Philosophy

Heidegger's A.M.

Coffee breaks
the chain
of neglect
of the problem of being.

Coffee grounds
the problem in ancient inquiries
concerning being not being beings.

Before coffee
what is not sought
is not unfamiliar
though ungraspable, hot,

but after the first shot
everyone understands
"The sky is blue," "I am happy,"
statements like that.
A white ring mars a dark table.

The problem, the mug
being unmistakable.


By Les Gottesman
from the Spring issue of The Antioch Review

This Light Glimmers Within You

Once you have tapped your inner self,
the one has made contact with the One sitting inside;
you have met with God.
Then what kind of fear can exist?
What is there to be fearful about, and what worries are left to encounter?
When you go within, you become still, you become peaceful.
All the waves, those generate within you;
they all originate at the level of your mind.
They all come to a stop.
There is a light within you, and you are also a light.
Both lights assimilate into one.

Kabir

Grand Canyon

`

I just returned from a rafting trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. As you can see from the photos (more available by clicking the sidebar Flickr pictures), it was a beautiful trip, in which I was daily filled with an extraordinary kind of AWE - which layered itself atop of my usual state of being easily amazed.

Here is a poem that reflects aspects of the feeling of being deep within the Grand Canyon:

`

They say the layered earth rose up
Ancient rock leviathan
Trailing ages in its wake
Lifting earthness toward the sun
And coursing water cut the rock away
To leave these many-storied walls
Expose’ of ages gone
Around this breathless emptiness
More wondrous far than earth had ever known
`
My life has risen layered too
Each day, each year in turn has left
Its fossil life and sediments
Evidence of lived and unlived hours
The tedium, the anguish, yes the joy
That some heart-deep vitality
Keeps pressing upward toward the day I die
`
And Spirit cuts like water through it all
Carving out this emptiness
So inner eye can see
The soaring height of canyon walls within
Walls whose very color, texture, form
Redeem in beauty all my life has been
The darkness and the light, the false, the true
While deep below the living waters run
Cutting deeper through my parts
To resurrect my gravebound heart
`
Making, always making, all things new

`
Poem by Parker J. Palmer
Photos by Meredith

Furry Friend

Grace

Landlocked in Fur

I was meditating with my cat the other day
and all of a sudden she shouted,
"What happened?"

I knew exactly what she meant, but encouraged
her to say more - feeling that if she got it all out on the table
she would sleep better that night.

So I responded, "Tell me more, dear,"
and she soulfully meowed,

"Well, I was mingled with the sky. I was comets
whizzing here and there. I was suns in heat, hell - I was
galaxies. But now look - I am
landlocked in fur."

To this I said, "I know exactly what
you mean."

What to say about conversation
between

mystics?


Tukaram