Turning Into The Mountain
I like this blog entry title a lot. It is so much about our life— really every hour and minute. An example amongst hundreds I could give is: who is not always trying to feel larger than all of the so-many-things that can undermine one? Or put a little differently: who is not always trying to feel rooted enough in some Higher Power— or valued ideas & purpose— to where they are not swept away in any current, say, political mania? Or swept away by the currents (maybe considered negative) that can still so-exist in one's past? Or the currents in anxieties about the future?
And is not every holy book, real spiritual path, or recovery program, really all about: Turning Into The Mountain, or at least a part of it? Or getting higher up on it, to where life can be seen (and increasingly felt) more and more as it really is: miraculous and adventurous? Especially if one can keep climbing up (into the soul of) Buddha or Jesus, and getting more of the real lowdown of what the hell is really going on in this wild cosmic dance and party.
Google a Hafiz poem-rendering of mine titled: “A Suspended Blue Ocean”... for some of that real lowdown, and great guidance.
And these words: turning into the mountain, are now a planned book and series I will devote myself too, that will be more fully presented as:
Turning Into The Mountain
Haiku & Thoughts
Haiku and thoughts. Seems I have lots of those. Must be over 5,000 haiku these days. And thoughts...well, look at all these blog entries, and somehow getting my name on books, and writing plays. But so true. Still so true: I can very often wake and feel I have never really written anything in my whole life.
And if I was sitting with Carl Jung in a session where he might have even made us both a good Margarita, and we clinked glasses and Carl asked: "What is really the impetus behind the 10,000 unpublished poems you have stuffed in some drawers, and your seven books so far, and your plays, and all your blogs?”
I could say: "Well, Carl, well CJ, if you really want to know and can keep it a secret: Buddha once gave my ass such a wonderful kick I went flying over the moon— like a good haiku can. And while I was passing near the moon (and then enroute to other planets, as I thought: might as well) some angels stuck some pens and paper in my hands in case I wanted to start a travelogue. And basically, Mr. Jung, that explains it. But it is really all Buddha's fault (aka: God), and those angels. Cause I can barely spell or use a computer. And my phone just stopped working!"
And here is a link to that one Hafiz poem I mentioned; this poem has been presented many ways on the web by many people over the years, and often not credited. It is the last poem in my Hafiz book, The Subject Tonight Is Love, first published in 1996, by Pumpkin House Press, and then too published by Penguin.
And this poem has a very special connection to a man in India I lived with whom I considered— my most helpful and loved living teacher. I spent a lot of time with him, at times, over a 20-year stretch; that ended when he died. There are some lines in this poem that speak from his heart, and from the heart of Hafiz, and from the caring of this Danny munchkin. Here it is.
The start of those specific lines-words begin:
"Have fun, my dear; my dear, have fun …."
O yeah, we should! And a big hug, and love to ya.