A Walk

Today, I walked with God, a brother and a dog.
I don't know which of us enjoyed it most.

The dog, ears flapping, feet flying, stopped
for a bite of snow, a sniff at a new scent,
or to have his ears scratched,
saw newness and adventure in everything around him.

The brother, enjoying the energy of the dog,
the small talk and companionship we shared,
saw a possible hunter, game tracks
and the hand of nature.

I, watching my footing, hearing the snow crunch,
enjoying nature's artwork,
saw a precious moment in time to be
enjoyed to the fullest.

And God, thought the eyes of the dog, a brother, and I
Saw it all.

Billy Reid

Bill lives on round legs.
He spends his days in the gardens
reviewing the troops.
He idles away his time
in dreams that can not be.

He was Napoleon.
He will have a motorcycle.
God calls him to the Cosmos
with a rushing in his ears.

He waits for someone
to bring him a cup of tea.
He was Hitler.
He will walk again next year.
The stars whisper secrets
in the hidden corners of his mind.

Bill lives on round legs,
or does he?

Busboy

He took the dirty ashtray
and spun a new one to settle
neatly beside my drink.
We continued to chat
and lower the level in the pretzel bowl.
He passed by again, smiled,
and added another bowl of pretzels
th the already cluttered table.
We ordered another drink
and watched him move among the tables,
invisible, replacing ashtrays, gathering glasses.
Again , he moved our way,
clean ashtrays and dirty glasses on the tray.
Our eyes met, and for a moment
we shared the Cosmic Joke,
an invisible busboy of over sixty summers
and a lady who doesn't drink.

Overstuffed

He came into the restaurant
and sat down on a stool.
His suit was overstuffed,
he bulged out everywhere.
Her laid his case upon the table,
and that was bulging too.
He ordered enough to feed a horde,
and overstuffed his face.
He pulled his wallet out and paid,
while the contents overflowed.
I wonder if his life is as
overstuffed as his person.

There's No One There

He uses us for target practice,
scoring near misses only,
never direct hits.
A direct hit would mean
that we could not be used
as targets anymore.

The funny thing is:
THERE'S NO ONE THERE.

Learning

Sometimes the lessons come so fast

I fear I can not learn.

I must be left along the way,

a failed and broken thing.

But then I stop and realize

the Cosmos knows my pace.

Faith restored, I travel on

staring life right in the face.

Goodbye

When the time comes to say "So Long"
do you linger over it?
not knowing quite what to say,
how to let the other person know that it's OK
without making them feel rejected b you?

Why is so much fuss made over something
which is a normal part of living?
Why are we made to feel guilty if it comes easily?
Should we feel our paths are irrevocably entwined?
Is it sacrilege to walk alone sometimes?

We are conditioned to hang on to everything.
We are so busy being greedy,
grasping at everything that comes our way,
that we are unable to enjoy the things
that pass our way each day.

I don't want to hang on to you
or have you hang on to me
I want us both to enjoy
our drifting past each other,
glad for the contact while it lasts.

Journey Into Being, The Book

Since the 1970's, I have kept a journal of jottings tracking my own journey toward enlightenment, things I have learned, observed and recorded over a 30 year period. In 1982, I compiled them into a small volume for family and close friends (6 copies). Last year, with the passing of a very dear friend, these early jottings came back into my possession.

Due to the extreme pressure from these same family and friends, I agreed to up-date the collection and compile it into a book for publication. Most of the mare rial comes from my early thirties, juggling a career and a life, while at the same time pursuing my personal quest to "become" an enlightened being. I have added more recent material as well, but it is truly a Journey Into Being, A Beginning!
Since I do not believe in putting a dollar value on anything I may have learned that would be of benefit to others, I was in a bit of a quandary, which I solved by setting up this blog and another at My Space At MSN. Between the two sites, I hope to offer things I have learned about life and living it, freely to anyone who may enjoy or benefit from my experiences.

The pressure to publish continues, and with the help and encouragement of family and friends, I believe the book will be ready to print by the end of October. I have found a site that will print and distribute it, taking their fees out of the proceeds for each book as it is printed. In this way, I need not pay any costs up front, making it possible for me to do. My course is being charted by the Creator each step of the way, and I must believe this book needs to be written. Difficulties are being swept away, needed information falls to hand almost before I need it, and the support and help of my family and friends is unending.

It is my sincere hope that my early experiences will help those beginning on their path to have courage and hope, knowing they are not alone. All knowledge resides within each of us. We must simply seek our inner connection to all that is. When we tread our paths with a light and a mirror, we light the way for our footsteps, and hold a mirror to assist others to look inside for their truths.
With love and companionship on the path
...Z

Mad, I Say Mad

Will someone please tell me what crazy is?
Whenever our opinions differ, I'm crazy.
When we agree, I'm brilliant.
If I say nothing, and disagree only in my mind,
then I'm normal, whatever that is.
Are you also the custodian of that definition?

When you are the self-appointed maker
of the rules, there is no way I can stay within
the secret boundaries you set anew for each situation.
This means I can make no move, attempt no
communication without stepping over the invisible moving line,
This must be a very lovely and frustrating place for you to be.

Please mark me down as crazy
and leave me out of the next round.
I'll be too busy just being here.
If you tire of the game
and want to look me up,
just ask anyone where the crazy lady is.

Vegetable Soup

I feel afraid because he is slipping into
nowhere and maybe he can't stop.
I see both his beauty and his need, and
I feel helpless because I can't help him
to hang on and find his way back.
I feel protective because the world is a cold,
cruel place that does not recognize his worth.
I feel exultant when he has a good day.
I feel hopeful that tomorrow will be better.
I feel anger at the world for hurting him,
and at him for letting it.
I can't understand where he is and why
he can't just come back by himself.
I feel inadequate in the face of the demands
put on me by my love for him.
I feel responsible in some way,
but I don't know what I should be doing,
or what I may have done.
I feel his pain and my frustration because
I can't give him my strength.
I feel despair that "Someday" may
never come and today is so long.
I feel empty because I gave all I have
and it isn't enough.
I feel impatient because sometimes I forget
that he can't help what is happening
and I want my needs met too.
I feel guilty because I feel angry, impatient,
frustrated, inadequate and
I know that is not the answer.
But most of all, and through it all,
I feel love and acceptance for him
because he IS, and that
is all that really matters.

An Open Letter To My Daughter

My dear curry and paprika child,
Are you a child?
I look into your eyes, so green, like mine.
Do they see like mine?

I look at you and I hope for a future
As bright and shining as the eyes
That look back at me.

Not without pain, because pain,
As difficult as it may be to bear
Is a part of growing and I want you to grow.

Not without ugliness, because ugliness
Teaches an appreciation for beauty,
And I want beauty in your life.

Not without effort, because effort will
Give you a sense of self-worth,
And I want you to value yourself.

Not without giving, because giving teaches
You to value what you have,
And I want you to learn appreciation.

Not without hardship, because hardship
Refines the spirit and gives you faith in
Your strength and I want you to be strong.

Not without tears because tears are only a
Passing experience which allows you to laugh
And I want you to be happy.

BUT without fear, for fear is a trap that
Would prevent you from tasting the good things of life,
and I want you to live to the fullest.

But without despair, for despair feeds on itself
and would hide you from the sun,
And I want you to live in light.Is yours, reach out and take it.

Tomorrow, with all it’s dreams and promise
Is yours, reach out and tqke it.

Defeat

Eventually, one has to admit defeat,sometimes.

When someone simply refuses to understand,

and persists in finding justification for hatred,

there comes a time that your head

becomes too sore to continue to bash it

against a stone wall.

All that is left is to feel sadness for them

and hope that another place, another time,

they will allow themselves to find happiness.

Perhaps it was not meant to be in this lifetime.

Life in a Bottle

Have you ever wondered what makes a bright and gentle man

watch the world go by through the glass bottom of a bottle?, or

why he feels the need to hide his sensitivity behind the facade of

tough and angry violence, like a suit of armor? or why his mind

is muffled in an overcoat of buffoonery, which having worn for so long,

he finds it hard to shed, even int he warmth of love and acceptance

of him as he really is? Why must we deride the soft and gentle and

praise the tough and harsh to the point that a gentle soul cannot survive

without so much camouflage that the beauty is ruined in the process?

A Train Ride

I stood at the door, staring out at the night,
alone in the crowd, on the train that night.
The stops came and went, the doors closed tight.
My panic rose and I had to fight
the fear that rose in my heart that night.

I felt something wrong, they thought it right
to travel to nowhere, forever in the night.
My heart stood still, I had to alight.
Back again, to where it all began,
the doors opened up and I almost ran.

It mattered not that they felt fine
to stay on the train at the end of the line.
I stepped out with a heart so free.
Most of the others that I could see,
content to ride in the endless night.

The crowd seemed to feel that it was right.
I followed the few who left the train
and felt that all was well again.
We moved along in single file.
I looked and wondered all the while.

The big re-cycler stood alone.
I waked in and was instantly gone.
I watched and saw, overlooking the train,
that it simply all began again.
The choice was mine to leave the train.

I need not ride again and again.
All I needed was to know
and the desire that I should go,
to leave the train and travel on,
to see their fate, and find my own.

Listen

If I talk all the time,
I need not listen to you.

If I think all the time
I need not listen to me.

If I sit so still I can hear the grass grow,
I will learn the secrets of the universe.

I Am Not Crushed

Traveling on the river's current,
I find the distance to the shore
allows a separateness from life
along the shores I travel past.
I see. I care, and help when I can
but I am not crushed.

Sisters

Do bloodlines make us sisters?
Is there some matching process in the genes
that approves or denies sisterhood?

Whole, by blood, I have none,
But, more sisters than blood can make us,
I have many.

Sisterhood is built up slowly
With shared thoughts, shared emotion
and shared memory as building blocks.

Sisterhood grants us understanding, companionship.
Mutual respect, support when we need it
And freedom to explore our won depths.

What the he** is a half-sister>

WA - Harmony

If I could fill my life with just one thing,
This would have to be it.
If I could teach just one thing,
I hope this can be it.

Like the ripples on a still pool,
Disharmony can be created through
Internal or external forces.

Also, like a still pool,
Harmony may be restored
By allowing the ripples to slow and cease.

Let me not create the agitation
That destroys my harmony.
Let me not feed the agitation
created by outside forces.

Let me, instead, allow the ripples to slow then cease,
Restoring my inner harmony constantly,
until the ripples on the surface
No longer affect the depths of the pool.

Rivers

Sometimes I feel like a river
traveling to join again with the sea,
but along the way there is so much.
I pass through a desert, and I want to share
so that the desert may grow green and bloom,
but I can affect only a little of it
and only for a little while.

I pass over the rocky cliffs
of the problems of those I love.
I feel their pain, but I can not smooth the way.
The pain is not mine, nor does it ultimately matter
but still it hurts, not being able to make
their way a little easier with the knowledge
that this too will pass.

Sometimes I become a very shallow river
and fear that I may dry up and never make it home.
Those times, I need to withdraw within my banks
and remember that the floods will come again.
This life goes on until it is over,
just as the river goes on until it joins another,
then on again, growing, learning
and searching for it's ultimate self.

The events along the course of the river
all serve to change, refine and purify it.
As such, they are only temporary
and should be accepted with tranquility.
The problems arise when the river wants to share
it's destiny with those it meets along the way.
There are few traveling in the same direction
and rivers seldom travel with other rivers.

There is great peace in accepting your course,
trying to nurture those you touch along the way,
but there is also great frustration in
not being able to share that peace with others.
My course may change, I may grow wider, narrower,
deeper, or shallower, but always I am still the river
traveling to the next stage of development.

Things Of The Day

There must be a way to share the understanding

that the things of today are only today and have,

as such, no ultimate reality. Since they have no

reality, they should cause only passing discomfort,

and not be allowed to discolor tomorrow.

It Hurts

What urges us on to gather together the great thoughts which

have shaped our lives? Why can two people be exposed to the

same concept and one totally identify with it as a basic rule of living,

and the other simply dismiss it as a few words strung together, of no

consequence? Why do we try, time and time again, to express our

innermost feelings and beliefs in a language which is too inadequate

to even express varying shades of pain?

What do you mean when you say "It hurts."?

It hurts.

Idols

Once I found a guide
and made of him an idol.
I took his light
and used it as my own.
I followed his path
and forgot about my own.
In a patch of sunlight
I began to see his faults
and condemned him for his flaws
that I had refused to see.
I forgot that he had offered
only to lend a light
to see me on my way,
and the idol I believed him
was only in my mind.

The Watcher

The Watcher

I am the watcher.
I see the dreams,
the thoughts,
the hopes and fears
that make up this life.

Sometimes
I forget who I am
and get wrapped up
in the drama
before my eyes.

But then,
again,
I remember,
and again
I am the watcher.