Ground is what lies beneath our feet. It is the place where we already stand; a state of recognition, the place or the circumstances to which we belong whether we wish to or not. It is what holds and supports us, but also what we do not want to be true; it is what challenges us, physically or psychologically, irrespective of our hoped for needs. It is the living, underlying foundation that tells us what we are, where we are, what season we are in and what, no mater what we wish in the abstract, is about to happen in our body, in the world or in the conversation between the two.
David Whyte, from ‘Consolations‘
Category Archives: Poetry
Ground
In their branches
The ABC Radio National Earshot Documentary ‘In their branches‘ tells us about people’s love of trees. These are true expressions of intimacy and joy. Here are some images of the trees I love, climb and dream of.
Dark clouds and dust lanes
In a web,
Dewdrops,
like jewels of insight,
allow life
and stories
to spring forth.
But,
what about the spaces
in between?
What is lurking
in the interstices?
Within the dark clouds and dust lanes
of the Milky Way,
the black space
between the glimmering stars,
Dwells a being.
Some call him Marella,
There is always something
in those spaces
in between.
Filed under Metaphors, Poetry, Uncategorized
Evolutionary Intelligence
Evolutionary Intelligence
Rumi
This groggy time we live, this is what it is like.
A man goes to sleep in the town
where he has always lived, and he dreams
he is living in another town.
He believes the reality of the dream town.
The world is that kind of sleep.
The dust of many crumbled cities
settles over us like a forgetful doze,
but we are older than those cities.
We began as a mineral. We emerged into plant life
and into the animal state. Then into being human,
and always we have forgotten our former states,
except in early spring when we almost
remember being green again.
Humankind is being led along an evolving course,
through this migration of intelligences,
and though we seem to be sleeping,
there is an inner wakefulness that directs the dream.
It will eventually startle us back
to the truth of who we are.
Filed under Poetry
Light on the mountain
As I walked,
I asked there to be light,
so the shadows
would not consume me.
On this shortest day,
a low hanging sun
could not peak above the trees.
But, somehow
a light was shone,
illuminating the white bark of a gum.
To encounter this light,
was to find an opening,
and to feel heard.
Later, in a dance with the tors,
she returned.
Although the shadows grew long,
as the sun
dropped
behind the arms of the mountain,
there was
a final gift
of light.
“Remember this”
resonated
within me.
Opening into,
and out of,
shadowy places,
a light within.
Uncovering silences and bringing forth
Words unformed;
they linger
and dwell in
feeling,
somewhere inside me.
You ask me,
tell me about your being with this place?
and things shift.
Words summoned,
they move
and clumsily,
emerge.
I don’t realise
until
the
words
come
out
what my being with
is.
I meet my being with
as the words pass
from my
lips.
From life in the
somatic realm
to
life on the
outside,
my being with and I, and we
emerge.
Image: David Millard.
Filed under Poetry
On your pages
Illuminated,
on your pages
these
words
find life,
and born
through these
words
are my connections.
Invoked
yes!
a calling forth,
you re-appear in my
present.
Actors from my being with,
come to me,
surround me
and make me remember.
We
are always
together
May 9, 2014 · 3:41 am
Beneath
She creaks, she creaks
above me
she creaks.
I lay hidden
from the world
on my belly.
Softened by handfuls of her tiny leaves
a bed, a bed to lay on.
Time and fallen leaves making a bed
for me to lay on.
Filtering through tiny leaves
light reaches my upturned face.
it finds me,
in
my
hiding.
Filed under Birds, Dogs & Trees, Poetry
Convergence
At some point we had all walked the Trail,
over many years, decades.
Some only once, others many times.
A community of people grows out of this walk,
connections made
across
time and place.
If not on the Trail, somehow,
we find each other.
A convergence of trails,
a convergence of stories.
Connecting, meeting, resonating.
March 6, 2014 · 2:59 am
Being with Country 