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2007-06-17 – Pythia’s traces

Sunday, June 17th, 2007 

What prevents your witness of this place
   but the urges of your blood
      and all the drama that follows?

Here, where the sun pours liquid, 
   you pass by in a vision
captured by nature's dream 
   of fitness and the raging of genes.

In and out of that still point 
   you turn like dream warriors
self-reflected in your inner eye 
   and in the stories you tell yourselves.

But past the end of the dance 
   something waits, still and serene.
It is the quiet moment 
   when your water's been poured
but hasn't yet 
   run down to the sea.

There, 
   there is no dance, 
no counterpoint, 
   no singing in the wires.
just a moment of freedom 
   to commune 
with the sun's blessing
   and to witness 
the rise and fall 
   of the fields of flowers.

Time to see the dance 
   and the singing 
      as if for the first time
without the urge 
   to spill yourself.
A time to witness the children's faces 
   smiling new at that same beauty,
before they begin, 
   that you can see, 
      now that you are done.

The puppy at play, 
   the gentle wind in the grass, 
      the light that can shine
 from an eye with love;
    be it animal, 
      child 
         or man.
That sweet blessing 
   behind the play of forms, 
      that beneficent something
 that embraces 
   all of this coming and going, 
      all the mystery and beauty.

Oh, Beloved, 
   carry my sweet Pythia away 
      into your light,
and, Blessed One, 
   whisper to her softly 
      how well she was loved.

                                          gallagher
                                            17 Jun 07

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

Posted in 2007, AAA - Recommended, Catalyst2, Monroe | No Comments »

2008-06-21 – Under Many Stars

Saturday, June 21st, 2008

Here,
amid the weeds
of these centuries,
I rise.

Seeking light and warmth
from the soils and seas
of yet another world.

The long rise;
the single cell, the multiple.

We spawn;
fleet of form and bright of eye.

We gather and rise
in complexity and imagination
beneath another wheeling sun, above,
and the shifting plates, below.

Again and again,
we come to self-consciousness.
Spewing poetry and conquest,
cities and literature.

Proud and driven,
we sing the animal’s song …
but in a higher key;
as we procreate, build and consume.

And it is always the same rise …
and always the same fall,
just … beneath a different star.

We are technological children,
impulsive and uncontrolled,
pressed onward by those same
biological imperatives
that fueled our original rise
from the mud.

Those same imperatives,
now freed by our intelligence.

Those same imperatives,
now pushing us from behind,
motivating us,
while we stare into the mirror
of our imagined futures
and think ourselves Gods.

And all this
while we are sleepwalking
into our demise …
once again.

We think we are aware
and we imagine
that we see the game entire.

But while we are looking for enemies
outside the gate,
they are no further
than our next desire, within.

We, driven on
by our own biological imperatives,
will plunge again
onto that self-same sword
of our desires and greed,
untamed.

I have been many times before
and I will be again …
rising and falling beneath different stars
with different eyes and chemistry.

But I am the same one.

I have yearned for my freedom before
and I have died by my own hand.

But someplace among the stars,
I will rise once more.

And this time … this time …
I will learn to transcend
the very urges
that doomed me
in my technological
adolescence.

And on that very dirt,
after the long climb yet again,
I will finally find the path
to maturity and intentional balance
with the biosphere that birthed me.

And enter, then, into all of
whatever awaits … such as we.

gallagher
21 June 2008 – Summer Solstice
Monroe, Washington, USA

Posted in 2008, AAA - Recommended, Catalyst2, Monroe, Spiritual | No Comments »

2013-08-30 – Parc Monceau

Friday, August 30th, 2013 
 
I feel my legs creaking as age steals up upon me
   and, when I walk in the park, I know the ground waits below me.

All my health, lovers, adventures, years and successes 
   are just chaff in the winds of these many lives I've lived.

I sit near the still point and feel the simple knowing
   that ebbs and seeps from there.

The old men with money and power and the tiny tots
   with their little plastic sunglasses are all one to me now.

Love and being, here and now, and the leaves 
   that fall from the trees, they all whisper 'freedom and bliss' to me.

I look, and the urge to grasp rises, 
   but I say 'No'.
Each thing and moment, each coming and going is,
   in itself, perfect.

Buddha smiles someplace in this moment and in no other
   and whatever purpose is, and has been, is always now.

The ground waits beneath me and I hear its murmuring
   and I wait, pleased, for what is and what will be.

The world is magic that there can be such peace here
   in the midst of so much pain and war and evil.

gallagher
30 Aug 2013 - Paris, France

— Copyright 1965-2014 by Dennis Gallagher —

Posted in 2013, AAA - Recommended, Catalyst2, Culturium, Paris, Places, Spiritual | No Comments »

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