The True Chapters of Life

Inglorious Burdens

I walk my dogs in the woods each morning and I feel free
Deeply I breathe the air and the trees sing with elation as they fulfill their purpose
I think in my arrogance these tree’s need me but haa, that’s not true
I need them

They stand each day where they were the day before
Secure in their destiny, roots sunk deeply into the ground of their souls
They are silent to my ears as they speak but are not heard
They are blind to my eyes, yet they see but are not seen
One small fellow holds his many feeble branches straight towards the sky
Baring against the weight of time, the corpse of his massive fallen friend
Another fallen one frozen in her last gasp for life, leans against her gentle, strong companion, her cancer ridden roots exposed for the rest to see

A young sapling pushes her way through the hardened winter ground reaching for the warmth of the solstice sun
While one has a barbed wire through the center of his trunk having grown up with this all his life

Their scars are many, born from the hand of man and nature
Both alive and dead they give life to many
I can see and touch all of their scars
As they bare the burden of giving me breath

They stand each day where they were the day before
Secure in their destiny, roots sunk deeply into the ground of their souls
They are silent to my ears as they speak but are not heard
They are blind to my eyes, yet they see but are not seen

Our Life Force

I have tried my whole life to deny, thwart, control and manipulate the sexual fire raging inside my soul.  I’m more certain now then ever before, that this force we call sexual desire, is far more then just a genetic impulse or biological reflex.

Yes, it arouses in us physically and we respond with physical action, naturally.
But at its source, inside each of us, lay more then just a physical drive.
Like our own heart, the source of our sexual drive is the heart of our soul.
Like blood, it pumps the very fuel of our power, creativity, imagination and possibly even our connection to our very existence.

Sexual pleasure is a secondary benefit of this life giving force.
Much like the sun, we bask in its rays and it breaths life into us.
To follow this force at its source each moment and enjoy it, explore it and accept it, may be to touch the finger of God.

But we lack the tools to understand and harness the raw material of our eros.
We either misuse it drying up it’s vitality like the morning dew in the sun. Or we fear it and put moral walls around it as if it were evil itself.

Our eros is as much a part of us as the body itself, and possesses immense power; no wonder we fear it.
In sex we discover the power and direction of our deepest desires.
And within our desires and passions lies the DNA of our souls destiny.
When we try to control it or explain it away in purely physical terms
it morphs itself into a mere compulsion lacking depth, intimacy & power.

It cannot and will not be controlled, ignored or understated.
To do so is to turn our gaze from our own divinity.
To disregard our divinity is to deny a mysterious and immense power within ourselves.
A power capable of giving our lives meaning, but more so love.

dd            October 2015

Great American Pasttime

Faces, a sea of faces
The smell of fried and grilled heart attacks waiting to happen
Voices both loud and small, meek and obnoxious
In that moment make up our ocean

She and I float among this sea of people
Bobbing up and down, waiting for just the right
crack, that will erupt into a swell of exuberance

We rode the wave in together and felt what it was like to be human in a sea
of smiling faces including our own
Our histories would record that insignificant ‘crack of the bat’ moment

And remind us what it meant to be together in this moment as daughter and father

dd- 2011

True Callings

I’ve become a child again
With all its light and dark
I see the world as if I have seen it
for the very first time

I am amazed and in awe at all its possibilities
While also self absorbed as if the world were here for me
Just as a child would be

Yet I have gained some value from age
And I am able to somehow temper what pathology
calls a mid life crisis

From a spiritual perspective, I have found myself
The person I was meant to be, rather born to be
And from this view, I have entered a new land and
can now give myself for a purpose greater then my own
self absorbtion

All I need to do is wait, watch and listen
While being careful not to pathologize, psychologize,
intellectualize or even sensimentalize, what
seems to be a true calling…

dd 2010

Finding Peace

Some days the loneliness is unbearable and
I curse all wisdom, insight or promises of destiny

Some days the sadness is unbearable and
I wish it wasn’t true

Some days the quietness is unbearable and
I can’t believe this is my life

Some days the pain is unbearable and
I ask myself why I exist

Some days the hurt is unbearable and
I realize I never had control…

….suddenly, unexpectedly and strangely
I find peace  …

Silence

I look right, I look left…All i see is sky.
No answers but just space and time that stretches all the way to eternity.

My soul howls with desire. It longs for immortality.  It craves love.  It yearns for passion.

But the silence.  The silence of the sky.  The silence stretches on forever into an eternal beauty.

Mystery Lover

“The mystery lover comes not just to satisfy our sexual longing, but to complete our lives.  Sexual gratification always points to a greater satisfaction of absolute longing.  In sex we are always under the wedding dome, our physical union always a reflection of and participation in a divine intercourse.  We should take our desires seriously, even the most mundane, because they may signal the presence of the angel partner, the deeply interior lover, who alone is responsible for the creation of a life.”                                                                                                                                                  Thomas Moore, The Soul of Sex