I used to go to mass
and pray to God on a cross, 
but all I ever saw, 
was how empty and hungry I was inside. 
I climbed a mountain
and ingested an epic dose of entheogens, 
seeking to see the face of God, 
and instead received the chastisement of Job: 
who was I to call upon the maker of cloud, earth, and the star filled sky? 
Eyes peeled back, 
unable to look away
from the answer of infinity showing itself,
I trembled like a child, 
prostrate before this all-pervading consciousness
that lived and breathed every atom around me.
After that,
I had stopped seeking God... 
until I saw your face.  
In your eyes was the personal, embodied answer to thousands of prayers. 
Now I worship with bodily yoga and breath, 
laying in a yoga fish pose as
you ride oceanic waves like Odysseus tied to the mast, 
blind in your divine passion
as Seraphim circle and sing so loudly
your cries are almost drowned.
I hold you in communion
like a newborn lamb,
as you sob and tremble, 
entirely sacrificed, surrendered, and given.
Two hearts blown wide open
with gratitude, 
for this precious, 
delicate, 
ephemeral life
we share. 
Today, I celebrate mass as high priest
drawing down the Living One,
not separate, 
or on a cross,
but in my own breath and burning flesh. 
Now I know
in my own bones,
that surrender
to the Divine Great One,
is death,
rebirth, 
and
eternal life.

Looking into my heart

there is no fear anymore.

I welcome the darkness

I have fought to ignore.

A heaviness,

a knowing in my bones

that all I love is constantly

dying and moving away from me.

All falls apart

and is scattered

like ashes in this world.

My warrior heart

requires me to strip naked

like Alexander the Great.

To enter onto the battlefield

and know that today will

be either a good day to die,

or I will emerge a King

with my Beloved

in my bed

for one more night.

And we will celebrate

with our bodies,

our profound gratitude

for today,

for each other,

and for the love

that breathes us;

or I will awaken

in elysium

and kiss you

from the other side. 

Testing.

Tasting my stability.

You probe and poke.

A jab of emotion, a sneer of contempt.

Anything is better than nothing

to your restless heart.

Crunchy crackling energy trapped in body.

My mission, should I choose to accept it:

find the space, the small opening

with stillness and surety,

that releases the knot

in your belly.

The lioness snarls...

—no, that was not the right key.

I breathe

and feel into these

yellow-green feline irises

that stare me down.

Tentative movements

would bring violence.

Her low purring growl egging

to tussle and scratch;

slowly,

confidently,

move from stillness,

never breaking contact;

breath and gaze—one.

With open hand

I feed you

the flesh of my heart.

moment by moment

breathe into sensations

that arise in the body.

the pulse of heartbeat felt in toes, fingertip, skull;

breath expanding into kidneys and caressing the lower spine.

the throat open, allows air to fall into the belly and genitals

- without effort, without care.

the body knows its work and purpose,

it doesn't have to prove anything, or do anything to earn approval.

in simple elegance, it shows me how to just be.

this "me" dissolves

into the bliss of sensation

like virga

vanishing into a desert sky.

so simple! so profound!

all I have been seeking has been

here

all along.

the effulgence,

this shimmering wave of pleasure

radiates from the heart and belly

and never ceases.

relax, breathe, and allow all to fall away.

divine consciousness is simple:

complete body awareness

while relaxing open

to the whole universe

as love.

Tears fall,
Relax, do not sob or fight with the flow.
Open every tightness -
let light into the dark frozen places that resist. 
There is warmth and tenderness in tears.
Let this tenderness, 
melt the hardness.
The softness you try to shield and hide
feels vulnerable
because life is tenuous and brief. 
You know the kiss of death -
it always patiently awaits
for you to let it in. 
But who is this that does the letting?
Who is the one that receives this kiss?
Breath moves through this body - 
yet “I” cannot stop it. 
Life itself determines how many more times
this belly fills with invisible sustenance
and then without clinging 
releases and surrenders the breath
for another to begin. 
There is no celebration,
no awe or wonder at how breath continues,
but there should be. 
Why should there be any clinging to a tear 
as it forms in this eye, 
and then trails down
this cheek?
Life is in this tear, 
it is in the emotion, 
a rising energy that this body struggles to contain.
Don’t struggle. 
Something bigger than this body is moving through it
that causes the tear to form
and this breath to rise and fall. 
Become this motion in the belly.
Become the energy beneath emotion that births tears.
Become the openness 
in which all this is occurring. 

​

Within consciousness, 
days move
like clouds 
appearing and disappearing over Lanai.

Air currents dance and mingle
progressing thousands of miles 
over the profound Pacific, 
until one upward nudge from 
an ancient caldera 
barely peeking above the waves
stimulates sleepy currents
of heavy ocean 
air
to rise. 

It only takes this 
tiniest perturbation 
to excite the invisible sky-river of moisture,
into revealing herself, 
to bloom open -
showing the hidden form within emptiness.

She’s truly colorless
but sunlight,
feeling her expanding beauty
has no choice but to dance 
upon her skin, 
and artlessly shine
with cumulous purity: 
a white so bright
that it holds within itself
all colors of light. 

Her vaporous form brightens
the crisp clarity 
of father sky,
who leans down to embrace her
in Akasha’s vast open shoulders.
Space embracing form -
Form highlighting the loving presence
of space itself.

Mother ocean laughs in whitecapped circlets
sending tendrils of herself toward her partner high above.
These two liquid lovers, 
self-same flowing layers
of sky and sea
interpenetrate
and regenerate,
beholding and becoming
each other.

Cloud daughter dances and unfurls,
ascending within the invisible crackling energy-arc 
between azure sea and cerulean air.
A dancing dervish swirling her hips,
enlivened by the spirit
within gravity,
feeling into
gradients of density,
lightness,
and warmth
within her body.

Beloved and beheld between mother and father, 
this newborn puff princess
brews and bubbles with mirth.
Exposing her boiling bouffant breasts,
heart roiling within,
heavy-bottomed fullness below,
sensually pulled toward
yearning arid Lanai.

I have witnessed this play day after day, 
and the rhythm of what I see 
is ageless compared to any “me”, 
or body
identity.

The pulse of life 
that forms clouds
is the same simultaneous pulse
sparking my body’s heart
into contraction
heaving a handful of blood
out of the left ventricle 
to nourish the eyes, brain,
and hand that writes this.

Where precisely,
is this eye,
and this I,
that seems to give rise
to subject,
object,
inside, 
outside,
imaginary,
and real?

Really -
just show me how you know, 
and who is this knower?
I can’t see, touch, or feel
the source.
Whenever I try,
I come up empty-handed.

Hollow, vacuous, and inconsequential
is the author.
Where do words arise?
On what screen do these lights and colors play?
Is this not just one open thing,
folded back upon itself,
over and over,
again and again,
until the folder
has forgotten the diversion?

Hide and seek
is no fun without someone else
to play with.
So the game
creates itself
and its playmate
much like a dream of
Maurits Cornelis Escher’s
physical hand
drawing hands
that are drawing themselves. 

Contemplate the source
of the creative impulse
that compelled him
to draw.
It’s right there
in black and white,
just like these clouds
forming and disappearing
over Lanai.

Look up!
See the stars?
All are in movement.
Drawn through desire for union with the One:
a stillness beyond stillness.
Infinite dark depth calls each point of light in the sky.
Stars and quasars spiral in dances offering their love as energy and light.
Each longs to be dissolved into the black void;
an infinite invitation pulling inward
from the heart of every galaxy.
Surrender it beckons:
You cannot resist me.
Look into my black unwavering eye.
I have already claimed you.
You are mine, and will be evermore.
My dark soul hungers for your radiance.
Dance for me as you are pulled into my arms.
Your lover awaits you beyond life.
This death does not cause sleep.
I promise eyes wide open rapture as you dissolve into your Beloved.
Come to me...