mandala offering

Tags

2019, 7*, cause and effect, doing, emptiness, eyes, giving, guidance, hands, holding, identity, interdependent origination, letting go, mandala, mountain, offering, orbit, pointing, selflessness, smile, society, water, waves, world

                not in water piled high in waves
                nor cleverly pointing

                to my own finger
                let’s just leave all that aside for the moment

                mandala offering

                but all that I let within and
                all that I give without

                without aim and with only
                slight smile and eyes

                that guides the lunge
                and holds for the whole of the fall

                flat as the palm of a hand
                deep as the highest mountain

                that the world will continue to spin
                in a palimpsest mark redford way

                and all might find their nature empty and
                centered around each orbit they make

 

                                                ___ ‘m‘ ~~~

a mandala offering is a ritual way of offering the whole universe to the Buddhas, a way of giving up everything for the sake of one’s essential goal in life; ‘is the universe mine to offer?‘ – my universe is, `bought and paid for; ‘but the universe is so big, how can you ‘offer’ it?‘ – easy, the whole of the universe is inside my head; ‘is your universe worth offering to the Buddhas?‘ – it could do with a clean up, which is why I imagine it buffed up with all the Mark Redford stuff cleared away; ‘why bother?‘ – it gives me a clean sheet with which to work on; ‘isn’t that just a bit self-indulgent?‘ – nope, self-indulgence is one of the things I hope to clean out of the universe in order to offer it, I’m hoping to invite a few friends and family around once it’s cleaned up; ‘`sounds rather limited‘ – you don’t know how many mothers I’ve got; ‘do the Buddhas want your mandala?‘ – the Buddhas are my universe, it’s just that I don’t see it yet, my damn ownership keeps getting in the way, and besides, I’m under universe-arrest at the moment … some stuff I did in the past …

                                                ___ ‘m‘ ~~~

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

doing wormhole: Entry to the Village of Voisins, Yvelines, 1872
emptiness wormhole: there will be ovations
eyes wormhole: my uncomfortable life
giving wormhole: it’s / not what you do or what you say / if it ain’t got that swing
hands & waves wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
identity & letting go & society wormhole: in deed
smile wormhole: …zzh-vvttP*–… … …
water wormhole: 10/22 by William Carlos Williams
world wormhole: A Corner of the Garden at the Hermitage, 1877

 

Advertisements

‘… and yet I think I am so modest: …’

Tags

2018, 8*, achievement, anger, ants, arrogance, beauty, Big Issue, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, books, buying, Carol, cat, cause and effect, chrome, comics, conception, conditioned existence, dark, doing, evening, eyes, giving, glass, Hulk, human, identity, insight, isolation, kids, life, lightning, marbles, mind, modesty, night, offering, patience, perfect human rebirth, quality, shrine, standing, strangers, talking to myself, teaching, teeth, time, tin, white

                … and yet I think I am so modest:
                      I think I have gathered such quality and beauty in life,

                      all the coloured glass and marbles I offer to the shrine,
                all the Big Issues I generously buy

                all the time given to Carol and the kids,
                      to abandoned strangers, all the vistas I gave at school,

                      all the insights from comics and books, I think I
                know what’s what; I stand colossal

                      on the paving slab, so much more and in so many ways
                than the ants that circle across it,

                so much more, even, than the cat
                      that comes and uselessly rubs about my legs, I stand

                      human to the height of all achievement; all of this
                I have already destroyed

                      a thousand times over in a thousand different ways
                with even the most slight

                      annoyance (and the thing is I am always annoyed), let alone
                the hulked, mindblanked and white-eyed

                teeth and howls; when this dent,
                      this sudden crease in what looks like flimsy tin (from

                this axe from some other side) that
                      holds the calm and flow of all the cause and conditionality,

                      everything bent sharp over a refusal, that creates me adverse
                and isolated; I won’t

                      become human again for so long I’ll need
                another, far-future,

                flash of lightning
                      in the darkest of darkest nights before I’ll

                ever get another chance
                      to even conceive what’s happening to me; let’s

                ease out all these creases, let’s
                      polish all that chrome, before evening comes again

 

Bodhisattvacharyavatara, Chapter VI, beginning verses

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

beauty & books & identity wormhole: ‘a blacknight fitted perfectly …’
Carol wormhole: we held cold hands
cat wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough
comics wormhole: letting them go
doing wormhole: the moon, the moon
evening & eyes & white wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Trees
giving wormhole: both modern and en-slaved / to life
glass & life & mind & time wormhole: early // Minoan & Mycenaean Exhibitions in the British Museum – diptych
lightning wormhole: ‘… plane is upright …’
night wormhole: THE GREAT FIGURE by William Carlos Williams
talking to myself wormhole: blister on me thumb
teaching wormhole: how to teach

 

just saying, is all VIII: keeping up toxic appearences

Tags

2013, 5*, appearance, breath, career, communication, decades, dialectic, lungs, managerialism, neglect, no voice, offering, plastic, professionalism, rights, teaching, toxic

                                                                                 just saying, is all VIII:

                                              and after all
                                              I had something to offer
                                              to the very fibre and vessel of teaching

                                              that was ‘hoff’-
                                              ishly and consistently denied the right to enter
                                              that holy dialectic, it was

                                              sincere and
                                              credible and beneath
                                              neglect, while keeping up toxic appearences

                                              of communication,
                                              thriving in a sealed plastic bag …
                                              … in which I have taken breath for decades

                                              my lungs
                                              now shot through, unable to
                                              speak but still reliant on a borderline-

                psychotic professionalism wasting me to the bone

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

breath wormhole: stone
career & managerialism wormhole: just saying, is all VII: // `spolitical
communication wormhole: reprieve
professionalism & teaching wormhole: wakeoutofadream

 

seventy two, perhaps – poewieview #9

Tags

1966, 2016, age, being, birth, Bowie, death, doing, fall, future, living, meaning, offering, planning, walls, work, writing

                                seventy two, perhaps

                                it got to my birth and
                                there was nothing to write

                                it got to the start and there
                                were nothing but tin walls

                                it got to make sense but
                                there was nothing but planning

                                it got time to work but
                                no time to be

                                it came time to proffer with
                                only two steps to fall

                                and now it is the future
                                and I wonder when it will
                                                                     all
                                                                     just
                                                                     stop

 

serendipitously bounced from Come And Buy My Toys, 1966, and the wordage on the page

Read the collected movements in David Bowie: Movements in Suite Major

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

being wormhole: and then just stop
Bowie & walls wormhole: 1966 … actually sic // of it allllll-bsssssssh – poewieview #8
death wormhole: London Park in Greenwich town – poewieview #5
doing & work wormhole: spit / spot
living wormhole: because
meaning & writing wormhole: no point

 

offer the victory and accept the defeat

Tags

2012, acceptance, being, breathing, doing, LoJong, now, offering, perfect human rebirth, practice, talking to myself, time, true nature, writing

 

 

 

                                              I should
offer the victory and accept the defeat
                in everything that I

                                doing

                                                              not
                                              when the time is right
                not when the time accords with what is written like some prophecy
                                                                                 or fate
                                              not in any future time either

                                                              but by my nature
                                                                                 now as I breathe
                                                                                              and in my nature now as I write

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

acceptance wormhole: it is complete
being & talking to myself & writing wormhole: sit
breathing wormhole: The Louvre in a Thunderstorm, 1909
doing & time wormhole: de Boeddha // of light
practice wormhole: exactly equal

 

disappear

Tags

2013, dialectic, frustration, growth, identity, listening, managerialism, observation, offering, responsibility, work

 

 

 

                                I don’t want to be listened to,
I don’t want to be followed or made responsible,
                                              I don’t want to be observed or made an example,
                                I don’t even want to have to own it
                                              with my name all over it,

                                              I would just like to be
                                a part of the dialectic I felt moved to offer
                                                              twice
                                              a thousand times
                                                              and disappear
                                                              into the
                                              development it grew

 

                                                              not apart
                                                              from it

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

identity & listening wormhole: now, the verticals go down as well as they go up
managerialism wormhole: … anymore
work wormhole: block ‘n’ role

 

mlewisredford introductory complete life audit confessional

Tags

2014, blogging, breeze, clock, doors, flower, green, identity, lamp, lemon, life, London, mauve, meaning, net curtains, offering, openness, orange, purpose, sitting room, speech, Victorian houses, white

OK my dears, because you are my blogee friends and do me the honour of wriggling through my petites ramblings where you have probably surmised that I am a weed flowering out of a piece of neglected land by a once-brightly painted wall (of a Victorian house) in sauff-eest London, I’m going to let you all into a little secret: I am a compulsive geek, a compulsive geek-weed flower.   In my solipcistic search for a bit of point amidst all the ground … I count everything.   I’m not particularly proud of it, it doesn’t really add up to much and I am starting to sit in order to make all the counting so transparent that I’ll see right through it to the purpose I was looking for all along anyway.   But on the way I have collected (almost arthritically) a bunch of data about all sorts of things which have shaped me into the paricular flowered weed that I have become (mauve-thin thorns with white tips, deepdark green leaves at the top of the stem, and small but long petals with deep lemon edges, white middle and the thinnest blood-orange corrola and spine).   I have whole lifetimes of top 10s/20s – and more? – of word and picture and tone and image, my whole culture wrapped, bagged, ticketed and stacked into a comfy armchair in a spacious and double-faceted sitting room by a standard lamp and a ticking clock somewhere, doors open, net curtains billowing.   Slighty.   Occasionally.

So.   At the end of the day (litralee – I’m not even jokinngg-ugh) I audit my day and assign MY MEASURE of how much I got out of everything I did or how well I did it.   Or not.   The measure will only make sense to me, but they are A measure of how much I have got out of them, so I will include the numbers for your comparification (if you get that far).   Not geeky enough for you?   OK, try this on for size: I started doing this counting in 1998 and still do it?   Not even bothered yet?   I audit household work, career work, what I do for my kids, what I do for my wider family, what I do for my wife, what I do in my spiritual practice and what I do for myself at the end of every day.   Yawn?   I put all my numbers onto a spreadsheet (once I figured out what spreadsheets were) and have now got ongoing averages and charts for everything I do, hear, think and eat!   Whp-p! I saw your eyes twitch then, I’m getting to you, aren’t I (I’m sorry, but I’m on a roll now).   How about, once I settled my spreadsheet: I inserted enough rows above March 1998 all the way back to 2nd November 1959.   Yes, YES: the day I was born!   Do you see; do you see what happens when you start to listen to a geek; do you see my awful power …?   And then I retroactively filled in all the data!.   Oh, whoh; phew, sheesh – what a load off my mind; if I smoked I’d be taking a long draw at the moment – hot air through the teeth, down the throat – and holding it wondering what adjective would do justice to what just happened.

Actually, I think this confession is doing far more for me than it will ever do for anyone else.   Nevertheless I will be sharing with you some of the countings I have like a toddler sharing the stickiest boiled sweet that I’d saved in my hand just for you even though I’d scoffed the rest myself.   It’s sharing, I suppose, and it’s as sincere as a 54 year old child can be.   I’ll call them “mlewisredford’s top ten _______ !” and provide my own commentary.   I’ll store them under ‘poeviews’.   So you’d better have a wet handkerchief handy, you never know when I might proffer a little fat arm upwards with large ‘lashed eyes sincerely unwavering.

Look out, now!

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

breeze & orange wormhole: wha’
doors wormhole: tired
green & London wormhole: still there // above the / Dallin Road / allotments / looking high over the river and the city
identity wormhole: I don’t think I could do it any more
leon wormhole: the library, / you know …
life & mauve wormhole: in verse / question / m a r k ?
meaning wormhole: adversely / mistaking the finger for the moon / again
net curtains wormhole: 3:30 am
openness wormhole: practising
sitting room wormhole: across the room / through the patio doors / through the conservatory windows / at the bottom of the garden / the still bifurcated trunk of / the oak / before the let-grown hair and fringes / of the fir tree / blown every lifetime in a while by the winter sun // actually
speech wormhole: inverse superhero
Victorian houses wormhole: Victorian bays / right angles and eaves
white wormhole: let

 

as they wish

Tags

2012, 5*, creativity, offering, others, publishing, regret, sitting, thought, water, writing

 

 

 

                                 publishing too much
                                    not writing enough
                                       not allowing myself
                                          time to    sit at a page
                                             and let the flow of thought
                                                well up from a core
                                                   where I will shape it skilful
                                                      into a bowl of equal bulge
                                                         all round and a slightly
                                                            out-turned and even lip
                                                               for someone else to glaze
                                                                  and colour or hold water in
                                                                  as they wish

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

creativity wormhole: across the room / through the patio doors / through the conservatory windows / at the bottom of the garden / the still bifurcated trunk of / the oak / before the let-grown hair and fringes / of the fir tree / blown every lifetime in a while by the winter sun // actually
others wormhole: Woodbrooke labyrinth / affirmations
publishing & sitting & writing wormhole: and
thought wormhole: again
water wormhole: let us mauve a whirl          elongated