Gaia: Love, God & Spirituality in Music, Song and Words !!!! - POETRY

Re - Membering - A Sonnet by Tricia Alexander

http://BabasBoy.gaia.com — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 14:23:54 GMT

                                   Re - Membering

After years of picking up puzzle pieces - one by one,
Searching, sifting - incomplete . . . I learned
Those still missing pieces were not - in fact - dead and gone,
Only temporarily trampled, cursed, buried, burned.

After all those therapies, those magickal insights, that quiet time apart,
Retracing a thousand footsteps, a million moments:   microscopically.
After re-membering and resuscitating - this woman's soul / this child's heart,
Re-examining, releasing, re-visioning:    ceremonially.

After weeping, keening , recognizing what's true and real.
After surviving the long dark night . . . new life finally begins.
Awakening now - I see,   l smile, I feel
Free from horror, blame, error, sin . . .

This journey made bearable by Her company:   Muse, Mentor, Great Mother Soul;
Imagine my surprise . . . to look up now and see:   Herself is My Self - whole.

                                                  Tricia Alexander
                                                  March 21, 2007

Introducting Gregory Orr!...

Sat, 13 Jan 2007 08:12:19 GMT

I wanted to introduce to a gorgeous poet and UVA professor. If you have not heard of Gregory Orr or his newest book Concering the Book That is the Body of the Beloved, then here is quick glace. This is a poem featured in the Copper Canyon Press Fall-Winter 06-07 Pamphlet:

Some days it's all fuzzy.
I can't find the world,
Can't find the beloved.
Can't even find the words.

Time to lie back and listen.
Maybe something's being said,
Something I haven't heard.

Time to stop talking
And let the beloved speak.

Time to trust it all:
To stop searching
And let the beloved seek.

BUY HIS BOOK!!

The Star Children

http://camphappiness.gaia.com — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 14:24:34 GMT

The Star Children

We are the Star Children, dancers of rainbow light.

We are pure music, singing songs of galaxies,

We are wild surfers on Oceans of Forever.

From wind and clouds, nebulae and night we’ve come

For this, our Holy Quest, the journey into Love.

We watch the sky and burn with dreams of distant suns.

Celestial tribal music dances in our blood.

Look back: see our Eternal image find its form.

Through long, cold ages, we have slowly seen the Truth

Of who we are, the Singers of Angelic Psalms.

Our Ancient Elders lived in caves, yet knew the stars.

To them, the midnight sky spoke Destiny. They heard

The hidden harmonies, and built their prayers in stone

To point the way for us, the future Voyagers.

From sacred grove, pyramid and shrine, to temples

And the great cathedral spires, we’ve had a yearning

Outward toward Infinity, a sacred Calling

On to wondrous worlds beyond our own. In music,

Color, form, we find our essence in the Holy Grail.

It is this Holy Grail that draws us on, that will

Not let us rest. It calls us to our Great Return.

Each spire and tower, each soaring rocket ship brings in

New Gardens where we’ll one day play, forgiven, free.

Walk out into this night, and dance in harmony

With moon and stars and sky and spiral galaxies!

Dance wind and fire! Dance waters of the world! And dance

All praise and joy and power to the great Songs of God.

Alex Noble

At the Edge of History

http://camphappiness.gaia.com — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 12:29:42 GMT

At The Edge of History

When you go deep, following a winding river to its source,

you’re soon bewildered, wandering a place beyond knowing.

Hseih Ling-yun (385-433 C.E.)

In the midnight rain,

I lie back in the steaming spring

and feel this dark water

falling, falling in the night.

This dark water speaks

the language of clouds, sky, storm.

The dark water surrounds me

like a baptism, like truth.

Lion, you are my salvation.

In the midnight rain

I listen to the water on leaves,

oaks, sycamores, eucalyptus,

falling, falling in the night.

The dark water falls around me.

You are the autumn storm,

You are the rain. I am falling.

Lion, talk to me of the future.

Your dark water falls on my face

like cold tears, a waterfall of tears,

cold tears on my arms, face, hair.

I am becoming the rain.

In your midnight rain

I lie between two invisible worlds

here in the dark water, in the storm

We are the rain. I am drowning.

Lion, you bring courage and hope.

I drown in your midnight rain,

two worlds, these cold tears,

falling on a dry and thirsty land,

speaking the language of storm.

Lion, we live at the edge

of history.

We are here for a holy purpose.

Your dark water falls around me.

New tears wash away the old.

I turn my face to the sky

making pools of my eyes.

My eyes fill with midnight rain.

I breathe between two worlds.

Lion, you are the rain, the love.

The dark water is falling,

falling on my upturned face

like cold tears, like a baptism.

Lion, speak to me of God.

I am like leaves in your rain.

Lion, you are the healing storm.

We live between two worlds,

Here at the edge of history.

Lion, you bring the Reign.

The Wind Horses

http://camphappiness.gaia.com — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 18:44:46 GMT

THE WIND HORSES

I built a monastery among the quiet mysteries of high peaks

hoping monks would come, walking sticks in hand, and find repose.

From The Mountain Poems of Hsieh Ling-yun

This is a meditation of sorts. A candle lit at sunset, a remembrance, a beginning.

What brings us to this place but intuition, a seventh sense,

A Seeing, beyond intellect and reason. When a space shuttle fires its rockets

At first there is no upward motion. It hovers in great clouds of smoke,

As though enormous decisions are being made.

Then, strand by invisible strand, the ties with gravity

Are cut, and a great silver arrow arcs into the sky.

There are analogous rites of passage in our lives, times of discipline and trust,

When we hover over what has been safe and familiar,

Above the launching pad, clouded by our fear of the new.

We feel the thunder of engines, see the smoke, but feel immobilized,

Yearning to be free of the past, leaning toward an imagined future,

Some future or other, that we have conjured as our highest good.

Then a sudden surge, and we feel the full force of the universe

Lifting us upward into the light, into a heaven far wider than we had imagined.

We become pure flight, and suddenly, no words or dreaming can capture

The new reality. I feel this breaking free, the power, the speed.

This is what I know: everything is a journey, each indrawn breath, each heartbeat,

Each bold new adventure into a cosmos that holds all possibilities.

When I reach out into the Void, I find no word-forms that can contain

This sense of mystery and sudden grace. Still, it seems important to try.

I am wondering what I can say, ever, that would speak to your soul, here

In this indigo evening. I am reaching for that inner language,

The Language That Lives Beyond Words, in the once upon a time.

I can call in some images, but they will be imperfect. Still, they will

Welcome you into the garden of my imagination, invite you to suspend disbelief

And pretend that we are in a harbor café, telling stories of Artemis and Persephone,

Drinking strong fragrant coffee, honey sweet, or perhaps walking on the breakwater At Rhodes remembering the Seven Wonders of the World. Over there, look,

At where the Colossus guarded the harbor in that far and ancient time.

Here is the paradox: only these words, hieroglyphic as they may be,

Can map and navigate these our heavens, can add substance and form

To the invisible. Words are the stepping stones that bring me,

Step by careful step, to your temple door. Words are a ritual we perform,

Trying this form and that, to see where there is resonance and truth.

There is no formula, no plan, no calculation that can predict

This, our journey into the future. It is an act of trust, or nothing.

Hemingway said: “Play for more than you can afford to lose,

And you will learn the game.” From this point onward

There is no going back, there is only the Path we have chosen,

Or that has chosen us. Who can say? There is only the Path.

We sense the presence of the Goddess, a marine Venus.

Full fathom five, our Mother lies. Those are pearls

That were her eyes. The fishermen throw nets by torchlight,

Here in this enchanted land of our dreaming. This is what I mean:

I cannot tell you anything, anything at all,

Except that it feels important to be here with you and the moon,

Invoking the presence of futures past into this moment.

You are my calm world, here where the water lights gather.

We know there are layers of meaning that create a world beyond words.

I can say that I am feeling my way into the depths, into this soft music

Of evening, the swelling chorus of frogs, the call of night birds.

I can tell you that there are moments when I feel so overwhelmed

With a passion to live my life step by step, risking everything, that

I lose language altogether. That is how it is. It is the Way of Things.

Time and time again, life washes away my words altogether.

I pray for metaphors to anchor me, anchor my small boat

In this vast and unknown sea of enormous possibility.

I am thinking of that pine covered island in Greece,

Hovering on the horizon, an island out of time, timeless,

Where I can float just offshore, in a blue-green dream,

Riding the gentle rhythm of mermaid-blue Aegean waves.

My words, when I can catch my breath, and speak,

are simple prayers, for grace, for courage, for the will

and strength to carry on, whatever is required or needed.

I pray to live with fierce love and unimpeded joy, nothing less.

I pray to be worthy of this, the Holy Journey into Time.

At the top of the highest mountains in Nepal, there are long strings

Of multi-colored flags, streaming out into the wind,

“Wind Horses” they are called, placed there with gratitude

By climbers who made it to the top, wrote their names on stone.

The flags dance with the wind, dance against the snow and sky.

Can I make it to the mountaintop, the temenos, the sacred site,

And what, then, will I discover: myself? And will I find some new world,

And long lost future worlds within worlds? And you, do these prayers

reach you on your own journey into your necessary future?

This is how it is: Tonight, I am here dancing in the wind,

Dancing across time and space like a string of colored flags.

There is nothing else, nothing in the whole world but this dance,

This prayer that flies out into the sky in full consciousness.

The Wind Horses of my imagination are flying, flying in the Light.

The sky, the wind, the moon, the mountain, the bright snow.

Taos, New Mexico

At the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains

April, 1999

Your Own Heart

http://Skeye.gaia.com — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 05:43:58 GMT

No help for the eternally
heartbroken

No salve for this
savagery

No escape from this
storm

No nothing can save you...

...nothing but this Nothing...

...is the Light of this Heart,
is the sweetness of peace,
is the calm in this eye.

Nothing but this Love
is the savior
for the unrepentant
soon to die.

This Love
that cares not for what
you know
or what you think...

...but offers the drink
from your own
Heart.

The Wind by Stein Mehren

http://singerseeker.gaia.com — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 01:14:13 GMT

The Wind by Stein Mehren

From Fire & Ice: Nine Poets From Scandinavia and the
North, edited by Gordon Walmsley (SalmonPoetry 2004)

The Wind

Wind before daybreak, you are not wind, you do not
      blow, you are a wind before the wind, listening
across the earth in breaths of light, gusting,
   gleaming in ice. As a crown of starry leaves
you blow out the heavens above this land drunk with
night,
  brightening. You break from seals of the dew,
spheres within spheres, the earth beaming: Light
        over sheening spans of water, mirroring
there where birdsongs run like chinks of light, you
draw
    the skies behind you, a seven-colored robe
of forest wakening within a rushing wind of five seas.
        Wind like a wind before the wind, gusted out
of the light
 into the circulation of waters, the open trembling of
the high leaves
        As the earth itself, heaven by heaven,
rises from the sea. Like a birth. An embrace.
     Like death. Like wind. Everything that trembles
in wind

 Stein Mehren

Re: There are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves

http://ilya1001.gaia.com — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 14:55:46 GMT

....so profoundly, yet sweetly spoken. It brought tears to my eyes with it's "truisms"...
Thank you for this Nikki!

Healing Hearts...

http://ilya1001.gaia.com — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 14:53:21 GMT

I'm wondering about the re-opening of ones heart....once it's been "wounded"...again. Age and experience speaks/knows that it happens; yet, in the re-kindling of my hearts light it still aches.

Lovingly, I think Rumi, as always, speaks to this so well:

The agony of lovers
burns with the fire of passion.
Lovers leave traces of where they've been.
The wailing of broken hearts
is the doorway to God.

I only wish there were other, easier (!) doorways to Spirit.....(big smile!)

peace & light, ilya

There are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves

http://nikky.gaia.com — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 05:18:52 GMT

"There are men too gentle to live among wolves Who prey upon them with IBM eyes And sell their hearts and guts for martinis at noon. There are men to gentle for a savage world Who dream instead of snow and children and Halloween And wonder if the leaves will change their color soon. There are men to gentle to live among wolves Who anoint them for burial with greedy claws And murder them for a merchant's profit and gain. There are men to gentle for a corporate world Who dream instead of Easter eggs and fragrant grass And pause to hear the distant whistle of a train. There are men to gentle too live amount wolves Who devour them with appetite and search For other men to prey upon and such their childhood dry. There are men to gentle for an accountant's world Who dream instead of Easter eggs and fragrant grass And search for beauty in the mystery of the sky. There are men to gentle too live among wolves Who toss them like a lost and wounded dove Such gentle men are lonely in a merchant's world Unless they have a gentle one to love." James Kavanaugh

Re: The Artist and His Art

http://nikky.gaia.com — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 04:59:00 GMT

I loved reading this...so beautiful! Thanks for sharing this :)

The Artist and His Art

http://BabasBoy.gaia.com — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 13:06:37 GMT

                        The Artist & His Art

      What forces of fate have brought me to sit
             Beside the Manasorova Lake?
       My eyes are on The Mountain Yonder
       In the distance, The Kailash Wonder.

            My heart is free of weight
       Such that arises from harbouring hate.
     Sitting here, feeling there is no tomorrow
   Not that my soul has not been touched by sorrow.

              The Artist and His Art
        Cause a lingering sadness in my heart.
         Is all the beauty before me in vain?
    Is this an illusion? And is this the cause of my
                          pain?

      In body or in spirit, where I am is my Home;
      My reality of the moment is the Yonder Dome.
            On the sand shores I pray:
         Is the Artist and His Art the same?
      Against the dull sky gray, the word comes:
            The answer is in the game.

       Matter is art, and in a World of matter,
             Matter matters to the spirit:
               Give me three meals a day
                  A roof over my head;
                    Money to travel;
           And I shall take a boat on the Nile
            Contamplating on Art all the Way.

           A glass of red wine Is art by itself.
                  A lady in stone is cold.
A model on the catwalk is totally a different matter.
                     An eagle in ice.
                     An actor in wax.
              Art in words, a poet's world.
              Art in oil, a painter's world.
              Art in sand, dreams of children.

               Fascinated by art in glass;
               Elevated by poetry in words;
        Inspired by Mandela on the African canvas.
              Art in light, shades of delight.
              Art in clay, a potter's play.

           A volcano in eruption is art in awe.
    The California cedar fires are art in terror raw.
                   The Cosmos in Art
                  Is the Dancing Shiva.

           What Forces bring me to this Lake,
           In the evening of my life so late?
            On the sand shores, I again ask -
         The Artist and His Art - Are They One?

             By Dr. Arujunan Subramaniam
                  31st October 2003
                 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Romantic Cliche

Sun, 13 Aug 2006 16:50:30 GMT

Hey, new to ZaadZ and this pod hope you will like it!

In background a low tempo beat ballad gasping,
Singer ailing for his Beloved, seeming quite ironic,

Up on the rusty brownish-mahogany table,
Box of Swiss chocolate’s placed in a scarlet box,

With roses still burgeon drizzled in water set,
Lavender’s exaggerated aroma lingers,

You can see the drenched letter of dismay too,
Like a classic romantic scene recreated,

I could have undone my finger from your wrist,
Only if you wished to, only if you wanted me to,

I can see the infernal that scorches between us,
What you can’t see is that we are burning in it,

Its not you neither am I, then who is to blame?
We can deny, and run but never escape our guilt,

Hypocrisy in love is a common thing to encounter,
Both of us are, that’s why we never accept it,

We both can be blind and blend in the Fire,
But when the winds clear the smoke,

There we will be breached apart lying, withering,
And I dare not to resurrect a world with you in it,

I still can undo my fingers if you want to,
And let my love remain till death upon world.

Science of Love has No End

http://BabasBoy.gaia.com — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 00:23:12 GMT

Love is all fortune and favor;
All opening the heart and guidance.

How wondrous is the sura on love;
Before love, the four holy books
do not amount even to a verse.

The law's strictures last till death;
The science of love has no end.

RUMI

Re: Love's Oceanic Mysteries

http://mettakaruna.gaia.com — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 00:52:59 GMT

Yes! Brilliant!

Re: Love's Oceanic Mysteries

http://nikky.gaia.com — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 22:46:09 GMT

Awesome...beautiful..exquisite... This is simply unbelievable...

Love's Oceanic Mysteries

http://camphappiness.gaia.com — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 20:39:17 GMT

Love’s Oceanic Mysteries

There are theories about Love that fill vast libraries:

priceless scrolls, parchment books bound in wine-red leather,

illuminated Books of Hours, all dedicated to Love.

You could spend a life in all these pages,

reading and thinking about Love,

imagining the sweet music of Love, and Love’s tender kiss

on your longing lips.

But the Friend says, “Throw away your keys to the libraries

and their musty, ancient vaults, and stop looking

for Love on these dark shelves, in these dry pages

that crumble even as you search through them for Love.”

The Friend says:”Wake up!

This is what you have to do:

Meet me at the harbor at midnight

when the moon is full and the waves throw themselves

against the seawall, and the wind sings its siren songs

of passionate encounters on enchanted islands.

Meet me at the harbor at midnight,

and let’s dive deep into Love’s oceanic soul mysteries,

the ones you will never be able to read about in books.”

Mirabai Al Khabir

The Deep Blue Ocean That Is Your Soul

http://camphappiness.gaia.com — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 02:56:13 GMT

The Deep Blue Ocean That Is Your Soul

It's deep summer,

and the deeper I go

into the deep blue ocean

that is your soul,

the cooler the cool,

and the electric blue of you

comes at me, arms wide open,

like a long lost friend,

happy to see me

coming out of ancient shadows

and imagined fears

into your riffing blue night,

and there are blue whispers

in the water, whispers

about this secret place

you hide out in,

and its spells,

and whispers about love,

love like the tiger's eye,

love like the blue turtles of Time,

and Mysteries blue like a remembering,

of a treasure lost, now found,

and there is a sound

of far away drums,

a calling home,

and I want to dance,

like this, in the firelight

under your welcoming

midnight blue sky.

Like this,

like this….into the deepest blue

you got going.

From the poems of Mira al Khabir (Contemporary Ethiopian Poetess)

Re: A Call for Cool

http://camphappiness.gaia.com — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 02:48:10 GMT

Thanks, Friends! You make me want to write more, and more, and more...:)

Please send prayers that I find my folder of Song Lyrics. There are some sweet ones in it, and I am feeling a great emptiness because I don't have them. There are a few that would be fun for this Pod. So thanks in advance for helping me find them...

Hey Babatunde Baba Boyo. Why don't you put out a weekly call for song lyrics on different subjects, related to the themes of this Pod? LIke: ..........., or............., or.......... Maybe? I love to write to assignment, and I really want to spiffy up my song lyric skills. Just a thought!

Re: Gandhi's Sand

http://mettakaruna.gaia.com — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 04:14:58 GMT

Yes, thank you, Nature, for your quotes... and thank you, Mickey, for your appreciation. :o )

Metta