Archive for the ‘Culturium III’ Category

2023-12-29 – Murmurs

Saturday, December 30th, 2023

I awake in the morning from dreams;
with the sound of rain
slowly filling the space
around me.

And my awareness arises,
quietly regarding the mysteries
before
my thoughts begin.

This mind, with all of its small interests,
just wants to understand enough
to survive, procreate and
escape the ever creeping
entropic darkness.

We are both the lightness of being
and the darkness of conclusions drawn.
And all the while
the animal, within us,
still growls.

And we so automatically form
those beliefs
that prevent us from seeing
the naked truth
that lies all around us, endlessly.

And that naked truth
is utterly indifferent
as to whether we see it
or not.

The rain murmurs outside
and I turn and burrow deeper
into the covers of a bed
in a house where I am loved.

I am, in this one moment then, mind.
And in the next, just simple presence.

And I am all of this
while the rain
murmurs and sings
and the mysteries enfold me.

gallagher
29Dec2023
Christchurch

2024-05-25 – The Transient

Sunday, May 26th, 2024

Can we ever really know what others feel?

The long years of our lives stretch behind us;
all those moments that were so real.

And you lived each one; impaled
on those very moments and feelings.
All gone now.
And all, only yours now, in vague memories.

So, we come to death after hoping all of our lives
to have arrived and to have been delivered
from the transient – and yet, it is all transient.

All that we held dear was, and is, just ours alone.

A changing movie that we just had bit parts in
as it progressed and evolved.

All this is so much easier to see, now, here at the end
than it was at the beginning
when we thought that delivery
from the transient was still possible.

At best, we can love and share
part of our individual journeys;
seeing each other and touching each other
in those frames of our movies that we share.

For now, while the sweeping sands of time and change
collect around our shuffling feet
and the weathered lines gather on our faces,
we can only wait for each other to disappear.

When I hug the one I love, I am gathering us into this moment,
into the sweet timeless feeling space of ‘now’ to forget
that the world doesn’t love the transient
as much as we love the world.

Gallagher
25May24
Toronto

2024-07-23 – Pebbles

Wednesday, July 24th, 2024

We are creatures 
spawned from change;
in the never ending churn
of an existence in motion.

Temporary, transient 
and small,
like pebbles of awareness.

Existent ,for but moments,
in the endless deluge.

We catch our breath…
and then we are gone.

The transient 
is all we have
in this moving 
eternity. 

A momentary awareness 
is all we are
in the great flow
of unknowing.

We try
to freeze and name
its passing
with our words.

But those are only
arbitrary gestures.
Irrelevant,
before they are swept away
in the endless changing.

Sometimes, 
if we are very quiet,
we can sense 
the infinite
unity of it…
before 
another thought 
arises in us
and we are lost again
in the small pebble’s 
forlorn dream 
of understanding.

Gallagher
23 July 24
Christchurch

  • After an on-line Enlightened Living meeting