Archive
MONDAY’S POEM: Medusa
This past Friday I started another Qigong class; I’m offering a morning class for those finding it difficult to make it to my Monday evening classes. I am enjoying these opportunities to share one of my loves, ancient Chinese wisdom, the Tao and Qigong. Today I mix up a bit of the East with the Greek to explore common understanding.
Medusa
Death to Life.
Composted negative energy
Through the death process
Creating positive energy.
Vital Life Force – Qi!
Medusa’s dark blood births
Pegasus, the Flying White Horse:
Instinct, wisdom, imagination,
Intuitive understanding – Vital Life Force.
Flying Wood Horse Year,
Pegasus rising from Water Serpent,
Medusa. Negative to positive, dark to light,
Death to Life.
©2014 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
MONDAY’S POEM:
My Dad’s birthday was yesterday; he would have been 93. In part to honor his memory I did some shamanic work with a dear friend hosting a circle for study and ritual and journeying. And my own fatherhood and grandfatherhood became a central point to my ceremony and celebration! It reminds me of a Mayan expression about the Holy; my rough memory in crude English goes something like: “We remember you remembering us remembering you”!
So in honor of and remembering Dad, here is a poem I wrote some years ago on his birthday:
A Memory of Dad
It was early morning, maybe 4
A cold March wind blew out
Of the North; drafts found
Their way through thin walls.
Snug in bed under piles of quilts
I heard the back door close tight
Behind him as he went out
To check on the pigs.
The brood sows were ready;
Anytime now they would drop
Their piglets in the scratchy
Straw of the pens.
But this cold night with dawn
Still far away, heat was required
For the newborns to survive.
As always Dad was there.
The Sun was well up when I paid
A visit. The wind was down.
I climbed the fence of the yard and
Entered the hog-house –
And delighted in those soft warm
Wriggling pink lives.
Thanks, Dad!
MONDAY’S POEM: Gaia, The Dark Womb
I am working with a new card deck with artwork by Susan Seddon Boulet and her amazing Goddess images. The other day I drew Gaia; the image, the words about Gaia by Michael Babcock and Lao-Tzu’s Taoteching inspired today’s poem:
Gaia, The Dark Womb
Gaia holds us in all of our empty states:
She bathes our soul in her deep dark water;
She sustains our physical bodies when we emerge
As breathing life in her atmosphere;
And, she welcomes us home into her moist warm
Soul (soil) when we are finished with these bodies.
There she nurtures and gestates us again until
We are ready to free our spirits completely
And merge with her Loving Presence.
©2014 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
MONDAY’S POEM: Heaven and Earth
I don’t know about you but I’m still basking in the energy of the New Moon and the New Year! And it’s going to be a great year; just look at my post last Friday: ADVANCE!
I wrote today’s poem on Lunar New Year’s Day, the 31st, with references to the I Ching Gua I cast for the year and the “moonth.”
Heaven and Earth
Six line, three strong
Heaven below, Heaven on Earth?
Support for the Way
Wood Horse gallops forward.
Six lines, three weak
Earth above, Earth on Heaven?
Lifted upward, floating on water,
Flowing peacefully ever onward.
Six lines, auspicious Gua;
First Gua for the New Year.
Tidal Gua in its rightful place;
Rough ways smooth, returning.
Six lines, Advancing;
Auspicious for prosperity and peace.
Remember, Advancing leads to
Hindrance, Heaven above, returning.
©2014 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
MONDAY’S POEM: Practice
I mentioned in an earlier post this year that my “word for 2014” is Patience. Some days I think it is my word for this lifetime! But I am actually in conscious practice of all Six Paramitas, the Six Transcendent Perfections. My thought-poem for today is my meditation on these Paramitas:
Practice
Generosity begins with self, home.
Giving of oneself, even life itself,
Gains everything: Peace, joy, long-life
And the Transcendent Perfection of Wisdom.
Ethics begin with the mind, thoughts.
When the mind is clear, present,
The words of speech and
The actions of body follow, as does
The Transcendent Perfection of Wisdom.
Patience is the pivot point of all practice:
Anger is the teacher,
Patience is the lesson,
Long-lasting happiness is the path to
The Transcendent Perfection of Wisdom.
Joyful Exertion is the power
Fueled by courage and determination
That propel ordinary beings to Buddhahood,
And the Transcendent Perfection of Wisdom.
Meditative Contemplation is the only
Pathway home, to neutral mind,
To virtuous mind, to True Self,
And the Transcendent Perfection of Wisdom.
Wisdom, the exact nature of things:
All is impermanent,
All that is impure is suffering,
All is emptiness:
The Transcendent Perfection of Wisdom.
©2014 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
MONDAY’S POEM: The Most Popular from 2013: Karma
For the end of 2013 I did a scan of poems I published here on Mondays and discovered the most popular one, by the number of “likes” was Karma. Here it is again; and thanks to all for your following and reading through the year!
Karma
There’s always more to burn:
Fuel to feed the great fire.
Travels through life in the mire
Lead to more lessons to learn.
Brothers of three generations
Differ in extraordinary ways.
Their life-paths twist through a maze;
Destinies driven by their limitations.
Karma is complex to unwind;
The source is a tangle of lives.
The weaving together of so many tribes
Forms a patchwork, one of a kind.
When love is the thread for the stitches,
The patterns emerge in fine hues.
The patchwork of reds, purples, blues
Renders a tapestry depicting life’s riches.
©2013 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
And, have a safe, wonderful, happy and prosperous 2014!
PS: Next year will be wonderful! How do I know? Because I listened to a message from The Divine Feminine channeled by Rosemary on the Winter Solstice; and they offered guidance and advice on what we might expect in 2014 and how to approach the year’s upcoming energy. Expect more change! The transformation continues! If you missed the message it is now available as an MP3 recording for a modest price; check out the details here: Winter Solstice Message
MONDAY’S POEM: Homecoming
I found this poem in a notebook stored from another time. I had written it for our daughter for Christmas exactly 20 years ago . She was coming home from school; and I remembered some of my own homecomings from when I would return from college.
And here it is Christmas again. Many will be coming home; perhaps there will be some resonance with this:
Homecoming
Sitting in the car
Outside the door
Emotions racing
I hesitated.
I knew all would
Be the same.
Nothing changed.
Not all was good;
Not all was bad.
Mixed – like life
I faced my future,
Opened my door,
Stepped out,
Breathed the fresh,
Unchanged country air.
I glanced around,
Saw the familiar
Scene remembered
For so long now,
Beyond remembering.
Time mingled with
Space – things froze.
I broke the spell
With a shake; stepped
Forward toward
The door with the
Weathered knob
And turned it open.
The threshold seemed
A barrier, not an entry.
A gateless gate from now
To the past; to the future?
I needed to know!
So I crossed over;
Inhaled the sameness;
Devoured the love waiting –
I was back home.
©1993 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
Have a very happy “homecoming”!
MONDAY’S POEM: What is Reality?
I ended last week with an exploration of reality. Today’s poem is part of that exploration. I love what both the Heart Sutra and Chapter 11 of the Taoteching have to say about emptiness and form. They say it better than I can ever hope to but here, joining my experience with the magic of crystals and these wonderful sources of deep wisdom is what I have to offer on the subject:
What is Reality?
Is it in the crystalline structure of quartz,
Laced molecules frozen in a matrix
Of beauty, depth, meaning, space and time?
Is it in the atoms of silicon and oxygen
Who breathe life into shapes, designs, pictures,
Faces, vibrations and voices echoing through time?
Is it in the structures of the atoms, whirling bits
Of nothing winking in and out of existence,
Vibrating from nothing to something to nothing in no-time?
Or, is it like the spokes of a wheel that disappear
Around the spinning hub, a matter of perception?
What is real, the spokes or the empty hub?
The still spoke is real. The spinning spoke is not real,
Beyond perception. Form is no other than emptiness,
Emptiness no other than form!
Prajna Paramita!
©2013 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
MONDAY’S POEM: The Crystal Cave
In my meditations I have been doing a lot of traveling lately. There are two ends of the journey, both caves. I wrote about one last Monday. Here’s “part 2” of that poem:
The Crystal Cave
The hollow in the Earth
Is but a gateway to the
Ocean voyage through the
Stars to a distant light
That is just here.
It is a stargate linking
Earth hollow echoing laughter
To the Crystal Cave echoing light,
Reflected light from numberless
Points on the Ocean of Light.
Floating in the very center
Of the Ocean of Light in the
Very center of the Crystal Cave,
Light beings of pure consciousness
Gather expanding their radiance.
The songs of their light echo through
The vastness carrying the
Sparkling ship on its return voyage
Through that stargate to arrive on the
Near shore of the hollow in the Earth.
©2013 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
MONDAY’S POEM: The Cave
On November 18 I published Journey that begins “Beyond the cave.” Today I thought I’d give you a glimpse into the cave!
The Cave
The hollow in the earth
Where it all begins.
The journey to the center,
The space of origins.
The skull, the hollow ring
Of laughter lighting the
Empty eyes with the flame
Of the echoed fire.
The journey, cycles within cycles:
Fodder to food to energy;
Far flight, running, hunting, swimming
Shape-shifting through the chain.
The conference, the High Self
Acting as Guru – Guide for
The long return to source,
Cycling back to the beginning:
The skull, my Guru
Always laughing at life,
Echoing the mirth I feel
At my own stumbling progress.
©2013 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
PS: The New Moon in Sagittarius is tonight, Monday December 2 at 7:22 pm Eastern. I’ll be casting an I Ching Gua to read the energies for the coming month. Stay tuned!
Men and The Goddess 