Prism in the Sky

    Today I had one of the most defining moments of my life.  It came after stepping out of work and into a picturesque setting of rain, sun, and prism.   Oranges and pinks were mixed with blues and other hues, spread afar in a darkening sky.   The new Staind song So Far Away entered my head, as positive a song as Aaron Lewis can write.  Looking south and to my left, a rainbow inverted its smile, and the sun’s light caused the whole frame of the Earth to enliven.  Beyond the rainbow there was only darkness, an oblivion cast by a mighty thunderstorm.  To my far right there was endless light, luminosity.  It was an amazing polarity; the scene literally became alive.  I had an intense desire to talk to it, yes, to talk by dancing in the rain and running through the forest behind me, which also must have felt this great presence of a friend who doesn’t come to visit often enough.  My problems all became lost in this mirage of forces coming together in unison.  All that was, all that is, and all that will ever be, was there to share this moment with me.  Mom was there, so was Julie and Sandra and Jeremy and Jason; and the violin, the piano, the bird, the bear, the fish, the frog; all that has ever been created was there, even my supposed enemies.  And even though I knew I was alone in this picturesque house of God, I suppressed a cry of euphoric rapture, feeling true consciousness for the first time.   True consciousness is feeling yourself as God, as nature, as one. 

Zen Without Peace

The mixed state is harsh, confusing, 
A bane on my stability. 
Part of me is sad, another part angry, 
Two sides of the same hurt 
Bleeding from a common source.  
The mind races through jumbled thoughts, 
Frantic depression, zen without peace. 
Irritation sets in, the way a partly cloudy day 
With intermittent sun tortures the skin, 
Alternating randomly, unpredictable, 
A constant annoyance. 
If the weather can't decide how to feel, 
You can't expect the spirit to either. 

The Relativity of God

What isn't often realized is that the idea of God is relative to the observer.  For example, a mother is like a God to her baby, a dog is like a God to a flea, and a flea is like a God to a microbe, etc., for they all live off a more powerful being and depend on it for survival.  Additionally, sometimes these are the only things the dependent creature can sense in their small little worlds, so they don't have much of a choice.  If a God is indeed perceived by all these "lesser" creatures, the idea of one becomes embedded in parasitic beings all the way down the size spectrum, resulting in a polytheistic interpretation of God if we are to consider each species' perceptions as real. 

Take our own perception of God, as it evolved over time.  First the Earth was seen as our God, with many others that were thought to control things like fire, water, and wind.  Once we were able to look beyond the planet, we considered the sun, the moons, all the other stellar objects in the sky, and formulated the idea that God was something more than we could merely perceive on Earth.  About 3,000 years ago, God became everything, even the things we couldn't directly sense, as decreed by the monotheists. 

Religion has evolved furthermore since then, strangely along the same lines as science, its supposed nemesis.  Just as science has revealed hidden truths about the universe, religions adapt to the growing consciousness of the age they are in.  The more we discovered about our place in the cosmos, the more religion expanded.  After the Enlightenment came a religion that integrated all the others, called Baha'i.  Buddhism also spread in the west, a religion that doesn't even have a God.  Recently the New Age movement has taken the ideas from Baha'i and made an even broader spiritualism accessible.  Religion and science are growing up together, hand in hand, though not without vitriol, like two brothers in a sibling rivalry. 

Vincent’s Day

Yellow, the color of morning, bathes the sower  

In resplendent light, the field shimmering  

Golden impasto, wheat and sunflowers flaring, 

Swarmed by crows above, blue sky imminent, 

A road meandering through the straw-flames, 

Evoking a question we must ask ourselves, 

Is it leading somewhere, or nowhere at all? 

 

On the other side of town, in the afternoon, 

A family hunches over a table together, 

Poor, dirty, crowded, tired from another day 

Working in the fields, their bulbous anatomy 

Blackened by labor, like the potatoes they eat, 

Portraits of their relatives hanging on the walls,  

A museum of peasantry cast by strokes of love. 

 

Later that night, in a city nearby, on a café terrace 

Close to the Rhone, the view from a bedroom shows 
Swirling nightscapes rolling like waves over a steeple, 
The light from heavenly bodies reflecting pillars 
Off the river, in broken trails leading to Dreamland, 
Where the artist makes his home, surrendering himself 
To madness, his yearning to return there seen in his paint.  

Midnight in the City

Solitary, downtown at the midnight hour, 
Yesterday ejected, tomorrow suspended, 
Interval of serenity between the hands. 
Streetlights flickering, feet shuffling, 
Wind ruffling, trash tumbling,  
I can't get you out of my head. 
A wasted past the memories construct 
Shrines of yearning between the towers, 
Extending high into the night above. 
Clouds collapsing on a weary brain, 
Overcoat pressed to the chest, in rain,  
Skyline outlined by a giant's fist 
Punching through the feeble mist. 
Pavement cracked, shoes splashing, 
Walking, balking, hour after hour, 
Till the dawn shines her waking face. 
Carelessly you left me, out on the streets, 
Navigating this concrete labyrinth, 
The days extending into weeks, 
Weeks accumulating into months, 
No time left to heal these wounds, 
Succumbing to despair, bleeding faith, 

The windows reshaped, reflecting a time 
Once cherished, comfort lain by your touch, 
Our joyful youth in the sunlight, now faded, 
Trying to rediscover the radiance of morning.