Second Chance Dance: Basho

Showing posts with label Basho. Show all posts

Thursday, December 31, 2020

The Mutineer’s New Year Lament

“ For Last Year’s words belong to last year’s language and next year’s words await another voice.”

- T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

Mind-ful-ness

The quality of state of being conscious or aware of something
The mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present movement , while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings , thoughts, and sensations, used as a therapeutic technique

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The Mutineer’s New Year Lament

Forty some odd days into 2020

The mutineer pilgrim and his witness

Commenced on another leg of their journey.

Suddenly without notice or expectation

A distracted traveller squashed into their vessel

Shoving the two into oncoming traffic.

Somehow they survived by a aid of a greater hand

And not mindful they gathered up their baggage to re-continue

Unaware everything was changing.

The mutineer was aware he was born

To be a boat rocker and how

It is said that the trick for a helmsman sailing rough seas

Is to let go of the tiller ( wheel)

And the boat will somehow right herself.

An old teacher counseled that life is how we are present

And respond to people, events and situations.

But, how is it that migrating birds really know

Where to precisely go and when?

What of the gliding solo feathered friend?

Is she aimless or is there a true purpose

To her taking advantage of the uplifting wind?

Isn’t the answer of “it’s instinct” to these questions really an excuse that

Homo sapiens really do not understand how the universe works?

No thing stays the same.

No thing brings peace .

All things pass.

The present will be past

And what is next will be present, then past

And on and on until that which is

Will be no more.

A reclusive monk whispered

“ Your problem is not the problem,

Your reaction is the problem.

Attach yourself to no thing.”

It is said institutions of all sizes and purpose

Attempt to initiate constructs

To control how pilgrims stay within the lines

Assuring some semblance of societal order.

Artificial propositions and musings

Propose the prospect of reward or success for

Accumulating things and behaving

According to the design of others

Are really not important to any other part of creation.

The exception , Lonely sapiens,

Trying with every breath to make sense of every thing

Believing that plans will get them what they need and

Where they need to be.

Meanwhile the mutineer pilgrim and the witness continue

Their meditations on the flight of the sacred soarers of the skies -

Being , loving , peacefulness and authenticity

As these are what matter in the end,

As they sail on… to peace, the divine…

into the new year.

- JF Sobecki

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A Few songs for mutineers and pilgrims

Mutineer - Jason Isbell & Amanda Shires ( W. Zevon)

https://youtu.be/PWuWmANBfJw

Peace Divine - Jackson Browne ( L. Songberg)

https://youtu.be/otGe9hmFDpU

All Things Must Pass - George Harrison

https://youtu.be/QWV4pFV5nX4

Love and Mercy - Jeff Tweedy ( B. Wilson)

https://youtu.be/m6LmXDEs9do

Sail On - Mary Black (D. Gaughin)

https://youtu.be/zv113_HGT60

Dedicated to the real heroes

Recalculate, Recalculate -

-JF Sobecki(D. Arn and JF Sobecki)

https://youtu.be/Jt887qhi99Q

Amdg

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

May Lauds: Spiritual Exercises of a Prodigal Son

A monk sips morning tea,
it's quiet,
the chrysanthemum's flowering.

Translated by Robert Hass

by Matsuo Basho

Lauds

a service of morning prayer in the Divine Office of the Western Christian Church, traditionally said or chanted at daybreak, though historically it was often held with matins on the previous night.

Morning Video - something to sit and watch and listen
if you don't live near the sea.

https://youtu.be/A2_yg19Pu7Y

..............

May Lauds

So what is all this excitement about sleep and waking?

Does the drama of the darkest of darkness

Transforming into bright illuminating lightness and warmth

Really demand all the attention

That poets, songwriters, spiritualists and therapists give it?

What is this mystical authority that consumes our spirits

As we wake from journeys in dreamland ?

Spiritual exercises for daybreak have proliferated

volumes and practises for thousands of years.

Apollo, Helios and Ra dominated ancient myths as

Rising suns were the focus of f pre-Jesus poets

And cultures along the pacific rim.

Friends and strangers query

the contemporary pilgrim

As to his early rising

And solemn pre-dawn practice.

“You have access to anything you want

And anything you need,” they say.

“There are pills for sleep

and energy shots to prime your heart in the morning.”

The pilgrim humbly asked

“What of gratitude?

What of mindfulness?

What of the ever magnificent power-filled

Purity of love and serenity discovered in all of nature?

What of the sacred essence that energizes the soul,

The heart and the mind in one

Illuminating moment”?

He added that his waking moments

Are not with the expectation of the enlightenment

Experienced by Buddha

But an opportunity to take as much time as necessary

To be present with the holiness that

Connects everything in the universe.

“ I believe I need to practice… to be spiritually , emotionally and physically energized

With love , peace , compassion , joy and hope

With the hope that I will remember to remember

That all creation is a sacrament

Even my own imperfect prodigal life.”

- JF Sobecki

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Why I Wake Early
by Mary Oliver

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and crotchety–

best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light–
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.

What to remember when waking

In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake,
coming back to this life from the other
more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world
where everything began,
there is a small opening into the new day
which closes the moment you begin your plans.

What you can plan is too small for you to live.
What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enough
for the vitality hidden in your sleep.

To be human is to become visible
while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.
To remember the other world in this world
is to live in your true inheritance.

You are not a troubled guest on this earth,
you are not an accident amidst other accidents
you were invited from another and greater night
than the one from which you have just emerged.

Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window
toward the mountain presence of everything that can be
what urgency calls you to your one love?
What shape waits in the seed of you
to grow and spread its branches
against a future sky?

Is it waiting in the fertile sea?
In the trees beyond the house?
In the life you can imagine for yourself?
In the open and lovely white page on the writing desk?

-- David Whyte

Lauds Gregorian Chant from Assisi

https://youtu.be/eC6OKIYXBxQ

A Time to Rise – The Subdudes

https://youtu.be/POpw9TcKMHk

Morning Has Broken – Cat Stevens

https://youtu.be/we-n-Zmglt0

A couple of songs for the road

The Prodigal Son – Ry Cooder

https://youtu.be/HEUIZWyieAk

Slow Turning – John Hiatt

https://youtu.be/2L22C5IJTfE

Happy Birthday and Happy Anniversary Leigh and Hal!

“One day I will find the right words and they will be simple”

- Jack Kerouac

“The only truth is music”

- Jack Kerouac

New Blog - Rain and Rivers Revisited: A Journey of a Lost Weekend

Well you may recall I have been working on a piece of fiction for a while now. It is still a work in progress. However, I decided

to release drafts of the first few episodes ( chapters.) Much of the work is completed but I am always cutting and editing.

http://rainandriversrevisited.blogspot.com/

It is difficult to release just pieces at a time as they are created as independent episodes they are also all parts of a larger piece (and picture .) I could share more but I am curious to read or hear your feedback.

I want to thank those friends and supporters who have already provided feedback ...and of course all the folks who have been following my Second Chance Dance Blog ( by the way that will continue.)

The material in the Blog is all copyrighted and cannot be reproduced in any form. Though, I welcome you to share the link and this blog with others .So please when you have a few minutes take a read and let me know what you think. I expect to be posting a series of subsequent episodes shortly.

Thanks....

News of Death

(This is for Coach)

Last night they came with news of death
not knowing what I would say.
I wanted to say,"The green wind is running through the fields making the grass lie flat."
I wanted to say,"The apple blossom flakes like ash covering the orchard wall."
I wanted to say,"the fish float belly up in the slow stream,stepping stones to the dead."

They asked if I would sleep that night,
I said I did not know.
For this loss I could not speak,the tongue lay idle in a great darkness,the heart was strangely open,the moon had gone,and it was then when I said, "He is no longer here"
that the night put its arms around me
and all the white stars turned bitter with grief.
- David Whyte

What Work is

We stand in the rain in a long line

waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.

You know what work is--if you're

old enough to read this you know what

work is, although you may not do it.

Forget you. This is about waiting,

shifting from one foot to another.

Feeling the light rain falling like mist

into your hair, blurring your vision

until you think you see your own brother

ahead of you, maybe ten places.

You rub your glasses with your fingers,

and of course it's someone else's brother,

narrower across the shoulders than

yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin

that does not hide the stubbornness,

the sad refusal to give in to

rain, to the hours wasted waiting,

to the knowledge that somewhere ahead

a man is waiting who will say, "No,

we're not hiring today," for any

reason he wants. You love your brother,

now suddenly you can hardly stand

the love flooding you for your brother,

who's not beside you or behind or

ahead because he's home trying to

sleep off a miserable night shift

at Cadillac so he can get up

before noon to study his German.

Works eight hours a night so he can sing

Wagner, the opera you hate most,

the worst music ever invented.

How long has it been since you told him

you loved him, held his wide shoulders,

opened your eyes wide and said those words,

and maybe kissed his cheek? You've never

done something so simple, so obvious,

not because you're too young or too dumb,

not because you're jealous or even mean

or incapable of crying in

the presence of another man, no,

just because you don't know what work is.

Philip Levine

On Marriage - Kahil Gibran

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness,And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another, but make not a bond of love:Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loafSing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.And stand together yet not too near together:For the pillars of the temple stand apart,And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

A favorite "Journey" poem from a favorite poet

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.
-- Mary Oliver

Send or post one of your favorites! They can be lyrics to a song!

Playing For Change

Please see the current music video from "Playing for Change" at the bottom of this page. It is a movement. Enjoy!

"Playing for Change" is a multimedia movement created to inspire, connect, and bring peace to the world through music. The idea for this project arose from a common belief that music has the power to break down boundaries and overcome distances between people. No matter whether people come from different geographic, political, economic, spiritual or ideological backgrounds, music has the universal power to transcend and unite us as one human race. And with this truth firmly fixed in our minds, we set out to share it with the world

Fall in Love

“Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in a love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the mornings, what you will do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.” --- Pedro Arrupe SJ