Wax Poetickle

Echoes In The Monkeyhouse
A Healing Journey
© 1993 by Evan Pritchard All Rights Reserved
Print edition available from Resonance Communications
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Echoes In the Monkeyhouse

Sometimes, late at night in contemplation,
the outer sight and sounds of night
evaporate like vapors on a mirror
when breathing ceases.
And then a strange phenomenon occurs,
a tinny inner ear becomes unplugged
and sounds from around the crowded world
collect there
emerging from beneath a deep
semi-circular canal somewhere.
The voices jumble, they break and tumble;
the way the sound of an entire sea can fit within a tiny shell
the voices of world
whisper and yell within the spiraling well
of my inner ear
like echoes in the monkeyhouse.

So much confusion, chattering, squeaking,
rattling of cages,
sometimes speaking
calling to some higher primate for assistance.
Meanwhile, I hear a tense resistance
in the calls for freedom.
I sing the secret word
for those who do not know the sacred key,
the key that opens doors in desperate hearts
unlocks the RNA and DNA of consciousness
turns pain to understanding
and monkeys into men.

The song at first is lost in a tumultuous sea of noise
but when it reverberates back to me
I know it has found its sympathetic ear.
Sometimes I hear voices
cutting through the fog on the sea
like the hiss-and-sputtering voice of a short wave.
And sometimes a child’s voice
will call my name
or some other puzzling thing I can’t explain
some music, perhaps
on un-invented instruments
hollow-toned
like Charles Ives,
performed by gramophone.
Sometimes there is nothing…
but the high and quiet
humming of the spheres
and other times,
a voice somewhere
will simply say,
“I love you!”


Logic’s Blade

Fearsome power of solution
Intellect and worldly reason
Life’s own life-dissolving potion
Doubt from which belief is risen.

Minds once pulled
With blind aggression
Serpent’s tails from where they’d frozen
Leaving souls with no transition
Leaving dying’s venom brazen
Causing Time’s disintegration.

Confused, confined, and blinded mind of Man
Still dreaming of the steaming, stagnant past
When infant footsteps crept out of the sand
To sculpt by hand a pyramid that mirrors him like glass
To glimpse the paths and patters spirit planned
Just once before he leapt into
The Maelstrom of madness
Of the Matter, Mind, and Mass.

Then Man became a hunter,
Stalking his bewilderness.
He killed for skill and stained his blade
With intuition’s blood.
He waited through the moon-slight night
For lambs of light to rest.
Then, sheltered by the shadows
Slaughtered innocence
With shrouded lies, religious words, and mud.

Oh fierce and piercing power
How your destined hour flowers into dawn.
You followed Logic’s Blade until it took you
to the forest’s fiery core
And soon the sword that saved you
And the blade that you once gave so much to own
Will fade,
So you’ll be free enough to try the Needle’s Eye,
The Tenth Door.

Narrow Way

These ashes that lie on your hearthstone
Are not dead but yet retain their fire
And with a branch cut from a limb
You stir to life the dust
Of logs you once carried home to light the hearth.

Like embers of the day
The stars are swept
Across the smoky night
And they tremble in their vacuum of space
With silent songs of light.
But your ears cannot hear
And your eyes are turned to the dust.

There’s a world that someday finds you
Where there is no one to say good bye to
And no sad songs remind you
Of yesterday.
You can’t change the world by weeping
So let go the hound of pain that you were keeping
And embrace the teaching of the narrow way.
So come on up
to the world beyond the mind
To a world where anger finds a better way
You needed to cry,
But now you need to fly
So come up and watch the dawn of this new day.

Like beacons of the dawn
The angels are swept across the cosmic sky
And they call you from their temples of space
With silent songs of light
But your ears cannot hear
And your eyes are turned to the dust.
Oh, lift your eyes from the stones
Like those sheer threads of smoke
Even the smoke can surrender the Earth
And be lifted upwards to the sky.
Man have you noticed a single star
Lined up this hour with you?
Its gaze now finds its narrow way
through the grate
To meet your upturned eye!

Charity

I spend my flask and flagon on the sand
The desert drinks my essences in vain
And nowhere is the promise of the leaf
To herald hidden flowers seeking rain.
I sling my water bag across my arm
I will not drain my life to share with death
Dry death who has no blossoms to return
No foliage to transform milk to breath.

I see a traveler, bearded and serene
Approaching me and speaking with his glance.
And with each footstep, flowers bloom,
Then fall
So saith he, “What is Life and Death
If not a dance?”

The Healing Journey

I had a dream and you were there
you walked beside me in a summer dress of blue
as we were walking silent through
an orchard laden everywhere with fruit
and like a sweet angelic messenger of truth.
You turned and gazed at me and said:
“Break the yoke of addictions, and put them to the side
and something wonderful will come to pass!
The things of which you’ve dreamed will manifest at last,
if you can place addictions to the side!”

It must have been a feasting day,
on that remote and gracious plane,
we walked among a multitude of souls
as each of us made our way
beneath the tattered awning of the trees
a pilgrimage perhaps
to where a master was to speak to us
of sound and light, and love,
and things that have substance to the soul.

But I awoke from sleep before I ever reached that site,
awoke and found myself surrounded
by the weapons of the mind
which exploded into form in front of me,
lunged at me and took me by the throat
I struggled to control the crazed, five-headed beast
But it sustained my blows
and seemed to grow in power
for every time I struck it with my fist
it whipped around and stung me with a poison tongue
until my legs and arms were paralyzed
so that they fell when I commanded them to rise
and fingers clenched
when I commanded them to arch and play.
The music I conceived was still-born
locked between the frozen fingers of my hand
and for a moment silence surged across
the far horizons of my dreams
like Noah’s flood,
But where was there an Ararat to climb?
And where was there a ship to save my kind?

It’s said when people cease to grow
they begin to die
but the pruning knife of death
sometimes inspires
plants to find just one more bud to bloom,
one more twig to sprout
as if seeking a way out
defying clippers, shears and winter winds.
We as humans do the same
and in God’s name
we dig to find the strength for branching out.
But only after we have felt the sharpness
of the famous razor’s edge,
the blade to which there is no middle ground,
do we find the strength within the earth
and cleave to it with long tenacious roots
and stand our ground against the reaping of the wind.
But now that I was weak,
I couldn’t grasp and could not stand!
But running, like a winged Mercury,
perhaps I could outpace, outdistance this disease
and so I fasted, prayed, and made
an offering
and then I ran.

I ran until I thought my lungs would burst
running for my life I raced the sunset
until I found myself
atop some mountain of the mind
with no direction left to go but inwardly
and so I sat.
I saw the steam of passion’s fires rise
but like the summer clouds
it couldn’t pass above the line of trees
and so it seemed that as long as I remained there
I was safe from harm
and from that lofty point I could see the miles
that lay behind and miles that lay ahead
and saw the deep moraine through which I had to pass
and saw the thunderheads of fate
that gathered there in wait for me.
They charged out of the sky on raging steeds
and hurled their practice javelins upon the impervious earth
a target whom they knew could not be killed.
I knew that they were only killing time
waiting for their challenger to appear,
to test his muscle,
me.

Then I saw a sign that said, “Something wonderful is taking place”
and felt a subtle change.
A first thaw, a warm wind
to crack the icy locks of wintertime
and a door within blew open
and following a golden thread
I passed through the door
to find a realm invisible;
an ocean of the air
where I could be absolved into the Emptiness
and could then move freely
free from crippling weights, of time and mass.
But playing with invisibilities
like water, air, freedom….or the soul
things tend to slip away between the hands.
I lost the thread!
A voice said,
“You have failed the test
return to Earth!”
and so I did.

How strange it is to try to win
in matters of the heart
How blindly we succeed sometimes
how cleverly we fail.
But failure is assurance that our sights aren’t set too low
the higher that we go
we have to seek out great and greater goals
so that we by failing
reach at least the modest aims of yesterday
and by and by shake loose these mental ornaments like ropes
the way a kitten, through persistence
manages to lose the tightest collar
imposed upon its throat.

I returned and soon I realized
that the noose bound around my neck
was tightening fast
and I cried to the Teacher
“How long will it last?”
The Teacher answered
“Not until you are permanently in God
will you be completely free of this disease
that plagues mankind
and not until you put aside
the five deadly weapons of the mind!”

I had a thought
What if I reached the Conscious Knowing State in God
that I could change the body and the mind
change the past that led to this dilemma
change the future too
and using images of both the fixed and unfixed forms
turn imagination into knowingness,
and knowingness to truth.
But how does one accomplish this?
How do you pit time against eternity
and hope to win?
To realize God, some writers say,
takes lifetime after life
yet I had little time in which to live this life
or if I failed, in which to die.
I sat in “Indian fashion” closed my eyes,
and traveled far and fast.

I found myself in front of
that being long ago appointed Lord of Souls,
the ancient Sihks of India called “Sat Nam.”
I felt a pleasant tingle of surprise
it was as if I as soul
had gone to call upon my King
petitioning for advice
on matters far beneath his scope
but what other hope do I posses
than to be able to address
my questions directly to the source
of that great all-embracing force
and ask for his assistance?
I had nothing yet to lose.

And so I was bewildered and surprised
when this great being began to rise
up from his throne, descend the steps
and sit beside me, we two alone
like he might attend
some long awaited guest or closest friend,
and put me at my ease.
I asked if he could heal me
or perhaps reveal to me
the secrets of such healing.
He said he had a hundred other bodies I could use
but since I seemed so attached to this one
it would have to do.
“And anyway,” he said, in a tone much kinder,
“It’ll serve as a reminder.”
A reminder so that I would not forget
the price one pays
for serving two task masters
misusing the candle that leaves no shadow
burning the wick ends,
both of passion and devotion
at one time.
“This body is now a piece of junk upon some heap!”
he said,
This is what I supposed I had to reap for my mistake
and my heart sank.
But then he reached for me and said,
“And yet I utterly forgive you, and accept you
to my breast
For you are the prodigal son, returned at last
You are my pride and joy
known to us as Sat Deva,
I will do whatever possible to improve
this bent and fevered form
As any true devoted father might
you could have come to visit me any time
but you had heard some word of sin and death and guilt
and believed that gossip-talk
and did not call or write
but let misunderstanding keep Soul from returning
to Its palace, Its true home
to take Its place as Prince of Souls.”

He had me stand within a square,
my tattered rags all disappearing,
and with a kiss of blessing
he restored to me my own robe.
“Perhaps you thought me lacking
in qualities of love and mercy?
yet I give this gift to all who can accept
and there is none so lowly that I would reject
as long as love was burning in their heart
in my eyes they would be no dimmer than a star.
For this is the secret way
to fill thyself with love for all that is
fill every empty vein and vessel,
nerve and muscle, with this light
and hold it there within the body form.
Let its power build, until it must break forth
like a wave that surges from the center of the sea
to seek and strike each distant shore at once
with a compelling force
and merge back again into the source
the glorious heart
of the lover of all life.
This is how to heal your wounds
or get in tune,
or even alter all reality.
Just let yourself become a resonating chamber
for that harmony
that we call Universal Love.

I emptied out myself until I became a hollow shell
and filled that well with the sacred water of the Soul,
the light and sound
and then lay down
and found myself repeating this
as a blue light pulsed around me
like a cobalt blue sun—
“All beings are one,
all beings are one.”
It magnified the love by which
all being are united.
but wondered how all souls
could retain their separateness
in spite of such a healing force as this.
And as if reading my thoughts, he tells me,
“Souls are each like cells within the Body of the Divine,
each are like the bubbles of a tiny stream
as it makes its way to the sea
like a particle of dust in a grain of sand
They are all, though separate souls, all one
if only they choose to look at it as such
the universe is made of waves of God’s own love
made manifest into form and sound and light
but take away the love,
and what you see are particles of God,
which we call souls.
and both are true, at all times and at all places.
But now you see that when you put your focus
on the oneness
one can feel the presence of that God Love
vibrating everywhere,
and this is how we heal ourselves and others
and in the process eventually find
that we have put aside
the five deadly weapons of the mind.”


The Messenger

1. Lantern of Light

It was early evening
and the sun
sat down wearily on some western mountains
puffing hot summer air
like the fan on my windowsill.
I threw off my shoes
and rolled into bed,
weary from battle on Route Nine,
weary from a day of marketing
and bartering and bargaining.
I laid myself straight
and gazed into the spiritual eye,
the window to the north of the World,
and though immobilized by tiredness
my body suddenly whooshed forward
as if down a long dark tube,
or downhill on the Great Adventure
Roller Coaster lunging toward some loosely bolted curve
I felt the vertigo of free-fall flying
and for minutes I was weightless.
Four senses said, “We must be plummeting through space!”
but blinking eyes,
the body’s Fifth Estate,
reported otherwise,
observed the motionless form
on which they perched.
They suspended judgment,
passed no sentence
concerning this infraction of Sir Newton’s Law.
Like a child on a runaway wagon,
I closed my eyes for luck.

I saw a 3D spattering of stars
whizzing past my eyes like bugs and flies
caught in the headlight beams of a speeding car
and airborne, like a bee, lighted down on a planet
familiar to my dreams
but strange to my awakened state
I flew down those rough-stone corridors,
those long, canal-like walkways
swooped under the chiseled archways like a bat
and round the silver-domed towers,
glinting with the light of several moons,
flew on and on until I saw a bearded figure
standing, waiting for me there,
beneath a graceful arch
and I lighted down before him,
eager to talk to someone
who knew about the higher realms of God.
We shared a few brief greetings
and a few brief thoughts.
He shook my hand, and said,
“Go on, on until you find
the palace of Sat Nam,
and can return and report back to your brothers
all that you have seen!
If you would be a lantern of the light
then be thee ware!
Guard your health and keep thee strong
for when the holy fire flares within you
It will consume you heart with passion for the soul.
Kindle what is right,
and burn out what is wrong.
If you are whole,
then this energy force will be a glowing sphere
around the heart
and if you’re any less than this, I fear
that same substance will feel like flames of seven furnaces
and make your skin feel raw.
So this is why the masters keep a healthy mind,
a healthy heart and body
for these three must all agree
and work in harmony
to reach those lost in realms of night
if you are to maintain this light
and be a beacon to your kind,
to magnify the filament within
and give sight to the blind.
You must take care of your health
and beware the five weapons of the mind
and purify the heart with acts of charity
if you would hope to be a lens for God
of crystal clarity.

2. The Map Maker

I walked into a city
wonderful, but strange—
and everywhere were buildings
smooth and round
and in the air I heard
a musical sound
as if a mother planet was sweetly humming
to her new moon-cradled son
above a blue horizon.
I went inside a room and found a library of maps
the shelves on every side were leaded down with books
on explorations, expeditions, and some astronomical charts
and at the center of the room
I found a large display,
an ancient map, a chart not used since ancient times,
a map of this whole planet.
I saw how it was patched together
how some roads were still unmarked
how vague it all seemed
I wondered how it must have been in former lives
when maps were treasures of the state
and research done by hear-say,
bold conjecture, creative inspiration,
and when available,
experience.
No wonder travel guides stand
at every crossroads on this planet!
I almost expected to see one such guide appear behind me
in that chamber of the past,
and as I was peering, puzzling through the glass
at a map of some antiquity,
its strangeness and its age appealed to me
and to my fantasy.

“You have an interest in maps?”
he said,
“Well, then, I’d guess you had a thirst for traveling!
In all my years the only men I’ve seen
that can see the beauty in a wandering line
scrawled across a folded page
were those who had a longing for the road!
How can one who’s never loved the royal path to heaven,
see the mountains in a switch-back road line?
Behold a lacy shape bordered in blue
and see a shoreline, feel the splash of cold sea spray
and smell salt in the air?
Only one with wanderlust and a poet’s well-worn soul
can know the thrill and danger
the temptation and renunciation
in a bold and sweeping line of road across a page
a line that enters boldly from the wings
runs across the curtain of longitudes
and disappears stage right beyond the margins of the page!
Just as one who’s never been to God
cannot decipher or enjoy
the poetry of heaven
so a map means nothing to the soul
who has never left his own front door!
Here, scrolled up in my hand
I have such a map for you if you but take it.
It is not quite accurate
It is just to be a source of inspiration,
not instruction
observation, not dissection,
it is not complete, for the regions drawn
between its longitudes
are not yet fully known,
but grow and change as we explore them.
Therefore, take this map
and be such an explorer if you dare
and add your notes upon it as you go
to help yourself and be a guide for others
who come after you.
Our mapmakers here have always been revered
as sages of a sort
but none has ever drawn a chart from atop an ivory tower.
The perspective is distorted from that height.
They’ve always found the countryside
with hand upon the staff
and foot upon the path.
What closer look at life
could one desire?
I ask you?

The men who find the goal at last
are those who love the traveling of the path,
and often as not
have had some other purpose first in mind
some business to complete or plan
or find a certain mustached man,
deliver messages or packages, or gold.
That’s the way the watchers of the road
have always worked.”

“But I’m a busy man myself!” I said,
“And I have matters to attend back home.
I have no time to tramp down endless roads alone
and go exploring distant planets out in space
it’s not my place!”

“But this planet spins reverse of your poor backwards planet
and the time spent here is time saved in the long run
and anyway, what business of a single person
on your solitary planet can hold
against the business of a Lord of Souls?”

“Sat Nam?” I asked, “He’s here?”
the old mapmaker laughed and told me,
“No, he never descends below the second grand division
of the universe.
To find him, you would have to travel once again
deep within, to where he dwells.
There is no map, no winding road
that leads you to his door.
The only way is to go directly
to be there with him in this ever-present moment
for he is here with us
(and he pointed to his chest)
He needs you as a runner
a Mercury or Hermes
a messenger like Thoth
or like the old Celtic Lugh
who sang to Wales about the mighty HU.
take his message far and wide
to every city, every farthest countryside.
No matter how steep the mountainsides
you have to climb
run the miles of this map
until even your sandals bleed
for dire is the need,
at this auspicious time!”

Then he stopped
and placed the map down on the table top
and said,
“It’s up to you...it’s your decision.
Do whatever suits your vision—
Only be careful if the visions do not suit the selfish heart
for there’s no turning back
until the moment that you finish
from the moment that you start.
Just make sure you get the message right
and then when you have heard it,
go and let it run its course with you,
and run with all your might.”

“Tell me what this Lord of Souls,
this wondrous being looks like,
so I can find him,
or at very least, please
tell me what this message is!”
But even while I say these words
the vision vanishes.
I try to bring it back
to hear what else the being has to tell
before the memory of it fades as well.
But he is gone and suddenly I know
it was the God Man who wore that plain disguise
then vanished right before my eyes.
It is no accident, the meeting was complete
the message here was clear enough:
“There is no time to waste!”

3. Split Infinities

I am an infinitive,
an unlimited verb, that is,
if I want
To Be.

It sounds so simple, just to be;
to know; to love; to act; to see;
not play a role or try to win a game
but to be in the present moment just as I AM
and simply state what one already knows
But that’s never quite the way it seems to go.
Life always makes Itself more limitive,
more adverbs to define us
as if we expected
split infinitives
and the world didn’t want to ever
disappoint us.

Once, not long ago, I’d had the chance
to be the fleet-foot messenger of Soul.
to find the realm of Sat Nam
and learn his message and relay it
Like the famous man from Marathon:
This was all I had to do
To earn a place in history
among some Angel’s reckonings.
But spiritual history is an iceberg lurking low
and beneath the icy waters of the past
there lies a hundred thousand souls or so
who had their opportunity to gain
a place in the sunlight
and to last
within the memories of men or angels for a day
but hesitated
fell upon their spear
their fears or vanity
or some other weapon of the mind
and lost heart
or even worse
their sanity;
and then entombed themselves with shame
beneath the icy brine of pride
and went down with their names.
and yet when we now gaze back
across the surface of the sea
we read the small white pile of work
of time-tested sagacity
the ice-berg’s tip
and wonder, where were all the others?
Weren’t there more?
Didn’t any other men or women
try to scale those slippery heights?
Which float before us like a flight of stairs.
But now I know,
for those same icy stairs
now look hard and cold at me
beneath the waves of sparkling light
and now I know how quick we are to fail
and tumble out of sight
the minute we are free on bail.
and so instead of melting into liquid in the sun
I lie in icy numb paralysis.
as if that weren’t a catalyst enough
for hopelessness
it seems that every inner being or guide
is saying,
”Step aside—
Make room for the agile ones to pass
The youthful ones still fleet of foot and fast
enough to be the messenger of soul!”
And so I have reason to suspect
I failed the test!
But before I lock the tenth door
the narrow way
I call once more on Sat Nam.
Perhaps he has some task in store
or word to say
to one whom all of life has passed on by.
To my surprise, his great bare hefty arms
come down from heaven
and hold my smaller hands within their grasp!
like daddy reaching down into the crib, I clasp
the father-hand, the link with all the outside world.

It reawakens memories almost as old
as I’ve been on earth
back to when I was starting out
for the hundred thousandth time
waiting in the carnival line
just to have another crack at mastery,
and win the prize called freedom.

And then he kneels and huddles over me
and rests his great cheek atop my head
and cuddles me within his arms to comfort me
and hums to me the way a father hums
quite slow and deep
to charm the sickly infant back to sleep
and dreams.
He gives to me his strength
and I’m a child no more
but now a strapping son, asking for my birthright
I ask if he could heal me
change my plight, and make me well.
He reminds me that the cure to everything
is dwelling in the love.
I say, “Even that is not enough to cure my ills,
like Isaac I must ask you as your son
to grant this help that I might not be killed
for a father can love a son
more than any man can love himself as Soul!”
But he says No, he will not heal me
and my heart sinks back into the ice again.
But then he adds,
”I will adjust your karma
so that you would have the power
to start again in trying to reach the goal
the goal of Realization.”
Now I have no choice
it seems I’ll have to try again
to reach the source
to reach the God-head all alone and heal myself
for only I could undo
what I alone had done.

He starts to teach me,
to leave with me a legacy
of learning
pulling books down off my shelves
into my hands,
and telling me to open to a certain page
to find myself.
I finally begin to understand
some things I missed before
I sit in contemplation for a while
and see a curious thing before my inner eyes
a string of steel is tied between two sides
like a violin string
only shorter—just two inches long
a circus tightrope or maybe an oscilloscope
when the musicians are playing the rests
and the beam of light is still.
But as I watch this string it starts to move
it bends and stretches upward and then down
I watch it as it wanders all around
and then I realize what it is I see
“This strange dancing string is me.”
I said.
“It is my consciousness
in visible form
Whenever I relax and let my thoughts ascend
it rises up
and when the pull to worldly thoughts
is too intense
it bends low
Now I understand
now everything makes sense.
That is how my own awareness tends to go
wildly up and down like a child’s yo-yo;
And this is what we call “normal.”
I try some test, and every case proves the same
I can only hold the positive for a while.
And then the negative magnetic pole
which represents the downward flow of spirit
grows stronger and the string sinks down
no matter what I think or do.

With practice, I am getting quite a knack
of balancing the two opposing poles
and keeping all the energies in tact
and balancing at the tip of my nose
the string suspended in the air in front of me
you have to look at it objectively.

You can’t be strictly positive or dwell in negativity
but aim for stillness, for repose
caused by the true equality
of poles.
This is the technique of master souls
and a necessary tool,
a survival skill I suppose
That you will need
to ride the tightrope called the razor’s edge
and go to God
But this apparent stillness isn’t dead tranquility
it comes from the ability
to see both sides of a thing at once
to pit two great opposing forces at each other
let them clash
and match them perfectly
throughout your personal eternity.

This is how Sat Nam is helping me to balance out the mind
and as the dual forces stabilize within me
I think: “Now’s the time to seek the greater light”
and so I call out with my inner voice,
and with all my might,
“I want to have God Realization!”
I don’t know what answer to expect
I feel as if I’m inviting myself to dinner
but I am hungry for this experiential dish
and thirst for truth as well
And Sat Nam from behind me, says,
”There is a way for Soul to communicate with God
if that is what you wish,
but call It by a personal name,
something that has secret meaning
for you alone.”
I said, “Geezoolgh, then. That is an Algonkian name
For the Great Mystery which I seek to understand.”
And Sat Nam says, “Okay, then.. It’s that vibration sound which holds the key
for going into its great heart, directly!”
Then he adds:
”You may go to Geezoolgh now…”
and a darkened void is thrust upon me
an empty place
without a trace of light or life
I wait for signs, for something big to happen.
Could seeing God be, after all, so simple as this?
I have my doubts;
But who would look a golden stallion in the mouth?

4. The Whippoorwill

I’m perched now on the furthest limb of contemplation.
I know I have to be the momentary cause
for in this place I am now beyond the law of karma
Here there are no chain of linked events;
No straight lines between two points;
Only endless points along a line of sight.
I say, “G-geezoolgh?”
I feel embarrassed, like standing at a grave
and talking to the dead
and wondering if any overheard what I had said.
What if there was no one in there?

But I feel a presence in the air,
and call to it again:
“G-geezoolgh?”
“Yes.”
“You’re seeking Realization……
and yet you do not know the meaning of the word!
You chant the mystic syllable HU yet do not realize yourself within it!”

It was true, I am like the whippoorwill
a lonely bird so lost in song
he doesn’t know his own name,
yet he sings it all day long.

“First,” he says, “you must empty yourself
of all dreams and desires,
ambitions, attachments, and thoughts!”
I do so, and he fills the emptiness with light and energy.
And the impersonal love that fills this being,
this first manifestation of Geezoolgh
pulses through me, easily
as if it were my own.

A misty blue embraces my body
and the clear and keening sound of a single flute
is heard as from behind.

And now before me shines a silent, thin and
shimmering arch, a whispy rainbow
like the ones I used to make with only water and the sun;
my seven year old thumb across the end of a garden hose;
Not a grand archway across heaven’s gate in a far off sky,
but something small and personal.
I stare and then unfocus with my eyes.
I close them once then open,
but this fragile, thin refraction
remains unbroken.
The last pilgrimage I took across the country—
weren’t there rainbows everywhere,
to boost me on towards my goal?
Is this now the end of all those rainbows?
Or the beginning?
Time passes in the worlds below
and gradually I fade beyond the spectrum’s visible bow
And then this one called “Geezoolgh”
This form without form
begins to speak again.
“You have just experienced a taste of God Realization.”
”Oh?” I thought, as this impression percolated down
until it reached the filter paper
of the journalizing mind.
“It was so simple!
It was not so different from the feelings I have felt before!”

“Yes. Anyone, at any stage along the path
can garner any one experience,
and anyone at any time can have a taste of spiritual fulfillment.
It’s just a case of letting go and letting God!
Whenever animals are messengers for God:
Whenever one fulfills God’s will instinctively, unconsciously,
one is then the living realization of Geezoolgh’s dream.
This is a lesser aspect of this term, it seems.
“In this specific sense,” he laughs,
“it is so easy that only a child can accomplish it.
This feat, which is so difficult for humans,
who are bound up by their multitude of choices,
blinded by their numerous perspectives
and crippled by their vast array of tools,
can be accomplished easy as that
by any bird or animal
given that the beast has not spent too much time
around a human being!

It seems ironic; animals more close to God than men?
I ask if He could please explain a little further.

“Counter to this simple realization
is what I term “God Consciousness.
These two are like opposite poles,
One, the realm of animals,
And one of men—
And thereby hangs the tale!
This whippoorwill can be a co-worker with God.
To be the conscious co-worker, which is our goal as men,
Is quite a complex matter!
To utterly unfold, one must break the mold,
Go where none have gone before,
Open every door,
Suffer death in eighty-four embodiments of man,
And through your own experience,
Come to finally understand
What it really means to be a conscious co-worker with God.
You must learn, and grow and train,
Overcome each barrier of pain,
Fall and rise again,
Like a Phoenix flying,
Trying to become the sun.
For eventually you will be the one
Who comes to understand the inner workings of the universe
And link into the universal mind
Become a true custodian of power
And have the spiritual freedom all men seek.”

“But those animals you mentioned…
they have freedom here and now,
Can’t we be but like those simple souls?” I ask,
“And not endure the pain?”

“But you are Man, and have a brain
which must be exercised to fulfill its God-intended purpose
otherwise, it can become diseased from lack of use.
You can have that calm and peaceful freedom here and now,
But you’d still not be free from karma;
Not be free to roam wherever you will
Without the slightest degree of danger.
What animal has that freedom?

become a conscious atom of God’s light;
enter in the inner ring of power
and then have any part of the truth that you desire.
And with the truth, you have a position of strength
a place to stand,
from which to move the earth.
like the president of a company
entrusted with authority
you then can act out what the power wishes
for the good of the whole.
It is distinctly different from the freedom
that an animal would have,
or the freedom that the sweeper
or bookkeeper
had before they rose to be the president….
yet so similar.

“Remember when you healed another’s pain by using light?
That was a spontaneous action,
a gift of love, of Realization.
there are higher and higher forms of this
as you will learn,
until you are a clear and perfect vehicle
for some of my most important work.”

“This work of which I speak defies Man’s logic and his mind.
The vehicle for God must trust the light and sound implicitly.
It must override your logic and your concepts
as to what is real and what is fantasy;
For laws of light and sound are greater than
the laws of probability,
the laws of right and wrong, and impossibility!”

“This is why the God Realized
can go where others can’t;
succeed where others fail;
and also why it is so rare
to ever reach Consciousness.
The path is not direct
but zigzags back and forth and side to side
but ever upwards;
Like the road to any mountaintop!”
He gives me time to think this over
over in my mental body…

There are many vehicles for God;
Everyone to his or her degree
and then there are the few and scattered conscious vehicles
and a long and varied spectrum of each kind along the way
encompassing the whole of human endeavor.
Although the animal is closer to the first than most of Men,
surely any Man is closer to the second than a beast!
Yet each Man has inherently
the power and ability
to reach both peaks at once.

This, then must be the goal;
To expand towards the center from these complimentary poles
and keep them both in balance
until they merge and become one
at the top of the mountain!

He says I stand within a foggy region of his realm;
The outer sphere of Geezoolgh’s vast interior.
This is why I cannot see his face or form
or see his light more clearly.
He says I have to be here because
my consciousness is only open to this level at the moment
but that I will soon move beyond it,
as a matter of course.

I am eager for the chance, at perhaps some future date.
I leave the contemplative state
and find a book, and cracking it
I open to a page where an adventurer of light
was led to this same place
and found the same fog as I had.
Now I don’t feel so bad!

5. In The Second Person

I pulled a book of meditations from the shelf
and slipped outside myself
not halfway through the text.
I’d planned to read some more but then
the volume seemed to slip
out of my hands.
as I immersed directly into contemplation,
Geezoolgh spoke.
This time there was no distant voice, no foggy, light blue mist.
Just direct communication between the I and Thou,
The one and only Two.
And when those two can speak as one, I ask you,
which of us ceases to exist?

After it announced Itself to Me
to initiate my journey
it moved past light, and then beyond the barrier of sound,
that I might follow further towards the vast interior of God.

I spoke for It;
It, the second person of Geezoolgh,
It spoke to me, through me,
in the second person singular!
How upsidedown!
Here a man less integrated into sane society
might succumb to doubt, his best neuroses worsen.
For what does every four year old spend hours doing?
Talking to himself, through himself, in second person!
Here I saw the razor’s edge again beneath a safe façade.
For how do you know when it’s you who talks
and when it’s really God?

Asked again about God Realization, and answered back,

“Everyone has flashes of illumination,
everyone has moments as a vehicle for God.
but only Masters can sustain it all the time,
and even they can never score one hundred,
or even ninety-nine per cent.”
It’s not a thing that can ever be perfected,
you always find another octave on the string
by moving half way closer to the bridge,
but you never cross the river.
Likewise, you may “Act as if” you’re on the far shore
of perfection all the time
should your feet get wet now and then,
don’t be too surprised,
especially when its time to cast your line.
Generally, we only perfect limited things;
I would tend to suspect anything
a so-called perfect master can perfect!

“It’s no cosmic accident
when anyone can touch the ninety-ninth per cent.
We must struggle then conceive
the vision of ourselves becoming fully alive
not now and then but all the time,
to fully give and fully receive.
If you wish to set such a mold
throw your thoughts into the future
then retrieve.

No one accidentally reaches the mountaintop
the precipice of man’s existence
by following the path of least resistance.

I tried this exercise
and found it hard at first to visualize
myself as some compassionate Buddha all the time.
This mountaintop requires quite a climb!
I struggled with the little self
could it wait on God in utter trust
for any future pleasure God might toss my way?
(including lust?)
And could I agree to stay in the desireless state
even when the moment finally came to satiate?

I felt attachments grab ahold then tear away.
I used the forming force to keep those hungry hounds at bay.
I used the sound, the ancient song of God,
each time triggering the high and piercing sound of piccolo,
and where it took me, hungry thoughts could never go,
and then the sound would change to feeling
I formed an empty shell of light around myself
and filled it up with all that energy and love
and then I’d make the shell expand
and spread that love across an ever widening band.

My beloved Geezoolgh, he spoke again.
“Here you find just knowingness upon this plane.
Knowingness is that which lies beyond all light and sound and form.
When one understands the question
one does not need illustrations to explain.”

“You will not be granted true God Consciousness,
until you can maintain the purely realized state.
Do you know why?” I said to me.
“It is for the good of the whole.
Who would trust an epileptic person with an axe,
or trust a frequent drunkard with the keys to any car?
(Once the speeder has the keys, how do you reclaim
except when found among the wreckage later on?)

I thought I’d prove my worthiness,
by holding the enlightened image of my future self in mind,
but soon a host of hungry ghosts
and other graven images attacked
and managed to distract!

My state of permanence needed constant restoration.
but I needed this Consciousness
to bring about my preservation.
Even with the perfect image of the Self,
the chances are I’d still be flawed,
so how does anyone ever earn this key,
the consciousness of God?

Finally, I felt a strange vibration around my skull,
the healing touch that made me well.

I sensed the Supreme Being behind me,
and felt It’s healing properties.
Perhaps I’d have my healing gradually from within
like silk that is dipped in saffron dye
and fades when set to dry,
but then the tint sets in,
when it is dipped and dried again.
It told me that what healing I received
was only for the benefit of others, not for me.
For strength can be used selfishly or altruistically
I didn’t have to ask what that would mean
if I was healed, then lost sight of Geezoolgh’s Dream.
I walked outside,
and on the way back home,
a column of white light shone down on me
and followed me conspicuously.
I checked the nearest mirror on the wall.
My skin had changed from rough to smooth;
my face from dull to bright
as if filled with moonlight.
It was cool, not like sunlight, red or fiery
I thought this all hard to explain…
and wrote it in my diary.

Initiation day
I brought nine plums,
A choice selection.
and while I heard my secret word,
I took a shower in a purple fountain
that danced with light and shimmered.
I found the word had power
to change the light
to shape the light into radiant forms
to send a message to knock on someone’s inner door
or mend that which was broken.

6. The Inner Circle

I was laying back, awake but dreaming,
in the early morning hour,
between a night of learning dreams
and a day of earning dollars,
and was watching with my inner eye
what appeared to be a pool of water.
a constant dripping hit the center of my vision’s circle.
I saw the ripples going outward from the center.
This water was crystal clear,
the background set behind it a milky white.
For a moment then I thought it might just be an outdoor pond.
There should be smooth round stones behind it—
Where were they?
I watched it closely for a time,
trying to find the lesson.
Why would Soul, after all these evenings with Sat Nam,
and then Geezoolgh, the Great Mystery Itself,
be preoccupied with such a clear perception
of a shallow pond?
Then, on closer examination, I realized there was no water!
There was no pond but Allah!
There was no dripping drops
But those clear, even ripples, those endless concentric circles,
were not ripples, but the flow of atoms
which rose out of the Ocean of Love and Mercy,
and from Great Spirit’s center, spread in all directions;
not concentric circles, but whole spheres,
of compression and refraction,
not of cause and then effect,
but cause and cause and cause….
In three dimensions, through all dimensions,’
Carrying wisdom, power, freedom, to all Souls,
I watched it for a while longer
until it finally disappeared.

And just at that moment,
when It’s wisdom had finally reached the shores
of my poor perceptions
someone on the inner planes asked a question.
“What is truth?”
I, as a deity of Soul,
without a moment’s hesitation, answered,
“Truth is that which is,
that which exists!
You ask me what exists, I say God exists!
It is that which says I alone exist!
Everything is part of It,
therefore nothing exists outside of It,
and all things not a part of It unreal!
The second level of truth is found in the question
‘Where does it exist?’
The answer is, God exists everywhere, yet nowhere
Its everywhereness, and Its nowhereness are inseperable.
Truth exists everywhere, yet nowhere,
Therefore, truth and God are the same.
The next question to be asked is,
‘Why does it exist?’
God exists because it loves to be.
It is not love as we think of it,
but an expression of Its power just to be.
And this power is expression of Its energy,
and energy is the key to God’s great mystery.
Next the question could be asked,
When does this being exist?
It exists in all times, at all places,
yet sometimes this existence is in the active sense,
sometimes its potential,
such as when God sleeps and dreams
and when It only sleeps.
“And who does It exist in?”
It exists in Godly men
and exists in each of us as Soul,
but as a microcosm of Itself.
Finally, the question asks itself,
“But how does It exist?
What are the rules, the laws, the properties
of this ground of all existence?”
Here is the question you really meant to ask!
This is what most people mean when they say
“What is Truth?”
And yet it is only the outermost layer of truth,
the empirical, observable behavior of Existence.
One could write a book on this one subject
It acts, It manifests Itself within an image,
and then a series of images derive from that,
each one more specific;
more specialized,
until It has successfully defined one aspect of Itself
in such an image.
The first manifestation of the Creator
is the universal image of Itself
then from It come multiple images,
reaching down to soul’s domain.
There, everything is split up into two divergent streams;
psitive and negative atoms,
and a middle stream, which sustains all life,
and stabilizes the other two contrary forces.
From this point down,
God expresses Itself in detail;
in the counterpoint of atoms
which we know as life.
The motion of this counterpoint
is the basis of both science and aesthetics.”

After saying this, I went back to the source of truth,
the source of all existence,
which now appeared differently,
for I returned to It on a deeper level
than I had been before.
Now I saw It as a nearly invisible sun,
a milky white and vaporous ball of energy
against a white background,
emitting beams of light in strong straight lines,
and spiraling streams of newly emerging souls,
while drawing experienced souls back in,
breathing in and out as It had breathed for half an eternity.
Everywhere were snowy particles of soul
like the scene inside a snowflake paperweight.
This was then The Ocean of Love and Mercy,
totality as seen from the “outside,”
if such a thing within the bounds of God could ever exist!
I still was not a part of It;
Not merged, with all those other particles,
not submerged in all those waves,
but still on the shore,
and I knew there must be more.

7. The Decaying Log

Pulled into a parking lot,
half a mile past nowhere,
took a walk in wilderness and trees.
Then I saw a Monarch
butterfly, symbol of the spirit guide
riding on the sultry summer breeze.

Where are you leading me,
Delicate-wings?
The strongest things that nature ever made.
“Follow me over the hedges
and on down the road
and let the road teach you,”
its motion seemed to say.

The butterfly led me step by step
along the deserted road
and then turned left
into a glen, over the hills
and down into a great abandoned field.
It led me to the center then disappeared
as suddenly as it had come.

Standing alone in the middle of that field
I had the overwhelming feeling
that Earth was just a tiny planet out in space
and I was Its explorer.
What a strange planet! I thought.
What was I sent here to do?
And why does it seem so familiar?

Then Sat Nam’s hand guided me
to the edge of the forest that lay beyond that field.
He stood me before a log
so decayed it had rotted flat
from countless seasons,
dozens of rains
and told me to put it together again.
It seemed too much to ask.
The air was thick and heavy and hot
and I felt too weak for the task
and in frustration, turned away
I didn’t know where to begin.
“Put it together,” he told me again.
I said, “Why should I? Why even try?”
“Tell me what good will it do?”
But he insisted, and so I knelt,
and put pieces of bark, like a puzzle, together,
and big chunks of wood that lay around,
could still fit if you used imagination.
But there was little else I could do,
and little else I could say.
I got up an kicked a few pieces together
and started to walk away.
Sat Nam said, “If you were God Conscious,
do you think that you could change this back into a tree?”
I said I thought so, but wasn’t there yet,
and turned my back on this pitiful pile of debris.
Then the butterfly, the spirit guide, flew by me,
I followed it out to midfield
And I contemplated there, standing, eyes closed,
Silent, but no vision or message revealed.

Then thunder suddenly started to grumble around me.
I looked up at a darkening sky
like a man marooned on a planet of doom;
There was nowhere to run, only wait.
It was the most ominous sound the earth ever made
but I refused to feel fear,
for I knew that I’d done nothing wrong.

It started to rain, a light, even rain
like the gentle tears of a weeping God,
Aand I felt some great being was mourning at this hour.
But why would He cry for a rotten log?

I had no regrets, I had done my best
but in order to do one better than that,
I would have to rearrange my perception of life
and myself.
It wasn’t a fair test, not yet!

It was only one day till my weakness returned
I knew what the log was supposed to represent;
It was me that was fallen apart at the seams
and now I knew what He had meant.
He was asking me if I was ready as yet
to heal myself through God’s power—
I worked on this problem for several days
and then had a dream where the log was made whole
and finally thought of the answer.
I drove back down to that place in the woods
and found the tree as I’d left it.
I used light and sound as my surgical tools to repair
what I saw as my physical shell.
The sun broke through heavy clouds
A weight was lifted from me
Sat Nam liberated me with love
and set my feet upon a higher course.


8. The Maker Met

I’m sure there’s some significance to this:
I had a guitar and after many years it fell apart;
The head was cracked
from an old injury and much misuse.
I went and found another to replace it,
and then my body fell apart,
a problem with the hands and legs
and still I couldn’t play.
And then the tuning pegs,
the machine heads to be exact,
fell apart as well.
I went to local vendors,
but they said my instrument was totally unique
that I would have to go back to the maker,
personally,
to find the healing that I seek.
I thought that strange
and kept looking, even found a smiling,
fast-talking man
who sold me standard parts for quite a price
knowing they wouldn’t fit.
Finally, I had no choice but to make the lengthy journey
to the realm of Brooklyn
where the maker dwells.
When I arrived, he told me
the foreign company
who made the broken parts,
the totally unique, one and only parts to my new guitar
had long been out of business,
and those parts are very rare.
But looking through his shop he found a pair
of matching pegs, which somehow time forgot;
One needed slight repair, but that was quickly done.
And then I met the maker’s son;
a guitarist somewhat in demand,
and we found we had the same
distinctive problem with our hands!
We played together, and then I played
and tested each of the old guitar-creator’s instruments;
Some were perfect,
some “required work” I said, and he agreed.
and then I asked him what his fee would be
for all that he had done,
and he said, “Keep your money, this is free—
you’ve filled this shop with music for an hour.

“You’ve tested each guitar,
probed their subtleties,
and gauged their power.
Just remember me
and tell your students;
Tell the other players that you meet
who it was that made
the instrument you play so sweet.

9. The Cave
While walking along a riverbank, I found a cave;
A small and rugged opening among the rocks—
The kind that Milarepa might have once enjoyed.
The perfect spot to contemplate the vast interior of God.

The cave lay below a great bulwark of natural stone
A cliff like the bow of a warship heading seaward,
full speed out from port.
Atop its precipice a three-hundred-sixty-degree surround,
like the view from a crow’s nest tower.

With lantern in my hand I climbed inside
the Disneyland-like cavern of the underworld,
and crouching low,
I made my way into the mountain’s vast interior.

Yet for all the vastness of that subterranean frontier,
the way was very narrow, like the eye of a needle;
the tunnel barely big enough to let an empty-handed man
pass through.
The tunnel then split off in two, I chose one,
and looking down into that dark, womb or tomb-like space,
I went within.

Sitting tailor fashion on a stone,
my head against the ceiling,
I chanted the song of God resonantly,
a novel feeling.
At first the images were broken up and jagged
like the walls before my face.
Then I saw the old discarded imagery, weird and strange,
of phantoms I had long ago misplaced.
I exploded them like bubbles
until only darkness remained.
Why preserve an illusion?
Pass up vision for vision’s sake
and you pass beyond another cob spider’s veil
deeper into the wells of understanding.

10. An Unexpected Visit
I sat again in contemplation
and chanted Milarepa’s name.
I thought this cave would be the proper place for him.
An inner voice, with greatest certainty, said
“He is far away, and won’t descend to this plane any more.’
And so I put him out of mind and stared into the wall,
and for what seemed like hours,
had no experiences at all.

I suddenly was standing straight up in my cave,
only now the cave was gone
and there, a foot in front of me
was the strangest creature I had ever seen!
He wore an impish, half-a-smile on his broad and elf-like face,
and his wide eyes flickered playfully from side to side,
as if to say, “Did I hear someone calling me?”
Avoiding my bewildered gaze,
pretending not to notice me,
although I blocked his line of sight!
“He must be playing games,” I thought,
For I was six feet tall, and he was barely four, in height.
At seventy or eighty years of age
his skin seemed remarkably fair.
He wore a plain, rough, grey-brown robe,
a beggar’s robe, or I should say rag,
his hair was the same color-beggar’s hair.
It was long and straight and stiff,
like a stack of hay,
that splayed out to his shoulders and beyond,
and in his right hand was a staff
of ordinary wood,
but what an extraordinary man!
And not a word on who he was,
or why he then appeared, and he was gone!
I went back to my interrupted contemplation and asked
this past impression who he was,
what his name is now or used to be.
He answered, with a riddle
in an accent somewhat Himalayan
“Me? Ah (I’m a) Rupa.”
(It was hard to tell what he was saying)
I sat confused, I hadn’t caught the fellow’s name;
Hadn’t guessed the riddle.
I hadn’t guessed, the name and the riddle were the same.
I looked down, on the inner, to my folded hands
“What is ‘Rupa’ or ‘Repa’ did he say?
I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
And then a hand popped out of inner space
and stuck a goblet in my face,
thrust it firmly in my hands, then disappeared.
My God, this guy’s a little weird!
Maybe he is evil—
And this, this otherworldly drink…..
I hate to think!

I took a look at what it held within,
foaming green and ugly as a sin,
and lots of it too, a moldy stew.
I held it in my hand, and wondered what to do.
“Why not test it with the blue and healing light?
Why not test it with the sound of Huuuu?”
The thought appeared.
“Not a bad idea!”
I tested it this way for quite some time;
bombarded it with Huuuing and of course the blue,
but to my surprise, it did not fade at all.
But this ghastly gothic goblet full of green
kept becoming solider and realer, and heavier in my hand!
I stopped testing just in time
before it became a physical thing!

I took a breath and braced—
For what? You ask. The deadly poison?
No, the deadly taste!
And then I drank the stuff down to the dregs (not to waste!)
But surprisingly, it had no taste at all!
I threw the cup into the inner, far beyond the wall
and waited for my fate.
Then I noticed that the sickness I had felt all day was gone…
all the symptoms vanishing at once
as if nothing had ever been wrong!
I felt great!

I wanted more! (or was it now too late?)
NO! Another goblet inwardly appeared.
I drank it all and then another took its place
and so I sipped some more until my illness had completely cleared.
Who was that man? I asked an inner friend.

”Milarepa,” they replied.
“Repa,” “the cotton clad”
(yes, cotton was the brown robe he was wearing)
“But he said he was a Rupa,” I exclaimed.
“Perhaps he was joking.
Note that a Rupa is a lower body that one is forced to take.
I guess he wasn’t happy to be drawn back to this lower plane
just for your sake!”
“And what was that stuff I drank? That tasteless, healing,
miraculous, unappetizing goop?”
My inner friend answered promptly,
”Milarepa’s favorite…..NETTLE SOUP!”

11. Unison

Then I remembered there was one more thing I wanted to try.
It was said that God would not deny us our identity
that we could merge within it,
blend ourselves into Its heart,
and be not one apart,
but resonate as one, the whole,
in unison and still be one as soul
when we returned.
And this is true because it is the Creator’s firm desire
that we retain our individuality; that our own voice be heard
within the symphony of life
among the chorus of souls
until the trumpet
sounds to mark the end of time,
and with a sure finality, call all souls back to the key
from which they first emerged.
Converge into the heart from which we came,
beyond the voice, beyond the face beyond the form
beyond the name
of God!

I did this, and lost myself completely within Its peaceful eye
the eye of life’s wide hurricane;
The Eye of God,
and felt protected by a bubble that lifted off the ground.
I had no sense of time,
but suddenly I popped back in the physical
and knew that I had been very far away for quite a while
and that’s all I could say.

I blinked and stretched and reached for the torch of the twentieth century
and switched the flashlight “on”
and a subtle voice said,
“You now have the authority
to be a messenger of Soul;
to do whatever the Creator, Geezoolgh tells you to.
Let none deny you the least opportunity
to serve Its stern command!
I said, “Where do I begin?”

“You can start by cleaning up this cave!”
was the reply.
I flashed the light around the floor,
and there were thirty years of broken bottles,
muddy trash and cans
I hadn’t seen before.
I thought, “I don’t have a bag or gloves or any way
to carry them out!
What, Oh Lord, do you have planned?”

”Take them out by hand!”


12. The Invisible Man

When you found me on a sandy beach
so many years ago
I was a melted lump of glass,
the remnants of a bottle
that the ocean had deposited.
And you, oh great soul
bent and lifted me up to your eye
and saw the sun through me
and thought it wise to keep me
for your alchemy
and placed me in the pocket of your robe
because you saw some quality in me
that no one else could see,
perhaps I was misshapen….
dirty, rough or chipped on edge,
Yet you saved me!
Was I uncracked or did I blossom in the sun
with radiant rainbow tones
when you held me aloft?
I don’t know.
I only know you polished me
and ground down slow and painfully
my imperfections
And now that you have spent a thousand years
in grinding and examining,
do you find me fitting?
Am I still a diamond in the rough or in the clear?
I hope that I am perfect for your purpose
for now not only am I worn away
but I’m invisible as well!

I am next to nothing!

I have no identity other than being that which can’t be seen
no one really knows me but for what they can see through me.
That’s why I appear so different to each eye that tries to wear me
It depends on where they stand (and where they’re going)
and that is why I still remain a mystery.
You made me more or less invisible
but mostly less.
except when you use me in your work
to magnify the Word
I lay against the table undiscovered
and pass unnoticed like the wind
and people wonder where I’ve been
bBecause the human mind cannot perceive
or understand
the glory of becoming the Invisible Man.

But hang me in your window frame
and I will be a vehicle for light,
a rainbow of a thousand tones
will spread across the cluttered wall of stones
whenever you open the curtains.

I am not a diamond
but set me in the proper place before your light
and I shall be a magic lantern for your love
filling all of space with this great light
and filling up the darkened screen
with images of God
in all Its thousand emanations
each one playing opposite itself in countless subplots
each unfolding simultaneously
before our wondering eyes.
I am not a precious gem
but make of me a magic lantern for your love
and you will see the flicker of your fire
in every flashing flame of mind that comes to pass
across this aperture.
I will make it very clear that it’s your light
that brings to life these pictures.
and even then there will be those who don’t know
from where these pictures are projected.
No one likes to think the mystery movie they enjoy
is just a grand illusion from some projection booth
and will not look behind themselves
to see the source of light
but are absorbed in its reflection
and the shadows there that hurry
across the proscenium.

So I’ll remain the mystery behind the mystery.
I’ll go as I do now
among the crowds at rush hour
the unknown, unseen man
and, working in the ancient secret way,
I’ll be your silent messenger.