Tag / Awareness

by J M Greff

August 21

Today we enter into the final moments of what I truly hope has been an incredible season of change for each one of us.

I have been working on personal growth and change for a long time now. Years. What I am doing here is just the beginning of the task I have set myself.

As the eclipse passes keep your intentions, the person you want to be, the person you know you are, close to heart. Know, without a doubt, that during this sacred time we are closer to the Divine than we will ever be. That She is listening. That She knows our hearts. That She will listen to every single one of us. That this is as close as we will ever get to truly choosing the direction of our path. To choose who we really are. That the Divine will help us because She want us to be those people. Because She loves us.

It doesn’t matter if you’re in the outer edges or nowhere near this event because it’s a global event. Literally. Our moon blocks the sun and our planet lines up behind the moon.

You can not say you weren’t there.

We will all be there.

I’ll see you on the other side.

by J M Greff

Beyond here be Monsters

rio.grande.nm

A little piece I wrote this seveal years ago when I was facing the necessity of rejoining “civilized society” after being off-grid and pretty much off the map for a time.

It’s interesting to go back in time and find these little sparks that encouraged the flame within that burns so bright today and to recognize the dark places they came from.

The lesson for me is clear; embrace my past and be grateful for what I learned. But never go back.

___________________________

Here, at the edge of the world, I find contentment and chaos. Old friends, both. Neither expected nor warranted.

I find myself frozen in this pivotal moment. Momentum gathers with the clouds that seem determined to follow.

Not long ago I sent them back to spread their seed of malcontent upon the shoulders of those who manipulated. The cries of their masters, now quelled by the wind that always lives in the canyons where I take refuge, were never heard. I cry instead for them.

Here, where the Universe Herself sings with such beauty that my soul aches to touch Her just once again. Such things may not exist.

Here, I am at peace.

Here, standing at the brink, I wonder; Stand or Fall.

Beyond here lay the rest of the Pack, ferocious and cunning and ready. I will join them for now, but they will know; I do not belong.

My guise will last, my purpose will be fulfilled, and I will flee to the Refuge of Love with Life renewed and Balance, at long last, achieved.

I will stand.

Light within.
Love and Life beside.

The view at the edge really is not so bad.

 

Image by J.M.Greff

by J M Greff

All is well

Frustration has gotten the best of me
I rest my head
On this little couch
In my little home
Close my eyes
Blurred with tears
Weary from failures
Too many times seen

I am exhausted
Sleep crawls over me
Emotions
Like a hard rain
Fall on me
Where dreams of you
Drift out from the cracks in my soul
Left open
For you to seep in
Like a healing mist

You fill the voids
The empty places
Fill me with hope
Desire
Passion
Love

I wake hard
Touching myself
With apprehension
Fear that I have been alone too long
Fear I will fail
Overreact
Fear of the known
The unknown
Fear of my Self
Fear of fear

Then a calm
Like a blanket
Falls on me
As I feel you here with me
I let go
Let you in
I release fear
Embrace love
Breathe you in

My mind fills with thoughts of you
In my arms
My bed
My home
My life
My heart
My soul

I see what is
What can be
If we let it
It is good
And all is well

 

 

 

 

Image: “The Sourse of Inspiration” by Artem Chebokha

by J M Greff

Change

Devon

I stand in awe
as I face this sea of change
It is infinite
yet in its eternity lay a single course
I am meant to follow
though I can not see
I am scared
afraid that I may drown
in its vastness
Or become lost
in its unfathomable depth
I have no idea
what tomorrow will bring
What shore I will arrive upon
What distant island
I will call home
My life is like this sea
I can not point and say,
“Here is where I begin”
“There is where I end”
It is a swirling mass
of endless change
Some planned
Some not
Some I desire more than anything else
Still others could put those desires at risk
Most unknown
Change is what it is
It is change
It is inevitable
It happens whether we want it or not
I want it
So I embrace that change
in whatever form it takes
even though not all
is what I want
or expect
I accept
I can not see
how to get through this day
or where it will lead me
I only know that I will
That Now
is all that ever exists
and that the path
will always lead me home

 

 

Image: “A moment to reflect” by Andrew J. Smith

 

by J M Greff

I am like the river

IMG_5862

I wake, alone, always alone, and wonder; why does it have to be like this?

I move slow, zombie like, to the kitchen dragging a handful of clothes which will be my armor this day. Too thin to keep life’s pains from intruding. Just enough to hide them.

It is too late in the morning to stretch my body and mind. Too late even for coffee.

Half dressed, I look down to Brown Dog, my traveling partner for these last twelve years, though he is going on fifteen or sixteen or I-don’t-really-know-what-teen since I picked him up as a feral stray, and I smile. I admire him. He is always ready to love and be loved.

I celebrate his birth along with my own in November which looms ever closer. I will be 54. How the fuck did that happen?

I make the time to love him then let him out the back door and shuffle to the front while pulling a dirty shirt over my head (too late now to find a clean one) and let myself out.

As the day progresses, the loads of water going from my truck to the road we are building keeps time like a slow moving metronome, those morning thoughts continue to intrude.

Surely I’ve learned the lessons that earn me the right to love and be loved? Surely the person I am now, regardless of my past, is worthy? Surely I deserve that most basic of all rights? Why am I such a failure?

I get ahead of the work crew and park my truck by the river that supplies the water I get paid to make the roads muddy with and walk to an overlooking edge.

I sit and breathe. Deep and slow.

I allow those thoughts to flow like the water that passes in near silence in front of me. I listen to and acknowledge each of them; “You are not worthy”… yes, I understand that’s how you feel. “You do not deserve”… it’s ok to feel like that. “You will never be happy”… it’s ok.

Each thought repeated with the impact and clarity gained through years of practice. Each identified, acknowledged, validated then treated with the same care and compassion I would offer another and released.

They are just words. Labels. They mean nothing.

Slowly, with practiced patience, the thoughts are reduced to a whisper and are replaced by the sound of the wind, a trickle of water, the birds, the rotation of the earth through the cosmos.

I slowly open my eyes and watch the gentle flow of the river and, without thought, begin to understand; The path I am on is like this little river that cuts its way through miles of prairie. It’s sweeps and bends the altered courses of my life. Its flow from past, through present, and towards the future.

I see my reflection in the surface. Static. Unmoving. It is in this static image that those thoughts live but it is an illusion. Beneath the surface the water is constantly flowing as it slides past stones and cuts its ever changing course through the prairie.

If I were to submerge myself in those slow moving waters, become one with it, there would be no past, no future, no false reflections, only a sense of Now. Eternal. Dynamic. It has no beginning. No end. It flows to the sea. Evaporates. Returns as rain. Flows.

It is that sense of Now, that never ending cycle, that I strive for in my meditation. Yes, the thoughts remain. My mind, like everyone else’s, never ceases its rumination and contemplation and formulation. It mutters incessantly.

But today, right now, I am like the river.

 

 

 

 

Image by JMGreff

by J M Greff

Eden

West-Texas-oil-fields

Eden

I suppose in my mind,
that clanks like the tiny brass gears of a broken clock,
that Eden is in the eye of the beholder.
For many,
Eden is a quantitative term.
“A place of non destructive production.”
While others might maintain,
“It is where the waters run cool
and clear the ghosts that visit and stray.”
Or  “A place where once,
at least for a time,
everything seemed right in faith and facts.”
But I have been there.
It was the noisiest place cloaked in silence I have ever been.
The Eden where need
is replaced by absolute greed.
Where hunger is fed
with solitude.
Where the meek remain meek
and the holy are not.
I have now,
I think,
travelled far enough apart
from the Eden of my past,
as viewed through the eyes of my youth,
to come to that place
where quiet desperation
is replaced by inspiration,
where “eden” is just a word,
and the wisdom of lifetimes
can be found in a song.

 

Poem began in 2010 while working in the oilfields of West Texas and finished tonight.

Satellite image of West Texas oilfields.