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A Poem for post-election Friday
So, that happened on Tuesday. My feelings are still all over the place; I continue to feel them, process both thoughts and feelings, do my inner work, discuss thoughts and feelings, even prayers, with close associates. I do my Qigong and breathing practices…deep breaths!
And I write. Here’s what came today:
Dig down for the joy!
We must go on and see this through.
“This” may turn out to be ugly.
Maybe we must dig down through the ugly
To find the beauty.
There will be joy in that beauty.
Maybe we need to go through the crumbling systems,
The pillars we believed so strong and tall,
To reach the other side,
To discover the new, better way.
There will be joy in that way.
Maybe we need to let go of the old ways, old beliefs,
Old models and “shoulds.”
There is clarity at the end of chaos.
There will be peace and joy in that clarity.
©2024 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
Sunday thoughts as we head to an election…
Rosemary and I dropped off our ballots yesterday. We mutter about our effect on the Presidential election…Maryland is far from a “swing state” so our votes for President get lost. They will likely be two of millions more that Kamala receives over Trump Nationwide. But those millions may not matter if swings states go a different way by a few thousand votes.
How did we get here? I journaled the following a couple of days ago as part of my continuing quest for answers to hard questions like this one.
Blog post for 10/27/2024
For the most part men are shit; this is more observation than judgment. We can’t help it; we have not been taught any better. We have been raised in and are part of a patriarchy that has lasted at least 5000 years, 200 or more generations. That is a long time, a lot of conditioning, indoctrination to overcome. It is deeply seeded and rooted, and it is self-perpetuating; it propagates through humanity as an unrelenting plague would. All of our institutions support this propagation and sustainment.
There has been some small progress over the course of the last hundred years or so: women have risen to prominence in many fields once dominated by men. But this progress has been small and slow, and it has been throttled and stymied at every turn. The Dobbs Decision is a case in point where progress in women’s rights over their own bodies has been stopped cold. And the men who would want to stop all women’s progress are still in powerful positions; they have too much, through greed and the perpetuating patriarchy, power and resources.
The election of Kamala Harris to the Presidency of this country could have a hugely positive impact on progress toward equality and freedom. This would have a worldwide impact, but is it possible? I can hope it is possible, but the opposing forces are strong. The money don’t want this to happen. The powerful men don’t want this to happen. And their influence is broad and deep.
How do we overcome 5000 years of power and prejudice? It is not clear to me, despite my hope, that there has been enough time to create a lasting shift. Even if a miracle sees Harris rise to the White House, remember the reaction to the election of a black man in 2004 and 2008. It was fierce; it created MAGA.
I hold out as much hope as I can muster.
I am blessed with this hope and positivity.
All the best for all of us!
My Message from the “Divine Feminine” on October 15, 2024
Rosemary held a “Conversation with The Other Side” on October 15 and I got a message I’ll be working with for a long time. It actually does fit with this blog and at least some of my intention to start it many years ago.
First, here’s the message:
Rosemary: All right. Another poet, another writer another creative. I’m hearing: Just do it. But I also am seeing a future-self asking for something from you, asking for it to come out. It’s not… It may not be a future You. It’s somebody from the future who is saying they want to have study groups to work with the material that you’re here to bring in.
Richard: Yeah.
Rosemary: If you would bring it in, please. And so, sitting on it doesn’t help them in the future. So they’re really asking you to write your poetry, bring your poetry, bring it into books, write books, write blogs, get material that comes through you. You’re one of the… I’m hearing pioneer elders. It’s like a different kind of an elder and the wise man and you it’s like time is running short for you to get everything downloaded that has to come in.
Richard: I know.
Rosemary: So can you please get it downloaded and out, download and out, download and out. That seems to be another theme from tonight. Download it and get it out. Okay. And it may not look the way you’re planning in your head again, another theme. But if it comes into your heart and you just receive it and get it out. Receive it and get it out, no matter what that looks like. Don’t worry about the form on the outside, just like we’re telling the artists. Don’t worry about it. Don’t think through. Just allow, allow, allow. And when you accept, Richard, that you are the elder. that you have been the wise one. I know that you know groups of other wise men, elders, but you’ve been on the path raising your frequency, lifting your consciousness really evolving. and the more you put that out there; beg pardon…
Richard: A long time.
Rosemary: A long time. but it’s not good enough for that to be just for you. And so It’s not even just the poetry. But it’s about the journey, the evolutionary part that men can do it right. That’s the important thing. You can help men figure it out. Yeah. And you’re here to do that.
Okay? All right.
Here is my first response that I downloaded today:
So, the message from the Divine Feminine during the CwTSO on 10/15/24: I am to download content for men and for some men in the future; they are calling for it. And it seems to be more than poetry. “Poetry, books, blogs.” I am a “pioneer elder.” The form does not matter – download and get it out!
So, what is a “pioneer elder”?
I am a man working to better understand what it is to be a man in the 1st quarter of the 21st century. There are many models for this – good and not so good. President Obama vs. President Trump: a very poor pair of examples, but they are clearly modeling behavior of men (not necessarily for men). They are in sharp contrast: a black man who rose to the Presidency from humble beginnings, a scholar, orator, Harvard Law School graduate, Constitutional law expert, family man. We have little insight into his spiritual life. He has seen and known a lot, waged war, indirectly killed.
Trump is nearly the exact opposite.
What are the lessons in these contrasting men? One is the bringer of hope; a forward looking evolutionary who would guide a nation toward a higher standard. His single greatest achievement was “Obama Care” that brought health insurance to 40 million people. He also pulled us out of a deep recessionary period.
The other is the reactionary regressive who would pull us back into the darker times of the 50s, even back to segregation and the repression of women (the first step here was the Dobbs Decision). How is he even a choice in the election of 2024? How did we get here?
There is a lesson we have not yet learned as a nation: desegregation of the 60s was difficult and incomplete. The election of Obama was an amazing accomplishment but triggered an extreme reaction that powered the regression and countered integrative momentum. It gave voice and semi-legitimacy to racial hatred that has been an underlying offense since the founding of the country; perhaps since the emergence of humanity.
Humans have been at each other’s throats for a hundred thousand years (what did happen to the Neanderthals?)!
Yet I hold out hope! I came across this quote while preparing my Qigong class for Saturday:
A human being is part of a whole,
the “Universe.”
Our task must be to free ourselves
from the delusion of separateness,
to embrace all living creatures
and the whole of nature.
— ALBERT EINSTEIN, PHILOSOPHER AND PHYSICIST, TWENTIETH CENTURY
In other words, “what I do to another I do to myself.” What if we lived by that creed? Could it be that simple?
A New Poem for Monday: Radical Forgiveness
I have not written here in a while because I have not written any poetry in a while. For this I forgive myself and hope you will forgive me too.
I’m working with a new and fun oracle deck, “Guides of the Hidden Realms Oracle” by Colette Baron-Reid. Yesterday I drew “The Alchemy of Poison” – here’s the image:
So you can see where I got the title of today’s poem; and my question.
I have been receiving multiple signs and messages that I have been neglectful in not writing. So to deepen my exploration of “radical forgiveness” I wrote about it and turned my musings into this simple answer:
Radical Forgiveness
What is “radical forgiveness?
I think it’s finding forgiveness for everything—
All misdeeds,
All slights and oversights,
All mistakes from the past, now, forever;
All times, events, actions
When I have missed the mark,
Fallen short,
Left so much undone.
All this applies to
All around me who are
Falling short as well,
Whether toward me or
Toward others, or
Toward themselves.
Radical forgiveness is a practice
To repeat over and over again.
It is not for the one slight,
One time; it is for
All slights for
All time.
Weekly, daily, moment to moment,
Practice radical forgiveness.
©2024 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
Happy Poetry Month!
So, this was fun: Laura Di Franco, to celebrate National Poetry Month, is hosting a series for her authors, especially those of her compilation, “100 Poems and Possibilities for Healing” to read a poem from the collection. Here’s my recording with her where I read “A Speculation on Perfection”
A Saturday Poem for February 17, 2024
Hello, Friends! I’ve missed being here with you. I’m back for a bit, who knows how long. Today’s poem touches on this.
Yesterday was my Dad’s birthday; he would have been 103. And I visited a dear friend who is in a rehab center and in hospice care. He seems to be slowly slipping away not unlike how my Dad left the earth plane. I wrote in my journal when I returned from that visit and this poem kind of fell out as I reviewed the day and thoughts and lives I touched. Don’t worry, it’s not melancholy. See if you can slip into a sweet place with this:
Long Life
The comings and goings,
The rises and falls
Are endless–
Part of the pattern of the flow
Of consciousness.
And the flow is just now,
And only now.
Just this: the slow,
Long vibration
of All and Nothing.
Just this: It is an
Infinitely long and
Infinitely short vibration
Of Empty Allness.
It is so slow it seems
To be fully at rest.
It is so fast it seems
To disappear into that
Emptiness from which it
Arises now.
It is the quick “hello”
And the long “goodbye”
All wrapped in the
Blessed bliss of
This.
©2024 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
I AM a published poet!
January 9, 2024
The book is live today. You may purchase an ebook version (kindle or otherwise) for the low introductory price of just $1.99. But act soon as this price is only available for about a week. Order here on Amazon:
Remembrance: a poem about surrender
I’ve been in a soft place lately pondering my resistance to a chant that Deva Premal and Miten offer frequently during their Gayatri Sangha gatherings on Saturdays. The chant is one Miten wrote: “Into your hands I lay my spirit, Into your hands I lay my life…” When Miten wrote this years ago he did not realize these were basically the final words attributed to Jesus as he was dying on the cross.
So, my resistance is partly a result of my Christian background and my own negative reactions to the conditioning I am working through and beyond. And a piece (peace) of the “beyond” is to soften if not release the resistance.
As I contemplated this yesterday the Sufi chant, the Zikr (Remembrance) came to mind; I learned this during my seminary days and have often embraced it as a comforting prayer: “La Ilaha Illa Allah.” And then it finally hit me: if there is no reality but God, then anything I chant or recite is part of that godliness!
Here’s a poem to explore this:
Remembrance
I feel a distance that is not there,
separating, carving an empty gulf
that’s not real, only imagined in a
foolish mind.
As the distance narrows, disappears,
I sense resistance pressing hard to
release the powerful pull of a
longing heart.
As the resistance softens, collapses,
remembrance grabs my wandering
soul. The Sufi Zikr lights the way
showing all I need to know.
Mergence is that simple way, no distance,
no resistance, only remembering:
There’s no reality but God;
There is only God.
©2023 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
A Winter Solstice Poem: My Life as a Poem (revised)
Revision: As I reviewed this post sorting through my word docs and rereading the poem (reviewing my life!) I realized I had left off the last verse (a cut and paste error)! So I have added that verse back in. How could I forget “love”? The poem (my life) is now complete.
In October I wrote “My Prayer” in the form of a poem. These words have stuck with me; they pop into my mind frequently during the day as I practice life. So I’m not surprised at this reprisal, an echo of that prayer as I wrote this poem on the Solstice and Conjunction.
My Life as a Poem
Waking to my day, a new page,
The threads of a dream drift away
On the winds of another life,
A poem gone now, glimpsed, forgotten.
Today a new dream begins, a new
Story of my own creating,
Speaking to the future, trusting in
The worthiness of these words.
Practice, it all begins and ends there.
Story is practice, a moving toward
Perfection, evolving with a rhythm;
Sometimes involving a rhyme.
With repetition the story evolves
Into a poem: my life as a poem.
For slips and slights I practice
Forgiveness – changing my perception.
Sometimes the words don’t come,
Resisting the page refusing to flow.
For the hesitance, the lurches I practice
Patience – waiting on the muse.
Regretting all that I have lost, resenting
What has been taken or misplaced;
For the destruction and death I practice
Praise – remembering life is ecstatic!
The suffering millions weigh heavily on my heart;
Stafford got it right when he said:
“The darkness around us is deep.” I practice
Compassion – wanting to save with my words.
These words may not be worthy as those of
The Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon. Yet, I read
And weep and rejoice and sing. And I practice
Wisdom – moving toward the light.
For all the grace, the wisdom, the compassion
I reach for words to reflect the deep.
I look up at the moon and practice
Gratitude – knowing they’ll appear complete.
At the end of the day, practice done
I realize I have one more line to
Write, one from my heart; and I practice
Love – the Love Poem of My Life.
©2020 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
A Friday Poem: My Prayer
A few weeks ago I enjoyed several offerings by the Shift Network during their Global Summit. One of the most profound talks was by Andrew Harvey, a “modern mystic” for our times. His talk was an impassioned call to address the five crises humanity faces, and the five responses that are required to bring about a new paradigm for our survival on the planet.
I’ve been working on my responses. One of them is a prayer to bring about the new paradigm, the new way for humans to evolve and thrive on Mother Earth, a New Vision for Humanity. Here is my prayer:
My Prayer
Sitting in the midst of chaos,
Anger bubbling beneath the waves,
I practice: Forgiveness!
Wondering at the edge of time,
Anxiety rising to the surface,
I practice: Patience!
Feeling the loss of all that’s dear,
Grief hanging heavy all around,
I practice: Praise!
Witnessing the suffering everywhere,
Greed holding power in the world,
I practice: Compassion!
Knowing humanity is evolving now, with
Ignorance still shading the light,
I practice: Wisdom!
Realizing there is a greater good at work,
Trust breaking through to ignite souls,
I practice: Gratitude!
Awakening to a New World together,
Love shattering these old patterns,
I practice: Love!
©2020 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
Men and The Goddess 