for my mother; with gratitude to John Lisko, MD

—

Over the course of the past few days, I have had every possible emotion to rumble through me. 

Rage: a sudden sword-drawn thunder. 
Grief: a slow, dark river. 
Levity: Like the warm glow of an autumn fire under a cool night of peaceful stars. 

These are poetic descriptions, but I don't actually relate to primal emotion from the standpoint of words. Odd, I suppose, for a hermit-leaning poet / a poetry-leaning hermit. But, I'm hard pressed to find words for recent experiences.

Emotions can sometimes be "realms of passage" where the only language is silence. It is precisely because I know words can't begin to describe the fullness of certain experiences, that trying to find words feels like a futile exercise. And yet, as the late Zen master Dainin Katagiri said, "You have to say something."

We nearly lost my mother this week. 

A survivor of cancer over a decade ago, she had a stroke last year.
Last week she had a heart attack. 
This week she had a risky surgery for a near-80-year old: placing a 12mm stent into her nearly completely blocked off coronary artery (one of two procedures that will have to occur). 

Once back in her hospital room, post-surgery, her blood pressure suddenly dropped and it was discovered that she was hemorrhaging from the entry site where the sheath, guide wire, and catheter enters the body and runs through the artery up to the heart. She had been bleeding for a while. 

After several minutes, the on-floor medical staff realized they couldn't stop the bleeding. A rapid response team was activated. With one person trying to apply pressure to the bleed, they rolled her bed, NASCAR-style, down the halls of the hospital to the cardiac cath lab. 

This was not the soft, attentive care she had been receiving in her room, complete with chatty nurses, warm blankets, and a meal. This was a Defcon 2 moment, one that ripped her from any semblance of comfort and thrust her into a very harsh circumstance: an ice cold room, skimpy hospital robe ripped off, and—without any anesthesia or pain killer—having to lay still on a cold metal slab while the doctor tried to save her life.

To give you a sense of my mother's spirit, which is characterized by tenacity, bravery, and humor, I will share one anecdote from the day.

The doctor who did the stent surgery for my mother is named John Lisko, MD. He is an interventional cardiologist at Emory, a professor on the faculty, and an author/co-author of 70+ articles and studies in medical journals. Translation: He is very good. When he broke the news that my mother had two major blockages in the arteries of her heart, it was undoubtedly a shock. At the same time, I immediately liked the doctor. No bullshit. Shoot straight. Tell-it-like-it-is.  

I'm told that while my mother was sprawled on the cold metal table, being sutured up without lidocaine as if in a combat situation, Doc Lisko said something to the effect of, "Miss Owen, I'm very sorry for the lack of privacy," referring to her being completely unclothed in a room full of strangers, albeit medical professionals.

My mother, who worked in hospitals for forty years, replied, "Well, if you see something you've never seen before, throw a brick at it!" 

                                                  room filled with laughter
                                           woman near death cracking jokes —
                                                       that is my mother

Today she is stable, recovering, and ready to get home after a ten-day stay at Emory/St. Joseph's Hospital of Atlanta. Her Maremma/Great Pyrenees, "Stella," her birds, her herbs, her humble landscape garden, and her familia await. 

Kampai moai!


>|<

"Quiet Mystery"   

Mysterious.
Spiral.
Time.

Mysterious.
Shock.

Collapsing walls.
Mysterious.

Shock.
Mysterious.

Weight bringing clarity.
Clarity bringing weight.
Mysterious.

Moments of departure.
Departure behind curtains.
Departure behind doors.
Departure behind closed eyes.

I think to myself: "This life has been nothing but departures."

Then, an arrival arrives. 
Arrival back into the Present Moment.
The precious Present Moment.
No past. No future. 
Only Present Moment. 

My saw-blistered hand
holding a cold hand of tender bones.

Hands cold.
Smiling eyes glowing warm mountain radiance. 

Smiling eyes.
Star Eyes.

A flashback to a sweat lodge.
Grandpa Black Elk pouring water.

A flashback to twelve: 
my mother teaching me 
about the I Ching 
at my grandmother's Winter table.

A flashback to a Blue Water Night at sunset:
sipping wine, 
gazing at the horizon line, 
watching an otter swim by.

Then, another arrival arrives. 
Arrival back into the Present Moment.
The precious Present Moment.
No past. No future. 
Only Present Moment. 

Her cold hand squeezes mine.
My traveling heart-mind returns to the room again.
Present Moment.
Only Present Moment.

We talk about coffee.
Healthy diets.
Art-As-Path.
The downed black cherry tree branches 
I had to cut from the storm.

We embrace.
I pull her socks up.
I tuck her in.
I leave her to sleep and dream.

I mumble to myself
as I leave the hospital:
May this not be the departure.

Hours later —
hours of Quiet-Sitting.
Plowing the depths.
Bright-insight, dark-ink.
Trying to be a lantern
to my own darkness.

The waves start.
Felt first as a breeze.
Then heard as a hiss.
Then arriving like a salt-wind whip.
Billowing winds of change. 
The sting of being-in-Being.

I feel the floor of the universe
fall out from beneath me.

Falling. 
Falling.
An endless river of memory
crashing in as waves.

I try to find a hand hold.
I end up grasping 
at the wily ol' Tibetan's words*
and turn them into a night-mantra: 

Falling. 
Falling. 
No parachute. 
No ground.

Falling. 
Falling. 
No parachute. 
No ground.
_______________________________
*The bad news is you're falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is there's no ground. -- Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (1939-1987)

"Learning to Walk Back Into Your Life"

-

Sometimes I go about pitying myself
and all the time I am being carried
on great winds across the sky.
- from an Anishinaabe song,
documented by ethnologist Frances Densmore, early 1900s

-

We've all been raised
in a You Can't Let Down 
Because You Have to Keep 
Holding It All Together culture.

Most everyone dresses well
and conjures the occasional smile
between polite surface small talk.

In a You Can't Let Down
Because You Have to Keep 
Holding It All Together culture
there are only small sips of joy.

We enter a trance 
as we do our living
and that trance 
causes a deep forgetting.

It's like one day
you're walking down the sidewalk
and you suddenly have the sensation
of having stepped out of yourself.

Maybe it was a loss.
Maybe it was a betrayal.
Maybe it's the million-and-one details.
Maybe it is a primal disappointment in one's own country.

For whatever reason,
you're no longer standing 
in the life you thought you were leading.

Stone Lake, 
of flowers and vases fame,
had his own disappointment.

It led him to say:

"Southern Zen. Northern Zen. 
I've tried it all.
This hermit has his own philosophy now.
Time to devote myself to my hillwalker's stick."

_______

"The Practice of Purification"
__

between thunder claps
chorus of midnight tree frogs  —
purification

__

Sometimes the dust of the world sticks to us.

Weighs us down.
Distorts our vision.

Without knowing it,
we can even carry the dust
from one place to another,
from one room to another.

We cease to see the other.
We don't hear.

This is why
purification upon departing
purification upon arrival
becomes a thread-guide for heart-mind.

Otherwise we end up
haunting one another
with ghosts we didn't know
were attached to us.

_______

"Deep Within Mysterious Shade"
- eve of the Flower Moon

There comes a point
in some Wayfarer's lives
when the words
flowing off the brush
are no longer yours.

The words arrive
from some other source
beyond the fabricated "self"
like messages coming in
from far across a valley.

The other side of the valley is all shade
murky gray dark
blue-gray steam dark 
dragon-green clouds 
slithering 'round rhododendrons dark
dark-enigma dark.

And if you keep walking the Road
the Road deepens your humanity;
leaves you with no choice
but to stand inside your life
and surrender the brush to the words 
making themselves known to you.

_______

"Flower Moon Tea"

When the dipper in the sky
turns just so
out pours starlight renewal.

Sky nectar
finally reaches the tongue
having passed through 
cloud
air
stone
river bend
into tea pot

into leaf
into steam
into a cup called luminous abyss.

The two-word teaching arrives.

Stay open.

_______

"The River One"

_

Good fortune comes to determined Wayfarers.
- Hexagram 56, The Wayfarer, I Ching
_


At first, The Way feels like a river — 
'out there';
a river far from you.

Though subtle,
you feel it,
hear it,
sense it, 
beyond.

The river calls to you.

With time, you aren't any more certain.

Is it that you draw closer to the river
or does the river draw nearer to you?

Then, one day,
you realize there is no 'you' —
only the river.

You see then:
you have always been in the river.

There has never been a 'you'
separate from the river.

The Way is not something you do.
The Way is something you are.

You, The River, One.

The bad news is
you’re falling through the air,
nothing to hang on to,
no parachute.
The good news is,
there’s no ground.
- Chögyam Trungpa (1939-1987)
_____________________________________

1. "Vortices of Dust"

After making offerings of smoke
to the quiet spirit atop the Hill of Spears

I rode the Spine of the Sun back down
back down
into the Land of Perpetual Squabbles
and Endless Longing.

Though I'd brushed sleeves with the Great Powers,
and sensed a touch of renewal,
once back in the fray
I felt instantly exhausted
by the saturation 
in a dusty world 
speeding up.

No minced words here.

Some of us 
were not woven
for frenetic, hive-like jockeying.

Tonight, bones and tendons exposed, 
the Vast Midnight River
whispers of more coagulations.

Long-held griefs come home to roost.

Griefs of past.
Griefs of present.
Griefs yet to arrive.

The passing away of dreams and passions.
The passing away of teachers and sages.
The passing away of loves and friends.
The passing away of long-cherished roles.

Cyclical disappointments lose their gyration.

Irritation at one's own absentmindedness
becomes an acceptance of one's Holy Clown Self.

Annoyance at lack of focus
reveals a homesickness for wonderment. 

This is why
when people ask me
what my path is now
I can only conjure a single word.

Purification.

_________________________________

2. "When the Scaffolding Falls"

In truth, it comes for us all.

This day, 
or the next, 
or another, 
or our last.

Matters not. 

When the scaffolding falls,
it feels like a violent clanging clammer.
From the outside, no one would ever know.

Though the pummeling 
of boards, rods, and harnesses
falling at one's feet 
feels like an assault to the senses,
the crashing down is a gift.

We can certainly wait
until the last weeks and days of our life 
to take up The Inquiry.

Matters not.

Or, we could let go
allow the scaffolding to drop
allow the forms and roles and self-definitions
to fade away;
allow the soul 
to break through our brambles
entanglements
ground-cover.

The Wayfarers say:

Root heart-mind 
in the dark-enigma.
Pursue the light
of the Great Integrity.

"New Moon Eve / Consciousness"

poetry 
      
           feels 
                       far away      tonight

the moon-guided tide
is out beyond the known horizon

i reach for words / they are not there

i lay my head down
drift out on unseen waters

no light / only tumbling / waves

hours pass
toss-turn
turn-toss
more waves

then a beam of light enters the window

slithers across my brow like an albino serpent

the first words of this cycle:

Do not mistake 
what is in your own water bucket
for the whole ocean

_____

"New Moon As Gateway"

Wave-Riders.

Presence felt through lantern light.
Presence felt through the fading pink ribbon of this day.
Presence felt through the pulse of stars.

As the tide pools fill
and Spring seeds snap open underground,
we are all on a precipice.

There's a reason the Great Sufi Jalāl al-Dīn
implored us not to go back to sleep.

This is not the precious sleep of night of which he speaks.

This is the fearless, relentless wakefulness of day.

Who are you now
on the other side 
of the Soul-Brightening New Moon?

_____

"詩魔 | Shima | Poetry Demon"

Now that the sickle of light
has appeared beyond the branches,
I know She will not let me rest.

Even if I manage to sleep, 
She enters my dreams
directs my attention
with her Pointing-Out Instructions.

For years she has been trying to...break...through.

Like grandfathers Bai Juyi and Basho before me,
I am haunted by a poetry demon.

She arrives just before midnight —
even calls me by another name.

"半宵 | Hanshō!" She beckons. 

"Wipe the dust from your eyes!
The midnight hour is soon upon us.
Slip out the door. 
Your dragon-saddle awaits!"
______

"Dragon Mother Cosmology"

Here we are again.

All of us, here,
in this grand woven basket
of ceaseless interconnectivity.

Where is your wandering Wayfaring Heart
taking you tonight?

______

"Flickering Points of Contemplation"

Our Life-Bestowing Earth
rotates at 1,040 miles per hour.

Our Life-Bestowing Earth's
orbital velocity around our Life-Sustaining Sun
is 67,000 miles per hour.

Every twenty-two minutes, 
we travel the entire circumference 
of our Life-Bestowing Earth.

Our Life-Sustaining Sun,
our entire Solar Village,
is moving through
the Dark-Enigma of Deep Space
at 448,000 miles per hour.

The Milky Way itself,
in which we are all nested,
moves through the dark
at 1.3 million miles per hour.

Everything 
in the Cosmos 
is in motion.

Stars.
Breath.
Waves.
Bloodstream.
Mind.

As you can see, 
this makes all of us
Travelers.

Some are oblivious 
to the movement
and the interconnectivity.

Some choose to numb out
under the weight
of this velocity.

Others are aware
and track the vast patterns and undulations
in the form of hexagrams.

Others have fully befriended the vastness,
surrendered to a life of riding on a dragon's back.

Some spend vast reservoirs of life-force
and endless cyclical thought
convincing themselves 
of their unworthiness to be here.

The Spinning Dragon Mother whispers:
"You, child, are one of my own."

"The Boys of War"

The boys of war are at it again

transferring the 'epic fury'
they feel toward their fathers
onto others.

The boys of war are at it again

aiming the alienation they feel 
from women
from Nature
from Earth-rooted people
from people wiser than they
onto 'The Any' and 'The Other'
who resemble anything different than they.

The boys of war are at it again

projecting their projectiles
their hatreds
displacing their loneliness
so others will feel the same.

The boys of war are always the same:
bold and boisterous 
sending the sons and daughters
of others into harm’s way

yet not having the courage
to truly face themselves
in a room
in the dark
in a mirror
night or day.

All the tributaries of tragedy
they spin up, and spin out,
and send down the line
for their children’s children to bear…

…all because the the boys of war 
never received a true blessing from anyone
leaving them incapable of doing the same.

______

"Settling of the Dust"

Clearing away shit piles
removing cupid's arrows
falling silent.

What now?

Having become a hidden mountain,
I am at the mercy of clouds and rain,
shadows upon shadows,
refractions within dreams.

I cannot join the world of titles again.

What would I call this human windsock
being blown about by the Great Pattern?

_____

"Outpost"

The world is falling apart again
slowly disassembling
by unseen forces
loud bombs of concussion
ill intent
strictures of choice, body, sovereignty.

I awake to blue clouds
rolling through tumbling waves of green
far from choked cities
far from bombs
far from pits of hissing vipers.

Spade pulled through soil
as if combing an old woman's hair
I just shake my head
and plant more cucumbers
for a simple Wayfarer's meal.

_____

"Spring Breeze"
- after Sister Chiyo, hermit-nun of Matto

With a mischievous wink,
Chiyo of Kaga
fanned her sweating brow
and giggled.

"I went beyond the mountain hermits and immortals.
I remained in the town
and made my cloud paradise
behind the brushwood gate

...but still close to the river of humanity."

_____

"Inwardly Mobile"

For years now, I've held a fantasy.
I blame it all on Master Five Willows.

Three or four acres.
Woodland sanctuary.
A clear flowing stream.
A year-round garden.
Fruit-bearing trees.
A hermit hut.
A tea pavilion with low-table for long study.

A view: 
      mountain
           cloud-forest
               horizon of hills 
                  unfurling meadows and fields.

Rounding the bend on sixty,
I still wade through the dust

but more and more
I dwell in the hermit hut
found in the Great Within.

_____

"Cosmic Chiropractic Adjustment"

Sometimes
just being aware
of being-within-Being
is enough
to crack your back
split your skull open
to reveal the glowing mind-spark
that's been there 
liberated
all along.

_____

"Coagulation of Territories"

For years, a knotted skein.

Different threads,
each pulling in its own direction.

At times, it felt akin 
to traveling through different provinces,
or living in the encampments
of very different tribes.

Skein.

True that it can mean
a tangled, complicated arrangement;
and there's always the risk
of remaining coiled-up 
with one's smaller vision for oneself.

But on a bright Autumn day,
it can also all come together.
Then the skein gets loosened out,
becomes a V-shaped flock of geese
moving toward the true weave of you.

And the weave is glorious and strong.

This is when the many worlds
you have inhabited
start to become one.

Hexagram 64.
An old Scots saying
about Brighid and the fox tail on ice.
A poem by Luo Hongxian the Cartographer
walking barefoot through the amethyst forest.

When you embody the way
that is the 'way of you',
your way and the Way of Heaven-and-Earth
are in true accord.

And that, fellow traveler,
is felt within your own bloodstream.

_____

“Tribute to the Sun” 

As the slanting sun 
turned Her shoulder 
toward Night

I thought of Her 
many contributions made 
gone unnoticed by the masses. 

Infinite rivers of light 
cascading down 
renewing the land

coiling around trees and sundials
reflected in slow-flowing rivers
children’s faces
hummingbird eyes  
as they sip from blossoms. 

Across every domain there is, 
there are givers, 
there are takers, 
there are conscious, grateful receivers.

_____

"Sage-ing"

I know you won't believe me
but there are men 
who are pregnant
with river-dragons 
in their bellies.

It is a ninety-year pregnancy.

“Ten-Thousand Forms of the Formless”

The Tao cannot be sought from others; it is attained in oneself. If you abandon
yourself to seek from others, you are far from the Tao. - from the Huainanzi
__

The Soul of the Wayfarers is a luminous prism.

The Spirit of Wayfaring is a light
that shines through each facet differently.

Don't compare your 'way' to another.

Remember the Wayfarer Santoka
and his words on the matter:

"I cannot be Basho. I have no choice
but to be Santoka."

___

Liner Notes: 

The Wayfaring Spirit shines through Baisao and emerges as tea gatherings under pines.
The Wayfaring Spirit shines through Rengetsu and emerges as sculpted clay bowls and paintings. The Wayfaring Spirit shines through Hanshan and emerges as a rustic in a cave. But, if we belabor the point by too much explaining, we will get away from our own Wayfaring.

___


"Integral Breakfast"

Master Dragonfly said:

"Sitting still, sunning...
Flying with zip-zip-zip abandon...
Having breakfast...
...all are meditation.

___


"The Lost Scroll of Hidden Mountain"

If a master-sage hands you a text
and says, "Something to govern your life..."

...always read the fine print.*

*Enlightenment means every dark corner of the self.

___

"What They Do Not Tell Us"

What they do not tell us
is that regardless of outward
goings-on

the threshold of midlife
leaves one speechless,
stupefied even

attending a silent, invisible funeral
for all that you were and have been;

and the journey cannot truly resume
until one has completed the tasks
of one's deep inner-looking.

Everything else is a detour.
Everything else is a thin tributary
incapable of quenching the greater thirst.

___

"Sendatsu"

When I encountered
the Tao in human form
I realized there is no guiding others;
only supporting others to guide themselves.

___

"Have You Seen Them?"

Cross-eyed coyotes
standing at podiums
vomiting lies.

A nation of brave defenders conscripted 
into a confederacy of dunces.

American Presidents
once mounted horses,
hill-walked mountains;
talked the night away
beneath giant sequoias
with Nature-loving visionaries.

Now we are ruled by a devil in diapers.

____

"Swiveling Ribcage"

The last time I split open
the husk of the "self,"
I found a pesky saboteur 
lying in wait.

Like a stranger
that moves into one's home village
and starts seeding all manner of discontent,
I sparred and sparred against his ways.

This time, becoming aware
that I've covered myself in armor again,
I watch as the husk slowly disintegrates,
drifting on like eagle down
being carried by the Spring wind.

I'm gentle with the husk now.
I'm gentle with the "self" now.
I've embraced my Imperfect Fool status.

____

"Everyday Homecoming"

Some of us,
by Red Dust World standards,
are strange birds.

We much prefer a hidden perch
at the edge of the world
than to shape ourselves
for the world of constant being-in-Time.

Being outside-Time
the "self" can settle
into the Way of the Self,
into the Way of Nature,
into the Tao.

The Way is an everyday homecoming.

____

"This Ever-Deepening, Ever-Going"

I already hear haunting echoes
of things yet to pass.

Having "traveled ahead,"
I've stood upon the soil
of memory and ashes.

I've wept beneath pines,
mountain laurels,
waterfalls.

I've seen days, nights,
in the quiet valley beyond.

I sit alone
in the cascade darkness
sipping tsukizake (moon-sake).

Veils of remembrance
billow around me.

My old friend: Solitude
punctures me anew.

I exhale and begin a new life
of measured speech
and unmeasured days.

____

———

“Castor and Pollux”

Most see twin stars.

Moon-lit travelers
know them as cicada eyes.

———

“Back When”

Back 
when I was in love 
with the shimmering world
there was a girl.

I couldn’t speak her language
but I would’ve run off the ledge 
of a mountain to chase after her sunset.

Now the dark of night is my bride.

——

“Footfalls”
— to the First Peoples

I saw them today 
in the high hills.

Soft brown feet
shuffling their way
to the sun temples again
to renew the light of the world.

___


“Unhooking & the Sovereign Gaze”
– a scent trail

Woman: Deconstruct the Animus.

As the old feminist bumper sticker says:
You need a man like a fish needs a bicycle.

Brothers: Deconstruct the Anima.

Do you really want to wander 
all the years of your days
being pulled on by tethers and hooks?

We’re not taught to break this trance
but the “ideal inner image”
is the only scent trail you need.

The world is filled with playboys and sorceresses.

Do you not think 
this is what the Buddha was talking about 
when, in the presence of Mara’s alluring daughters,
he cast his eyes downward, and said:
“The Earth is my witness. I am liberated…”?

——

“Offerings From the Heart-Mind of the Thunder Mother”

Delicate moss.
Quiet trickle of crystalline water.
Invisible stream-fed world.

Hard to believe
the Thunder Mother
made all this
with nothing but a few
slivers from the silver dawn.

Her teaching 
remains the same 
after all these years:

Memories become 
all the more precious
when you realize 
they are fading.

___

“By Crook Rather Than Hook”

If you step out
into the night air
and it is thick with dust
nestle your face
into the sleeve
of your Dark-Enigma robe;

be filled
with the deep, sheltered breath
of the ancients.

We 
Are 
Them.

Right there
both arms bent at the crook
hands resting in your lap
is relief from these war-torn winds.

Remember 
the line from the 
old Wayfaring song:

Go to and fro 
as you must,
as you must,
but don’t abide 
in the clammer
of the red dust.

Just this 
just this single breath of return
can put your Heart-Mind
back on the Way.

It’s why we incense our robes.

It’s why some
put cypress oil in their hair.

It’s why we present
the ‘All’ of ourselves
to the pageantry
of the sing-song dawn.

It’s all to remind ourselves
that the edict of this hard world
is null and void 
in the deep hours
in which we work
for our true reward.

The Red Dust World says:

Your value is commensurate 
to the degree to which 
you wear out body and soul.

Behind lantern-lit courtyard walls,
in hidden hills of long practice,
a different edict holds sway.

——

"When Sentinels Go Beyond"
- for the Sage of Arrow Mountain

Gray clouds above.
Magenta sky below.
Far-sight vista drawn near.

Sanctuary of rolling hills
fern-lined woodland shrines.
Only a few steps in,
the rising inner tide swells.

Grateful for what has been.
Mourning what will no longer be.

With some souls,
no matter how much time we spend with them
it will never have been enough.

Let us sip 
some of the medicine 
of memory.

______________________________

"Having Entered the Territory of Proper Placement, p.1"

Some nights, it's quiet tea in the darkness
listening to high winds, bamboo chimes, cicada.

Some nights, it's hexagrams bending time
revealing what the soul already knows
but wasn't quite ready to admit.

Some nights, it's dragon-riding:
Dark-Enigma ink on moon-white pages.

Some nights, it's remembering
mountain-caves-as-dark retreat-rebirth.

In the end, there's nothing that isn't a womb ---
even the next moment, even the next wound.

_____________________________

"Having Entered the Territory of Proper Placement, p.2"

Some days, I second guess this ancient road of poetry;
even five decades in 
there can be nights
when I'm convinced 
what lands upon the page
won't be anyone's cup of tea.

Then, two great sages 
who sometimes visit me, 
Rain Bursting From Cloud, 
Bloom Bursting From Branch,
chide me:

"Who are you 
to judge the Tao 
when it's flowing through you?"

_____________________________

"Wabi-Sabi Dream Guide"

When you feel you've lost the Way,
it may be the smallest rivulet of beauty
that brings you back to your Vision-Self.

There are ten-thousand worlds
on the back of a dragonfly's wings.

_____________________________

"Quickening Palingenesis"

For the Spirit of Nature, Winter is a death.
A deep, slumbering sleep.
Why would it not be thus even for a seasoned Traveler?

For the Spirit of Nature, Spring is rebirth.
A simmering vitality.
Why would it not be so for a Wayfarer?

_____________________________

"Don't Overcomplicate It" (Dream Conversation #96)
-- after James Hollis

Don't overcomplicate it.

Alchemy is the process of True-Seeing
-- sometimes painful
-- sometimes challenging
-- always self-illusion-affronting.

It never happens at our preferred timing:
this burning-off 
what no longer serves our evolution
in service of what does.

______________________________

"The Eloquine Pursuit"
-- in honor of the work of Byron Metcalf

Every luminous procession:
intimacy with endarkenment.

History and movement of a passage made.

Try to pin it down,
corral it,
it will break free, 
evade,
with ferocious fence-breaking hooves.

Surrender categorical mind at the border.
Become a Quiet-Flowing-Human-River.

_____________________________

"Prescription from the National Academy of Internal Dreambody Medicine"

When a nation
loses capacity
to see the sanctity
in the life of The Other,
we must ask the Great Physician's question:
"What sanctity has died in the soul of my brother?"

_____________________________

"Vessel"

For some, the Dark-Enigma is a place of terror.
Terror of the unresolved, the repressed, the untransformed.

For others, the deeper strata is a place of friction ---
inner battles, obsessions, temptations; 
thirsts they can never quench
hungers never satisfied
itches they ceaselessly scratch 
because they really have a "rash."

There are others walking around
who have engaged in a deep dive;
inner excavation, off-gassing fixation.

They don't speak of their quiet freedom.
Slowly, they cease to be "an identity."
Instead, they become a vessel.
________________________________

(c) 2026 / Frank Inzan Owen / The Luminous Procession: Poems From Within and Beyond the World of Red Dust
________________________________

soundworld: "Essential Peace" / ACTIVATION / Byron Metcalf + Billy Denk

“Archaeology of the Invisible”
________________________________

These times are a gut-turner.

Like tides being pulled by an unfair moon.

The kind of tumbling
that feels like a punch to the gut

when we sink for a second
and have to fight for the next breath
because of the weight of our knowing.

—

The knowing in the gut
is the kind people feel
when there is a death
or an ending

only now 
it’s all of us
even those who are pretending. 

—

Like falling from a great height suddenly
part of this tumbling is the Knowing-Body —
the Knowing-Body being stirred awake,
the Knowing-Body tracking a wisdom.

It’s what the Knowing-Body does.
It’s what we Wayfarers do.
It’s why everyone eventually says:
“I felt it in my gut.”

—


This isn’t “woo woo.” 
We’re all in the saddle now.

And that turning of the gut,
that roiling unease,
has a name.

The Enteric.

The enteric nervous system.
Your gut.
Your body’s Second Brain.
A wise-protector
hiding like a ninja within you 
keeping watch
listening deep
quietly whispering —
keeper of faithful signals.

—

And so it is:

Any knowing is a weight-bearing knowing.

A weight 
that makes an indentation
on the malleable clay of the soul.

—

Time is a weight.
The passing of time is a weight.
Anticipatory grief is a weight.
The arrival of grief is a weight.
The past is a weight.
Parting is a weight.
In some cycles, the future is a weight.

—

Quiet-Stillness is the practice
of sitting with the weight.
Contemplating the weight.
Seeking the healing and the wisdom inside the weight.

And of this, none of us should wait.

—


The weight is the same invitation
that has always been here throughout time.

Plow: your inner Earth.
Plant: the right seeds inside you.
Ensure: that something roots and blooms.
Share: the harvest.

—

The weight is the same call
that has always been heard.

Despite external conditions:
Practitioner, begin. 

Despite external conditions:
Practitioner, sustain. 

Like that little shrike on a withered branch,
his silent song echoes through time:
Never stray from The Way.

—
Liner notes: We are all feeling density because of the density of this cycle of time. There will be a lightness of being again. A Lightness of Being like a group of travelers around a table feasting on the good-heartedness and spirit invoked there.
—

“Jury Duty”

We are all witnesses.

Watch.

The smoky mirrors 
are starting to turn on each other
even as we speak.

We are all members of the jury.

Watch.

The whip-smart vipers
will poison each other
in the end.

—

“Transmission”

There are no gurus on this trail.

This path isn't one that is passed down.

It is like a hand
giving you a cup of tea
on a day when
you suddenly see
the light shining through everything. 

—

—
“The Last Step”

The days of taking a breath are over.

Now we receive The Breath.

Now we are breathed.

—

"Go light." -- Gary Snyder