Can I tell you a story?

One night in Brussels, I was in a bar talking to a young woman. We drank the night away, closing the place down. We decide to go back to her place and watch a movie.

I’ve always loved nights in Brussels. It’s a city of quirks and contrasts. There’s an air of anticipation, longing, serenity, to the night of that city.

We get back to her place and she pulls out a movie (Shrek?) We watch for awhile, I wrap my arms around her, and…

Now, at this point, you’re probably thinking you know what will happen next. And you’re right. Mostly. Remember, chehaw is involved, and chehaw can tease something different out of most any situation.

Writhing and holding and touching commenced on the couch. And that moved into her bedroom. And lots more writhing and exploration took place.

In the midst of, in the throes of passion, lust, hunger, it happened.

The epiphany.

Yes, while I’m looking up into her eyes, the thought of a lifetime hits.

This is how good life can be.

It’s not that I’ve never had that thought. It’s that I’m having sex, not thinking in abstract philosophical realms.

It’s a moment, peculiar, odd, endearing, that I remember vividly now. With a knowing smirk on my face.

I also remember walking home. As the sun was rising over Brussels.

To understand zen, from our friend Mr. Coelho…

Yesterday was a very instructive day.

I had an argument once with a friend. I said I wanted to increase my awareness. She said I was aware enough already.

I let a couple of things at work slip by me. Nothing major, just embarrassing. What happened? Simply put, I let my attention slip, and a couple of small errors were made.

I fell off the zen.

Today, I’m back on. Chastened? A little. More aware? Totally.

That the surface isn’t important. It is.

To a certain extent.

But what lies beneath the surface–the root, the foundation, the soil–is key.

I don’t want to give surface emotions to anyone, especially to someone I care deeply and richly about. I want to give them my root, my soil, my foundation.

Again this morning, they came. They have been fairly quiet recently, here and there. But this morning they came.

The pulses, the waves, that signify the presence of someone in me came as I was still this morning.

I can’t conjure them. I can say the name of the presence, and that won’t draw them to the fore.

They come and they come as they please. They simply are, and I allow them to be. I’ve never attempted to banish them, or punish them.

They simply are in me.

Revolution of heart

Revolution of soul

Revolution of spirit

That hurts

When I drive, I hold the steering wheel, loosely, at 7 o’clock. Mostly. I can’t hold it at 10 and 2, at least for a long time.

Why?

It hurts.

If I put too tight a grip on the wheel, it only takes a few seconds before my hands hurt from gripping it. So I change my hand position to guide the wheel, not grip it to death like I see other drivers doing.

I can’t put a tight grip on my steering wheel. I can’t put a tight grip on anything, or anyone.

(This post was inspired by a chat with a friend and academic.)

I’ve seen a couple of stories where people have build 20,000 square foot houses, only to sell them because they are too big. Or their grown kids aren’t there to fill it out. (The bowling alley, gym and movie theater aren’t enough)

I can build the biggest, most beautiful house in the world. But if I have nothing to fill it with, what does it mean, in the end?

I can live in the most humble, tar-paper-shingle, shotgun shack. But if I fill the house with love, heart and spirit, the outside matters little if the inside is strong.

I can wear a shirt and tie. An Emmitt Smith jersey. A Charlie Brown shirt. Pants with pleats and cuffs. It doesn’t matter. Even if I don’t, at the very least, cultivate and nourish my heart, my soul, my spirit give to someone else, what does what I look like, or the house I’m in, matter?

Not a damn thing.

The furniture in my house does more than matter. It is everything.

I have tried to see it from another perspective, another way.

But I always come back to the place where I am now.

And I am not holding on tight. It–the thoughts, the feelings, the love that remain for someone who does not feel the way I do–is there. Simply. I’ve always allowed it to just be. And it is, just being.

I can’t do what is called for because I don’t have it in me. What I do have in me is wholeness, richness, depth.

Why should I give less than that if I don’t have less in me?

My soil is rich and nourishing. That is what remains, and that I what I give.

What am I?

Am I a mountain? Strong, majestic, but easily scaled?

Am I an iceberg? Surface showing, but the real beauty lying below the surface?

How about both?

The mountain is strong, stable. The iceberg, do you know what an iceberg is? Water. And do you know want water does?

It gives nourishment.

I am not a poet. I hated reading and deciphering them in school

But I’ve been slinging them out lately. All the poems I’ve written, I’ve felt deeply. I want them to be naked, stripped of clothes, pretension, artifice. I want them to display where flows and courses deeply, richly, wholly in my heart and soul.

There are times when I’ve felt like Rocky Balboa. When I’ve been knocked down to the canvas, bloodied, staggered. On one knee, summoning the strength to get back up again. And again. And again.

That thought, that image, brings tears to my eyes. The idea of staying down on the canvas, referee counting me out, never enters my mind.

Living another day, living every day, does enter my mind. And the thought never leaves.

Less of me does not exist. I am whole man, a whole human being. And not one cell less.

–me

For me, to be complete means starving myself of the nourishment to live. And that will never happen.

(See, here’s the thing–my quest for a partner does not involve starving or smothering–or devouring–anyone. It’s the complete opposite.)

Hence…

“In your training, do not be in a hurry, for it takes a minimum of ten years to master the basics and advance to the first rung. Never think of yourself as an all-knowing, perfected master; you must continue to train daily with your friends and students and progress together in the Art of Peace.”

~ Morihei Ueshiba

And this…

“Those who are enlightened never stop forging themselves.”

I’m not saying I’m enlightened. I am saying I will never stop forging myself. And forging myself for the heart of another.

That all this poetry and deep, rich thought would make me dour and a sourpuss like Gordon Brown, the British prime minister.

Hardly.

Let’s just say I remember many a night in Brussels dancing to this song.

And yes, Kylie remains hot.

Last night I took my time.

I had a Kobe beef burger, garlic fries, and two glasses of Syrah. And it took me 90 minutes to eat every morsel and bite, and drink every drop. In other words, I savored it.

Much of life should be savored, used as nourishment, and not devoured, to be used and merely spat out.

I can think of one, um, thing, I want to savor.

It is one thing to say a heart has been taken away.

It is another thing entirely to have your soul taken away.

Where, then, has my soul gone?

To a higher, greater, more special place.

A place, I don’t want to come down from.

I can’t serve others, or myself, if I did that.

I’m not hanging on tightly, suffocating anything.

I am allowing myself to be.

A two-fer (hat tip)

My own words are not the medicine, but a prescription; not the destination, but a map to help you reach it. When you get there, quiet your mind and close your mouth. Don’t analyze the Tao. Strive instead to live it: silently, undividedly, with your whole harmonious being.–Lao-Tzu

To see a man fearless in dangers, untainted with lusts, happy in adversity, composed in a tumult, and laughing at all those things which are generally either coveted or feared, all men must acknowledge that this can be from nothing else but a beam of divinity that influences a mortal body.–Seneca

I’m tryin’…;-)

It feels good to live a lifetime everyday. I only wish to live two–mine, and someone else’s

How good the rain sounds this morning.

Few things are better than a thunderstorm in the middle of the night.

The poetry that I write comes from a place deep in me. I’ll continue to swim in those waters, to see what I can find. And keep pulling up treasure.

It may seem like my talking about the universe and my place in it, and the poetry I write is very prideful. I don’t want it to be. What I want for my words to show is me. In all the colors, layers, and textures that are me.

And I do.

There lies in me so much. So much wholeness. And it is this that I give.

I’ve always been a bit of a restless soul.

I know how to sit still.

Right now, I’m a tad restless.