I awoke at 4:00 this morning, hearing noises. Being curious, I got up and looked out to the street. A strange car was parked across the road from our home. I turned on the outside light to let them know I was aware of them, and headed back to bed. To no avail, I was awake. Looked at my phone, read some news, and picked up the archaeology magazine and finished up articles. The hours passed…
More noises, 3 police cars surrounding the car across the street. This circus continued until 7:30, when the owner of the (now obvious) stolen car was driven up by the police. He takes it away, and the young man who had been passed out in the stolen vehicle was frisked, drugs found, and hauled away.
I had surrendered to my wakefulness at around 6:00, and got up. Got an orange juice, and started to work on a piece of art I had put away a decade ago. Progress! Lots moving, and to start the day with art.
The sun rolls up, Mary awakes, and I make cappuccinos for the pair of us.
I think my sleep cycle is changing. 🙂
Anyway, an early day it seems. … The doves are in the backyard, at the feeder, and the world awakes.
G
_________________
_________________
A Woman’s Honour
Love bade me hope, and I obeyed;
Phyllis continued still unkind:
Then you may e’en despair, he said,
In vain I strive to change her mind.
Honour’s got in, and keeps her heart,
Durst he but venture once abroad,
In my own right I’d take your part,
And show myself the mightier God.
This huffing Honour domineers
In breasts alone where he has place:
But if true generous Love apppears,
The hector dares not show his face.
Let me still languish and complain,
Be most unhumanly denied:
I have some pleasure in my pain,
She can have none with all her pride.
I fall a sacrifice to Love,
She lives a wretch for Honour’s sake;
Whose tyrant does most cruel prove,
The difference is not hard to make.
Consider real Honour then,
You’ll find hers cannot be the same;
‘Tis noble confidence in men,
In women, mean, mistrustful shame.
– Lord John Wilmot
____________________
___________________
The world but seems to be
The world but seems to be
yet is nothing more
than a line drawn
between light and shadow.
Decipher the message
of this dream-script
and learn to distinguish time
from Eternity.
– by Fakhruddin Iraqi
______________________
I became water
and saw myself
a mirage
became an ocean
saw myself a speck
of foam
gained Awareness
saw that all is but
forgetfulness
woke up
and found myself
asleep.
– by Binavi Badakhshani
_______ Companion Books & Other Affairs:
So, here we are again, with another edition of “The Hare’s Tale. We are plunging down the rabbit hole following what is best described as the path of Khezr (more on this later). I am taking books off of my bedside and chairside tables and featuring them here. Most of them are poetry books, and we will see the likes of Dale Pendell, Gary Snyder, Sufi Poets of Persia and elsewhere, Seamus Heaney, William Butler Yeats, etc.
Poetry lies central to the work that I do in my life. I am not a great poet, but I can turn a phrase on occasion. Yet, I swim in the world of poetry, and all that it implies. I find it a solace, an inspiration, a spiritual quest.
So I will be sharing books that I love, and providing links on where to find them. I hope that you will find the poetry as moving as I do.
The Poetry found on this entry is from “The Drunken Universe”, An anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry Translation and Commentary by Peter Lamborn Wilson and Narollah Pourjavady. This book has lifted my spirits time and again, and has revealed beauty that I hadn’t a clue about. It is well worth having.
Eye Candy:
As you may or may not know there are actually 2 Blogs on Gwyllm.com. This one, “The Hares’ Tale, and “Eye Candy!” which is a visual blog. On it you will find art, gifs, photographs that take my fancy. Some of it may not be suitable for work (NSFW), but I believe all of it is beautiful. You’ll find images from the Occult, Persian & Mughal Miniatures, Mandalas, Oil Paintings, Film Stills, Nature Photographs, Erotica, a wide gamut of beauty. Here is the link: Eye Candy! … Please check it out! I try to update frequently.
“Sacred Drift”:
A title to a book that has entranced me… I have a long involvement with Sufism, going back to the mid-60’s. Granted, I have pursued it mainly through poetry, and commentary and the reading of the Quran. I have included an excerpt of it in the body of this entry, ” Al-Khiḍr: The Green Man of Sufism” I spent most of the last 2 weeks up all hours of the night pouring over this book. It opens vistas, wide amazing vistas of travel, and heresy. It is highly recommended, and I shall be doing a review of it in the weeks to come. A Note: I don’t always review books that would be deemed, “New”. Heaven knows I try, and I will, there are a couple of volumes sitting next to me that are new this year, and another only 5 years old, so I am catching up.
Radio EarthRites:
New Show on, with DJ Kykeon’s “The Eleusinian Invocations Mix“. Give it a listen. We are about to launch a fund raiser to upgrade the site, and to bring more services via Radio EarthRites. Your support is very important to that!
So, that is it for now. Working on art and publishing the early part of this week. I hope this finds you well, and in happiness.
Starting 3:00PM Pacific Coast Time Sunday, 10/22/17
The Return of DJ Kykeon! With his “Eleusinian Invocations Mix!”
8+Hours of Aural Beauty! Listen Now, More Shows To Come!
(The show will be in rotation all of this week along with “The Witching Hours Mix”.
___________________________________________ Companion Books: The Drunken Universe
The Universe
The universe
is a kaleidoscope:
now hopelessness, now hope
now spring, now fall.
Forget its ups and downs:
do not vex yourself:
The remedy for pain
is the pain.
-Sarmad
___ Nonexistence
Nonexistence
within existence
is my Rule
getting lost
in getting lost
my Religion.
– Ayn al-Qozat Hamadani
___ The Lamp of Your Face
What need
lovers for world’s delights
or the moth
for refined pleasures,
“viewing the garden”?
His lips
parched for water of Union
with the Beloved:
what need to chase
the “fountain of Khezr”?
He who falls
in your quarter, what need
for the caravans
of paradise except
to seek your love?
Surrendering his body
to the couch of your disease
what need has he
for the “healing breath”
of Jesus?
If the Friend
did not sit with him
in his retreat, what need
for the cloister
of solitude?
Today he gives up
his soul to separation:
why should he wait
for the promise
of tomorrow?
What need anymore
for glass after glass
of red wine, intoxicated,
unconscious with your
amorousness?
I am that moth
at the lamp of your face:
San’at, what do I need
with the candle
of manifestation?
– Mohammad ‘Aref San’at
____ Love came
Love came
flowed like blood
beneath skin, through veins
emptied me of my self
filled me
with the Beloved
till every limb
every organ was seized
and occupied
till only
my name remains.
the rest is It.
– by Abu-Said Abil-Kheir
____ Within the eye of the eye
Within the eye of the eye
I placed an eye
polished and adorned
with her beauty
but suddenly fell
into the Quarter of Perfection
and now am freed from sight,
from even the eye of contemplation.
– Ayn al-Qozat Hamadani
____
_____________________________________ As Heard On Radio EarthRites:
Armand Amar:Baba Aziz
_____________________________________
Al-Khiḍr: The Green Man of Sufism
The prophets Elias and Khadir at the fountain of life, late 15th century. Folio from a khamsa(quintet) by Nizami (d. 1209); Timurid period. Opaque watercolor and silver on paper. Herat, Afghanistan, now at The Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution
Al-Khiḍr is Khezr, the Hidden Prophet, the Green Man, King of Hyperborea, wily servant of Moses, trickster-cook of Alexander, Khezr who drank from the fountain of life in the Land of Darkness. Flowers and herbs spring up in his footsteps, and he strolls across the water, walking toward Ibn Arabi’s ship, coming closer; his green robe trailing on green waves — or perhaps woven of waves. Or Khezr appears in the desert with water and initiation for the masterless ones, the mad and blameworthy, the unique ones. “And three things are worthy of the glance: water, green things, and a beautiful face…”
When you say the name of Khezr (or Khadir) in company you should always add the greeting “Salaam Aleikum!” since he may be there — immortal and anonymous, engaged on some mysterious karmic errand. Perhaps he’ll hint of his identity by wearing green, or by revealing knowledge of the occult and hidden. But he’s something of a spy, and if you have no need to know he’s unlikely to tell you. Still, one of his functions is to convince skeptics of the marvelous, to rescue those who are lost in deserts of doubt and dryness. So he’s needed now more than ever, and surely still moves among us playing his great game.
From the point of view of “History of Religions” clearly Islam inherited Khezr from earlier myths and faiths, a fact recognized by the Islamic tradition which associates him with Moses and Alexander. By the Middle Ages, however, he had been thoroughly assimilated into the world of Islam and taken on a special role, symbolized by his two titles, “the Green Man” and “the Hidden Prophet”. In particular, he comes to stand for a certain kind of esoteric knowledge, which can only manifest in our banal everyday life as shock, either of outrage or of laughter, or both at once.
Khezr is one of the afrad, the Unique Ones who recieve illumination directly from God without human mediation; they can initiate seekers who belong to no Order or have no human guide; they rescue lost wanderers and desperate lovers in the hour of need. Uways al-Qarani is their historical prototype, Khezr their ahistorical prototype.
Some have indentified Khezr with St. George — but he might more accurately be seen as both St. George and the dragon in one figure. Nature, for esoteric Islam, does not need to be pinned down like some biology specimen or household pest — there exists no deep struggle between Nature and Order in the Islamic worldview.
The “spirits” of Nature, such as Khezr and the djinn — who are in a sense the principles of natural power — recognize in the Muhammadan Light that green portion of the spectrum upon which they themselves are also situated. If Christian moralism “fixes” Nature by “killing it”, Islam proceeds by conversion — or rather, by transmutation. Nature maintains its measure of independence from the merely human and moral sphere, while both realms are bathed in the integrative and salvific light of Muhammadan knowledge.
…As an immortal mortal, Khezr behaves like a figure in a dream; in fact, he behaves as we do in our happiest dreams of flying, or of the quintessence of life, “a green thought in a green shade”. He resembles those late medieval paintings of vegetable people, faces made out of fruit and leaves and sunlight: slightly sinister, at once funny and beautiful…
Nowadays Khezr might well be induced to reappear as the patron of modern militant eco-environmentalism, since he represents the fulcrum or nexus between wild (er) ness and the human / humane. Rather than attempt to moralize Nature (which never works because Nature is amoral), Khadirian Environmentalism would rejoice simultaneously both in its utter wildness and its “meaningfulness” — Nature as tajalli (the “shining through” of the divine into creation; the manifestation of each thing as divine light), Nature as an aesthetic realization.
From ~ Sacred Drift: Esasys on the Margins of Islam, pgs. 57, 138-139, 140, 143
By ~ Peter Lamborn Wilson
Peter Lamborn Wilson proposes a set of heresies, a culture of resistance, that dispels the false image of Islam as monolithic, puritan, and two-dimensional. Here is the story of the African-American noble Drew Ali, the founder of “Black Islam” in this country, and of the violent end of his struggle for “love, truth, peace, freedom, and justice.” Another essay deals with Satan and “Satanism” in Esoteric Islam; and another offers a scathing critique of “Authority” and sexual misery in modern Puritanist Islam. “The Anti-caliph” evokes a hot mix of Ibn Arabi’s tantric mysticism and the revolutionary teachings of the “Assassins.” The title essay, “Sacred Drift,” roves through the history and poetics of Sufi travel, from Ibn Khaldun to Rimbaud in Abyssinia to the Situationists. A “Romantic” view of Islam is taken to radical extremes; the exotic may not be “True,” but it’s certainly a relief from academic propaganda and the obscene banality of simulation.
“This is my brand of Islam: insurrectionary, elegant, dangerous, suffused with light – a search for poetic facts, a donation from and to the tradition of spiritual anarchy.” —Hakim Bey
“Peter Lamborn Wilson, in his book Sacred Drift: Essays on the Margins of Islam, offers an interesting window into the early evolution of Islamic ideas among African Americans.” —Abbas Milani, New Republic
______________ As Heard On Radio EarthRites:
Armand Amar: Poem Of The Atoms
_______________ Beg for Love
Beg for Love.
Consider this burning, and those who
burn, as gifts from the Friend.
Nothing to learn.
Too much has already been said.
When you read a single page from
the silent book of your heart,
you will laugh at all this chattering,
all this pretentious learning.
– by Abu-Said Abil-Kheir
“There is an angel inside me whom I am constantly shocking.” – Jean Cocteau
Ray Donley. Figure with mask and skull 2006
Dear Friends,
Well, thrashing around again. I have been submerged in projects, and finding myself distracted quite frequently by the ensnarement of social media. I have been realizing how much time I spend on it. I have posted art and media as a service for quite awhile, and found some wonderful artist, and shared some of my long standing loves as well, but I realized to the detriment of my own creative process with art. As I spend more time working away on the computer, the less time I spend with pen and pencil, airbrush, and paint. Trying to turn that around… oh, and blogging. I am returning to that as well.
__
I am actually looking for typewriter ribbons. I have an old one, that is still in good nick. I do like to write by hand, but there is something about a typewriter, the clicking and clacking, the feel of the keys and the paper. I may have spent years on those machines. They do have their limitations, but they do for stories, etc. Poetry? I think not, though I confess I did type poetry during my mad jags at 3:00 in the morning over the years. I seriously don’t think is was very good though. Poetry requires reciting it aloud, and memorizing the lines, or writing it down by hand. I have been able to write it down by hand of course, but the modern world and writing is unkind to the memory. How much have we lost because of that? Think on the bards and poets who carried the Illiad, or The Cattle Raids in their heads, and passed it down through countless generations….
—
So, perhaps as I get older, a bit of the Luddite starts to assert itself, or as I feel time growing short for this ride on the Dharma Wheel, that I must attend to what gifts I have been given. I believe that there are gifts that we either take up, or they flee to others. I have given away many ideas over the years. Gladly it seems, I have seen a few of those gifts give wealth and happiness to others. I did my part, in dreaming them first, but not perhaps hard enough to make them fully mine. A conduit of sorts for an interesting version of the muse….
__
Anyway, I meander. We have bought more space for the Radio Station with a generous donation, and we are putting some ideas in place for the future…. New shows coming of course, stay tuned.
__
Announcements coming from The Invisible College as well, on several fronts. Projects, projects.
__
On the home front, Rowan & Suzanne have been off in Europe for almost 2 months. I believe they will be coming back later next week, or in November. It has all been very nebulous Lately they have been in Portugal trying out the port and cuisine, and apparently having the time of their lives. Rowan got to meet family in Scotland which was a love fest all around from what I heard from his Auntie. You can catch up with the sweet twosome on FB and Instagram: Rowan S Floyd
Well that is enough for tonight. Nice to be back with the Hares’ Tale.
_________________________________
Ira Cohen Poetry
Ira Cohen
The Arm of the Dorje
Sunyata – Song to the Winter Sun
There was much wind
but I new not how to call it,
a roomful of strangers,
how familiar the feeling,
how cold it must be – barefoot
at the fountain when the sun goes down,
how the brown people love the blond baby
The white horse which looks out
from the wall suggests a journey
I once might have taken,
a covered memory reeking of sulphur
Words, they can go anywhere,
can they tell me where I come from,
the name of my planet,
the empty space which was my home?
The condemned murderer longs for
a firing squad, knows
where to put the shadows
you keep inside –
Between hands there are worlds
of ashes & thunder,
silent collisions of meaning,
the utter sugar of nights
taken for granted
They say the sun rises every day,
that sleep is incidental
I say myself
& so I look for your face at dawn
rising over my grief, over
the twice told terrain, violet w/ciphers,
Suffused w/ yr eternal smile
I would offer my flesh to your tiger,
turn your stone wheels w/ my water
Longing for the peaks the stars say
it will be clear
Let us meet in the sky then
till we come closer down here.
__
The Day of the Basilisk – The Wayfarer’s Song
It started in the dark room
thinking that night had fallen at dawn
Then arising we glued red eyes
into the dry sockets of a dead bird
its belly full of dirty cotton
Then across the paddies & out of
the town
where familiar figures of Kleist &
Eschenbach
rise from the road in eddies of dust
The voice of the Changeling names the day,
the day of the Basilisk, usurped
from the tyrant’s quest to know
how not to maim the Gilded Hind of
self knowledge
Licchavi sirens shortchanged of a renaissance
spread out cracked wooden arms,
split skulls of haunting beauty, smiling
Mud murtis made by nature distract
Goethean comments fearful of what is hidden
while the delicate head of Mahadev
whittled by the wind
still seals the lingam in the ancient temple
We look with Mudusa’s eyes
at the first born fruits,
the full breasts of the river
where there is no infidelity -The golden larva w/ the royal face of Narayan,
hold it by its tail & call it by its name
Narayan, Narayan
it will dance for you & shake its head,
it lives only on air -we do not know if
it is alive or if it is dead, so gilded
its beauty
The face of Vishnu etches a dream of
ancient seas tinted w/ fallen light
Your face is everywhere
Your glory rings out over the peaks
capped w/ flame
Your shadow is enclosed within your shadow
You watch yourself falling
While falling you watch yourself looking down
You want to pick up the Tamang corpse
no one will touch
You call the children of darkness,
refute the wasted years of salt
poured into furrows
You see the thread needled to the hem of Night
betrayed by the shinbone of Day
where the fear is burned away
You look w/ basilisk eyes
turning the day to stone,
touched & transfigured
by the human, by the changing,
by the eternal, the always repeating
Alone.Dhulikel/Panauti
____ Imagine Jean Cocteau
Imagine Jean Cocteau in the lobby
holding a torch
Imagine a trained dog act,
a Rock and Roll Band
Imagine I am Curly of the Three Stooges
disguised as Wm Shakespeare
Imagine that I’m the cousin of the Mayor
of New York or the King of Nepal
(I didn’t say Napoleon!)
Imagine what it is like to be in the glare
of hot lights when you are longing for dark
corners
Imagine the Ghost Patrol, the Tribal
Orchestra –
Imagine an elephant playing a harmonica
or someone weighing out bones on the edge
of the desert in Afghanistan
Imagine that these poems are recorded moments
of temporary sanity
Imagine that the clock was just turned back –
or forwards – a hundred years instead of an hour
Let us pretend that we have no place to go,
that we are here in the Cosmic Hotel,
that our bags are packed & that we have one hour
to checkout time
Imagine whatever you will but know that it is not
imagination but experience which makes poetry,
and that behind every image,
behind every word there is something
I am trying to tell you,
something that really happened.
___
Insomnia On Duke Ellington Boulevard July 14, Breakfast w/myself at the Olympia Diner, 106th & B’way
Fell asleep around 4 AM
w/ the TV on
Van Heflin & Barbara Stanwyck
enter my disturbed sleep
Sometimes the only way out
is to die, but happily
someone else escapes,
takes to the road, goes on
traveling.
I’m up at seven, go to the post office.,
send two Cuban alligators
to Brussels,
the read Gabriel’s column in NEWSDAY
about the real meaning of the closet,
feel nauseous, order a hardboiled egg
which come w/out a shell
mashed in a cup
Is my heart, too, yearning
for its dying hour?
Please bring me one order
of cool snow!
*
If I could remember just a fraction
of what I said on the telephone
If he could take his clothes off
and sit on the banks of the Ganga
If she could see the profile of Caliban
in the smoke over the oilfieds
If we could just take off & go to Madagascar
If they would stop killing each other
and wake up tomorrow morning
w/ a new vision
I would stick my head in a printing press
and you could read tomorrow’s paper today:EXTRA! EXTRA!
Read all about it
Poets’ brains prove to be useful!
P.S. Sometimes when I pick up my pen
it leaks gold all over the tablecloth.
________
Dead Rabbits Here She Comes
________ This Edition Is Dedicated To All The Lovers In The World…
Radio EarthRites Presents: “The Witching Hours Mix” 12:00 Noon Pacific Coast Time 10+ Hours of Non Stop Music From Chill To Sephardic, And Points Inbetween… https://gwyllm.com/radio-earthrites/ The Show will evolve over the next few days as well!
Eclipse/Black Sun – Gwyllm (2017)
We didn’t reach totality here, but we were at 98%…. The birds settled down, the frogs woke up and started to sing, and the sun snakes slithered across the lawn. The air was chill, and the sky darkened down. All was still, perfect, complete.
Now as a spirit
I shall roam
The summer fields
~ Hokusai – written just before his death.
______________ Thoughts:
It has been a bit longer than usual since I have put an entry in, I have been working on a couple of books and a whole bunch of art for one of those books (20 plus illustrations!). My health has been improving, although I gained a bit of weight whilst recovering from my operation, but on the whole, happy as a rabbit.
There is a lot in this entry, I guess I am making up for lost time with it. Some great music from one of my favourite french shoe gaze outfits, Dead Horse One, with some pertinent info on Radio EarthRites, along with a very beautiful video, A quote from Alan Watts that has been rattling around my head for almost a month, an excerpt from The Practice of the Wild, Sufi/Arabic Poetry, and more music. The usual ball of wax of culture and image.
I hope this finds you well, and enjoying summer, or winter, depending on which part of the globe you are.
Here is to explorations,
Love,
G
______________
On The Menu:
Dead Horse One: Season Of Mist
Radio EarthRites Updates
A Bit Of Beauty
The Big Bang
The Practice Of The Wild/Excerpt
Poetry: Hashish/Hasheesh
Dead Horse One..Insight
________
Dead Horse One: Season Of Mist
________ Radio EarthRites Updates:
We are running 2 shows now, “The Dialogue Of Dreams” Mix, & “The Cosmology Of Joy” Remix on alternating days. This is a new approach, giving more variety and soundscapes
We are looking to upgrade the station from 2Gb to 10Gb of content. That will double our fees, but it will open the station up to more shows, spoken word hours, greater programming variety and much more.
If you feel like supporting us, why not pledge a $1, $3, $5, $10, or? dollars a month for awhile? Cheaper than what many of us spend on coffee or beer a day, and Radio EarthRites is there for ya 24/7/365. Your support of Radio EarthRites would be appreciated!
Please share out the station to your friends, your co-workers and compatriots.
Cheers,
G
Tuesday: The Dialogue Of Dreams: 12:00AM-12:00PM
Wednesday: The Cosmology Of Joy Remix: 12:00AM-12:00PM
Thursday: The Dialogue Of Dreams: 12:00AM-12:00PM
Friday: The Cosmology Of Joy Remix: 12:00AM-12:00PM
Saturday: The Dialogue Of Dreams: 12:00AM-12:00PM
Sunday: The Cosmology Of Joy Remix : 12:00AM-12:00PM
The Big Bang…
“It’s like you took a bottle of ink and you threw it at a wall. Smash! And all that ink spread. And in the middle, it’s dense, isn’t it? And as it gets out on the edge, the little droplets get finer and finer and make more complicated patterns, see? So in the same way, there was a big bang at the beginning of things and it spread. And you and I, sitting here in this room, as complicated human beings, are way, way out on the fringe of that bang. We are the complicated little patterns on the end of it. Very interesting. But so we define ourselves as being only that. If you think that you are only inside your skin, you define yourself as one very complicated little curlique, way out on the edge of that explosion. Way out in space, and way out in time. Billions of years ago, you were a big bang, but now you’re a complicated human being. And then we cut ourselves off, and don’t feel that we’re still the big bang. But you are. Depends how you define yourself. You are actually–if this is the way things started, if there was a big bang in the beginning– you’re not something that’s a result of the big bang. You’re not something that is a sort of puppet on the end of the process. You are still the process. You are the big bang, the original force of the universe, coming on as whoever you are. When I meet you, I see not just what you define yourself as–Mr so-and- so, Ms so-and-so, Mrs so-and-so–I see every one of you as the primordial energy of the universe coming on at me in this particular way. I know I’m that, too. But we’ve learned to define ourselves as separate from it. ”
― Alan W. Watts
_____________ The Practice Of The Wild/Excerpt:
Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder
Wildness
So we can say that New York City and Tokyo are “natural” but not “wild.” They do not deviate from the laws of nature, but they are habitat so exclusive in the matter of who and what they give shelter to, and so intolerant of other creatures, as to be truly odd. Wilderness is a place where the wild potential is fully expressed, a diversity of living and nonliving beings flourishing according to their own sorts of order. In ecology we speak of “wild systems. “When an ecosystem is fully functioning, all the members are present at the assembly. To speak of wilderness is to speak of wholeness. Human beings came out of that wholeness, and to consider the possibility of reactivating membership in the Assembly of All Beings is in no way regressive.
By the sixteenth century the lands of the Occident, the countries of Asia, and all the civilizations and cities from the Indian subcontinent to the coast of North Africa were becoming ecologically impoverished. The people were rapidly becoming nature-illiterate. Much of the original vegetation had been destroyed by the expansion of grazing or agriculture, and the remaining land was of no great human economic use, “waste,” mountain regions and deserts. The lingering larger animals—big cats, desert sheep, serows, and such managed to survive by retreating to the harsher habitats. The leaders of these civilizations grew up with less and less personal knowledge of animal behavior and were no longer taught the intimate wide ranging
plant knowledge that had once been universal. By way of tradeoff they learned “human management,” administration, rhetorical skills. Only the most marginal of the paysan, people of the land, kept up practical plant and animal lore and memories of the old ways. People who grew up in towns or cities, or on large estates, had less chance to learn how wild systems work. Then major blocks of citified mythology (Medieval Christianity and then the “Rise of Science”) denied first soul, then consciousness, and finally even sentience to the natural world. Huge numbers of Europeans, in the climate of a nature-denying mechanistic ideology, were losing the opportunity for direct experience of nature.
A new sort of nature-traveler came into existence: men who went out as resource scouts, financed by companies or aristocratic families, penetrating the lightly populated lands of people who lived in and with the wilderness. Conquistadores and priests. Europe had killed off the wolves and bears, deforested vast areas, and overgrazed the hills. The search for slaves, fish, sugar, and precious metals ran over the edge of the horizon and into Asia, Africa, and the New World. These overrefined and warlike states once more came up against wild nature and natural societies: people who lived without Church or State. In return for gold or raw sugar, the white men had to give up something of themselves: they had to look into their own sense of what it meant to be a human being, wonder about the nature of hierarchy, ask if life was worth the honor of a king, or worth gold. (A lost and starving man stands and examines the nicked edge of his sword and his frayed Spanish cape in a Florida swamp.)
Some, like Nuno de Guzman, became crazed and sadistic. “When he began to govern this province, it contained 25,000 Indians, subjugated and peaceful. Of these he has sold 10,000 as slaves, and the others, fearing the same fate, have abandoned their villages” (Todorov, 1985, 134). Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico, ended up a beaten, depressed beggar-to-the-throne. Alvar Nunez, who for eight years walked naked across Texas and New Mexico, came out transformed into a person of the New World. He had rejoined the old ways and was never the same again. He gained a compassionate heart, a taste for self-sufficiency and simplicity, and a knack for healing. The types of both Guzman and Nunez are still among us. Another person has also walked onto the Noh stage of Turtle Island history to hold hands with Alvar Nunez at the far end of the process—Ishi the Yahi, who walked into civilization with as much desperation as Nunez walked out of it. Nunez was the first European to encounter North America and its native myth-mind, and Ishi was the last Native American to fully know that mind—and he had to leave it behind. What lies between those two brackets is not dead and gone. It is perennially within us, dormant as a hard-shelled seed, awaiting the fire or flood that awakes it again.
_____________ Poetry: Hashish/Hasheesh
Haydar’s Emerald cup
Give up wine and drink from the wine of Haydar,
Amber scented, green the color of emerald.
It is presented to you by a Turkish gazelle, slender,
Swaying like a willow bough, delicate.
In his hand, you would think, as he turns it,
It is like the traces of down on a rosy cheek.
The slightest breeze makes it reel,
And it flutters toward the coolness of the continuing breeze.
The grayish pigeons coo upon its branches in the morning.
And the cadences of the warbling doves cause it emotion.
It has many meanings the like of which are unknown to wine.
Therefore do not listen with respect to it to the words of the old censor.
It is virginal, not deflowered by rain,
Nor has it ever been squeezed by feet or hands,
No Christian priest has ever played around with a cup containing it,
Nor have they ever communion from its cask to any heretic’s soul…
Nothing has been said expressly from Malik to declare it unlawful,
Nor is the hadd penalty for its use… prescribed…
Thus take it with the sharp edge of steel.
Stay the hands of worry with kyff and achieve joyful repose.
Do not lightly postpone the day of joy till tomorrow.
‘The days will show you what you were ignorant of,
And someone for who you did not provide (to serve as your
messenger) will bring you the news’
– medieval Sufi poet, Ibn al-A’ma
_____ The Secret of Hashish
The secret of hashish lifts up the spirit
In an ascent of disembodied thinking.
It is pure spirit. Free are its confines
From worries. Only the elect may taste it.
Hashish involves no sin. You are not punished.
Their wine makes you forget all meanings. Our herb
Recalls the mysteries of godly beauty.
You can obtain the green stuff without haggling.
You do not need much gold and silver for it.
Tucked in a handkerchief it can be carried.
No cup is needed if you wish to use it.
You find yourself clean, virtuous and witty.
Bright too and free from all annoying dullness.
The body is not tired eliminating
And vomiting like an inflated wine skin.
In times both good and bad you may enjoy it.
It is no hindrance to nights of devotion.
– al-Is-Irdi
_______ Light your pipe
Smoke your pipe:
The Almighty will give you peace.
Smoke and drink small sips of tea;
The Almighty will free you
from your tribulations.
Smoke and breath deeply,
He who is jealous will know misery
__________ Dead Horse One..Insight
__________ “Be like the flower that gives its fragrance to even the hand that crushes it.”
― Ali ibn Abi Talib
“I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.” – Hermann Hesse Joshua Mays.
______________________
So, Hey There!
Hopes this finds you and yours well.
Life flows on at Caer Llwydd. Mornings and evenings are particularly sweet, sitting out back sharing a drink with my beloved. The evenings are my favourite as a chill breeze comes up from the river as the crows settle in to the great cedars that ring our home. Every moment holds magick it seems, and blessings as well. We are together, and all seems right with the world. As we sit in the gloaming, I feel the world shift…
A couple of weeks back I went into surgery. Nothing major, but the healing process is something else. I was always a quick healer, but that seems to have slowed up as of late. It gives one pause, and makes being in the now that much more important. I find the phenomena of going under to be, well disconcerting. Hopefully never again!
Lots of stuff on this entry, I hope you enjoy. Launching 3 projects… Check ’em out!
More updates on the site… including Eye Candy, and Writings as well!
Cheers,
G
____________________ On The Menu:
Projects/Updates…
The Links
Miranda Lee Richards – Golden Gate
The Dharma Eye of d.a.levy
The Orange Drop – Make It Her, Forever
______________________ Projects/Updates: I am very excited to be announce that Invisible College Publishing is now offering various publication services for the Creative in mind. We are offering the following:
Editing Services
Publication Services
Promotional Services
Currently we’ve been working on an artist exhibition book, a book of poetry, and several other ventures. We happily will work with you on any of your projects in whatever aspect that will help you along the way. We bring nearly 40 years of graphics and design to any creative endeavour. Find Out More Here!Publishing Services!
In conjunction we’ve started a web hosting and web construction service for Creatives as well. It’s called Black Rabbit Graphix. Having played with the idea for a while, and this seemed like a good time to jump into these waters. The thought was born out of the idea that artist, writers and other Creatives have to take time out of their projects to build, launch, and maintain websites, which frankly if you are not fully prepared for it can be a real black hole for your creative efforts. With that in mind, we purchased space on a server, and now offer the following services:
Web Hosting: Hosting sites for the creative community. Reasonable rates and special services.
Word Press Site Construction: We can take the worry and bother out of your hands, designing, constructing your site for you, and
maintain it if you like.
Graphic Arts & Publishing Services: Editing, graphix, layout of publications, online & printing through Invisible College Publications as well as promotions for your printed works.
So, check out the services that we are offering now. Drop us a line on the Contact form on either site. We can certainly be of service.
(Support The Artist!- Existential Beast!)
______________________ One of the great unsung Poets of the last century. My friend Morgan turned me onto him a decade or so ago. I am late to this parade, but that is okay as well. Gary Snyder lays d.a.’s work out nicely. Enjoy.
G
The Dharma Eye of d.a.levy
by Gary Snyder
________
d.a.levy – Darryl Levy – I try out his names, reaching to know the man; his poems, his polemics. I feel brother to Levy not only as poet but as fellow-worker in the Buddha-fields. Levy had a remarkable karma: he saw who he was, where he was, what his field of activity was, and what his tools were to be.
________
“if in the past
i was of the black
and sat at night
in cemeteries
& silence
even that
was transient”
In Indian thought the truth/law/absolute is called the Dharma. The Buddhadharma (“Buddhism”) is the Dharma as transmitted by a line of enlightened men and women. Gods exist, but even the Gods are subject to the laws of karma; and because of their tiresomely long omnipotent lives they are somewhat handicapped in the achievement of liberation. Gods have been known to gain insight by attending little talks given by poor wretched mendicant human wise men. There are religious-minded people who strive for purity and solitary illumination, to be “God” like-but the Dharma is without dualism. Great Buddhist yogins of the past often sat through the night in graveyards, meditating while seated on corpses. Some of these yogins in their exhaustive search through all the components of mind and transformations of thought-energy became “of the black” – showing no dualistic distaste for “impurity” – and hoping to reach the depths where there is the basest lead, the raw material for the alchemical transformation into “gold.”
“it was feb. 63 when i had enough money to buy a 6X9 letterhead hand press & type. Spent al most a year at my aunt and uncles printing sometimes 8 to 16 hours a day for days and days. . .”
The “right-handed” yogins and mystics have been an integral part of the conspiracy of civilization to degrade women and mis-use nature. They have become “established religion” living off of money provided by the state, or the pious gifts of workers and peasants.
The yogins of the left-hand, both women and men, have lived in the world doing their work and supporting themselves by crafts or labor. The Tantric siddha (“powerman”) Saraha was an arrow-maker. Naropa’s teacher Tilopa was a pounder of til seeds. Many were poets. Long apprentice ships were spent, in the mastery of a craft.
_________
“i have a city to cover with lines”
His hometown, Cleveland, that he wouldn’t move from. Like the Sioux warriors who tied themselves to a spear and stuck it in the ground, never to retreat. Why? An almost irrational act of love–to give a measure of self-awareness to the people of Cleveland through poesy.
_________
“you will not confront yourself
so you leap to the aid of others”
–Levy’s self-criticism also. But the Bodhisattva view does not imply that first, you perfect your selfrealization and second, enter the world to “cure illnesses and loosen bonds.” The waterwheel swings deep into the water and spills it off the top in the same turning.
_________
“in the background i sense
clannish emasculated
masonic mafia rites”
You’d think a hard-working young printer and poet would incur no particular wrath and blame. Or would you. The problem goes deeper than the celebrated American anti-intellectualism or guilt-filled prurient repressive over-permissive sexual attitudes or the compulsive accumulation of X
__________
“Really”
the police try to protect
the banks – and everything else
is secondary”
(Luther’s outhouse a national institution.) The problem goes back to when the powers, beauties, and deep knowledges of the age-old women’s traditions were supplanted by military-caste mystiques & the accumulation of heavy metals. The poet/yogin still speaks for that other, saner, consciousness. The Occidental poet, with his “Muse.”
_________
“lady you have to be realistic
sending all your poets to the looney bin
ain’t helping the profession very much
your blue hair in the wind
& yr eyes full of diamonds.”
Not an easy row to hoe. Nature a network of de-pendent transformations and the Muse can be Maya, mistress of the ecosystem of delusion; who will perpetually keep tricking, or be the means of seeing through (herself) – a challenge, Levy’s Cleveland is not, exactly, his adversary: but his witch-Muse he needs must convert to the Path (more paying-back for spooky experiments in previous lives – that muse -)
_________
“What form of energy is used to
create the original thoughts?
Try to become THAT!”
This takes us to the heart of Levy’s strength. All manipulations of politics or magic – things, images, from inner or outer worlds; reduce down to this mustard seed that blows away when you try to look at it.
__________
“Cherokee, Deleware, Huron [sic]
We will return your land to you”
It is curious how even a glimpse of the Mind-essence creates such primal respect for the land and for the dignity of men who live lovingly in the web of life – the primitives-
“it is not a Cathouse of the rising sun
or the deathwagon of the beat
generation, but a bridge of clouds
to a new culture.”
Traditional orthodox Buddhists are not concerned with building new cultures any more than they are interested in nature religion or girls. Poets must try to get them together – playing a funny kind of role, today, as pivot-man, between the upheavals of culture-change and the persistence of the Single Eye of knowledge. d. a. levy finished up his karma early – “reborn as a poet in an industrial society” but he did his job well.
_________
“the traditions we follow
make the gods look young”
Thus the name of Padma Sambhava’s line of Tibetan Buddhism, Ning-ma, means “Ancient Ones.” The sophistications of Mahayana metaphysics harmonized with archaic and primitive systems … Goddesses; sexual yoga. Too rich to manage without the bitter tea of Zen as well – and here in North America, Turtle Island, we begin now to look for the next switchback in the path: something drawing on the wisdom traditions of Asia, incorporating the profound lore of our Semitic, Celtic, African, & Germanic roots – something that walks with the land and animals of Turtle Island in “a sacred manner” as the Indians do.
Levy gone up ahead, with that tinkle of bells (which is also how you hear the dakini approaching)
“when riding the winter pony
one
leaves
a trail of bells
soft/y ringing
deep in the mind
& if one listens
perhaps this sound
will guide
the young rider through the
falling
snow”
Gary Snyder
4.V I 11.40071
(Reckoning roughly from
the earliest cave paintings)
NOTE
Books by d.a.levy – find them where you can –
ukanhavyrfukncitibak. Cleveland, Ghost Press 1970.
Suburban Monastery Death Poem. Madison, Wis., Quixote Press, Vajrayana Reprint Series #1.
The Tibetan Stroboscope. Cleveland, Ayizan Press, 1968.
and, issues of The Buddhist Third Class Junk Mail Oracle.
______________________ The Orange Drop – Make It Her, Forever
______________________ “The call of death is a call of love. Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, if we accept it as one of the great eternal forms of life and transformation.” – Hermann Hesse
Dear Friends,
A quick note. I’ve been assembling a new site, with new entries of course for Gwyllm.com. I am in transition, due to changes in my spirit and health (nothing major, just aggravating) I am turning to a new approach in the matters of the day to day. My boundless energy of the past is now perhaps just that; of the past. More focus folks, yep more focus.
The creative drive has always ran high in my life, but not always in a disciplined manner. Perhaps this is the message for me at this time, to focus, and to clear away the unnecessary. More writing, more art perhaps will come out of it. I tend to dither on the computer. I have taken a lesson from my friend Dale Pendell to step away from the computer when writing. The web is a wonderful place, but may I say, distracting. I have ended up thinking that the computer has turned into the everything machine. Beguiling, beguiling, I must not… you get the picture.
This edition was originally put together around a piece of writing that I am yet to transcribe over to the screen. I wrote it in the mornings which now seems to be the time of writing for me. Stay away from the computer, out of the office, sitting either in the garden or the dining room looking out on the back 40. Magick happens then. I am amazed.
This edition features Dales writing in: “A note to spiritual activists of the Buddhist or meditative variety” taken from Tikkun magazine. (Support these people, they are good!) Tikkun I have known Dale for nearly 20 years. He is the real deal, and I am pleased to feature this bit of writing on Spiritual Activism.
The times demand thoughtful essays, poetry, and creative thinking. Anger does not do it IMO. There is enough anger to sink the world in my view… Truthfully I cannot harbor the feeling for long, as it eats at you.
Compassion has always been a challenge when confronted by something, someone who seems hell-bent on manipulating the world to embrace their version of Thanatos. Yet, every being deserves compassion equally. We are all in this together. Let us explore new ways to bring forth a better world for all.
Much Love,
G
Photo: Rowan Spiers-Floyd
____________________
I have a bunch of new art as of late, in fact it is raining art here at Caer Llwydd. I have entered into a partnership with a friend back east to bring some of my art to the Blotter world: Gwyllm’s Blotter Art:
Our Lady Of The TryptaminesThe “Gate Keeper”“Solstice – Gwaschemasch’e Efendi”“Invocation”
As you see, I have been busy. Please follow the link above if you want a Blotter Print! Your support keeps us going here at Caer Llwydd. More Art Soon!
Blessings,
G
____________________ On The Menu:
The Links
Dale Pendell: A note to spiritual activists of the Buddhist or meditative variety
Love Burns
Aeon:Democracy needs politeness
Poetry: Sheikh Ansari
Shuffle Your Feet
_________________________ The Links: David Byrne: Eliminating The Human… The Deep State Sellout The Mystery Of The Iron Beads Can Plants Hear? 50 Years Of Marriage & Mindfulness
________________________
Ohara Koson
A note to spiritual activists of the Buddhist or meditative variety
January 20, 2017
Why Do We Turn Off Unneeded Lights Before We Leave a Room, or Before We Sit?
by Dale Pendell
The Case:
When, fundamentally, there are no lights. Why would (almost) any of us stoop to save a sentient being, when, fundamentally, there are no beings to save?
The Poem:
As the World Burns
The old masters, we hear,
avoided challenging
the status quo,
as they also
avoided contact
with women,
and refrained from
social activism.
Considering
the crimes of history,
the Buddha wondered
what to do. Thus
we sit, pursuing personal
self-cultivation –
serenity
as proof of some
transcendental virtue.
“In the great
kalpa fire, when all is consumed,
is it consumed as well?
Sit with this.”
Outside: the peasants
pass buckets
hand to hand.
Commentary:
Western culture first, and now global culture, has embraced conjuring as its principal form of magical practice. Conjuring means giving form to abstractions. We may call it Faustian magic, and contrast it with two other mythical shamanic practices in the Western Tradition: the way of the singer—that is, the path of art, typified by Orpheus; and the path of plant medicine and visionary practice, typified by Eve.
Conjuring is all about us—language conjures up ghosts, consciousness itself conjures up perhaps the greatest of all hallucinations—all given substance by our story-telling. Demystifying conjured ghosts is the practice where art (including poetry, music, and theater), meditation, and philosophy intersect—what we could call “unbinding magic.”
While, in various degrees, all concepts are conjured—some, like money, and the corporation, have been given bodies and autonomy. A corporation’s body has now been given the rights of citizens—conjuring indeed—but what is the spirit that has thus been brought forth?
The spiritual essence of a corporation is craving—by its charter a corporation can never have enough. It is the spirit that Buddhists call the preta, or “hungry ghost,” denizens of one of the six realms of existence. Out of compassion, Zen students make a small grain offering to the hungry ghosts before each meal. But to give the hungry ghost a body (with jaws and a large throat), autonomous life, immortality, the rights of citizens, a ruling position at the center of society with free access to feed and prey on the world of sentient beings is delusive madness. They will consume everything: earth’s resources, her plants and animals, her peoples, and her cultures.
This corporeal entity, we might say, is a burning light bulb, or a huge wrecking machine, left on auto-pilot and clear-cutting the earth. While we must sit to become intimate with our own greed, we should also, first, turn off the lights.
And lend a hand in putting out the fire. And right now that takes political action.
_____________
Dale and Scarlett April 2015 (Photo Courtesy Laura Pendell)
Dale Pendell resides in the foothills of the Sierra, with Laura Pendell, and their faithful cat Mushroom, dreaming a new world into existence.
_____________________
________________________
On Political Discussion:Politeness Rules
From Aeon Magazine: Democracy needs politeness
Autocrats shouted, cursed, and bullied, while American revolutionaries used politeness as a tool of radical politics“Long before current fears about incivility in public life – before anxieties about Twitter-shaming and cable-news name-calling – politeness was very much on the minds of United States leaders. In 1808, the US president Thomas Jefferson ranked the ‘qualities of mind’ he valued. Not surprisingly, he included ‘integrity’, ‘industry’, and ‘science’. These traits were particularly important to American revolutionaries seeking a society based on independent citizens, rather than harsh rulers and inherited privilege. But at the top of his list, Jefferson chose not these familiar Enlightenment values but ‘good humour’ – or what contemporaries usually called ‘politeness’….”
This is a great article. I would suggest that it is widely disseminated and shared out as perhaps the first move to help heal the toxic political environment. – G
________________________
Poetry: Sheikh Ansari
Sheikh Ansari
Sheikh Ansari Jabir ibn ‘Abdullah al-Ansari (1006-1088 ce) He was called Sheikh al-Islam and he was also given the title Zayn al- ‘Ulama (Ornament of the Scholars) and Nasir al-Sunnah (Supporter of the Prophetic Tradition). Later on in Persian texts he was called Pir-e Herat (the Sheikh of Herat).
Some of Ansari works include Kashf al-Asrar “Unveiling of the Secrets” (Commentary of the Qur’an), Tabaquat al-Sufiyya (The Generations of the Sufis), “Munajat” (Intimate Invocations) which is incorporated into the Kashf al-Asrar and in the Tabaqat.
___________
‘The Friend Beside Me’
O God
You know why I am happy:
It is because I seek Your company,
not through my own (efforts).
O God,
You decided and I did not.
I found the Friend beside me
when I woke up!
Sheikh Ansari – Kashf al_Asrar, Vol. 5, p. 407 – ‘Munajat – The Intimate Invocations’ – A.G. Farhadi
~~
‘Where Are You?’
O God,
You are the aim of the call of the sincere,
You enlighten the souls of the friends, (and)
You are the comfort of the hearts of the travellers—
because You are present in the very soul.
I call out, from emotion:
“Where are you?”
You are the life of the soul,
You are the rule (ayin) of speech, (and)
You are Your own interpreter (tarjaman).
For the sake of Your obligation to Yourself,
do not enter us into the shade of deception, (but)
make us reach union (wisal) with You.
Sheikh Ansari – Kashf al_Asrar, Vol. 5, p. 598 – ‘Munajat – The Intimate Invocations’ – A.G. Farhadi
~~
‘Pursuit of the Friend’
The heart left,
and the Friend is (also) gone.
I don’t know whether I should go after the Friend
or after the heart!
A voice spoke to me:
“Go in pursuit of the Friend,
because the lover needs a heart
in order to find union with the Friend.
If there was no Friend,
what would (the lover) do with (his) heart?”
Sheikh Ansari – Kashf al_Asrar, Vol. 1, p. 628 – ‘Maqulat-o Andarz-ha – Sayings and Advice’ – A.G. Farhadi
~~
‘The Beauty of Oneness’
Any eye filled with the vision of this world
cannot see the attributes of the Hereafter,
Any eye filled with the attributes of the Hereafter
would be deprived of the Beauty (Jamal) of (Divine) Oneness.
Sheikh Ansari – Kashf al_Asrar, Vol. 7, p. 511 – ‘Maqulat-o Andarz-ha – Sayings and Advice’ – A.G. Farhadi
~~
‘In Each Breath’
O you who have departed from your own self,
and who have not yet reached the Friend:
do not be sad, (for)
He is accompanying you in each of (your) breaths.
Sheikh Ansari – Kashf al_Asrar, Vol. 7, p. 268 – ‘Maqulat-o Andarz-ha – Sayings and Advice’ – A.G. Farhadi
________________________
________________________
A Path of Devotion
In this path the eye must cease to see,
And the ear to hear,
Save unto Him, and about Him.
Be as dust on His path.
Even the kings of this earth
Make the dust of His feet
The balm of their eyes.
– Sheikh Ansari Deeper!
You ask me why I live on Green Mountain ?
I smile in silence and the quiet mind.
Peach petals blow on mountain streams
To earths and skies beyond Humankind.
– Li Bai
Birth of Siddartha, mural from Bellanwila Raja Maha Viharaya, Sri Lanka
Thank you for visiting Gwyllm.com. I am experimenting with some new formats… and would like to know if you would like to receive updates via email from the site. I would think it would be a weekly email, without a lot of fanfare. Let me know, and you can do so at: Contact Form Let’s do this in a civilized manner! ;P
Life has taken some turns and twist as of late. I was hoping to speak at The Exploring Psychedelics Conference in Ashland at the end of the month, but the vehicle decided it needed a full brake job and more. Well, I have a talk, so we will be recording it and releasing it on Gwyllm.com. I will start posting videos soon, stay tuned!
Working on a book that I hope to release in a couple of weeks. A project that I deeply love. I had a poet visiting from the Washington Coast, we are finishing up his book soon to be released on The Invisible College Publishing….
Much Love,
G
________________ On The Menu:
Site UpDate
Art UpDate
The Links
Solaris – Waiting
Buddhism and the Possibilities of a Planetary Culture – Gary Snyder
Daoist Poetry
Solaris – Inward
________________ Site Update:
So, lots going on. The Daily Art is cooking along, with almost daily delivery of a plethora of images… wild and wacky stuff, but usually with a theme.
On our Featured Artist Gallery we have a wonderful bit of art and poetry, featuring the beautiful composite photos of Lang Jingshan & coupled with the brilliant Daoist poetry of Li Bai. This is a seriously beautiful mix of image and poetic imagery. I hope to bring more of these marriages to Gwyllm.com.
Radio EarthRites: We have a new show, The “Dream Engines” Mix….. 15.5 Hours Of Chilled Introspection… This is for all of you Trippers out there. I think you will enjoy where it goes. Some great music by cutting edge musicians…. If you enjoy the music, perhaps you might want to subscribe?
The “Dream Engines” Mix
________________ Art Update:
Holy Moly, I have 4 new Blotter Pieces coming out this next week! Stay Tuned!
Thanks,
G
Buddhism and the Possibilities of a Planetary Culture – Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder
Buddhism holds that the universe and all creatures in it are intrinsically in a state of complete wisdom, love, and compassion, acting in natural response and mutual interdependence. The personal realization of this from-the-beginning state cannot be had for and by one- “self,”—because it is not fully realized unless one has given the self up and away.
In the Buddhist view, that which obstructs the effortless manifestation of this is ignorance, which projects into fear and needless craving. Historically, Buddhist philosophers have failed to analyze out the degree to which ignorance and suffering are caused or encouraged by social factors, considering fear-and desire to be given facts of the human condition. Consequently the major concern of Buddhist philosophy is epistemology and “psychology” with no attention paid to historical or sociological problems. Although Mahayana Buddhism has a grand vision of universal salvation, the actual achievement of Buddhism has been the development of practical systems of meditation toward the end of liberating a few dedicated individuals from psychological hang-ups and cultural conditionings. Institutional Buddhism has been conspicuously ready to accept or ignore the inequalities and tyrannies of whatever political system it found itself under. This can be death to Buddhism, because it is death to any meaningful function of compassion. Wisdom without compassion feels no pain.
No one today can afford to be innocent, or to indulge themselves in ignorance of the nature of contemporary governments, politics, and social orders. The national politics of the modem world are “states” which maintain their existence by deliberately fostered craving and fear: monstrous protection rackets. The “free world” has become economically dependent on a fantastic system of stimulation of greed which cannot be fulfilled, sexual desire which cannot be satiated, and hatred which has no outlet except against oneself, the persons one is supposed to love, or the revolutionary aspirations of pitiful, poverty-stricken marginal societies. The conditions of the Cold War have fumed most modem societies— both communist and capitalist—into vicious distorters of true human potential They try to create populations of preta—hungry ghosts with giant appetites and throats no bigger than needles. The soil, the forests, and all anima1 life are being consumed by these cancerous collectivities; the air and water of the planet is being fouled by them.
There is nothing in human nature or the requirements of human social organization which intrinsically requires that a society be contradictory, repressive, and productive of violent and frustrated personalities. Findings in anthropology and psychology make this more and more evident. One can prove it for oneself by taking a good look at Original Nature through meditation. Once a person has this much faith and insight, one will be led to a deep concern with the need for radical social change through a variety of nonviolent means.
The joyous and voluntary poverty of Buddhism becomes a positive force. The traditional harmlessness and avoidance of taking life in any form has nation-shaking implications. The practice of meditation, for which one needs only “the ground beneath one’s feet,” wipes out mountains of junk being pumped into the mind by the mass media and supermarket universities. The be1ief in a serene and generous fulfillment of natural loving desires destroys ideologies which blind, maim, and repress—and points the way to a kind of community which would amaze “moralists” and transform armies of men who are fighters because they cannot be lovers.
Avatamsaka (Kegon or Hua-yen) Buddhist philosophy sees the world as a vast, interrelated network in which all objects and creatures are necessary and illuminated. From one standpoint, governments, wars, or all that we consider “evil” are uncompromisingly contained in this totalistic realm. The hawk, the swoop, and the hare are one. From the “human” standpoint we cannot live in those terms unless all beings see with the same enlightened eye. The Bodhisattva lives by the sufferer’s standard, and he or she must be effective in aiding those who suffer.
The mercy of the West has been social revolution; the mercy of the East has been individual insight into the basic self/void. We need both. They are both contained in the traditional three aspects of the Dharma path: wisdom (prajñā), meditation (dhyana), and morality (shila). Wisdom is intuitive knowledge of the mind of love and clarity that lies beneath one’s ego-driven anxieties and aggressions. Meditation is going into the mind to see this for yourself—over and over again, until it becomes the mind you live in. Morality is bringing it back out in the way you live, through personal example and responsible action, ultimately toward the true community (sangha) of “all beings.” This last aspect means, for me, supporting any cultural and economic revolution that moves clearly toward a truly free world. It means using such means as civil disobedience, outspoken criticism, protest, pacifism, voluntary poverty, and even gentle violence if it comes to a matter of restraining some impetuous crazy. It means affirming the widest possible spectrum of non-harmful individual behavior—defending the right of individuals to smoke hemp, eat peyote, be polygamous, polyandrous, or homosexual. Worlds of behavior and custom long banned by the Judaeo-Capitalist-Christian-Marxist West. It means respecting intelligence and learning, but not as greed or means to personal power. Working on one’s own responsibility, but willing to work with a group. “Forming the new society within the shell of the old”—the I.W.W. slogan of 70 years ago.
The traditional, vernacular, primitive, and village cultures may appear to be doomed. We must defend and support them as we would the diversity of ecosystems; they are all manifestations of Mind. Some of the elder societies accomplished a condition of Sangha, with not a little of Buddha and Dharma as well. We touch base with the deep mind of peoples of all times and places in our meditation practice, and this is an amazing revo1utionary aspect of the Buddhadharma. By a “planetary culture” I mean the kind of societies that would follow on a new understanding of that relatively recent institution, the National State, an understanding that might enable us to leave it behind. The State is greed made legal, with a monopoly on violence; a natural society is familial and cautionary. A natural society is one which “Follows the Way,'” imperfectly but authentically.
Such an understanding will close the circle and link us in many ways with the most creative aspects of our past. If we are lucky, we may eventually arrive at a world of relatively mutually tolerant small societies attuned to their local region and united overall by a profound respect and love for the mind and nature of the universe. I can imagine further virtues in a world sponsoring societies with matrilineal descent, free-form marriage, “natural credit” economics, far less population, and much more wilderness.
* * * Snyder, Gary. “Buddhism and the Possibilities of a Planetary Culture,” in Engaged Buddhist Reader, Arnold Kotler, ed. Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1996. 123-126. [Gary Snyder is a Pulitzer-Prize winning poet and teacher of literature and wilderness thought at the University of California at Davis. He is founder of the Ring of Bones Zendo, and author of Mountains and Rivers Without End, Axe Handles, Turtle Island, Earth House Hold, and many other books.]
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I have always had a love for Daoist (when I was a young guy “Taoist”) poetry. Very heady stuff, pre-Zen and full of wry tumbles and play on words. Li Bai has become a favourite of mine over the years, but oh, there are so many other great poets from the Daoist tradition. Enjoy.
(Lang Jingshan – wonderful photographic artist, please see: Featured Artist Gallery) Daoist Poetry
Birds Calling in the Ravine
I’m idle, as osmanthus flowers fall,
This quiet night in spring, the hill is empty.
The moon comes out and startles the birds on the hill,
They don’t stop calling in the spring ravine.
– Wang Wei
______ The Great Way
The Great Way has no gate;
there are a thousand paths to it.
If you pass through the barrier,
you walk the universe alone.
– Wu Men
______ Down From The Mountain
As down Mount Emerald at eve I came,
The mountain moon went all the way with me.
Backward I looked, to see the heights aflame
With a pale light that glimmered eerily.
A little lad undid the rustic latch
As hand in hand your cottage we did gain,
Where green limp tendrils at our cloaks did catch,
And dim bamboos o’er hung a shadowy lane.
Gaily I cried, “Here may we rest our fill!”
Then choicest wines we quaffed; and cheerily
“The Wind among the Pines” we sang, until
A few faint stars hung in the Galaxy.
Merry were you, my friend: and drunk was I,
Blissfully letting all the world go by.
– Li Bai
______ Returning to Songshan Mountain
The limpid river runs between the bushes,
The horse and cart are moving idly on.
The water flows as if with a mind of its own,
At dusk, the birds return to perch together.
The desolate town is faced by an ancient ferry,
The setting sun now fills the autumn hills.
And far below high Songshan’s tumbling ridges,
Returning home, I close the door for now..
– Wang Wei
______ The Old Dust
The living is a passing traveler;
The dead, a man come home.
One brief journey betwixt heaven and earth,
Then, alas! we are the same old dust of ten thousand ages.
The rabbit in the moon pounds the medicine in vain;
Fu-sang, the tree of immortality,
has crumbled to kindling wood.
Man dies, his white bones are dumb without a word
When the green pines feel the coming of the spring.
Looking back, I sigh;
Looking before, I sigh again.
What is there to prize in the life’s vaporous glory?
– Li Bai
______ A Monk Asked
A monk asked Chao-chou Ts’ung shen (777-897) (Joshu), “Has the oak tree Buddha nature?”
Chao-chou said, “Yes, it has.”
The monk said, “When does the oak tree attain Buddhahood?”
Chao-Chou said, “Wait until the great universe collapses.”
The monk said, “When does the universe collapse?”
Chao-chou said, “Wait until the oak tree attains Buddhahood.
– Wu Men
Lang Jingshan
____________________ Solaris – Inward
“A swarm of bees in May
Is worth a load of hay;
A swarm of bees in June
Is worth a silver spoon;
A swarm of bees in July
Is not worth a fly.”
– Rhyme from England
On Beltaine/Beltane:
I have a well of memory that surfaces from time to time. One of the earliest memories is in Newfoundland, dancing around the Maypole with other kids. I must of been 3 or 4 years old at the time. The clouds were fleecy overhead and the day was one of joy. I am blessed with these memories, for they tie me to an old and ancient tradition, that the modern world cannot erase. Here is to Bel-Eve, with all the correct rites observed. Here is to love, and the regeneration of the earth through celebration.
In Passing…. I met Nick Sands over a long weekend at MindStates back in 2000 I believe. He had just gotten out of prison. He was a delightful conversationalist. I talked with him a bit, along with others, and was struck most by his story of teaching Yoga and Meditation to other incarcerated souls. He was to my mind about changing consciousness however most effective for the situation one finds oneself in, and especially with Love. That was his main theme I believe. A Bodhisattva of Love. He put his life on the line for others, and along the way, changed the hearts of millions.
Tonight, I drink a toast to him, and light candles to light his way home.
Bright Blessings Nick, Bright Blessings….
So, we are now at the real beginning of Summer. Not the Solstice, but on the cross quarter days. Tonight, light a candle, a fire, and take your loved one into your arms, if only for a hug. This is the real deal, this ties us to the ancient spiral of life….
The Fires Of Beltane
“‘Tis like the birthday of the world,
When earth was born in bloom;
The light is made of many dyes,
The air is all perfume:
There’s crimson buds, and white and blue,
The very rainbow showers
Have turned to blossoms where they fell,
And sown the earth with flowers.”
– Thomas Hood
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“In somer when the shawes be sheyne,
And leves be large and long,
Hit is full merry in feyre foreste
To here the foulys song.
To see the dere draw to the dale
And leve the hilles hee,
And shadow him in the leves grene
Under the green-wode tree.
Hit befell on Whitsontide
Early in a May mornyng,
The Sonne up faire can shyne,
And the briddis mery can syng.”
– Anonymous, May in the Green Wode, 15h Century
“The month of May was come, when every lusty heart beginneth to blossom, and to bring forth fruit; for like as herbs and trees bring forth fruit and flourish in May, in likewise every lusty heart that is in any manner a lover, springeth and flourisheth in lusty deeds. For it giveth unto all lovers courage, that lusty month of May.”
– Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d’Arthur
_______
“The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.”
– Philip Larkin, The Trees
________
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“The new earth quickens as you rise.
The May Queen is waiting.
Feel the pulsing ground call you to journey,
To know the depths of your desire.
The May Queen is waiting.
Moving through the night, the bright moon’s flight.
In green and silver on the plain.
She waits for you to return again.
Do not keep Her waiting.
Her temper stings if you refuse to taste Her honey.
Surrender as enchantment brings
The first light of dawning.
Move with Her in sacred dance, through fear to feeling.
Bringing ecstasy to those who dare.
Living earth is breathing.
Loving through the night in the bright moonlight,
As seedlings open with the rain.
She’ll long for you to return again.
Do not keep Her waiting.”
– Ruth Barren, The May Queen is Waiting
“Now every field is clothed with grass, and every tree with leaves; now the woods put forth their blossoms, and the year assumes its gay attire.”
– Virgil
“What is now the foliage moving?
Air is still, and hush’d the breeze,
Sultriness, this fullness loving,
Through the thicket, from the trees.
Now the eye at once gleams brightly,
See! the infant band with mirth
Moves and dances nimbly, lightly,
As the morning gave it birth,
Flutt’ring two and two o’er earth.”
– Wolfgang Goethe, May 1815
Beltane Fire Festival on Calton Hill in Edinburgh, Scotland. Event has been going on for years and has grown ever larger, now boasting over 300 performers and 10,000 to 15,000 spectators.
I am very excited to be announce that 
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