Mandalas And Angels

     Last December I was going through a tough stretch. I felt strung out, anxious, depressed. So I took some creative time off and started a drawing. What came forth was a colorful, balanced, luminous mandala--the very antithesis of all the difficult issues and emotions with which I'd been struggling! Working on it was the perfect mental, emotional and spiritual therapy. As I pondered the mandala I'd just created however, I realized my artwork needed a chaotic, Dionysian Yang to counterbalance the mandala's harmonious, Apollonian Yin. The completed drawing below is the result. A few days later I wrote "Genesis" its companion poem. This poem articulates my own interpretation of the meaning, relationship and dynamic involving these two contrasting elements in the artwork. But that doesn't exclude the validity of other interpretations as well. What does the interplay of these two contrasting energies mean to you?

"Genesis"

                        GENESIS

I stake my soul on a Light I cannot see using just

everyday eyes     I gamble my bones on a Birth

that's impossible     yet keeps happening anyway

these are harsh times to be playing the Holy Fool

nevertheless I bet the farm     no going back now

which doesn't mean I don't stare into the abyss

don't hear there a howling that craves to destroy

horror's in me so deep it sucks ecstasy from death

but having a choice    I choose the serene Shining

a voice in my heart unclenches    shouting "Yes!"

then a wild universe of green worlds bursts free

each spawning life    abundant life    infinite life!

everything dark and raging inside's only a womb

its fierce emptiness aches to be filled   so I fill it

I nourish it with the radiant manna of the Divine

                                ***

     A few months ago I hit a creative wall with my writing. This has happened before. I realize whenever it does it means I must change, must once again reinvent myself as a poet. This is the only way I know to keep my creative spirit green and growing. The direction of change this time pointed toward the prose poem--a tricky, ambiguous, unfamiliar form occupying a shifting borderland somewhere between the airy flight of poetry and the earthy stride of prose. So one day I spontaneously jotted down a list of 30 short, basic, commonly used words, such as "lamp", "branch", "face", "stone", etc. These words each provided both a title and a theme for one or another of the prose poems. And since the first word which came to me was "lamp," that word became the title for the series as a whole. A few days later the poem "The Lamp"  inspired the drawing which concludes this blog entry. As has happened at other key turning points in my life, a guiding Angel appeared in a vision to show me the good green path of the way. 

                          THE LAMP

     it's held aloft in the right hand of an Archangel     one who stands silently    expectantly     I don't know what this Messenger wants     but those unblinking eyes never leave my face     the enormous distance between us!     the impossible closeness between us!     the beams from that Lamp penetrate like an x-ray     every thought   feeling   desire   mercilessly revealed

     I can turn away     walk away     run away at any time     but I can no longer not realize I'm doing this     no longer not know that each step farther from that Lamp     from the Sentinel holding it     means more cracks splinter my heart     more phantoms poison my soul     my freedom to choose is devastating and unconditional

     so I endure the staggering intimacy     though this nakedness leaves me exposed   defenseless     I know I am seen    encompassed    transcended to the innermost core!     it's almost beyond what I can bear     but what I cannot bear is worse     if an Archangel no longer stood at the crossroads of my being     holding out a Lamp to drive back the dark

                              ***

"The Lamp"

***



More Companion Poems/Artworks

    Usually my companion poems and drawings are created very close to each other in time, whichever comes first. In the following instance however, the poem "Nectar" (which appears in my book BLACK BUTTERFLY: Poems For A Muse) dates from over three and a half years earlier than its companion drawing, "The Music From On High." I can't explain why in this case it took so long for the drawing to join its companion poem.

                       NECTAR

To hear the music falling from on high,

you must climb alone, without a lifeline,

to the highest place. There is no other way.

And this ascent will cost you everything.

To sip the nectar of the gods, you can't

still be what once you were--self-obsessed,

walled up behind the ego's armor, terrified.

Only nakedness and emptiness will serve.

At first, there's silence--serene, immense,

profound. Listen. Every wind has stopped.

Breathless beneath that dome of solitude,

you no longer doubt. Finally, you know.

Words cannot describe this music. Even

thought is pointless now. You've become

the melody--it inspires every part of you.

Soaring free, nothing remains but praise!

                           ***

"The Music From On High"

***

     Last year I did a series of eight co-created collages with a friend, four of which we then supplemented with co-created companion poems. It was one of the most amazing creative experiences of my life! Sadly however, shortly after this we had a falling out and she chose to make that estrangement permanent, abruptly severing all contact between us. This left me stuck in grieving and struggling for closure. Thankfully, another friend suggested I create one final collage by myself as way of finding both personal and artistic closure to this intense collaborative communion of souls. This I did with the collage "Finding The Final Frontier" below, then quickly followed it up with a companion poem with the same title. The poem is dedicated to my friend Cara, who understood what I needed to do to heal.

"Finding The Final Frontier"

FINDING THE FINAL FRONTIER

(for Cara)

when the pain suddenly erupts and you're splashed

with its fiery lava you stand stunned for a while in shock

disoriented    not even realizing your soul's on fire

till your own shadow points to the blaze of the wound

then you grieve so hard your face feels like it's cracking

as your hands grope helplessly among the wreckage

but they don't really look like your hands anymore

just occult symbols splayed on some prehistoric wall

eventually though a kind of hushed formal dance begins

cooling your cindered brain    spreading its healing balm

soothing the still-scorched synapses    out of nowhere

a face-painted shaman chants a prayer and casts a spell

now a violet anemone blooms from drowned ashes

that exotic bird with bright blue beak squawks its news

surely there's welcoming haven somehwere in the world

a primal hearth waiting    its dooryard swept clean

when a woman presses her cheek against a pony's neck

she's saying "I love you" in language deeper than words

when a panda smiles with a stalk of bamboo in his mouth

he's saying "everything that lives is born from joy!"

***

The Interplay Of Poetry And Art

   

     For many years my poetry and art have engaged and inspired each other. Sometimes a drawing will inspire a poem ("ekphrasis"); at others the reverse--a poem will be the catalyst for a work of art (as far as I know, there's no technical term for this). These are expressions of two different sides of my being which nevertheless are deeply interconnected. Each is a distinct creative medium--one more imaginative and abstract, the other more sensory and concrete. Dancing together, they illuminate a holistic and multifaceted vision of reality. Following are two recent examples of this personal creative collaboration. In the first instance, the drawing inspired the poem. In the second, it was the poem which came first.

                       Night In The Badlands

                 NIGHT IN THE BADLANDS

nothing's here   and it's everywhere   an absence

to be seen   and heard   in the chasms   the cliffs

that is   if there was anyone   to watch   to listen

a pitiless moon stares down   bleaching the rocks

they look eerily like ancient bones stacked in piles

and stars   so many!   bright   close   coldly burning

something vital to know   that such a primal place

exists   that it still goes on   implacably   without us

without any trace of us   thought of us   need of us

no one would try to build a Wal-Mart on this spot

nobody would shop here if he did   come morning

only a solitary hawk rides the thermals high above

                                  ***

                                     "Meanings Dart Away"

                 WAYS OF KNOWING

what's speakable diminishes year after year

until just a few  small  wordy  islands  remain

thrust up like summits of submerged mountains

here's a peak that praises the first green shoots

heralding spring   their lean   tight   eager buds

intrepid daffodils already probing the chill air

another's transfixed by a mourning dove's cry

one long note   two short   intimate as waking

I can't decide where they leave off and I begin

not that my heart finds less and less to move it

rather   what happens strikes deeper   stranger

meanings dart away   a swarm of luminous fish

I breathe with the ocean now   not the land

with huge   empty   wordless   heaving   spaces

with night   which can never explain all its stars

                               ***

    If you'd like to see many more examples of the work of writers who are also artists, I recommend THE WRITER'S BRUSH: Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture by Writers, by Donald Friedman, 2007, Mid-List Press, ISBN 978-0-922811-76-2.

Exploring The Mystery

Creatures arise, creatures vanish;
I alone am real, Arjuna,
looking out, amused, from deep
within the eyes of every creature.

I am the Self, Arjuna, seated
in the heart of every living creature.
I am the origin, the middle
and the end that all must come to.

                      -- The Bhagavad Gita

      Here are three recent poems of mine. Each, in its own way, explores the mystery of the soul.


                       ALL OUT

what stammering of mine could express so much
as the rain's palaver this morning on my window
or a gust's hoarse whisper through bare branches?

I guess I'll have to conjure some half-baked excuse
to keep fussing with this poem anyway    admitting
I can never communicate as purely as the weather

maybe I should take my cue from the cawing crows
their gutteral slang's the language of thunderheads
it's sinewed with such rich veins of night and death

wide awake    living all out    precariously balanced
at this bitter    exhilarating razor's edge    how else
can I profoundly know you      tell you who I am?

                              ***


             NOT A STONE OR A STAR

I hang out here between the stones and stars
not cold    shuttered    contained    unreadable
nor hot    outpouring    flagrant    unquenchable
but a sort of funky hodgepotch of this and that

there are times I yearn to grab and kiss you!
or fold you like an origami bird into my heart
at other's though   I don't love anything human
my profile's a headland pounded by breakers

try as I might   I can't pin this weird self down
the longer I scrutinize my soul the less I know
I'm disappearing into a Light that consumes me
not a stone or a star but a mystery fusing both

                             ***


                      HARRIED AWAKE

just as I stepped from the car a flock of starlings
swooped in low right over my head!       at that

split second I stopped being a sullen sleepwalker
stuck on autopilot    humping to the supermarket
mindlessly slipshodding ever faster toward death

at that split second I was harried from my stupor
swept up out of nowhere by one ecstatic breath
snatched into the outrageous freedom of the sky!

which state was the illusion      which the reality?
why are we all still sleeping?   Time To Wake Up!

                               ***


Holy Spirit
giving life to all life,
moving all creatures,
root of all things,
washing them clean,
wiping out their mistakes,
healing their wounds,
you are our true life,
luminous, wonderful,
awakening the heart
from its ancient sleep.

                -- Hildegard of Bingen

What Keeps Me Sane

Hard to find words in poems
                    to carry amazement:
on its ninety-thousand-mile wind,
the huge inner bird is soaring.
O wind, do not stop --

                              -- Qingzhao

     These past many weeks have been tough ones. My brother's been very sick-- hospitalized, then mostly bedridden in a rehab center. Because of his family situation, I had to step into the point position, phoning from Kansas City to New Jersey several times a week; trying, long distance, to serve as his health care advocate. Sometimes I wasn't sure which was the bigger obstacle, his several serious health issues, or the mind-numbingly dysfunctional health care system which is supposed to help him heal. He's home now, thank God, and slowly starting to piece his life back together again, although he still has a long way to go.

      Meanwhile, now I have to piece back together my own focus, energy and commitment as a creative artist. Fact is, by the holidays I just didn't have anything left in the tank, I was totally drained dry. I'd sit in front of my computer, "reporting for duty," then stare numbly at the blank screen--zero inspiration, zero motivation, zero concentration. But as any true writer knows, if you just don't have it, there's no use trying to force it anyway. The result will be dead in the water.

     Yesterday however, my desperation finally trumped my exhaustion. I found myself obsessing on my own mortality, dreading the latest undeniable signs of an aging animal gradually but inexorably slipsliding toward death. I was stuck in a negative thought loop, plunging into depression, flirting with despair. As daunting as the blank computer screen still seemed, I realized anything was better than all that awful brooding!

      Then something amazing happened: as soon as I typed the first groping, imperfect, but authentic line, my sense of dread disappeared! In facing my worst fears head on, writing about them, beginning to transform them into art, I was aligning myself with an inspiring, creating, transforming Spirit which is also the eternal Essence of who I most profoundly am. And that Spirit transcends even death. After several more hours of serious, hard-nosed revising, editing and polishing, the completed poem represented both an artistic expression and a spiritual catharsis:

             ITS HUGE BREATHING

against the sickening dread    which seems

inescapable   this bottomless void gaping

inside   an indisputable proof I'm awake

one living thing watching itself slowly die

what saving talisman will keep me sane?

there is no magic charm    just a choice

nor any graspable rescue either   only Spirit

when Its huge breathing shivers through me

I know a Reality that transcends even death

out tumble these bloody births called poems!

                            ***

     "just a choice"--  Either I identify with my mortal, limited, creaturely self--the animal ego which, no matter how temporarily robust, famous, rich or powerful, inevitably must die; or I wake up at last and wholeheartedly embrace that invisible but eternal Spirit which is the inspiring, creating and renewing Source of all I am. Whenever I'm able to do so; whenever I commit any act of unqualified creativity, then I myself become a living conduit of "the force that through the green fuse drives the flower." My cringing dread is swallowed up in cosmic praise!

             SONG OF THE PROBING SHOOT

Thrusting up and outward, groping toward the Light--

a green shoot, a tunnel quivering between worlds,

a wormhole for elemental forces. Stripped on down

to the bottom line, we are this--the bravest edge

of Spirit, the farthest flung probe of consciousness.

Which means here, where I am now, facing you,

naked, utterly exposed, bare to the innermost bone,

aware of my own terror, aware you're perceiving it,

aware there's no hiding, no bluffing, no disguise,

that beyond the cleverest word games, this is Real!

What will the brain babble next? What can it try,

how get a grip on the Unknown, the Incalculable?

We shiver at these crosshairs of space and time,

one foot planted in the grave, the other in Eternity!

We teeter on a tightrope splicing birth and death.

Our intellect fathoms just a crumb of the Whole.

Our senses grasp the flimsiest shards of Grace.

We've been juked and jived, fried and fricasseed!

No computer chip can ever replace the human soul.

Be a green shoot, a lifeline spanning all worlds!

                              ***


     Creativity which expresses the Spirit within us isn't simply a certain type of activity, or even just a life-absorbing commitment. It's a conscious way of being in the world, no matter what we may be doing. It's a freedom, openness and energy which quickens and transforms everything it touches. It's what keeps us green and growing inside. It's our soul's fertile and abundant garden, watered by the fountain of youth!

Move through transformation, out and in.

What is the deepest loss

                                that you have suffered?

If drinking is bitter, change yourself to wine.

                               -- Rainer Maria Rilke