Whirlpools of love

  in this tale a story teller may seem to emerge but no writer can be found there is nothing inside or outside of these words that seem to paint this liquid dream of wonderment that flows in and through wonderment where beauty seems to bloom everywhere I look

river of unspeakable awe leaves no questions in its wake

only subtle whirlpools of love that dissolve again into the slip stream of life

no hands are required to open this spontaneous unfolding

all and everything blooms without effort

or non effort

not knowing what beauty is

leaves a feeling of indescribable awe...

this magical symphony of life plays itself with no location or time notes slip and slide and skip merrily down the river of sound tripling through you as you are this song singing itself

no singer can be found outside of the music

its all music

there is no music

simply a surround sound of aliveness dancing in its own wild un-tethered symphony

there is no knowing where the notes will go

there is no sense from whence they have come

nor logic about a course they will take

there is no next

no curtain to part

no key no door no barrier between you and the magic that you seek what is magic but an unknowing of what magic is?

what is love but an unknowing of what love is?

this delicious taste of unknowing leaves its feral and undefined scent saturating the dream of things

softly

softly

the grey cat flows through the grasses

all is fluid

she leaves no prints

but soars through your mind stream

blending beautifully into this un-chained melody

there is infinite wonder that nothing can be known

what is wonder... what is love?

what is knowing but a feeling of solidity, of certitude, of a gathering of things into a bouquet of understanding so that you may look upon its completeness and feel you are whole

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 yet

flowers wilt

even plastic flowers fade

who or what imagines you and your world no source can be found

none is looked for

nothing can be known

there are no things

nor lack of things

there is no fullness nor emptiness

nor both

nor neither

...and the tightrope dancer paused in mid air and twirled into the heavens

or was it the sky that swallowed you and left a kiss of nothing

on your lips

do I remember belief in the dream? a belief in solidity, in certitude, the belief that I was a 'real' persona, that there was someone behind the mask, that there were actual things under the names? surely I remember the feeling of desperation, of clinging to hope and trying to deny fear, to be brave against all odds, of wanting to live.... of wanting to die....

I am the loving of life the loving of love... and yes, this delicious longing which seems to be the movement of life...

without longing I am not... it is in the dream of separation where love seems to appear and I am not a dream denier, nor an emptiness dream denier, neither is real or unreal, they are not separate, there is no separation....

this, whatever it looks and feels, like is as real as it gets, this is as real as it has ever been...

this caress this feeling of fingertips sliding across the keyboard, the steam rising from my oatmeal and the colorful berries, the spit gathering in my mouth as I purse my lips to drink my tea....

2

 piercing brilliance burns away the clouds of knowing

that were never there

or here

and this love seems to cut right through your skin your bones your very heart slices through all ideas of love

light burns light

love burns love fullness burns fullness emptiness burns emptiness

wind blown filagree of transparent shadows flows under the shallowing moon

where you once walked

a dream girl lost in a daydream of endless tomorrows

a breath of yesteryear echoes

reverberates in between the words that wrote themselves

and lost themselves

mourning doves and the hollowing wind

3

 no one walks along this deserted road

feet and the fallen leaves

pieces of a scrapbook that escaped their frame long ago

time has erased itself

there is no context

no one owns these photos, these news clipping

tattered and burnt from a conflagration that consumed its own flame

stories of emptiness stories of fullness

juicy and ripe and

stories

seem to coalesce into this flowing momentary

unutterably wondrous

simultaneously falling apart without ever actually condensing into tears

river of thought

has no banks

wind ploughs through the empty fields barren trees

and the fallen leaves skimming down the streets scattering golden

4

 all we can seem to know is there is an undeniable aliveness that seems to have no edges, or outside to it, so it is not an it, as it cannot be grasped.

this aliveness is undeniable just like you drink water and know it is wet.

it is obvious that there is awareness of this aliveness, and an awareness of awareness, but these are not separate nor joined, it is the same

life appears to spontaneously arise all by itself and simultaneously self erase. no pusher puller or mover or eraser can be found, as it is not an isolated thing with edges.

no other better more or next can be found.

ungraspable, without time or non time, or actual substance

we could say life is flowing, but without a before, or after, or anything we could call now, life neither flows nor stands still.

somehow we feel deep inside that this is magical, and have since we were very small...

...."now you see it now you don't ...watch me pull a rabbit from my hat”....

and as we see people die, we feel that life is fleeting and we don't want to lose this magic!

this undeniable magic of life simply appearing all by itself...

trying to grasp and hold the magic becomes our goal

this seeking becomes who we are...

trying to grasp an idea seems to solidify the painful belief and feeling that there is an actual something to grasp and a someone separate from it who can hold it or become it.

trying to reach a something which is undeniable, but cannot be articulated turns into reading, for many, religion and philosophy and spirituality... looking for that magic key to the magic....

but there is no key nor door to this magic, as it is already always on. the magic is in the reaching, the magic is the disappointment at not finding an idea of magic, the magic is the wonder of knowing it is all magic and it never had to be found, it was never lost it was never an it separate from you.

5

 I am a self

there are no selves

there is no me here

there is no you there

there is no here or there or both, ...or neither

I am as real as you

as real as tomorrow and love and enlightenment there is no reality nor non reality

life seems as real as it seems

this is not it as there is no this, nor it

no everything no nothing

everything and nothing

there are no things, yet everything is included

all is love there is no love

6

 she trudged endless paths searching for endless spaciousness when no outside to her world could be found

she followed her homesickness searching for some unspeakable beauty just missed

a rainbow inside her heart

that seemed to appear and vanish

ancient songs

beckoned

the words and melodies were unclear

yet she knew all of them by heart spinning around trying to find them to gather them dizzy

breathless

tears

chasing her tale

never noticing there was no singer and she was the song

what pushed and pulled the tides of your heart

when you believed there were edges to this endless ocean of love?

what is the color of this poem? where is its silent sound?

7

 what soars on the wingtip of sound?

what leaves whirlpools of emptiness...

pools of echoes bleeding into sky

who hears this music, or is this symphony its own resonance swirling into a wind ballet of timeless wonder

merging again into endless sky

without separate notes there is no music without a listener there is no singer without lovers there is no love

where is this love when all is love

a brush of madness paints me into this dream that has no actual substance or place or time

I do not exist nor do I not

I am as real and as unreal as you, as tomorrow

as love

wild and wonderful this aliveness that has no other ungraspable untethered

wings dissolve into sky

sky dissolves into its own reflection

and your eyes are miraculous mirrors delicate wetness

you are an imaginary prism between life and life this obvious pulsating trembling aliveness seeing itself

touching itself

through you life seems to explode

into silence

into sound

singing its own ineffable majesty

8

 no one wears the wings of sound they beat with the rhythm of existence...

tides

wind in the tree tops your aching heart...

are there separate tears in this river of silence where is sound

where is silence

where is the rainbow you saw last summer? where is the rain in last night's dream? what is rain?

whose tears are these?

songs spin the dream with heart strings loosed by the wind

love breaks free

sails into sky

it was never tethered

never held

life falls through itself breathless

wind

without end or beginning time swallows itself leaves not a hint of its own non existence

it is obvious that life cannot be held whisper your name and taste your own emptiness run to the mirror and see if you are there under the eyes

beneath the skin

just flesh and blood

flowing

current of aliveness

river of song

has no singer

no one pushes or pulls the tides not even the moon

they flow in your mind stream just like this song

9

 your longing to get what is already the case will seem to push it away, as it is not an it, neither are you

longing for life to look and feel differently hurts

as it is impossible

how can the ocean taste its own wetness?

there is nothing to be remembered and no one to remember....

this obvious aliveness

this brilliant immediacy is undeniable, isn't it?

there appears to be awareness of this aliveness and an awareness of this awareness...

and there is no separation between these...

it is the apparent imaginary 'division' created by the objectifying brain that seems to create a thing called awareness and a thing called aliveness...

but can you isolate one?

is there ever awareness without perception

or perception without awareness?

this aliveness cannot be caught

of held

it is a treasure that seems to self arise

and simultaneously self erase

no past nor future nor 'now' can be found,

nor can a looker be isolated from this streaming perceptual sensorial display....

you know this magic, and the magic of it is that it is

indeed

un-graspable

unknowable

and there is no separate thing

no hand

no heart

no mind

that can hold it or know it in the conventional sense

yet it is always sensed

somehow

and there is no path or method to discover that which already is

as the path, the method, the looking, is already this magic of aliveness self arising and self erasing....

10

 and you feel your hand your heart reaching out

trying to catch the rippling

but all you can see is rainbows flowing through your fingers

you are the walls you seek to escape or break down...

they seem to be solid and keep out the light...

but it is belief in the dream which creates this illusion of separation, of an inside and an outside, here and there

imprisonment and freedom...

and someone to be free or bound

some how this belief which is the cornerstone of who you are melts away, the wall of belief is punctured, all encompassing brilliance dissolves all and everything, yet all and everything and you remain.... all is transparent wonder

you are dissolved yet dancing...

there are no things nor non things nor both

nor neither

no mind, no non mind

no one to have a mind

or not

11

 weightless sky endless blue endless grey clouds

hover

rain

falls

rainbows appear and dissolve colors spill into your mind stream ...they never left

river of thought has no beginning nor end no banks of time

nor background of space

daffodils swoon under the weight of moonlight stars seem fixed until they make you dizzy the world spins

or is it you

swirling into starlight?

a life time of chasing your tale

no beginning or end can be found to this seamless aliveness spinning may reveal an empty center to the jewel that you are infinite facets blend into a surround sound of echoes reverberating ancient songs

that were never sung

yet the words and melodies are felt deeply as they line your edgeless heart where clouds and starlight and endless skies bloom

and wilt

looking for a lasting presence

a fixed point on the horizon that will pin you to the story is like a pin in your heart

a bitter death to flight

morning dove floats to the frozen ground

I heard her singing as dawn streamed into the garden grey cat sleuths across the frost

flying up

magnificent feathered display

and you long to drown in this beauty and dissolve into light

but you were never separate from love you cannot find it or lose it

there is no you who is love

nor love to merge with

it is all love

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 there is no love

river of love needs its banks to flow

we stand on opposite sides

and dance in the current as we dissolve into each other never separate

never joined

we need this river of reflections

to glimpse our own beauty

and drown in our own love

13

 you are a persona

an imaginary persona

like me, the character that you are seems to arise in the company of apparent others.

we are the shared dream of separation, and as we do not exist alone, other personas are like our mirrors...

as we do not exist, we cannot find anything when we look inside. in a way we are each others reflections.

when a loved one dies, we will never see ourselves through their eyes again. that mirror has broken, and the shards rip through our hearts as we have lost a part of ourselves. gone forever.

enlightenment is not an escape from the dream.

knowing you and I and love are imaginary is not the end of love, it is the beginning of an all encompassing love, of realizing that all of us know somewhere down deep that we are utterly empty and exist only as each other's echoes, and that we do not exist alone,

that we all long to touch, knowing that we can never know what life looks or feels like for another.

we are all utterly alone. yet everyone shares this broken hearted beauty, everyone is utterly innocent, simply isolated swirling galaxies of thought, of liquid memory....insubstantial, ephemeral, beautiful dreamt personas....

love is the part of the dream that makes up for the total aloneness we all share. we are alone, together.

thought weaves a web that has no solidity nor liquidity... it is composed of not even nothing... less substantial than cloud castles dissolving.... nothing can be caught with thought, thought is more like a razor slicing up the perceptual symphony into things and an observer.... but there is no thing called perception or awareness without thought... no thing called thought...

without thought...

you are flowing fleeting description... memory, a story without a source or story teller....

you are an echo of your own aloneness....

14

 I have people plead with me to give them one crumb of advice that will let them reach this promised land... but it is only empty promises that they have heard, there is no promised land of enlightenment and no one to reach it..... no one has this sublime emptiness and no one can give it away...

utter emptiness is already the case.... it is the looking for it which seems to deny it.... looking for enlightenment.... looking for any idea requires a belief in it... and enlightenment is a belief, like emptiness, like other better more and next....

so how can you find that which is already on?

wouldn't looking for it be it

or running away?

how could it be confirmed or denied, accepted or rejected...

the confirmation or rejection or acceptance... all what seems to appear... there is no getting out of this streaming dream of separation...

there is certainly no outside or edge to what seems to appear... and isn't the recognition of this seamless symphony of sensorial display inseparable from it? never one without an other...

wouldn't you say that life seems to appear all by itself without effort or non effort?

the feelings of effort and ease both arise effortlessly...

all arises and self erases evenly and equally and there are no separate actual things in this stream of perceptual input....

it is thought which seems to divide the unknowable ungraspable no thingness into separate things and events....

and this is something you can never see, as you are one of these imaginary separate things, like enlightenment...

15

 I am a dream spell of liquid memory

slipping sliding falling through itself

endless stories spiraling....

no end or beginning in sight

a fluid portrait of all the stories, all the images all whom I have met there are no separate stories...

that I am a fairytale dream girl is a story

as are these very lines trippling through your mind stream which really isn't yours, as you exist only in the thought

you think of as yours

all thought is learned shared words

stories...

weaving and unravelling without any actual substance sky soars through sky

light pours through light...

life swoons into itself

through your arms your eyes your lips this very kiss this obvious aliveness

immediate and clear

without other

without before or after ungraspable....

wondrous beyond measure

not even a this

as there is no that...

16

 what is darkness?

what is light?

what is this warmth inside my chest?

stars

bursting

rivers of songs

pour onto this screen

fingertips flow softly over this keyboard painting light and dark and colors streaming through this thought dream

wings of memory

tides of images

feathers drift softly

settling into this book of poems that writes me

as I continually slide off the pages

that were never bound

or held

or separate

from the story they tell

there is no heart nor hand nor mind that can contain this love this unbearably wondrous symphony that seems to play itself and hear itself

and leaves not a drop of sound

not even silence

in its wake

no one paints these infinite watercolor skies or this moon that seems to hover suspended

falling through its own embrace

the horizon never reached

unties itself

and the present is revealed

to be nothing other than what it always was a dream of infinite wonder dreaming itself

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