W.H. Auden, Under Which Lyre (A Reactionary Tract)

In a witty 1946 poem, W.H. Auden contrasted the way of "experts" with the Hermetic path of the trickster.
Harvard Magazine (November-December 2007)

Someday I’ll get caught up

I KEEP IMAGINING THAT SOMEDAY I’ll get caught up: write those letters, read those books. What a great imagination! My plans smile at me from tomorrow, always tomorrow. And here it is, always today.
                                     --  SY SAFRANSKY
                                               The Sun, December 1995

Time and Eternity

Bob Dylan 1963

Current state of affairs: 

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'

Stand up now or forever hold your peace

Tilopa's Mahamudra Teaching to Naropa

Gazing intently into the empty sky, vision ceases; 
Likewise, when mind gazes into mind itself, 
The train of discursive and conceptual thought ends 
And supreme enlightenment is gained. 

Like the morning mist that dissolves into thin air, 
Going nowhere but ceasing to be, 
Waves of conceptualization, all the mind's creation, dissolve, 
When you behold your mind's true nature. 

Pure space has neither colour nor shape 
And it cannot be stained either black or white; 
So also, mind's essence is beyond both colour and shape 
And it cannot be sullied by black or white deeds. 

Link to All twenty eight verses.

Let's Get Together - Kate Wolf (Live in Austin, TX)

The Real You - Alan Watts

Krishna talks to Prince Arjuna

Enactment of the dialogue between
Krishna and Arjuna

The Mahabharata (1989 film) - Wikipedia

Hsin Hsin Ming (Verses on the Faith Mind)

Xinxin Ming, Faith in mind, is a poem attributed to the Third Chinese Chán Patriarch Jianzhi Sengcan 鑑智僧璨 and one of the earliest Chinese Chan expressions of the Buddhist mind training practice. Wikipedia

Grandpa on Judaism

“In our religion we are not confined to many rituals.  That’s the basic part of our belief – that every man should have the freedom to face God in  his own way.”

                                    -Samuel Shavelson

Become comfortable with being lost

Become comfortable with being lost. Knowing that you don't know where you are is honest freedom. Breathe long deep breaths. Feel the life within you. pic.twitter.com/Op6U3b1Zki

— Meditation101 (@meditation101) June 17, 2018

Sunday Song of Love’s Longing Found

A Sunday Song of Love’s Longing Found

I was awakened this morning
By the music of a bird
Singing his heart out
For his love.

Recalling in me
The pinging sound
Of water meeting stone,
As the stream sparkles
Countless twinkling little sunbursts,
Reflecting the one sun.

Recalling then
The sky’s stars
Flickering in the bright night;
Suns for other planets’ days,
Shine,
Form a line
In our sight—
“Orion’s Belt,”
“Little Dipper,”
We say
With delight.

Then,
The joining of my heart
With my love;
Two shining as one,
Bursting with light
Equal to
The sun.
             *   *   *  
The miracles of life
Abound
In the Love that is expressed
All around,
And so are more
Abiding
And profound
Than the entire
Grief
Of all the human-folly driven
Dying
Of this planet we call
“Earth”;
The place of our singing
And our crying,
Our loving
And our shining.

For Love is absolute.
It permeates the Universe,
Saturates all existence's manifestations,
Is what we all are.
                      (Diane 2/10/13)

Global Brain

Everything is related to everything else. We know this by intuition, by listening and feeling deeply. We also intuit this via cyclic revolutions of electronic communications such as the internet, radio, television, etc. The world's "growing" a collective global brain to augment our biological heritage. 

Where is all this going? We don't know. We are "cells" of human life plunging into a great mystery. 

Image from The Social Superorganism and its Global Brain: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/suporgli.html.

Salutation of the Dawn

Salutation of the Dawn *

Look to this day!

For it is life, the very life of life,

In its brief course

Lie all the verities and realities of your existence:

The bliss of growth,

The glory of action,

The splendor of beauty,

For yesterday is but a dream

And tomorrow only a vision,

But today well lived makes every yesterday

a dream of happiness

And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well, therefore, to this day!

Such is the salutation of the dawn.

Kalidasa (2500 BC Sanskrit)

Nina Simone - Ain't Got No, I Got Life

Nina Simone singing from the soul. Everyone is born with everything they need.

Pete Seeger - "Forever Young"

I love this video - Pete Seeger, the old one, singing "Forever Young" with young people. So beautiful!

Baba Neem Karoli - Ram Dass

Best Meditation Teachings

The best meditation teachings are simple and direct. 

They act as anchors for the mind. 

And, do not give the ego much to chew on.

E.E. Cummings "I Thank You God For This Most Amazing Day"

We don't need to believe in God, to feel moved by the joy of these words.


I'm thankful E.E Cummings lived, wrote, recited & recorded this poem.

Imagine - John Lennon

A classic inter-generational song of peace and unity..