Poems

To have great faith
is to have great power
because of your intent,
your will is undivided.
When your word isn't dissipated
by doubt,
the power of your word
becomes even stronger.
––Don Miguel Ruiz,
The Four Agreements

The crisis is in our consciousness, not in the world.
––J. Krishnamurti

I’ve come to believe that understanding is not the goal.
––The District

At the end of life, questions are simple: ...“Did I live fully?”
...“Did I love well?”
––Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart

Don't dwell on reality;
it will only keep you from greatness.
––Rev. Randall R. McBride, Jr.

Of all manifestations of power,
restraint impresses men the most.
––Thucyclides

Love starts from God
And the high heavens
As it weaves its way
Through the corners and niches
Of the universes,
Solar systems,
And planets,
Finally reaching our souls
Looking for the empty crannies
Of our beings,
Which it fills as it travels
Through the energetic systems
Of our life space.
Sometimes it reaches a dam
And gets stuck for a while
Temporarily.
But a reservoir builds up
Pools of this loving energy and
Eventually the pressure will cause
The dam to break
And allow love to continue on its journey.

"The gift of happiness belongs to those who unwrap it."
–– Andrew Dunbar

A Safe Place to Land

This process is going on so imperceptibly
That we hardly realize it's taking place
Until the love finally flows into the heart
And floods outward in a golden flame
For all the world to behold.
You look into the eyes of your beloved
And realize they were always there
Loving you all the way from the high heavens
To the depths of your soul,
As they patiently waited
For the dam to break.
So the love would flow
And release and clear
The anguish of a million lifetimes.
In the raging passion of holy desire.
And your heart would finally know,
After an eternity of isolation and pain,
It's finally found
A safe place to land.

––Wynn Free
wwdcp@poetic.com

There are no limits
to either time or distance,
except as man himself
may make them.
I have but to touch the wind
to know these things.
––Hal Borland

The flaw with words
is that they always
make us feel enlightened,
but when we turn around
to face the world
they always fail us
and we end up facing the world
as we always have,
without enlightenment.
For this reason,
a warrior seeks to act
rather than to talk,
and to this effect
he gets a new description
of the world––a new description
where talking is not that important, and where new acts
have new reflections,
and a new world is born.
––don Juan Matus

To see is to forget the name of that which one sees.
–– Monet

We experience
forgiveness daily
from the source
of our creation
and for ourselves.
We also need
to be able to forgive,
because if we don’t
we put our foot right down
on the hose of our life force.
––Sue Patton Thoele,
The Courage to Be Yourself

First we receive the light, then we impart it. Thus we repair the world.
–– Kabbalah

The Thirst for Wholeness • The Spiritual Aspects of
Addiction & Healing

Over thirty years ago, the noted Swiss psychiatrist C.G. Jung wrote that an alcoholic’s “craving for alcohol was the equivalent on a low level of the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness,…(or) the union with God.” The journey of the addict through addiction and into recovery contains lessons that apply to all of us, non-addicts and addicts alike. Many people describe an unspecific yearning in their lives, a gnawing emptiness or homesickness that is never satisfied.
...this craving [is] a universal thirst for our own wholeness, our spiritual nature. Unfortunately, all too often, this craving can become distorted into addictions of all kinds.
...addiction [is] an exaggerated form of attachment, abuse plays a role in the development of addiction and other problems,
...with surrender, we are offered the promise of healing and spiritual maturity.

––CHRISTINA GROF

Suffering is always the effect
of wrong thought
in some direction.
It is an indication
that the individual
is out of harmony with himself,
with the law of his being."
––James Allen

Every year, everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;and,
when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

––Mary Oliver, from the poem
"In Blackwater Woods"

It's really a wonder
that I haven't dropped all my ideals,
because they seem so absurd
and impossible to carry out.
Yet I keep them,
because in spite of everything
I still believe that people
are really good at heart.
I simply can't build my hopes
on a foundation consisting of
confusion, misery and death.

––Anne Frank (1929-1945)
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

Do not follow the ideas of others,
but learn to listen
to the voice within yourself.
Your body & mind will become clear and you will realize
the unity of all things.
––Dogen (1200-1253)
Japanese religious leader

When we ask
for something to happen,
the attention
is on the fact
that we don't have it now.
But when we feel
that it is already occurred,
then we put out an energy
that actually draws
that reality to us.
Gratitude is a key element.
It is very important to be grateful."
––James Twyman, World peace expert

"There are only 3 colors,
10 digits,
and 7 notes;
its what we do with them
that's important."
––Ruth Ross

"A philosopher is a sort of
intellectual yokel
who gawks at things that
sensible people take for granted."
––Alan W. Watts

Jan/Feb 2003

Poems & Quotes