Breathe-out
and
stand
the Weh
is at hand
Breathe-in
rejoice
let
Yah guide
the voice
for when
joy fills
the lungs
when
breath-full-ness
comes
anxieties fall
as
Love Be-stills all.
On the pure:
meditate
For the just:
Supplicate
Praise both:
Noble and True
Give thanks for:
Virtue
With the Loveless:
Consort
and with all good report
‘Rejoice’
I say twice
and Be strengthened in
Life.
After Philippians V4: 4-13
If I leave
with my heart singed in fear
I step out on a road of hatred and isolation
I seep into rivers of painful recollection
deeply flowing from my neighbours eyes.
I recoil from your sideways glance
build walls to damn your half seen smile
preferring to congeal to the cut of cynicism
(as if butter wouldn’t melt
upon this cold steak knife I call life)
I break out to escape from all that is other
rip skin from skin to bleed this heart deeply within
a barren disconnecting groan despite
Light dustings of Love.
When I feed on bloodshed and despair
I ooze in unfairness and choke upon
golden feathers that drift gloriously unseen
until sodden they fall into visions
that clog in my indigestible in-
completeness.
And so, it seems again to me to be, so
hard to consume new limits to
unstitch my well known know how, to choose to
grow fresh green fruit in verdant gardens
to soothe in kindness when soft skin lacerates upon
time starved rocks. How to be
bolder as older I wish to choose to rock more gently this caged
and fleshy brain, swathe me in silence and wait-full-ness,
so I may gleefully greet these ever changing screams
with smiling forgiveness for
ever and ever and once and for all
to release these urgent calls to push, push, push this
river of shit that surges in my own forgetfulness.
How to keep hold of all the goodness that you foretold
the Wisdom that wades in this wonderful wetness
repleting refreshment with Words of encouragement
to this thing that I call soul.
‘Oh,
who gives me the wings like the dove when I would fly away and be at rest?’ (Meister Eckhart, Discourse on Eternal Birth)
‘I shall lead my friend into the wilderness and shall speak to her heart. I will return her vineyards and transform the Valley of Trouble into a gateway of hope.’ (Hosea 2 14 & 15)
and so:
Breathe deep I do, this dove grey breeze
ingest the wail and warp and weave
of city sirens and seagull cries
and hurt filled sweat in salt sore eyes.
And pray I do, that You may quell this thirsting woe
this cling to things I think I know
this bursting urge that grips the reins
that tourniquets Your blood in veins
fat furred and hard from my control
of withering heart, and yet and yet
this distanced soul cannot forget
to Breathe out and inwardly once again
trust Love to light the twisted turns through
joy and rage and hope and pain.
‘When we set our intention on love and humility, then, by the power of mercy and grace, we are cleansed and made whole.’ (Julian of Norwich, Showings, chapter 40)
Our essence, our being, our existence, our essential unity
‘hangs’ in God
for, ‘we possess this unity in ourselves, and in-fact, above ourselves.’
My goodness, try as I do, I cannot progress in my reading today. I feel thick and condensed within a translation, well not even that, within an introduction to a translation of Jan van Ruusbroec’s Spiritual Espousals. Crammed full, as it is, with an amazing density I cannot fully get, a condensation of Spiritual non-steps and steps that seem to act as a mesmeric: To whit
My essence ‘hangs’ in God! apparently. It seems to hang always and all ways, never given or actively wrought by good deed or sin, but indeed, is somehow ever present within and above floating lights of unity and love.
And how peculiarly happy I am to drift to this English translation of genuine mystic Brussel-Dutch wisdom. For these words fizz my tongue with intangible taste, ungrasp my mind in conundrums of sense (less earned than set deep upon and within distant joyful thumping gulps that call towards my unravelling heart).
To gleam free the eyes behind my struggling eyes, to move sense to essence, to ungrip this wrestling ego, to welcome in the noticer that always rests in the Breath within my warming breath, I resolve to go back to my cushion and in contemplation to gather again around the plainly blank fractures of silent still light.
May foot steps lay light upon this precious earth
May meadows sprout sweetly within wakeful ease
May worries be welcomed with the warmest of smile
To join lip upon lip upon this evening breeze.
May quiet souls save us from amplified stress
May sharp words find stillness and suffering stall
May thoughts upon thoughts upon feelings and sense
Release, to float freely like leaves in the fall.
May conflict disperse upon in-flowing breath
May out-flows of love bathe tired worn torn flesh
May waves of abundance soothe and replete
While rays of vast darkness shine bright in our deep .
My dearest step dad sleeps and barely speaks.
My tired mother has shrunken further into the role of carer.
It is indeed a painful joy to visit them this week.
Only four months ago I was shaken by a decline, that now seems like a time of erudite conversation.
After that visit I wrote the following:
Edward and Mrs Jones
He gently asks his wife of 31 years
‘excuse me
but do I have a bed for tonight?’
No longer sharing evening TV
dinner soaps
picking at his food with bare fingers
he smiles at her or
un-certainly launches a friendly face in
that direction.
‘Do you remember who I am?’ asks
my mother
that she, that other sitting
and eating there
all by herself in the distance.
‘Yes, I think I do’
and they return smiles within a
pause of concerned and bemused
eternity.
Looking above his half rim specs
‘I think,’ he says
‘a long time ago
we probably
had sex
together?’
‘Oh good God’
silently with pierced heart my
mother tries to start, to start,
to restart them both.
Showing him a recent
anniversary card upon the table
‘there, there,
there,’ she says
‘look at it then,
it says grandma and dad, step-dad,
father and mum,
see,
31 years gone by,
see, that’s you and
that’s me.’
‘Oh yes,’ he says
‘um yes
very nice indeed
um
very pleasant.’
And brushing the embossed lettering
he says,
‘hard with things on it.’
‘Yes my love it’s our anniversary
card,’ she says, ‘remember?’
‘Hmmm.’
And after staring into the far
cornicing for another split second of
for ever, he adds
‘excuse me’
placing the card to one side
‘but I must go now,
just
looking for a bed
alright?’
‘Yes, ok Ed let’s go do that’
and Mrs Jones stands taller than she
has been all day.
‘Come along then my soldier,’
he hears that other person say
‘let’s go wash your face and brush
your teeth hmmm?
before I have to send you on your
way?’
‘Yes,’ he says, beaming within her
sing song voice
‘I used to put happy on my…
here,’ he says rubbing bristles and
chin
‘yes put happy
happy, and go out, out’
Eds points to a place beyond joint
pain and yellowed teeth.
‘Are you talking about aftershave my
love?’
‘Yes, happy,’ and reach, reach
reaching to stroke her face
‘happy, on here.’
‘Yes, yes my dear,
I remember that too, but
your breath stinks, so
it’s off to the bathroom
and then beddy-byes for you
hmmm?’
‘hmmm.’
city slowness 