The impedimenta of desire

The impedimenta of desire      

Evolution in the course of a lifetime

might be interpreted

not as consciousness expanding

but of encumbrances shed

yet so few and paltry

that little more light shines through

at the end than in the beginning,

always threatened by smudges of vice,

the impedimenta of desire

to overwhelm the journey’s

natural divestiture and unveiling.

Aeons it seems, requires the process,

the gathering up, the breaking off,

littering the landscape, a-tisket, a-tasket,

the mortal, humble basket,

until each entombed core of light

triumphs over the encrusted alias

of Who, by faith, we really are.

O child of God, hide not your lamp

beneath the bushel but let it shine.

Orb of the heart

Orb of the heart         

The center of the sky once was earth,

the movements of planets and stars

erratic, calculations difficult and complex.

The sun took over and flights clicked

more easily into discernible patterns.

And when the center of the sky

became a distant, conjectured,

long-ago point of origin, the earth,

stars and planets began to interact

in simple, calculable and precise ways,

parts of an infinite, well-oiled machine.

As long as that blue, stone cold

orb of the heart is taken to be

the center of the universe,

every outward movement,

every body spinning beyond

will be judged as erratic and arbitrary,

inexplicable and incalculable.

O child of God, the truth makes things

o-so-much-more effortless and clear.

Disassociation

Disassociation         

The closer you get to truth,

the more tightly wound

around itself is paradox,

the linear poles gone limp,

loosely knotted like shoelaces.

Oneness is attained (apparently)

by disassociation from the illusion of self.

These deftly orbiting aggregates don’t mean

the hub exists as more than a not-quite-arbitrarily

selected point in space, a makeshift home

where we might hang our cognizant hats

until we’re ready to walk away from it all.

There is only one attachment to break

(which propagates all others) –

Oneness is attained by disassociation!

O pilgrim, honor your name –

quit the symbiotic partnership

that binds you to one spot

and venture forth, toward

whatever there may be beyond.

O child of God, infinity has no center.

To what do you daily tether yourself?

The truth of illusion

The truth of illusion          

Moths circle the lamp, hover and hurtle,

attracted to the flame but, also

driven from the midst

of its dark surroundings.

You reach God (they say)

when you come to the end of yourself.

You get wise.  It’s the truth of illusion

that shatters, that jades;

the truth of illusion that bores, sates,

disheartens, disenchants.

You rush toward God when God

outshines His surroundings.

When the dark has gobbled you up –

bones and blood,

you rush and flail

and hurl yourself toward the light;

seeing there’s nothing of worth

in the darkness to leave behind.

O child of God, turn from illusion

toward the way, the truth, the light.