarthBody's discommunication
desecrating death
and AnthroMind's sacred communion life?
sunlight on the son,
shining like a star.
king of the world,
the man from afar.
his army of peace,
come to stop the war.
a hint to the rich,
a hand to the poor.
the princely posture,
standing nice and straight.
the life that we live,
will come down to fate.
let the magic free,
dancing like a fool.
we all have to have,
some kind of fuel.
The night falls like snow,
lying on the bed.
and doing those things,
that turns a face red.
Don't try to know why,
life is confusing.
sometimes it is nice,
not the abusing.
Only time will explain,
why there's pain and love.
and when we will meet,
this god from above.
Washing the clouds away, dreaming of lemon and minty tea. Open to follow the tide. Waiting for lights to guide my way. Yoking to paradise. Junking the fires into the rain. Kneeling to Heaven on silent praise. Holding my peace as love echoes her name. She is the moonlit star, the shadow Queen who defeated the dark. Zipping toward flowers and tender grace. Nothing but stillness showed me I am given sight. Heavy snow and colder waves break down the fallen pain. I screamed at the dawn it was silent like I was just a passing song. Rivers give way to my garden wall. Planting the seeds to raise the Tao.
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