Forceful weather vanity and dishonest self obsessed courtesy fall away along with the singularly fearful perspectives which create greed. The 70s was a catapult in understanding and now the quickening of chaos and enlightenment has come. The martyrdom of simply decent folk is normal. To be kind and honest makes you a saint these days.
So you keep your eyes open. You gently smile at the day. You pray ceaselessly in an organic way, gathering in prayer with others like constellations of stars or buoys in the rough sea of our degraded era. A metal roof is ripped off in unapologetic fury.
It's not personal. Instead, it throws an accusative glance at the collective. It puts the "self obsessed every man for himself" on the stake and asks us all to feel the burning flesh of a stranger as if it were our own.
We are asked now to love our neighbors as ourselves; to stand between heaven and earth and claim our breathing bodies. "Admit your breath brings you home. Admit there is no object worthy of a obsession other than love or Grace or God or consciousness." The rain pelts down, the nuclear power plant leaches waste into the sea, and golden chains lay knotted and rusting at the bottom of the heap of trash in calcutta .
The spirit realm is not for sale and yet we've gone around with gaping open-mouthed smiles slapping price tags on gifts from God.
You take a friend, bravely, by the hand and go down to the river to watch the water slowly drag itself across your eyes. You see a family of ducks waiting for the last small child to enter the stream and suddenly remember that mothers of all kinds care and love their children. And you abandon self centeredness enough to feel the tickles of the grass and the sound of the voice of a stranger low and velvety in tone sitting somewhere behind you on the bank. Somehow you know the voice comes from an open mind and this knowing causes you to remember to be quiet; in fact you bite your own tongue so that your conditioned self doesn't fill up all the space where God or magic is kindly waiting for the opportunity to come forward and offer itself as the crowned member of the gathering.
After a perfect portion of silence, you open your mouth without thought and a song with no words is there in your throat. You are brave and relaxed enough to sing it. You look behind you and share a smile and eye contact with the stranger. A great calm spreads across your mind.
The sun has set and you put your arm around your friend and feel her ribs expand as you both take a deep breath and let it out together. Your hand mindlessly touches your pockets to make sure your keys and phone are still on your person as you think, "Soon we will stand up and go inside."