He saw beauty in a white plastic bag

dancing in the wind.

Unwanted

Discarded

Neglected

Many become ensnared in their surroundings

ignorant of their own beauty.

I found mine resting in the gutter.

She became a musical instrument

when I placed two abandoned beer cans

inside her.  And the wind

breathed new life into both of us.

I am a calculated misfit
residing at the edge
of your ordinary days.
Prying, prodding, questioning.
Illuminating – other ways.
Boldly desiring to stand apart                                                                                            from regulated views.
 
On a mission to gather
comrades in arms.
Poets with a touch
of the absurd.
Painters whose vivid strokes
collide with shadows cast
by endless columns of grey.
Non-conformists……..
renegades stepping out
from the absurdity
of a self constructed iron cage.

I am a calculated misfit
seeking, searching, striving to find
a glimmer of myself
in the questioning of your eyes.

I feel the dark waves coming,

I brace myself.

Shall I fight them???   Again!!!

Or shall I let them take me under.

I don’t fit,

In a world constructed of straight lines.

I’m too wiggly!

Too intense!

Too introspective!

Too questioning!

Why all the straight lines?

They don’t fit!

In the natural wiggly world.

There’s no give………well just a little.

Mostly it’s all take.

The circle is broken!

I’m broken.

Maybe I’m the missing link?

To make the circle complete.

I’m caught in a spiraling circle,

taking me under.

Shall I fight it?

Or shall I be all the circle requires me to be?

The wiggly to the straight.

The intuitive to the logic.

The erratic to the rational.

The deep calm to the storm!

I feel the dark waves coming,

I don’t bother to brace myself.

I just let myself go under!

I’m standing on a rock

Spinning

around, and around, and around.

I’m connected to the rock,

I came from the rock,

I was once One with the rock.

Well really, I still am.

There are other people on the rock

and we share that same Oneness.

I see them and they see me.

Or do they?

There are pyramids on the rock.

Many pyramids.

Pyramids sitting on a sphere.

Geometry is the stuff of life.

Life comes in all shapes and sizes.

Sometimes complementing each other.

Sometimes conflicting with each other.

Pyramids are fine, if you’re sitting at the top.

I’ve heard the view is good from up there,

though the air is thin

and people get dizzy

with power.

I prefer circles.

Circles are conducive to sharing and caring,

inclusiveness and connectedness.

But life comes in all shapes and sizes

and what fits one, may not fit another.

Sometimes I think life is a puzzle

with all the shapes able to fit

together to create a beautiful picture.

Perhaps they already do,

and its’ just that I can’t see

the whole picture.

from where I stand on the rock.

I ache

My heart aches

It aches for connection to the depth of my being

It aches for freedom from socially constructed ways

It aches for deep forests and cool streams

It aches to see wild children and child like adults

It aches for salvation from my tormenting ego.

I ache

My body aches

It aches to run free and wild, uninhibited and unabashed

It aches to lie down in soft grass and gritty sand

It aches to shake off the shackles of the past

It aches for cool caresses and a fond embrace.

I ache

My mind aches

It aches for you – it aches for me

It aches for insight and clarity

It aches for a way forward and a way of letting go

I ache

My soul aches

It aches for truth to be felt

It aches for a moment beyond words

Beyond thoughts, beyond doing……

Our encounters are thwart with indecisiveness,

As I contemplate the delicate rose within.

That thorn like the pedestal she placed him on,

Casts a shadow on her delicate blooms.

Shall I pluck her from her precarious position,

And place her in the golden vase of solitude?

In the past she’s masqueraded as a shrinking violet,

But lately she’s been trying on the bloom of an exotic,

Slightly out of reach.

Now she hesitates, quivers fearing the cut of rejection,

Imagined, not real, manifested in her own mind.

As, is it all.

For all she knows of the thorn is of her own imaginings,

And is aware of this through her connection to me,

Her guide, teacher, omni-present observer.

Still ours is but one perspective of the All,

Encountering the endless possibilities of Self.

Speak, Embrace, Be cut if need be. But never shrink back.

This is the advice I give.

I shall not rescue her, for what is there to be rescued from,

Other than her own fear.

Perhaps the thorn is not as sharp as she previously thought.

And if there be blood spilt, let it be spread upon the antecedent alter of togetherness,

To bear witness to the burning bush of Love.

For in reality the rose and the thorn stem from that, same Love.

She resides among you like a silent goshawk,

like a caged lioness, muffled by the voice of her own self-doubt.

For who does she think she is to believe

she could have the answers, when her own insignificance sears

like a slap in the face.

But she knows what she knows and

hard facts served straight, can’t be denied.

She feels like she exists among the walking dead

oblivious to their own self-demise,

while at the same time aware of her own

self-mutilation, of strangling the lionesses roar.

Busy picking up the pieces that fall to the ground,

desperately trying to hold herself together,

while her soul cries out, just let me fall apart. 

She carries within her heart a messianic message

but places upon it heavy stones of doubt.

The outside world is crumbling at the edges, while

politicians play like children putting on a pantomime,

religious bodies pit their gods at each other,

disenchanted youth look for meaning beyond a callous system,

an expanding western culture gorges itself on empty consumption,

ice fills the veins of the isolated and disconnected,

while all the while humanity is transfixed by an

individualistic project of Self, shaped by high definition,

self proclaimed luminaries.

But who are they to steal the limelight?

What great insights do they offer?

She resides among you like a silent goshawk,

channeling messages from the other side of Self.

She sees the energy that connects us all,

sees it shining through your eyes,

wants to grab and shake you and yell at you to

wake up.  Wake the fuck up.

Sometimes she feels alone, isolated, like she’s the only one

that knows or sees or understands, that it’s time for meaningful change.

But then she’ll catch a smile, a nod, a glimpse, a word,

a recognition, a connection, and she dances for joy

in the waves of life, before she is swept under once more.

Life’s like that.  A rising.  A falling.

Continuous patterns, repeating, replicating,

even transforming.

She resides among you like a caged lioness,

tending the wounds from her efforts to escape.

Escape from her own identity crisis.

But the wounds are too deep, too telling, too

etched into her soul.

In truth she loves her wounds.  They are what

make her.  They are what have transformed her.

Soon her lioness will be free.  Even now she feels

this beautiful creature stand and shake

the rubble from her coat.

She understands now that it has never been about

Changing the outside world.

For in her heart she recognises a

beauty beyond compare.

No, they’ll never contain her now.

She no longer resides in this world.

She creates her own world.  

Or at least that is the space

She is moving towards.

Catzen 2016

There is a quiet voice that rustles through the leaves of trees and passes through the lips of those who often live an unassuming life.  This voice is so quiet and still that many people do not hear it, or if they do, they pay it no mind.  Then there are those who hear this quiet still voice but have no time or inclination to share its message.  Yet the message yearns to be heard.  On and on it calls through the still of the night and the dappled light of nature.  So what is this message I hear you ask.  The message is simple.  It simply says,

“live as One, for that is who you are”.

However, our social and economic system, which we have created and support every day, is not in line with this message.  And we are tied to this system because we allow ourselves to be.  It is easier than heeding the message.  Even though the message resides within all of us and manifests as a deep ache and longing – a longing for connectedness, for quietness, for stillness, for centeredness – a longing to lie down in the soft grass, to climb a tree, to swim in the ocean – a longing to bring forth our individual creativity without the pressure of making a living.  For we did not come here to accumulate wealth and things.  We did not come here to destroy the very planet that sustains us.  We came here to create abundantly in peace and harmony.  We have experienced enough disharmony to know its effect on life.

And so if you hear the message in these words, will you share it?  Will you speak the message until it is no longer a quiet still voice but a roaring waterfall cascading down through the contours of all our lives?

For the message longs to be heard throughout the lands, breaking forth from the confines of our aching hearts.

I hear you Lame Deer, Sioux medicine man.

From the pages of a book,

your words reach me across time and space.

I hear your heart felt cries, your pain and anguish

as we, the white men and women

crowd in on you, waving the green frog skin note; money.

As you say, we are the Wasicun, fat takers.

We take the fat from the land, hoarding it

in our pantries and bodies.

In your time you fled to Standing Rock.

You kept a beautiful nest out there on the prairie

for your girl.

Now your people stand against the Wasicun

with their bulldozers and pipeline.

They stand to protect the prairie and life giving water.

They stand to protect their cultural ways.

They stand for peace and harmony.

There is a story that many Indians would return

to Mother Earth, in a different form but with the same

hearts, that connect them to the land.

Could I be such a one?  I feel more connected

to you wise medicine man than I do

to my fellow Wasicun.

I stand with you, people of the Sioux Indian tribe.

I stand for our life giving Mother.

I stand for a vision where all tribes of the earth

shed the green frog skin, join hands and stand together,

work together, live together

in harmony with each other and Mother Earth.

I hold a vision for Re-membering Oneness.

I hear your call Lame Deer and

I stand.

 Catzen 2016  🙂

I have a vision

Buried deep in my heart.

It’s here, can you see it?

Come and take look inside.

Please excuse the shattered pieces that

Lie of the floor.

For I’ve been fighting.. myself

For thousands of years.

Be daring and brave and

Step through the door, and open your

Mind to a brand new world.

A world where warships and guns

Have been buried at sea.

Where children play in the streets

Without fear of you or me.

Where I reach out my hand and

You take it with glee.

A world where I help you

And you help me.

There’s no need for money

Or production of stuff.

Because happiness comes

From connection within.

We grow food together and create

Shelter for all.

And there’s no-one going hungry

Or being left out in the cold.

We are each brave and daring

As we boldly speak our mind.

Each idea considered and worked through

In time.

Listening with care is our greatest tool.

And a heart filled with love will be

Our crown jewel.

I have a vision buried deep in my heart and

I’ll share it with you

If you have a heart too.