SamadhiMuse

                          Denise
      ….Denise said that religion wasn’t important.
      She wasn’t sure if there was a God or not
      nor that it mattered save that she was a bit of ‘God’.
      “Living is creating yourself, loving life is learning
      to believe you can cope with all of it.”
      “Learning this until you get to the place
      where it doesn’t matter, learning this
      until you learn what non-sense is and dig it.”
      “The master plan, if such a thing could be so called,
      is that ultimately everything is without sense or reason
      and struggle represents the untogetherness
      of believing it otherwise….”
      I told her it must make sense
      cause it seemed to work for her
      and she laughed at me….
      I felt better, though.
                              Gallagher
                              4 Oct 73
                              LBSC

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                       Grace
      Perhaps I’m foolish to believe
      I understand grace
      but when she comes to me
      there’s no doubt
      and when she leaves
      no mistake
      I mark her presence by the absense
      and absence by the presence of life’s cares
      She comes when my best is realized
      and yet she’s not a steady mark
      for she’ll run one step ahead of understanding
      and fade with time unfulfilled.
      She enfolds you unasked
      and hides when sought
      I believe she is the reward,
      undefined as it seems,
      to those who seek truth and love
      by creating and living their best dreams.
                           Gallagher
                           10 Oct 73
                           LBSC

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                        Creation
            So reality is only limited by my conceptions….
         Then let me create God and order;
         as reversed as the process seems
         its yet not a paradox.
            Let me persue the mental means
         of growing out of each previous dream
         by riding the wheels of Karma around
         until the trip I’ve learned and the wheel unbound
         and then perhaps the wheels of Karma
         will become the limits to lay with some previous sum.
                              gallagher
                              19 Oct 1973
                              LB

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

         Some men study it all their days
           and die with the question on their lips
         Some men find it with a lightening clap of insight
           and some men track it with rulers and logic
              until, at last, they have its form.

         Some men look outside and see just the is-ness
           …great jeweled clocks at play.

         Some men look inside at their creations
           and find madness along the way.

         Some give up and some, some go on without hope…
         And some, like humming birds hover,
           and watch the question turn on itself
         until their reality and thoughts weave like snakes
           in the navel of sweet mother reality.

                                 gallagher
                                 29 jan 75

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                             Transfer High

            I hear the wind
              where others only see the leaves fall
            and I am, in some way
              the leaves and the wind
                 though I lack the difference
                    between them….

            I am some ever present sum
              at once complete and yet growing
            and as I become the leaves and the wind
              so they become me.

            I am the pattern, more and more
              focused on itself, learning its way,
            I am causality climbing itself
              looking for second sight,
            evolution about to
              find the mirror.

                              gallagher
                              10 mar 75

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                          Summa - 20 March 1975

      Getting a pattern of what I’ve been being:
        I’ve been finding my value in what I’ve seen
           as my spiritual development.

        Any conversation turns to it quickly with new people.
      I thought it was because it was interesting to me,
        but its for the ego trip of showing off my best!

      I think I’m back to intellectualizing as much now as four years ago
        when I first began to grow with Huxley and Nan and Norm Self.

      In encounter groups I’m honest without being emotionally open,
        with Wendy I’m deep but without showing myself,
        with Dennis Estabrook, I was straining to compare knowledge.

      It seems as long as I’m able to shape other’s impressions of me,
        I do, and then I believe what they believe of me.

      But it’s wearing thin; this pattern,
        thin enough that Dennis E. saw it
           and I saw it, myself, with Wendy.

      I’m tempted to decide what to do, here,
        but I think it would be better if I didn’t.
      But rather just watch the pattern to avoid it
        and so, find my way by elimination.

                                       gallagher
                                       20 mar 75
                                       csulb

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

         The experience of the experience vanishes
         when that stretched diffuse form of the ego
         which becomes the other’s vibes
         is infinitely stretched.

         Until, at last, its very diffuseness
         prevents suggestibility
         through the lack of that
         which would be suggested to.

         Until, at last, its very lack
         prevents domination.

         Until, at last, every nuance
         is all the story and every story is all the one.

         And here where thoughts need no time
         to register their values
         on the scale of domination or assimilation
         the experience of the experience, vanishes.

                                 gallagher
                                 26 mar 75

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

      I should close my eyes against my sight
        it brings me no truth, only questions.
      It brings me no answers,
        only choices.
      It brings me no closer to understanding
        only closer to naked reality
      as it is revealed
        by the loss of my innocences.
            Each of us is potentially Adam
              each of us can leave the garden
                 of our ignorance.
            Sometimes faith whispers to me now
              out of her shadowed dream gardens
                 only mine.
            But as yet I listen reluctantly,
              unable to see her.
      But I find nothing worth seeing
        in my material sight either
      nothing to quench the thirst of my spirit…
        thirst for more than my senses can admit.
      Nothing there to to convince me that there IS more
        but my looking and my love.
                              gallagher
                              23 jun 75

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

         We each reflect ourselves
           and the others we care about.

         They become our hell and our salvation,
           all of our karma is delivered
         in the hands of our beloveds.

         Each subject to love and reflections
           in the pool of maya, ours.

         We all pause in our tunnels of time
           to witness our ends tied to our means.

         We each pause to count our successes
           against our failures.

                           gallagher
                           11 jul 75

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                             Breaking thru
         I’m coming down again, I think
           to mellower times with school and Rose.
         I’m not so sharp at figuring it out anymore
           but my heart moves me just as well as my words used to
         when I thought I could out guess
           God and his plans.
         He is the consequence inherant in my acts,
           the events which follow my choice.
         He is there…more subtly than I could have believed
           behind my acts and choices, behind my rewards and pain.
         He matches my every act
           with justice and responsability
         He’s predestined it to let me make my choices and find my way,
           by my own choice, to His plan and my own, the same.
         I can no more live without his love and my concience
           than I could bear my pain endlessly without my joy.
                                       gallagher
                                       8 sept 75

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

         God, I see you behind every sweep of my hand.
         I breath you between every second’s passing
           and I feel you around me endlessly in every direction.
         I am like some mote in your weave of space and time.
         I find it hard to differentiate you
           because I’ve never experienced the otherness.
         You are the consequence inherant in my choices.
         The events which follow my acts, the choices given me,
           and the others with whom I work out my destiny.
         You are the weave of my life from which I select my thread.
         You are the events which react to the history I create,
           mirror and mirrored, you and I.
         We interpenetrate until I can scarce tell
         If you are everything
           or just my imagination….
                                          gallagher
                                          8 sept 75

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

               In the early morning
               when the fires are roaring slowly
               the dreams that come to me
               can be born of something now
               and I see that its my father
               whose awake.
               His light is wove within the winds
               and deeds of all my brothers
               and I can see his smiling face
               behind the fabric of my life.
                                 gallagher
                                 17 september 75

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

         There’s no enjoyment of this life in them.
         Its a straight and narrow purgatory
         waiting here for the next life.
         Life is a trial, all provided with love,
         by the Lord to test one’s faith.

         Its love, love your brothers and sisters
         without passion, comfort and befriend them,
         with eyes full of blind love,
         be meek and modest and remember
         that if what you’re doing feels good
         it must be a sin.

         Come together in church halls
         and speak the language of the reborn
         and raise your hands and voices up
         asking for a sign but never allowing a doubt.

         Be patient and accepting,
         though its beyond all knowing,
         for surely a Lord,
         who would have you give up everything
         in this life,
         must have some reward for you
         in the next, right?

                                    gallagher
                                    Oct 15, 76

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

               I used to think that I kept my mind silent
               like the Buddhists say…
               Until I realized its always so
               when I listen.
                                    gallagher
                                    22 jun 78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

  Paused for a moment on the edge of all the future
     all our lives will surely tangle or unweave now
     and all of these potentials,
     like hands on my shoulder, steady me.
  So let it begin and all the rest of my life go on
     I no longer wait or care for the past to resurrect itself
     this life can be invested in my future now
  I can weave and sort my friends and lovers into the days of my life
     I want to walk out each day excited
     about what could happen again
     and care nothing for what has gone by
  I’ve been too long tangled with the old ways
     so carefully unknotting our lives and feelings
     learning that exquisite patience that lies half way
     between compassion and self preservation
  But, its done… let me depart and begin anew
     this time not to bury my freedom with love and security
     or to hold myself untouched by love’s whip and passion
  I want to find that balance point there in my heart, between…
     there, where on the edge of my best,
     I can live each day like it was the last
  I want to dance to life’s mysteries and paradoxes
     as the fountains dance to the wind and the mimes to the crowd
     these things are not to weep for
  and, sometimes … in those graceful but oh so brief moments,
     perhaps in a lover’s eyes or in a passage of my son’s growth
     I’ll see something behind it all …
     timeless … smiling thru at me
  Brother Methuselah, here in all of us as we gamble our lives
     untouched yet compassionate … he waits for us to begin
     and he smiles at us, a spiritual joy and promise within.
                                 gallagher
                                 07-04-78

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                     MEDITATIONS
      I resolve that the most important thing confronting me
        is the task of becoming what I want to become.
      I recognize that, when at brief moments, I become conscious,
        I know what I want.
      And that what I want is to retain this awareness
        and there is no way to do this
          short of wanting it more than anything else.
      I want to become what I want when I am conscious.
      I want to be the master of my physical body’s(mind’s) condition
        within those limits that my age and genetic inheritance impose.
      And if faith or will power
         can gain me more than that
            then I want that too.
      My body (mind) is mine if I will claim it.
      I want the manifestation of my consciousness
        to become my conscious foreground
      and the details of my life; its work, its involvements,
        to become the background.
      but its details must be executed to perfection
        because my consciousness of their execution is a reflection
          of my deeper commitment to conscious awareness
            in all that I do.
      It is not that I lack the ability to conceive what I want
        in my moments of clarity.
      It is more that I cannot maintain the awareness
        of what I want.
      I slip back into unconsciousness; physical gratifications,
        into my unconscious animal reactions
          to each moment’s passing stimuli.
      Its not that I should deny my physical nature
        but that I should experience it without lapse
          of awareness of my deeper want…
            to remain conscious.
                                       04-09-80
                                       Portland, Maine

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                Deja vu … when time’s sequential walls dissolve
                  as if the fabric of time itself has folded …
                The strange feeling of remembering the remembering
                  and the astonishment at the contrast
                between the logical impossibility of it
                  and the undeniable and unsolicited
                    certainty of it
                Some people believe sequential time is an illusion
                  which covers a deeper timeless truth
                and that these sequential perceptions of ours
                  are the necessary toys of our spiritual child selves
                Much as our science and logic give us security
                  against the naked responsibilities inherent
                in our understandings of the spiritual and non-logical
                  underpinnings of life
                So, perhaps, sequential time serves as our first rudimentary
                  perception of time’s deeper form
                and that beneath this sequential guise, it lies around us
                  everywhere and always, at once, equidistant
                and immediately available to those
                  who have shed logical and sequential modes
                    for more direct methods of perception.
                                        03 Nov 80

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                           Awake
      Awareness; so easy to conceive, so hard to maintain
         and each time I let it slip I know
      sooner or later that I’ve lost it
         when I awake, adrift, again.
      No formula will do it, only doing it will.
         As the knife hones to the sharpening stone,
      so I must go into it … ever into it
         leaving all thoughts of ‘it’ behind.
      Food, sleep, exercise, work, loving and seeing
         are but a few names of the places I’ve slept.
      Bhagwan, Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, and Mohammad
         are but a few names of those
            who have called us to awake.
      Here I write to make tangible the meditation
         but this paper and ink are not it.
      Here I am awake and want to stay so
         a baby Buddha crawling towards the light.
                           gallagher
                           27 july 83 - Irvine, CA

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

         I have glimmers and flashes
         of what the masters have
         brief windows of grace
         foundations glimpsed
         my thoughts are full
         of the desire to act
         but I cannot
         for if I cannot hold
         their vision now
         how could I amid acting
         I want it solid and sure
         I want to cut to the heart
         so I must act from the heart
         and the heart,
         the heart is not yet full.
                    gallagher
                    19 jun 84

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

                    For the pictures
   In the gray half light I saw the picture patterns she’d hung;
   imperishable for this moment, and so fragile for all the rest.
   Someday, I may remember these, that tonight I can see.
   Somewhere, down the imponderable paths our lives wind,
   I may be dropped into another world far from this
   and Rose’s pictures and Danny’s manhood and Chris’ cheeks
   may all be photographs and memories then …
   indeed…we all will be, someday.
   So this moment … I cannot stop it, cannot delay it
   and I cannot waste it, least I regret.
   So easy to lose it against hungers or moods or fatigue.
   The kindness and love we give and receive…
   it seems so mixed with the mundane and the trivial sometimes.
   But all the lessons of our lives wait before us;
   lessons from which no one escapes alive.
   What more could God give us than the people we love
   and the passion of living out our lives with them
   in family/friend chains of living change?
                           gallagher
                           24 jun 84

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —