Caesura and The Enjambments : 13th Anniversary of The Second Chance Dance

  

"My cousin has great changes coming...someday he'll wake with wings.

My cousin as you see

Takes his changes so easily

O happy we

Could take each change so easily..."

- Cousin Caterpillar, Incredible String Band

-------

Caesura and The Enjambments

Well, they say it took Ulysses ten years to get back

To where he once belonged,

Something Sergeant Pepper could not achieve.

For a wandering wounded soldier and unwed father

It would be a year locked down in ascetic solitude

For Ignatius to wake.

Sometimes constant busyness

Becomes the master distraction ,

A rationalization in believing attachments,

Rewards and material worldly goals

As the promised treasures of paradise.

Lives can easily become one big run on sentence.

Lost in the maize of the promise of identifying purpose

Pilgrims and the ignorant wander barren desserts aimlessly

Searching for the lost land of milk and honey.

No oasis discovered , only mirages.

Whatever happened to calm and deliberate?

What ever happened to pausing 

Allowing the peace to wash away the grime

Cleansing the spirit allowing one to become

Precisely who the divine intended ?

One's who preach their own self perfection,

Charlatans in sheep's clothing,

Keep themselves at bay from the barricades of heaven.

No thing stays the same.

No thing is perfect.

No algorithm, navigation system, spread sheet

Or the best laid plans can accurately predict.

Carefully positioned dominoes don't always fall

As designers and players anticipate.

Therapists and patients believe

Personal control is possible.

Can we really learn from the Venetians and

Their belief that the rising ocean can be restrained?

Sometimes the tiniest and grand events alike as well as

People of all types and sizes

Influence which road to take or what rabbit hole to go down.

Sometimes that mystical spiritual energy gives birth

To that caterpillar who might become that butterfly

Flapping her wings, that would start a breeze, 

Becoming the wind moving the chimes to sing,

A song whispering the truth 

While refreshing the pilgrim who had paused

To be mindful while letting go.

Many mystics , poets and a few songwriters appreciate

the power of the pausing , presence and hope.

And so it was thirteen years ago

The Pilgrim's Odyssey

Was about to blow up his plans when

He found himself crippled retreating into a pause.

His true companions lowered him through the roof.

His heart healed and mercy washed across his spirit.

And, he flew away.

          - JF Sobecki

-------

The Way Through The Woods - R. Kipling ( R. Fiennes)

https://youtu.be/Bolzk3MT2yQ

Isn't it a Pity-Take 27  (2020 remix) G. Harrison

https://youtu.be/nFxYsWCT6_k

Cleveland Heart - J.Browne

https://youtu.be/7M4BUIidfxs

Cousin Caterpillar - Incredible String Band

https://youtu.be/B_gZu1xK29s

The Holy Longing - Goethe

https://youtu.be/3xnTdpJyWxI

Hope For the Flowers - Trina Paulus

A story for Caterpillars, pilgrims and children of all ages

https://youtu.be/g6CaBnO5e0Q

July 1 - Memorial of St. Ignatius of Loyola

Anniversary of the Pilgrim's Healing 7/1/2008

 

"Teach me to be generous, to serve as you deserve, to give and not count the cost, to fight and not heed the wounds, to toil and not seek for rest, to labor and not to look for any reward, save that of knowing I am doing your will."

 - St. Ignatius of Loyola

(Thank you to the companions - Dan, Lou, Tom, Gerry, Bill, Ed, Bob, Dick, Carolyn, Herb, Kirk and Pete)

AMDG

Copyright 2021 JF Sobecki LLC All Rights Reserved

Coda: Even Jersey bar bands and their singers need a Caesura

From "Eddie and The Cruisers"

(and Thank God for English Majors!)

https://youtu.be/QUO_E7noTTg

The Green Flash

 

"It is said that once you have seen green flash , you'll never go wrong in matters of the heart"

" Another great difference between our civilization and yours is ...you admire the person who pushes their way to the top in any walk of life, while we admire the one who abandons their ego"

                          - Seven Years in Tibet, Heinrich Harrer

" Often the reason why some do not believe in God is that they have often ceased to believe that God can love them"

  - Thomas Merton

-----

The Green Flash

Consider the turtle and the hare

They say the turtle is calm and deliberate, no rush

Making progress when he sticks his neck out.

Consider that every day has a night,

Every competitive sport has an opportunity for a break-

A time out , a time for the athletes to take a breath.

Long duration competitions give the athletes

A time to recover and get reinvigorated for the next game or race.

Musicians have measures and and rests.

At the close of a composition there is a time for a break.

Notes without silence in-between is not music

Books and poems end, don't tell Joyce

Long distance hikes and solo global  sailors 

Seek the opportunity to nourish themselves.

Eventually sailors seek to secure serenity of a safe harbor.

Le Mans and Nascar drivers consider their fuel

And wear and tear on their vehicle.

Pit stops are critical .

These are the days that can last forever.

Zen monks patiently create sand mandalas 

Then rest and wipe the creation of the colored grains away.

The art is in the doing not the completing.

The constant busyness distracts from the essence , the truth.

Pilgrims seem to learn all this a little to late sometimes.

Slow down, relax , regroup , be mindful,

Listen to the children play ,

Breathe slowly when sitting on the beach at sunset

The blessing of witnessing and savoring the green flash

Is reserved for those who are present,

Those who stop and just be .

- JF Sobecki

---------------

These are the Days- Van Morrison

https://youtu.be/_lyve_egY8o

Children - Kahil Gibran

https://youtu.be/z8DSOpsNkt8

Murder In The City - Avett Brothers

https://youtu.be/cr420Jwr14U

I remember everything - John Prine

https://youtu.be/L21Tc_DtL6M

Across The Universe - Beatles

https://youtu.be/iotagMCkJRE

Daughter - Loudon Wainright III (for Lindsay and Leigh)

https://youtu.be/kgEePOfWMuc

                                           The "Summer House" in The Safe Harbor of Cape May

Copyright JF Sobecki LLC 2021 All Rights Reserved

amdg

In Troibo ad altare Dei: The Continuing Bloomsday Ballad Pt 49

 "We can do no great things; only small things with great love"

 - Mother Teresa

-----------

In Troibo ad altare Dei: The Continuing Bloomsday Ballad Pt 49

"Stately,  plump ..." , so it began

No purpose or map in mind

That mystical GPS guiding gently

As loosed random thoughts and plans meandered

A rudderless boat trusted the sacred wind.

First mates usually know more than they let on.

The sails set and they were off.

June 16 , the day in infamy that changed everything-

Watergate and James' Bloomsday always top of mind, right?

Not being noble the Pilgrim had some perspective

As to the truth about a hill of beans

And  the significance of the problems of pilgrims

As the crazy world was crumbling around them.

Regardless, they proclaimed "I do ." 

Friends, family and themselves

Remain surprised they actually did

And continue to do so. 

Hibbing's homely hobo troubadour reminds those who listen,

" You don't need a weatherman to know

Which way the winds blow."

Navigators and mystics alike ponder

"How did we come up with the idea

To blame poor and sick people

and those of different color or religions

For all the world's problems ?

How many wars , how many acts of violence,

How many pandemics , and how many natural disasters

Before we return to the essence of love, compassion,

Kindness, selflessness, hope, peace and mercy?"

And yet we sail on...

The white collared companion of Jesus pronounced how decisions

Confirm the psychotherapeutic observation how decisions 

Are born from emotions and then justified by the rational.

"Real sacraments are a mystery.

Who knows where this road will take you?

Trust in each other and that great divine essence.

Take a deep grateful centering breath and 

Top it all off with a glass or two of wine."

His voice raised up in song as it should

On holy occasions - 

"To everything there is a season,

Turn! Turn! Turn! A time for every

purpose under heaven"

- JF Sobecki

------

June 16,1972

-------

A Bloomsday Epilogue

https://youtu.be/zspro2od5zY

 

  Until I Gain Control Again- JF Sobecki  (R. Crowell)

                            

  https://youtu.be/4sui9f3ahzw

                                     

 Stolen Moments - John Hiatt

                                                       

 https://youtu.be/16EcHP4mpWc

           No Hard Feelings - The Avett Brothers

 

 https://youtu.be/Agc1gc6jqVE

  

                           

This is Us - Emmy Lou Harris and Mark Knopfler

   

https://youtu.be/3DLR7dviLVE

               Farther On - Jackson Browne                                         

  https://youtu.be/JwN_FbwWpjM

                   Family - Joe Walsh                                                                                 

https://youtu.be/XbQLhjOrfmE

                         

               Turn!Turn! Turn! - The Byrds

  https://youtu.be/W4ga_M5Zdn4  

Amdg

Copyright 2021 JF Sobecki LLC All Rights Reserved

May Day! Walk to the Daylight!

Picture - Javier Robles

"A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being   what God means it to be it is obeying. It "consents," so to speak, to creative love. It is expressing an idea which is in God and which is not distinct from the essence of God, and    therefore a tree imitates God by being a tree."

        - Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation 

The Big Bang

---------

May Day! Walk to the Daylight!

On the first morning of May the wondering continued -

Someone said a Big Bang started it all.

What caused that bang or made those millions of parts

Blown to pieces scattering across the heavens ro give birth

To planets, stars, and on and on?

Imagine the universe a blank canvas with Jackson Pollock

As the divine creative force splattering colors

And leaving the result to interpretation?

Imagine believing that rolling multiple dice at once

Would lead to some mysterious unpredictable magical jackpot

Of magnificent complex creations interconnecting

With other accidental conceptions beyond simple imaginations.

Calling Mother Nature - "Can we start all over again?"

Who dared to make rivers and mountains borderlines?

Did  the origins of species determine who and what would own how much?

Isn't there a truth woven in-between the lines of the great poems or songs?

Take a look at all the wasted things we thought we've known.

And how little humanity has grown.

Walk into the daylight ,  appreciate spring flowers,

Stopping the counting of minutes and hours.

Sometimes the real existence is being mindful 

To how all is sacred

Leading us to where we need to be.

The oldest living human on earth 

Said her longevity is a direct result

Of giving up worrying years ago while paying attention

To those broken and serving those in need.

Sometimes when hopelessness seems to be winning

Walk to the daylight... It is a choice.

Take off the coat of guesses and defenses

It all may surprise you . Remember how -

Augustine asked from that lonely outpost

"Is anyone out there?"

That ever-present mysterious holy voice responds whispering,

"Yes"

- JF Sobecki

----------

Jackson Pollock

For What Binds us - Jane Hirschfield

https://youtu.be/MQb5g5CISn4

Life is a Walking

https://youtu.be/ZQYPlEoU9ko

and some music....

Some Bridges - Jackson Browne

https://youtu.be/Z6GEXPYrb8U

Morning Glory - Subdudes

https://youtu.be/fHRiH6mlBMQ

California Stars - Wilco

https://youtu.be/Mi9l10pzMeI

Morning - Beck

https://youtu.be/unZkASVfF74

Something to smile

The Meaning of Life - Everyone Loves Raymond

https://youtu.be/FZb4jBE0Gr0

amdg

Copyright JF Sobecki LLC all Rights Reserved  2021

Spring Murmurations of The Heart

         

 "The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, 

and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love 

only the reflection\n of ourselves we find in them."

       - Thomas Merton

                                   

                                                 Ok one more time...

Did I mention I gave up worrying for Lent?

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

                                                                

Spring Murmuration of the Heart

The Cape's Bird Man outlined

The chapters of his forthcoming book,

Of how trench warfare of words and attitudes

Grows deeper and more adverse

Between the right and left 

Leaving the marginalized drowning in the wake.

Yet , he observes how birds come and go faster than people

And how they don't act worried.

Even the the Great Teacher observed how sparrows and other 

Winged messengers don't seem overly concerned 

As somehow they know they are loved.

They say it is instinct for starlings to fly in murmurations ,

Communal constructing of complex spectacles 

Swirling in seemingly aimless wild group flight.

Their secret mission is their common welfare, their communal preservation,

Their collective love and mutual selflessness in unison.

Iconoclastic stragglers and prodigals become vulnerable

To hungry hawks and those mischaracterized predatory eagles.

Other feathered paracletes mimic the starlings .

Who did it first is not of concern nor competition.

Meanwhile sentient beings have possibly devolved to be more lost by being locked down

And  continue less concerned about who really inherited the earth or the wind.

Starlings and most likely most of the divine's creatures may not worry about

Or miss the absence and demise of humans . Many of the Homo Sapiens really

Don't seem to care much about the common good....

Hiding in their own nests, filling them up with this or that.

Or maybe, just maybe these two legged creations forgot their own murmuration

Or maybe they just don't love themselves or each other 

As much as they say they do or

As much as the poets and mystics speculate.

    - JF Sobecki

__________________

What the World Need Now - Jackie DeShannon 

This song is still quite relevant

https://youtu.be/YUaxVQPohlU

Give me Love - G. Harrison

https://youtu.be/s-KAvPbO8JY

What's So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding - N. Lowe

https://youtu.be/Oy3LpV0THB0

Change Myself - T. Rundgren

https://youtu.be/dCU4P5EQNFs

We Can Work it Out - The Beatles

https://youtu.be/IgRrWPdzkao

Quote from "The Princess Bride" - Mandy Patinkin

https://youtu.be/s_t3uDVPiRc

                                                            Family Promise - LINK below

                                                         https://familypromise.org

                                                Habitat for Humanity - Link below

                                                          https://www.habitat.org

amdg

Copyright 2021 JF Sobecki LLC All Rights Reserved

"The Love you take is equal to the love you make"

 - Lennon and McCartney

Flow Like a River

 "You don't push a river it flows by itself."

             - Chinese Proverb

"Become the river."

  - Fritz Perls

"Perhaps the best river runners are Taoists at heart. Taoism considers someone wise

if they accommodate  themselves to the rhythms of the universe."

 - C. Norment

-----

Where Many Rivers Meet

All the water below me came from above

All the clouds living in the mountains

gave it to the rivers,

who gave it to the sea, which was their dying.

And so I float on cloud become water,

central sea surrounded by white mountains,

the water salt, once fresh,

cloud fall and stream rush , tree roots and tide bank

leading to the rivers' mouths

and the mouths of the rivers sing into the sea

the stories buried in the mountains

give out into the sea

and the sea remembers

and sings back

from the depths

where nothing is forgotten.

- David Whyte

-----

River

The river is my savior

She's running to the sea

And to reach her destination

is to simply cease to be

And running 'til you're nothing

Sounds a lot like being free

So "ll lay myself inside her

And I'll let her carry me.

- River  J. Isbell

----

-------

Canto Paradiso 2021 : "Flow like a River"

Perchance things work out the way they are supposed to in the end

Maybe if Dante's ghost knew this he could cease his twilight meandering.

Maybe he was never attentive to the rain 

Or admired the rivers as closely as he should.

Paradise is not across some finish-line

Where numbered runners gather aimlessly standing.

Desert fathers may have been the first to see

Eden is ever-present in the water.

Some say that the Divine was in the water first,

(Before any other thing was)

Her flow, her nourishment, her life giving force,

Her home to creatures who first made her their home,

Her sanctifying baptismal blessing, her welcome to

Pilgrims who bathe or swim in her

Or just witness her majesty from the shoreline.

Without her runners would never run.

Without her sacramental sustenance no thing is.

Without her Ulysses would never have inspired our own pilgrimage.

She knows her own purpose and abides without doubt

Sentient beings lose sight of her holiness

Taking her for granted while trying to control her,

There are pilgrims though who seem to  have been born 

With heart tattoos , reading 

"You don't push a river, it flows by itself. "

They are possibly the illuminated seekers 

Aware that one is always precisely where one needs to be,

Their trust , their faith in the hidden hands,

They fall freely into the generous waters of a eternal life.

Troubadours sing solemnly about the water,

Poets alliterate words of searching souls seeking salvation,

Persistent right minded teachers reach out

To any drowning student of Blake .

"Let go, let go"  greek choruses are heard imploring.

"The purpose of a river is to flow

Emptying herself into a majestic ocean of  mercy."

The old pre-Homeric myths promulgated

Truer stories as true that can ever be told.

Whispering wind voice wistfully whips through the trees

Sanctifying all she touches, saying for ears who chose to hear

"Rivers flow and the sea she waits.

Become the river, let the gift of the bliss carry you."

    - JF Sobecki

-------

Crossing Otter Creek

August sun warms the eddy

Swirling lonely lost feather

Drifting up and downstream

Shadows of hay bales

Guarding muddied banks

on Old Trinity Farm

Faithfully silently waiting

A final harvest 

Before the snow

Hand in hand

the two wade

Stone to random stone

one breath

One beat of a heart

separating the now

from home.

- JF Sobecki (1990)

-----

River Songs

Let It Flow - D. Mason

https://youtu.be/illeTgLbowg

River - Jason Isbell

https://youtu.be/p5bathZEbNU

The Ballad of Easy Rider - The Byrds

https://youtu.be/gKQ0F37LhpM

Take Me to the River - A. Green

https://youtu.be/vGD8aQ2GKr0

Deep River Blues - T. Emmanuel

https://youtu.be/5GE6NeWlFHg

 Bliss and Flow

Bliss - Joseph Campbell

https://youtu.be/s28rwnz18j4

Flow TedTalk - M. Csiksczentmihalyi

https://youtu.be/I_u-Eh3h7Mo

Allen McQuarrie R.I.P.

The First River Runner Who taught me

to "flow"

Lawrence Ferlinghetti R.I.P. 

Thank you for giving us your words which are your rivers 

AMDG

Copyright 2021 JF Sobecki LLC All Rights Reserved

"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry 

because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with 

passion. And medicine , law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and

necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for."

      - Dead Poets Society

The Ballad of The Wolf Moon 2021: ( A Post Covid 19 Reflection)

The Wolf Moon 2021

"I heave myself out of the darkness , slowly painfully. And there I am , and there he is."

       - Jean Rhys

"Goodnight room

Goodnight moon

Goodnight cow jumping over the moon."

- Margaret Wise Brown

"...Now the moon is almost hidden, the stars are beginning to hide

The fortune telling lady has taken all her things inside

All except for Cain and Abel and the Hunchback of Notre Dame

Everybody is making love or else expecting rain

And the Good Samaritan , he's dressing, he's getting ready for the show

He's going to the carnival tonight on Desolation Row."

 - Desolation Row, Bob Dylan

----------

 

The Ballad of The Wolf Moon 2021

 It was the first day of the new year

The pilgrim cowboy's lament sounded familiar

A wayfaring stranger's voice in the wilderness

Everything was supposed to be alright

But the changes continued the devastation

The truth it was told

It was bold, going home

No thing really ever lasts

That dreaded contagion deflated the two on their passage

Energy zapped and drained last dreams of deceiving hope

And the feared but expected news had come...

The immortal king was dead

In their quarantine left to their own devices

An isolation even they could not share

Where to go from here?

What is past is past, now is now, and that's that

The rough riders ready on call

The sacred dome under siege

The brown eyed girl and the pilgrim stared at the screen aghast in shock

That which was once forever might be left behind

The sister and the daughters,

Nightingales in deep disguise,

Bert and Ernie and that solo companion too

All on the road to a distant town called Emmaus

Lifelines cast in love

"You can't save another 

If you can't save yourself"

The mystic junkman of the backstreet singing, singing

The lost angelic choir's voices faded

Saying goodnight to the moon

No time for grandchildren playing 

The innocence of discovery lockdown

Their world has been cheated

Do they know what's been denied?

Does it really matter?

Do they care?

The only sound that can be heard

As the last string snaps as it is wound too tight

Is Cinderella and the pilgrim holding onto the sweet sound

Of that grace of what they once had found

Now there's a point to every story

This is what was Homer once wrote

Every life is a soul searching journey

With a secret divine treasure that might be discovered

Some lose faith on the way , Some just get lost in love

First responders watch for raging fires

The truth burning ever present

Where the eternal spark remains

Each decision has repercussions

The hobo soapbox preacher proposed

Not to decide is to decide

Redemption sometimes comes to to those who wait

Is profound eloquence poetry?

The billboard read "writing is knowing"

What do we know as we aimlessly dance along

On the yellow brick road to a  place called Disneyland?

Detectives probe with constant queries ...

Why one life lives a lifetime or why another is cut too short ?

The answers lie in the sacrament of connectedness

So goodnight moon

Until as the morning is again broken and the race returns.

 - JF Sobecki

------------------------------------------

Morning Has Broken - Cat Stevens

https://youtu.be/3Rifby1tVE8

Wayfairing Stranger - 1917

https://youtu.be/fp7mdSMNQB0

Desolation Row - Bob Dylan

https://youtu.be/jJxtX8M4UVU

Right Back Where we started from - Maxine Nightingale

https://youtu.be/1gbFfLeHNA4

Don't Dream It's Over - Crowded House

https://youtu.be/FTj92GpQABQ

One - H. Nilsson

https://youtu.be/haT8g7oKnns

You Make Me feel So Good

https://youtu.be/ZlnV21PU31s

New York City Serenade - B. Springsteen

https://youtu.be/8EooiBaW1BA

Enjoy Yourself - L. Prima

https://youtu.be/kisr3daNRx0

Midnight Sky - Trailer

https://youtu.be/lwaYSBEiEzs

                                                                 Anton Oliver ( w Otis)

amdg

Copyright 2021 All Rights Reserved JF Sobecki LLC