Saturday, May 31, 2014

Our Eternal Earthly Energies

Either we believe in responsible compassion in humans, or in "gods;"
We can't simultaneously believe in both understandings of eternity.
The organizer of the Vatican II Ecumenical Council said it best:
"God" doesn't change, but our understanding of "God" continues to do so.

I, among others, have come to the point in my spiritual journey
That I don't believe the term "god" accurately reflects eternal energy.
How blind we have been, not seeing that all gods are based on homo sapiens,
Rather than that full humanity is based on eternal compassionate energy.

Why are homo sapiens so resistant to new attitudes and information?
Without growth and adaptability, every species on earth dies.
Unless we are willing to concede the end of homo sapiens civilization,
It's time that we acknowledge that we're already parts of eternity.

We can't hope to keep up or understand all universal knowledge;
We can only hope that our children allow us to observe the fruits
Of the labors we willingly offered up to sheltering and teaching them,
Trusting in the basic values of responsible compassion we shared.

Our era was created out of invisible universal compassionate energy;
We must not pull our heirs backward out of our own fear of change.
How the Sacred Spirit of their universe is manifested is beyond us;
Embrace the energy of The Eternal Sacred we impart while here.

Let them fly, knowing that our values are the tails on their kites;
Our earth is spinning at a rate that we could  never conceptualize.
How horrible it would be to consume our children's sacred energy
Because we're afraid of losing these dear physical parts of ourselves.

My most fervent wish is that the energy I've imparted to my children and others
Will bear positive energy, in many others, for many generations upon our earth.
I believe that the only heaven is the one we begin here in our shared universe;
What we sow in our earthly lives, many generations will continue to reap and re-sow.




Friday, May 30, 2014

What If We...?

Is it possible that Abraham loved his sister/wife Sarah,
Though her prostituted her to protect his own hide?
And why do we honor as our many nations' patriarch
A man who sent his son and her mother to the desert to die?

How can we ever change the way we relate to The Sacred Spirit
Until we admit that some of the scriptures weren't so sacred?
We lost our willingness to be true to our universal siblings
When we stopped standing before each other spiritually naked.

Hair we are given as mammals covers some of our vulnerabilities;
What we add to protect our identities is only window dressing.
The layers of clothing, housing and other indications of wealth
Cover sins that we should be, to our worldwide siblings, confessing.

How can we honor Abraham while we demonstrate against human slavery?
The many young brides of Muhammad deny any right to innocent faith.
Even Gandhi and MLK confessed their abuses of their own wives.
The stories of Jesus called for the world's focus to be on earth's future.

And Jesus stories demanded that we confess our sins against each other;
It has been the hallmark of honest relationship since the Garden of Eden.
The demand that we ask for forgiveness from those in our communities
Is the only non-negotiable way to become honest and eternal friends.

We are conceived as animals with an instinct toward survival of self;
Homo Sapiens have the option of opening ourselves to self-sacrifice.
To be fully human is to stop marking territory only for ourselves,
But to allow all of the sacred universe to put an eternal mark on us.

What if we got rid of the masters of law who only want to win power?
What if we made mediators of conflict our most highly paid profession?
Would we finally be able to live in truth and in worldwide peace,
And only those who create consensus would win places of leadership?

















Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Alpha Animals

Do dogs ever ask themselves whether they have done the right thing to please their alphas, or are they more confident in their actions than we? Do they wait around all day, feeling insecure when their alphas are away?
I think they do, and that we are really no less needy of companionship than are most other mammals. We have need for familiar touch, taste and scent of those in our packs of people.

We have been led to believe that mutual need in community is a weakness in our human natures. Some have gone so far as to label mutual dependence on another as an illness. My husband likes to call our relationship co-dependability, rather than co-dependence. I am blessed that he honors our need for each other, though both of us can sometimes feel burdened by our mutual commitment to helping each other be our best selves.

I don't think humans are any less evolved because we still act like other mammals. In fact, I think we've done ourselves and others a disservice by pretending that this fantasy about our superiority is a good thing.  Early in our relationship, my husband clarified what he believed about the difference between us and other animals. He declared, "Humans have the ability to say no." I think this sort of sums it up.

I have noticed that, even a dog can be taught to deny itself immediate gratification, when taught to do so by a firm, yet responsibly compassionate alpha. The sad thing in denying our animal underpinnings is that we fail to see that dogs are best taught by observing the actions of others. If parents would strive to be better alpha animals, perhaps we'd be creating humans that act less like wild beasts.

A granddaughter recently said to me, "Granny, you said that you taught my mama to cook, but she said that you didn't." My reply to her, "I cooked while she watched and helped. That is how poor people teach their children. We didn't have the money to send her for lessons in everything." If we focus on walking in the direction we want our children to follow, maybe we will wear a path that they will feel is a comfortable permanent home. Even when we are gone, they will wear our spirits on the insides of themselves.

Monday, May 26, 2014

Favorite Photograph

I have a favorite photograph of my toddler son and his first female friend, in the kitchen of my first family home. She is squatting on the floor, hysterically crying, while he looks on with that look dogs give of, "What the heck is happening here?" This happened when they were both less than two years old, so it cannot have been training, only instinct. I see this as the perfect picture of the communication tactics of men and women.

Neither child had much hair, and the little girl's hair grew out red. I don't know that her hysteria was an omen of her hair being red, but I do know that her passion in life didn't diminish as she matured. Neither did my son's sense of wonder about what makes women tick.

My son complains about the favoritism I showed his older sister. It wasn't favoritism; it was simply something that came with our both being females. How could he understand menstrual cramps and mood swings accompanying menstruation, when he would never be inflicted with either of them? This was just as I understood that, when he reached puberty, I could never teach him how to act as a moral man. He went to live in his father's man cave.

As a family man, my son has made a married friend to whose home he can escape when he needs a place of safety and solace from his female. I hope, for the sake of both families, the two friends women's cycles never synchronize. He has also created an outdoor substitute for a "man cave," as his home is small and he enjoys the luxury of living in the deep south of the USA. His wife and her friends can have the house; the men will be out in an area with greater space.

I will never understand the need of men to escape into their own shells after confrontation by their females, but I do know that this instinct seems to be universal. How many hunting parties would never have been organized if it hadn't been for the need of men to have space to absorb and organize what their women expected of them? When men were confused, the family was fed.

The challenge in our modern world seems to be how to create prosperity without confusion and accompanying conflict. We must create areas where males can step away while they absorb and organize what others are meaning with their words. Only then can we hope to have a fully human family of peace on our earth. If churches/temples/mosques don't offer these areas, what real purpose do they serve on our earth?

Humans, including men, have abilities to reason that are not available to dogs or wolves. Why are we still acting as if we have no choice but to obey our animal instincts? When religions promote reason over worship of outdated idols, perhaps we'll succeed at exceeding our own dogs' abilities.





Saturday, May 24, 2014

Looking at Life Like a Dog Does

Sometimes, I feel like I am listening to human speech like a dog does. You know how dogs cock their heads about thirty degrees to one side as we speak to them? They know you are saying something important, but the simply don't understand the words. This is how I feel when most people talk about God.

Even when I hear and read the same words, I experience different messages than do my most religious friends. Does this mean that they have special spiritual powers that I don't have? Many seem to think so. Religions seem to insist on all agreeing on everything in their professions of faith. I don't claim to know the truth for others, but I have come to comfort with what is true in my mind and spirit.

From the beginning of human ability to reason, it seems that all gods were to be feared, and demanded great sacrifices as punishment for their displeasure with their own creations. It seems that humanity was in dire need of crossing over from these fearful superstitions, into an era when we would understand our own indwelling ability to embrace, share, and grow The Sacred Spirit on our own earth (now the greater cosmos).

The energy of the universe we are, and to universal energy we shall return. This may be why we are admonished by Jesus to work toward heaven on while we are still physically on earth. What we sow, our universe will reap for many generations. For this reason, I believe it is a great evil to sow fear in any form.

I have come to reject any belief based on the fear of any power. This journey began with words spoken to me by my daughter, twenty-five years ago. "I don't think God banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. I think God is like a good parent waiting at the door for his children to come home." This is when my head cocked thirty degrees to one side.

Once my way of "listening" to The Sacred Spirit was with head cocked to the side by thirty degrees, I never could hold my head straight in hearing what people say about The Sacred Spirit. Along the line of my research and isolation in the tomb-like quiet, I have lost contact with the term "god" as a good thing.  Looking at life this way, the whole story of original sin and repentance with a blood sacrifice son made for this purpose made no sense to me.

Just like a dog, I will obey a master that I fear, always looking for an escape from the feeling of fear, but I would die for those who fully open their spirits to me, and I to them.

I see the Judeo-Christian Bible as a collection of stories leading from the fearful superstitions of early humanity to the enlightenment of Pentecost. Only by a human's actions (fruits) will any know who is living in enlightenment and who is still bound by fear. Greed is a fruit of fear, as is hate and war.

Perhaps if we all start listening and living more like well-loved dogs, we can get past language and belief barriers and move onto universal agreement on The signs of The Sacred Spirit in ourselves and all others.




Thursday, May 22, 2014

Running From Religion

I have been asked why I didn't hate my father for his fits of rage in which he would beat his children until he drew blood. The answer is a simple one; he closely resembled the God that I had been taught to see in the Bible on which I was raised. I was sure that righteous fathers were supposed to cleanse our sins by demanding blood sacrifice from their own children, as had God.

In modern times, we are told that God is love, as if the God that made children simply to slay them had never existed. How convenient the memories of people can be, that they forget the pain of the past rather that face it and seek to winnow out the truth from all the actions that make up the present. Abuse changes the brain into an animal brain by overriding judgement with raw animal instinct to fight or flee. Most of life is coping as victims, unless we own our human power to make change in our thoughts and actions.

This power that we call "free will" is what I believe instills full humanity into our animal bodies. This is what I refer to as The Sacred Spirit, which has nothing to do with the vengeful, jealous gods that early homo sapiens saw all around them. The God of Cain and Abraham seems to have nothing to do with The Sacred Spirit; it is, rather, a god of animal rage. This is the God my father followed. For this reason, I have had much compassion for the situation he was in as a father.

My mother was married to the fathers of her Roman Catholic religion. She tortured and neglected her children to purify us, and neglected her husband in order to purify herself and her children for her entry into heaven, where she would be forever married to God and his son. Apparently her God approved of this, as her church honored her with medals for her faith. I have little compassion for her, as she fed her family to the abusers in order to protect her own virtue and standing in her church family.

I feel greatly betrayed by those who act as if the abuses of this version of God and his religions never happened to anyone that they personally encountered. These fine folks want to say that those still suffering flashbacks of the trauma inflicted by this God are ill or unforgiving. How can we forgive or forget what still wakes us screaming in terror?

I have read the Book of Job. I see how this God rewards those most faithful to him, and I want no part of a God who would kill my children to prove his own power to a demon. I want no part of a God who tells fathers to kill their own sons and makes a son to sacrifice to himself. I want no part of a God who chooses, for eternal life in his heavenly family, only a few of the billions of people continuing to be created.

This was the God of my father and mother. Is it any wonder that my parents felt they should sacrifice their own children to this God? Is it any wonder that we have turned away from their God and his religion?










Wednesday, May 21, 2014

What We Want

I have been involved in a discussion with several female friends regarding the values by which we live. One of our group brought up the subject of living life without expectations. There seem to be many who practice eastern meditation who believe that this is the way to happiness. I think this may be true, but not in any earthly relationships, even relating to ourselves in a community.

I don't believe that we are meant to experience Nirvana on earth because I don't believe that level of peace is possible as long as The Sacred Spirit inhabits a physical form. One of the properties of earthly, physical person-hood is that we are expected to have expectations of ourselves. Without expectations, free will to choose a path to perfection is meaningless.Without this, we become animals of only instinct to guide our actions.

It is important that we humans teach our children that we have expectations for ourselves and for them; otherwise, we leave them with no rudders to weather the storms and guide their life's paths onto productive shores. Every generation is in danger of slipping backward if all of our energy is directed toward maintaining the familiar status quo. Life cannot stand still, except in a vacuum; life cannot survive without fresh breath.

When will we learn that expectation is our earth's life blood? We don't have energy to get out of bed in the morning unless we expect something from ourselves on that day.




Tuesday, May 20, 2014

What We Mothers Must Do

It is time that we mothers stop moaning about how badly the big, bad men are treating us and our earth and start saying “No!” to ourselves and others. We are the ones who are being handed the fruits of war in greater and greater proportions. Just as a cat will lay a dead bird at the feet of the pet’s parent, our men are trained, from birth, to bring us spoils of war as acts of worship of our womanhood.
It is time that we stop preening ourselves while other women suffer at our hands. Our greed is killing our earth, and we refuse to admit or see it. Until we are willing to rock the crying babies of those who clean our homes while they clean, we are guilty of encouraging a caste system. Until we stand with mothers whose sons are persecuted by our own sons and mates, we are promoting war.
We must start saying “No!” to all who attempt to take our young sons away from us and bully them as a way to “toughen them up.” We must say “No!” to spending excess money on our children and ourselves, thus encouraging our mates to bring bigger and bigger bounties to our doorsteps. We must say “No!” to those who attempt to price fix incomes at less than living wages for those who take our places in the most physically and emotionally demanding roles in life.
We love to pretend that we are all earth mothers, while we actually save the best pieces of prosperity for our own families. When we stop consuming more than our own share and begin to partner with those who serve us and our own children, we can call ourselves earth mothers. It is we women who need to toughen up.

Monday, May 19, 2014

Pagan Gods of Punishment vs Eternal Energy

Pagans believe in gods of punishment and gods for all other occurrences;
This seems to me the problem with referring to The Sacred Spirit as God.
The testaments that we accept today are filled with mistaken perceptions,
Based on the beliefs that homo sapiens held in less capable of reasoning brains.

While the psalms sing of the beauty of The Sacred Spirit in life,
Many, like Cain and Abraham, turned back to gods of fear.
Moses took the time to review the rabble and find a common code,
One that bridged the gap between fear of gods and full humanity.

How foolish it was for the Israelites to attempt to define boundaries
Based, not on shared values for living, but on the dirt of the earth.
Will we humans ever stop fighting to create a universal place of peace
Until we understand that we're the earthly embodiment of all the gods?

Only we have been given the ability to grow beyond our animal instincts,
And to bond with all physical species in an effort to bond the entire universe.
Every insult, every bomb, every destructive action on our earth
Serves to turn our full human community back into Cain and Abraham's chaos.

I do not seek to dishonor our Biblical patriarchs in our religious ancestry;
I do believe it is important to acknowledge their mistakes and their triumphs.
We must stop defining our parents as good without grievous mistakes,
Or we're doomed to eternity in the hells of their, and their parents', making.

Abraham was a woman and child abuser; we still pay the price in enmity.
How many generations of our children will die because of his mistakes?
Is it not time that we all use our better judgement about the earth
And accept defeat on the parts of all who came before our generation?

It is incumbent upon all humanity to begin with a clean earthly slate,
Realizing that all our former rules were based on ancestral animal fears.
Our deceased fathers and mothers harmed our ancestral sisters and brothers,
But we must all reach across war zones the embrace each other in peace.

We must seek to redefine ways to recognize The Sacred Spirit on earth.
Can we agree that all of what is truly sacred leads to balance and peace?
All power promoting fear or pain as punishment should be disqualified
As entities to which human beings should bow or inflict on others on earth.

I sing the songs of The Sacred Spirit that I see all around me every day;
I'm told I'm destined for the hell created by the gods of fear and punishment.
I care not about this far-away heaven because every smile brings a bit of joy;
In the eternal energy of each who embraces my aura, I will live in eternity.











Sunday, May 18, 2014

Blessing the Beyond

I wonder what it's like to feel so powerful that your prayer influences the actions of God.
It seems to me that only our earthly actions influence anything in universal eternity.
So many say that we must fear God, at the same time as they say God is love.
How can rational beings possibly believe both simultaneously about the same being?
I have no fear of those who love me, though I have deep respect for alienation.
I seek to understand those who love me, and attempt to expose my inner self to them.

Fear cancels love, growth, and faith; fear of a Father God is simply slavery.
As the seeds of humanity are planted and nurtured, so grow the children of earth.
While the feelings of full communication are awe-inspiring and sometimes overwhelming,
The need to step back, process, and internalize them isn't a sign of rejection.
I don't spend my life begging to be accepted by those in whose love I trust,
But we are taught to beg for the favor of The Sacred Spirit that lives in all.

I simply don't understand how this promise, petition, and otherworldly gratitude works.
Why send energy to a heavenly god that can be better utilized here on our own earth?
I'd rather spend my life looking with love into another's eyes that on my knees in worship.
It seems to me we'd be incapable of fear or hatred, if we saw our every action as a prayer.
Baptism in water comes first in the womb; the The Sacred Spirit comes through shared love.
Can we ever become fully human when deprived of the true foods of The Sacred Spirit?

Entering into each other gives our own bit of The Sacred Spirit true eternal life;
It is in the ebb and flow of this sharing that we consecrate each other's lives.
This begins with the birth of a baby opening eyes to pure parental devotion,
And is carried forward to be shared with all the child encounters on the earth.
How sad it is for those babies born into the eyes of hatred and fear,
As their parents curse the very breath and blood in their small bodies.

The act of impregnation can be either an act of Sacred Energy and communion,
Or it can be the planting of new seeds of loathing for The Sacred Spirit on earth.
Will we ever stop hatred in humanity until we stop forcing women to breed?
Can The Sacred Spirit be resuscitated in a soul so scarred by a curse at birth?
Only those with open ears and eyes to love completely and fiercely
Have a hope of overcoming the deficits of hope, and heal human society.

Hearing, seeing, feeding, holding, wiping away tears and calming fears;
These are actions that infuse The Sacred Spirit into any animal on earth.
When we persecute others, we pervert the power of The Sacred Spirit;
No amount of prayers will rescue us from this hell of our own creation.
Help heal the earth by seeing someone in pain, and looking the person in the eyes,
Offering nothing but your open soul to absorb and transform pain to peace.

Even death won't frighten those who know their energy lives in another,
Whether they absorbed another's heaven or hell while physically on earth.
The cycle of The Sacred Spirit will eventually balance in eternity,
If we each concentrate on actions of healing communion with the universe.
Hold the hands of those who are fearful, allowing them the chance to speak;
With eyes, ears and heart, assure that you carry forward The Sacred Spirit of their lives.







Friday, May 16, 2014

Failing Faith

The greatest failing I have found in what we call "Christianity" is the inability of those in community to confront one another's actions with responsible compassion for the person and the full community. There is a difference between judgement of a person's character or morality and confrontation for actions which are harmful to the community. It is this lack of definition that I believe continues the cycles of abuse even in the most religious "Christian" cultures.

Our bodies are born as animals with the ability to embrace a higher level of life. The Sacred Spirit enables us to rise above our animal instincts. The purpose of Jesus' life seems to me to show humans how to act in the spirit of a community, creating a heaven on earth through fellowship as families of intention. The trend to create huge church "families" is, in my opinion, harmful to the intimacy required to have responsibly compassionate communities. We must open ourselves up completely to interact on a spiritual basis. Unfortunately, hiding one's most vulnerable self and hypocrisy seem to be the norm in the mega church environments.

Real families have rules, and they confront each other when behaviors are harming anyone in the community, including harming of oneself. Lying, cheating, and bullying behaviors harm the full family. They break trust. When people gather to witness weddings or baby blessings, they are supposed to be signing on to help in supporting the inclusion in the boundaries of the family and greater community entered into with the rituals. How many take the rituals as including oneself in the support network for those being blessed by the church community?

I believe we have lost the meaning behind the rituals and have abandoned the true meaning of church family. We are simply a bunch of strangers mindlessly mouthing scriptures that have no bearing on how we live our lives as committed community. For this reason, many people have turned away from religion and are seeking The Sacred Spirit in their own neighborhoods and networks of friends.

Friday, May 9, 2014

Three-Year-Olds Define Divinity

Anyone saying he or she speaks for any one god
Is both a great liar and a horribly corrupt thief.
They are guilty of ultimate earthly arrogance,
And the killing of innocents' hope and belief.

Why do we believe in visions of hope and love
From any child older than the magic age of three?
These are The Sacred Spirit's bodies on earth
That still clearly see our full family's unity.

Why do we, as frightened adults, spend time
Teaching them that their visions are wrong?
We stop them from telling their hope-filled stories
And convince them to stop singing their pure songs.

We then fill their innocent spirits with our own pain,
Teaching them to subject themselves to our fears.
How do we continue justifying teaching of untruths,
That, in so many places and times, have been made clear?

When will humans stop reversing ourselves
On our hard-earned and honored knowledge gained?
It was not the new insight of humanity that was wrong;
Perhaps the loss of community wasn't worth what remained.

God is simply the awe in every creature able to think;
It is wrong for shamans, witches and priests create fear.
All energy that is beyond our own capacity is awesome;
This is the only belief in divine otherness that I hold dear.








Wednesday, May 7, 2014

How Horribly Hypocrisy Hurts

How horribly it hurts me to continue to challenge my best friends and family,
But until they understand their own prejudices, they will not the truth be able to see.
The strongest religious beliefs present all others as less worthy than themselves.
Until they put a loved one's face on condemnation, these beliefs, in their hearts, dwell.

My mother died believing that her children were mostly condemned to hell;
I ask myself how any mother could believe in those who, these horrible lies, tell.
If a child is born of my body and blood through the sacrament of shared sacred,
How could anyone support the notion that, without religious ritual, they are foresaked?

It may be true that these rituals were to bond many not of the same parental blood,
But the chosen sacred family has long been abandoned for the greedy church's good.
Empty promises to protect and participate in the spiritual lives of many others
Has created a closed society of only unthinking, passive sisters and brothers.

Like sheep led to their slaughters, communities follow the loudest voices,
They leave no time for thoughtful discussion, in order to make their own choices.
Religions and churches that once were centers of descent from greed and genocide
Have become temples of money changers in which the most cowardly humans hide.

I am a self-avowed heretic, in the truest meaning of this death-penalty word.
I shout out and reject hypocrisy wherever, through religion, it is, by me, heard.
Anyone or any group assigning, to The Sacred Spirit, demands of human sacrifice
Is not a group that is promoting the sacramental in a joyful earthly life.

Priests are the hands of inflicting mortal pain as punishment to humans,
As if this is what The Eternal, Universal  Sacred Spirit, from us, demands.
I refuse to believe that any of us are entered into earth to suffer and perish,
Without ample opportunity to create memories and energy to be cherished.

It is up to each of us to decide to embrace life or to promote eternal death;
I have been asked repeatedly, and to this prejudice, I am freely willing to confess:
Unless others are willing to give themselves totally to bonding with others,
Our species will continue to be a pack of competitive, feral animal sisters and brothers.

Any religion that promotes itself as the only path to full eternal divinity
Is continuing the wars that keep us from acting as interdependent humanity.
I have no fear of physical death; my spirit long ago died with religion's words,
Telling me that only the children's voices of my own religion were heard.

I knew that they were lies; I also knew that my soul would be saved
If I lied about my beliefs, if asked about them, by those who are depraved.
How foolish was the God whom so many religious presented to me,
That no matter what I said, The Sacred Spirit couldn't, my intentions, see.

I suppose I will die without many like-minded friends of my own,
Because so many want to save me and bring me to their God's home.
I am not interested in entering their faith or their eternal life's heaven;
I honestly believe that heaven on earth is where I've, most of my life, been.

This is because I believe what we sow on earth, our loved one's and theirs reap;
"On earth as it is in heaven" is the promise I try, with the whole earth, to keep.
It is for this reason that I continually walk away from my family's confusion;
Only with my physical absence will the good memories of me be a sacred infusion.




















Tuesday, May 6, 2014

The Problem with Prayers

I never believed in prayers of supplication because they always felt wrong to me;
Good weather for my wedding paled in light of a farmer's need for a crop's rain.
As I became older, I understood the problem in a different light of logic.
I could not trust a divine entity that allowed others to influence his decisions.

I do not understand those who believe they have power over Providence.
What if two prayer warriors pray at cross purposes to the same god?
There may be some at the bedside of the sick praying for continued life,
While others are praying as fervently for the invalid's release from life's pain.

People have said that they daily pray for me; for what they pray I don't know.
The problem with their prayers seems to be that they pray to the wrong entity.
I do not want the favor of the god of Adam, nor the god of Abraham;
This god is full of vengeance and demands fear from his most faithful progeny.

My only prayer throughout my life is that I be able to handle all my pain,
But I now know that pain placed on me by others is not a fire that cleanses.
I still pray for stoic acceptance of pain that is part of rebirth of myself and others,
But I no longer silently, sweetly tolerate agony inflicted to cause my spiritual death.

Forgiveness of seventy times seven may serve to heal old memories,
But it should not grant permission to others to continue harming me.
There are only two cheeks to turn in any altercation between combatants;
Once they are both broken or bruised, it is time to seek solace in separation.

From the beginning of humanity, we've brought destruction on ourselves,
Constantly insisting that life is about competition and winning over others.
It seems to matter not how many generations have already poisoned themselves;
Our religions teach that only a few will ever be favored by their one and only god.

This is why I wish that those who love me would not pray for me;
I would rather that they accept their own chairs in the heaven of their divine entity.
I do not want to live for eternity in a place where we will look for infinite salvation
On the pain and despair of those who spent their lives being, by god, crucified.

I have no use for any entity that takes pleasure in the pain of his progeny;
Much less is my affection for one who creates children for him to destroy.
I do believe in the examples of life attributed to the Joyful Jew Jesus;
I accept the path he is said to have walked as a path that, if followed, promotes peace.






Sunday, May 4, 2014

Comfort and Cowardice

It has been such a huge disappointment in my life
To recognize my most passionate friends as cowards.
They justify the fact that they don't blow whistles
On the excuse that they need to support their families.

I have waited for decades on their families to grow;
They have still not changed their allegiances.
How many more generations will it take
Before those who betrayed me will stand up as friends?

The only efforts worth dying for are those about values;
It hurts me to realize that most would prefer to fit in.
My life has come down to a pretense at friendship,
Based on what we eat and what people we both know.

How I had hoped that my children would accept
That we each can choose family of faithful beliefs.
Unfortunately my children have chosen paths
That give them comfort at the expense of cowardice.

I'm considered mentally deranged because I refuse to fold,
In a world where the majority wishes to return to war.
How is peaceful engagement considered the ill to overcome?
Aren't humans more than worshipers of gods who require blood?

I cannot fight the masses who are content to live in fear.
Does only a true fool continue to believe in miracles?
I have seen the future of  our earth with human hubris,
And I am happy that my grandchildren are enjoying today.

There will be no future as long as we continue to hurry,
And impose competition on all we human beings touch.
Only accessing quiet and humble acquiescence to nature
Gives humans the template for saving something for our young.

None of us have to compete with other human beings;
We can compete with ourselves in learning life lessons.
When we ask only what are our own gifts and life goals,
We will stop destroying earth, and to eternity be blessings.






Saturday, May 3, 2014

Is Pain Punishment or Prelude to Pleasure?

How long have religions proclaimed that pain is just punishment,
Not only for our own mistakes, but for those of ancestors long gone?
Is the purpose to frighten us into inaction for fear of repeating mistakes?
How much more healing it would be to present pain as prelude to pleasure;
For all new life comes at the cost of the physical pressure of stress.
The mother anticipating her child can even laugh when she labors in love.

Some say we should mourn at the births of babies and celebrate the grave;
Only those who see physical manifestation as the only journey can say this.
When we look at the universe as an ever-evolving organism through stress,
We can celebrate every moment as if they are all parts of the same.
We seem more foolish than are dogs and cats who live fully in the moment,
Anticipation and fear of failure never clouding their innocent minds.

Civilization has, for too long, meant deadening our animal instincts,
Pretending that humans are wiser because we walk upon two feet.
The effort to stay upright plays havoc on our human bodies.
Does the stress of pushing blood upward also starve our brains?
Education, life, death and worship have all become simply sterile.
Burning mulch is madness, but we do these destructive things everyday.

How have we lost the pleasure of playing in a huge autumn leaf pile,
Before it is carried over to protect tender roots and new life's shoots?
Why do we build concrete pastures rather than embracing sunlight,
As the energy that has sustained us since the beginning of our earth?
And what of the water that this stops our earth from absorbing and cleansing,
Without any human intervention needed to affect this miracle?

There is no pleasure in process when we take no time with nature;
All metamorphosis requires gestation and great stress for rebirth.
Until we are willing to watch and wait while earth unfolds miracles,
We will continue running from one to another Pyrrhic victory.
The question is not whether we will experience discomfort;
The question is whether we see it as punishment or new birth.

Perhaps when we begin to see all life as preparation to seed the new,
We'll stop poisoning our earth to hurry and experience the most events.
If we can begin to enjoy watching one generation gently fold into another,
We will concentrate on our natural rhythms and cycles of earthly rebirth.
A leaf that falls from a tree, when left alone, feeds new plants and people,
By allowing its sacred energy to be dispersed at the pleasure of the planet.

How wonderful it is that I now have sisters sharing our spirits
Across oceans, cultures, religions, ages and walks of very different lives.
How freeing to me has been this realization that my body won't be reborn;
As my spirit has always seemed much too big for only one life and body.
I have been able to calm my restless nomadic soul with the new knowledge
That my spirit may live on in many corners and forms of life in the great universe.






Friday, May 2, 2014

Gullible or Guilty?

At what point do we become guilty when we sit on the sidelines?
At what age or level of vulnerability are we honor-bound to intervene?
How can we accept the murder of innocent children while we watch,
All the while protesting conception control for their war-weary mothers?
How can we march against abortion without offering our own homes?
Aren't all guilty of continued abuse when they protect themselves with pretense?

The bile that rises in my throat when others offer prayers to their personal god
Threatens to choke and kill me with every prayer offered to their deity.
How smug they are in believing that their supplications have power,
As if they have the secrets that those born to lesser circumstances lack.
I ask for the opportunity to stand with a mother of different color and culture
As she stands before a jury of the white wealthy who are supposed to be her peers.

I am weary unto death of those who cluck disapproval while denying solutions.
How many masks and costumes must I continue to wear as camouflage,
As I infiltrate the hatred that has been accepted as patriotism and Christianity?
I am becoming increasingly unable to smile sweetly as they betray me
By allowing others to dishonor me while in their celebrations and in their homes.
I don't ask for them to change, but can no longer act as if they are my trusted family.

How sad it is to continue to spend life as a loop of unending personal loss;
My consolation is in my belief that all memories are parts of eternal energy.
As long as I stop allowing others to attack me, I can preserve what was positive.
The lesson we must learn in adult relationships is that we can control our vulnerability.
It is our duty as adult guardians of trust to protect the sacred innocence of others.
How can we continue to save our own skins at the expense of all earthly innocence?

I have a voice; I will use it to expose the hypocrisy and fraud of those in power.
I fear not for my own safety; I have completed my mission of motherhood.
There is no power on earth stronger than one that lives for future generations,
Knowing that only they can become focused, not only on now, but on eternity.
What greater gift can I have in my waning years than to be a trusted elder,
And use the pain that I suffered to help empower a young person's energy?

In addition to my voice, I'm available and willing to offer my physical self,
To stand as a shield between the vulnerable and those who would harm them.
Would that I had more than one body to offer as a human shield
Knowing that after I do so, I will be attacked by those I protected.
Only the youngest children are actually totally innocent of guile;
Others will do anything to earn the pretend protection of abusive gods.

Until humans are willing to accept no gods or others who rule with fear,
Those who refuse to quiver will be martyrs to those that they save.
Rather than feeling grateful, they feel as if they have been exposed;
In order to feel empowered, they rise up against their shields from harm.
The abused are in the arms of the oppressors, and now a favored child.
It seems only death will release me from the cycle of second-hand abuse.