tmbt: views to the edge of the galaxy

We could see the other two, hovering wobbly, looming bigger than our moon and we wondered where the sun should be if not here. And the earth turned and all the rest came into view, aligned and sweet in the dim light air. Huge and colorful in their muted globular tones of red, blue, green, grey, light unnecessary, thoughts unfound. And we could see it all stretched out next to us like we were laying together in the grass.

Then the meteor fell into the mountain and the trees tumbled down the side with it. We dodged the other treasure hunters, bountying for meteoric gold, and found wonders turned to ornaments turned to simple mistaken debri. We wanted a piece of the heavens when the heavens were reaching out for a piece of us.

Last night I dreamed the whole solar system lit up at midnight and cuddled up close to ring in a new era. I dreamed of music and men, planets and falling lights, and I dreamed of a big round belly filled with sweet songs and lights of its own. I dreamed the most beautiful things…

the most beautiful thing: light on glass on wood

He draws lines in sand, wood in glass, wind and water to take them. Visions come and visions go, not knowing how we make them. All the while, sun it sees, the thoughts and where it takes him. Burning forth light on glass on wood before time breaks in.

____

Art by Jim Denevan.

tmbt: little lights aside

Sometimes all the things I could have been, all the things I thought I would have been, they start falling down on me. No so much falling as surrendering to the pull of me, the gravitational pull of me, the gravity of my doubts. And the future, it is so unclear it is cloudy, cigarette smoke-filled room cloudy, and I can see nothing of the things I thought in the things I think.

The possibility that exists here still, orbiting the body, orbiting the mind of it all, it breaks out in little lights, little christmas tree twinklers with not a one of them out to blind the rest.

But this is not a post about those lights. And guilt washing and brain bending will not keep me from saying what on this otherwise terribly hopeful wide-open day there is to note, beautiful as ugly is…

That sometimes all the things I could have been start falling down on me.

___

Drawing by Sushibird.

tmbt: bird in the lamp post

She has made her home in the light. She is not an existential wonder, nor a sun-worshipping beach bunny. She is calm and sweet, and likes the way the post is surrounded by perching wires. She can see forever from her straw-filled hole inside the street light casing, and she doesn’t mind the quick dip down to get Rainier cherries. She is not known for her lover’s song, nor for her size and speed. Her delicately striped face is just a gift to the eclectic skyscape and it matters not whether her beauty is noticed by the human in the window below, or not. She is relaxed and aware – it is her nature after all – and she is the most beautiful thing.

__

Photo by Elise, Flickr.

tmbt: ending world right here right now

He said, “Yeah, but the world is going to end, so…”

“Right!” I smiled back.

And it didn’t matter whether it was true or not because in that moment I remembered again that the moment itself is all I have and with a simple breath I was light complete and I was clear, open intelligence beaming into a future unknown and a past irrelevant. And the world as I knew it with a knitted brown and anxious heart had ended, completely, right there, right then.

And I remember and breath a simple breath and the beautiful world ends again right here right now in a most beautiful ball of light that is the flood of spring sun from the window, is the light from the screen, is the reflection of dim pink sheets, is the translucency of my own thin-skinned hands, is the brilliance of an uncountable zillions of cells in my own body that are no different from your most beautiful own.

__

Photos by Sue Fraser.

tmbt: backseat vista

I lay down in the backseat spent to the bones of me. Spent to the spinal fluid of me. Spend and thankful for the fetal position required to ride in the back.

The jasmine were breaking out across the fence we passed, and that helped. You said the big corazon exhibit was there for me, and that helped, too. I was walking a little, and it helped. And even the regret and was it fear? for me in the eyes of that sweet Chilean acupuncturist helped, too.

Still, the back seat delivered solitude as promised after the poking electrified AND heated needles, after the little walk we thought would help, and did, a little. And from the backseat I watched as a different view of the car ride delivered more sky to my eyes, more ready-to-bud tree tops, more time to take it all in.

And then, something funny, too. Every once in a while, my eyes cast onto something mostly white, and maybe a little skewed, such that I have to test it with one eye, then the other. And when this happens, as it did then, I remember the difference in views between even the most similar of souls, or the windows into one, as it is with me.

From my right eye, the sky and trees were a pale, cool white and gray, as it would be on an overcast early spring day here. And with only my left turned to the sky, something else offered itself up, a little more rosy, a little more golden. The sun is a little more enlightening, the tree branches a little bit more burnt sienna.

Maybe we all see different things out of our own two eyes. I imagine sometimes that what I see as green, is not what you see as green. Neither red, red. I imagine also that I may just be going colorblind in my right eye – slowly, ever so slowly. Or maybe I was given the difference as a reminder that there is always another point of view. From the other person, from the other seat(back), or simply from my other most beautiful eye (which one is up for debate on any given other moment).

 

__

Painting by MyBurningEyes as found on DeviantArt.

the most beautiful thing: breaking wave rainbows

We climbed. Above the worry, above the chill, above the houses all around. We got our hands dirty with eucalyptus juice, felt a new breeze on our faces, and watched the sea below in all its newly-sunned glory. We saw more, talked less, and marveled. I’d never seen the rainbows behind the breaking waves before. But the light was just so and you pointed just so and I burst out in a giggle and squeezed your hand every time a new one arced out behind a wave. And we made our way back down the road past all we’d surpassed and landed for a while on a little plot of land that could be more, full and sweet as it already was. I remember your smile that day, your sparkling eyes, your warm warm hand, and those beautiful flashes of rainbow and I am blessed with this.

 

___

Photo by Gregory Jordan.

tmbt: nasturtium seed in my heart

A little patch of land. A tree, old and tall and sweet and shading. A lump of rock poking it’s cheeks up from the ground for a little sun, little shade, little breeze, little break from the stream running under it. A sunny patch in the northeast corner patiently batting its eyes for a garden. Swings already swaying. Ghosts of future children and lovers laughing. Bending, sipping, whispering “here it is”. It is all here in the little patch of land. A patch covered in little round, green and greener landing pads for these dreams we barely dare give voice to in the shadow of this tender week. But I do. I say and I pray. And then back to the city I go with a little dug out piece of the patch, of the green landing pads that will offer to the sun a little handful of edible orange flowers, buds of joy grown from an arm grown from a little most beautiful nasturtium seed in my heart.

___

Photo from Gwinnett Master Gardeners.

tmbt: light from your faces

Is it the speed of light? Is that how fast the mind moves? And the heart?

Is it the lack of reflection that sends your black eyes towards me, loving and bright in their sweet abyss. A push off of sun that says hello from your sweet green hazel that tells me indeed it is you again? Is it the speed of light, this velocity of recognition that reminds my heart of home, that home is here, that home awaits, too. That home is only a light-moment away no matter where I stand?

I love you.

I have love you for so long, heart neither too light nor too tortured. Too bright nor too sunken in the caves of itself… I think. One can never, or maybe it is just me that can never, be too sure of any of it. Of how we felt for sure, of how bad or wonderful things were. The speed of light with which the memories flash us back is the same speed with which they nudge into each other, nudge each other over… into a darker shade of sad or wetter touch of glistening. One, or maybe it is just me, can never be too sure when the light is moving so very fast.

Same goes for now. And for hopes that rickashe off the walls of this room, and your face. And your face, too. And so many many faces streaming by, stopping in surprised smile, waiting in the wings for more, never even noticing, or just not noticing enough to interrupt its own light sources. Where are you? Where have you been? Where has all the dancing particle puddle of muddy bliss led?

Here. Wherever here is, lost and found in the open intelligence that is a clear, sweet, real, truly true comprehension of the light. The light from your faces. The most beautiful sweet light from your faces.

____

Photo credit unknown.

the most beautiful thing: the buck & the peacock

There is a sweet nibbling buck in the back yard behind the leaning sunflowers and rain-catching flagstones. The peacock sings out his holler from a high branch of the elm tree out front, his long blue plumes lofting softly behind the holler. The breeze swings really big droplets too and fro in an almost-showering trot. And that little story of her grandfather plays around in my head.

A burly biker. A weathered leather-clad woman cuddling in near the departure gate. A grandfather and his grown-up granddaughter walking by. And the old man says to her, “Well, it just goes to show you; there’s someone for everyone.”

And the buck and the peacock seem an unlikely pair, but from one to the other is a house where I am sleeping soundly thinking about my someone, and all the someones out there for all of us, and it seems not so strange. There is someone for everyone every minute.

Today, my lunch date was a fellow potter outside the studio hunched over ceramics magazines and talking about how one might smuggle glazing chemicals into one unmentionable country. Right then, she was my someone.

Tonight, my sister called back. She did and we laughed and the rain drops kept up their big plops and I imagined Lake Michigan with all us grown up kids together and we sighed and we loved each other over the wire. And she was my someone.

And tomorrow morning I will be on a phone meeting with a new yet unmet friend and she will be my someone for those thirty or so minutes.

And we are surrounded by our someones. Be them buck, peacock or skunk. Each one, a precious heart beating sweet hopes and nauseating fears, a palm outstretched and clenched, a smile wide or wilting. Our someone worthy of love and all we have.

Maybe right now I am your someone. Thank you for my little someone moment. If you let me give you one of my own, I promise I’ll try my best to let you know that when you  are my someone, you are the most beautiful thing in my view. Come, stay a while, we’ll have a cup of tea. Even if we have to sip it in our minds as we pass on the street so briefly and anonymously as each others’ someone…

 

__

Mugs and photo by Tokyo Moe.