LIGHT

Dull and sleeping until the next event
is the general state of humanity, how forgetful
we all can be, the heaviness of conditioning,
the arc of forgetfulness leading us to believe
this to be all, the summation of eons of time,
muted down into a sliver of thin bright souls;

We are galactic citizens, we are light, light!
Agreeing and perhaps lobbying to come
to the beautiful planet with dense energies
and yet, such beauty! The laws we, as fathomless
ones, have known in no other way before, agreeing,
as personified infinity might, to new experience;
Yet now, getting to imagine limits, restrictions, rules,
and all becomes possible because we have chosen
to negate our cosmic home at our birth, donning these
fleshy space suits, means by which we navigate
this particular realm;

Still, we arrive with such amnesia into the tiny beings
our limitless souls must first inhabit, affronted at every
turn, bright false light, too much noise, overstimulation
to these newfound senses, hardly time to adjust,
and the people into whose loving care we land seem
to have little idea of us as likewise unlimited, and so
we scream at the injustice of our helplessness, perhaps
now wanting out, but there is no way, save our physical
demise, and we have only begun to explore this life, oh!
And we holler again and again, testing the limits
of these newfound vocal cords meant for speech,
strange communication devices, so vastly different
from the telepathy we are used to;

And twenty year units on earth seems ponderous,
time leaden as a fishing weight sinking, sinking –
schools and churches and cars and asphalt
and strange metal tubes flying through the heavens –
We try and rise, gulping for purer air, closer
to the pristine light we once knew, discovering flashes
of joy and bliss amidst the wonders we are wired
to appreciate, some more than others; a handful
bonded to nature, some enthralled with leaves
of books instead, still more who enjoy the hypnosis
of a different sort of glow, emanating now from a tiny
device held in a shaking hand, we need soothing,
a bigger amplitude of forgetfulness of these restrictive
forms as we grasp, or push physical limitations, drink
or smoke or spin around in a grove of circling sister trees
reaching for the heavens that hold memories
of a different sort; while a tap, tap, tapping on skulls
made of dense bone, impenetrable as the experiences
we find hard to digest, impossible to divest from, and if
we somehow could pay attention to the prompting,
tune in through whatever means, to the still silvery river
flowing, always flowing through our core, we sense:
are we observing from the banks, or trying to paddle
upstream, forcing the flow to stop for a moment
like a child’s foot dragging the ground to slow a
merry-go-round, or do we relax into movement
of the current, enjoying the ride, feeling its caress
like a babe being rocked to sleep, while we begin
to remember the river’s purpose, easing us along
the journey, moving us more directly than our
stubborn will ever could;

Then the floating maze of puzzle pieces begins
to rearrange itself, and we glimpse a wholeness
that has felt light years away, while the fallacy of space
and time dissolves and we dive into the simple sensation
of being One with the river, One with all Life, knowing
to our core the myth of separation, the different suits,
the animals, trees, rocks, colors, all meant for joy
and delight, not the means by which to divide and judge;
Return, return to the heart, golden key to the cosmos,
let it all go, hold nothing bitter or coarse, forgive all
in yourself first, the forgetting was not your design alone,
then release the confusions of others to allow unity to seep
and spread as more and more souls unite in the bliss
our existence was meant to be.

Pearls

Sometimes I reflect on my life and it’s hard to believe
it really was me; those years of confusion, trial by fire,
choices made; as grit in an oyster, collecting experiences
like pearls forming, oh so slowly, though I knew not
what they would reveal, nor had the insight to realize
how precious they would become;

Years in the same body grant one the gift of hindsight
developed no other way, and it still astounds me
that it seems necessary to learn through adversity,
pain, discomfort; can we discover another
way, a truer path to the love-in-form that humans
were meant to be?

Diver ~ bj 4/24

What We Ingest

Do we take in the good, or still believe, when presented
with it, that it’s simply not there, not real?

I was raised with my fair share of negativity; product, I think, of a heavy-handed religion which diminished any female’s needs, never mind wants, and the doom and gloom of the cold war, diving under school desks to practice for when another country would invade us, drop a nuclear bomb, and how on earth were sensitive children to cope? How were any of us to manage, with annihilation looming over us?

So what did our generation do, but embrace the consumerist model,
buying everything we thought would keep us safe and comfortable, embracing money like an old ratty teddy bear, the more the better, while covering ourselves with fine fabrics and sturdy roofs the way we used to cover our small heads with hands up to our elbows to protect against some phantom enemy, oh, and how and what have we changed, in our collective human destiny? Have we not arrived at a similar place to that which we thought we had abandoned?

There was no roadside rubbish when I was growing up,
and I began to see it only with the wholesale appearance
of soda and beer in cans and bottles and then the plastic
revolution swept over us like a plague of locusts, and it was hardly
possible to purchase essentials for the home and body without it,
and despite recycling efforts by those of us from early on,
mountains of it threaten to crush our hopes for a more sustainable
future, and islands of it float yet in the Pacific or along shorelines
of nearly every beach in the world, clogging drains and causing floods
and requiring several generations to break down, while remaining
toxic to sea life, to all life;

One of plastic’s great utilities was its ability to keep what it contained
fresh, flavors locked in tight, and as our lives sped up and up until it took most hours of every day to simply survive the mound
of bills and demands from the feds and state; who had time left over
to simmer and stew, to taste and savor delicious sauces and fragrances, while working full time and raising children? Surely we could cheat a bit, buying this or that premade, to lighten our load?

Then in rode the pandemic, forcing the whole world’s people to stay
at home, reclaim, perhaps, a love of cooking if through bare necessity,
while we stayed inside with minds spinning, whirling, the ground
under us all uncertain, could something so tiny it was not visible bring humanity to its ultimate demise?

Lessons have been learned, surely, yet the luxury of fantasizing
a thing is real or false has become increasingly untenable, while
the country remains harshly divided, some pretending to the point of believing what they hear on network news, driving them under their own metaphoric school desks, causing them to freeze in place, not knowing how or if they could ever make the difference needed to right this sinking boat, while others of us have been reclaiming our sovereign selves, our inner knowing sharpening to liberate those inner promptings which could be called essence, shaking out the love, the hope, extending hands to help where we can, minimizing consumerist urgings, eliminating toxic products and practices, and now? Now we begin again. To breathe in. And out. Join hands across divides. And breathe.

Kohala cliffs, Hawaii Island ~ bj 2011

Diamonds in the Snow

Awoke this morning to six inches of newly-fallen snow
lightly blanketing the ground with silent beauty and grace,
asking nothing yet giving much in return – water to a thirsty
forest, shelter for ground creatures who otherwise remain targets
in the sharp eyes of soaring raptors or scavengers traveling on foot
across these woodlands in every season;

Hiking up the hill into the piñon and Ponderosas, the ground is
generously scattered with sparkling diamonds, but try to capture them
and they morph into something other than themselves; like fireflies
years ago in New England, they remain an anomaly, a gift,
a thing best appreciated as they are, not as a treasure to capture
in order to possess, the eye is drawn to them on Their ground,
in Their environment;

Just imagine if all humans understood that a wilderness encounter
in and of itself can simply be a blessing to observe and behold
while we take in a sight rarely glimpsed without engaging conditioned
responses, must have, possess, even diminish, whether it be by snagging
a trophy from a rare animal or scooping up a handful of snow diamonds;

No ring made of pressurized carbon set upon a young bride’s hand
can ever take the place of these shimmering crystals refracting
sunlight onto this well trodden path; nearly every week, I discover
something else I had not seen before, whether an arrowhead or a twinkling
bit of rhodochrosite or yesterday’s sterling silver spoon ring, likely lost
by some hippie back in the ‘sixties, missed and not reclaimed,
becoming another’s treasure like my great aunt’s sardonyx ring slipping
from my youthful finger into a horse manure pile on a lake in Maine
to be found, perhaps, one day in a future I cannot begin to fathom.

Cedar in the snow ~ bj 2024

Flow

Not a desirable trait, stubbornness,
lack of desire to open the mind,
accept another’s viewpoint, instead
wanting to preserve whatever narrow-
minded perception one has in the moment,
rigid not like the tree which sways gently
in the breeze, rather like a statue
fashioned of concrete, unmoving, staring
out in the distance at nothing in particular,
unable to change until one day, someone
comes along and uproots it, smashes it
to bits, erecting yet another in its place;

Why can we not remain supple
like the willow, which even into maturity
remains flexible, loving the water’s edge
where it thrives by taking moisture
into its roots, allowing it an agile nature
as only a willow possesses, emulating
the strength of another living entity
which is as far from rigid as anything
can be; water teaches everything
that comes close the beauty and grace
of flow.

Mahukona, HI ~ bj 2018

Roots

The shimmering of a rising dawn spreads out
and over the fields in this snowy mountain valley,
and as the light of day emerges anew, I step down
and out of bed, finding my feet; there’s a flight
of stairs I must descend, and to remain
in that foggy post-dream world is peril without
intentional grounding, focusing on my roots;

Increasing light floods planet Earth in these times,
as she cruises through the photon belt every
25,000 years, signaling radical change to a planet
in peril; humans have harnessed their amazing
creativity into too many destructive channels
to the point where we have imperiled all of life
on this big blue orb, and we must awaken or perish
in what scientists term The Sixth Holocene Extinction,
and there is no other choice, wake up or lose that which
generations have worked through in our human
evolution thus far, and we are, indeed, awakening;

While some of us feel these energy surges acutely,
the need to remain grounded becomes requisite, feet
on the earth, roots intertwined with all else fastened
to her surface, head consciously in sync with the body,
heart connected to all we encounter, be it red wing
blackbird or a troubled human soul, where love
is the salve needed to help rebalance, restore
and harmonize, riveting dissonance back to harmony,
beauty, serenity and peace, which our loving hearts
most certainly know and remember.

Young koa trees, Mana Rd. forest, Hawaii ~ bj 2006

Runaway

We’ve been flung out over water like skipping stones,
not on a lake or pond, but the long, wide, never ending
turquoise blue ocean of the Pacific, soaring in a metal
tube while everything that followed us arrived by barge
as these things do, back and forth to the blessed
Hawaiian islands, and it’s a long, arduous journey
we have come to appreciate increasingly the further
away we are, and the more we settle our belongings,
the dogs likely forgetting soft green grass
and ocean sands, learning instead not to step
on cactus spines and various stickers, how to stand
back when a mountain lion appears out of the shadows
and they are keen on her scent, how to call for help
when there’s a rattlesnake in their outdoor hay beds;

The paradox of this particular paradise is that we lead
runaway lives, one of us driving hours to and from work,
the other motoring miles just to obtain sustenance,
vast spaces ringed by mountain ranges ever in view,
endless open skies that become mirrors of oceans
in other worlds more our familiar, settling to sleep
with the sounds of elk chuffing and bugling
in the near distance, the soft hooting of an owl;
screech of some wildcat or a chorus of coyotes
is a sort of rapture, drawing us further away
from memories of other places and into the ground
of this high dry forest, and we settle like boulders
and sand after a monsoon flood, crashing over
whatever is in its path, be it a rusty old car
or the lone highway, and the stars! The closeness
of sky at nearly eight thousand feet altitude,
thin crispness of morning air as I step into boots,
don down and wool for our morning walk;

This is a land of juxtapositions, not the watercolor
wonder of the islands, harsh winds rather than soft
caressing breezes, near freezing mornings morphing
into blazing hot afternoons, cooling off again
in the evening for sleeping, dreaming, and the stark
pale moon rises as we gather into one another,
while the wild creatures cruise mountains and forests,
settling down for the night in trees or fields,
tucking tiny beaks into fluffed-out chest feathers
or huddling close as steam rises from warm bodies
attuned to imperceptible sounds and shifts in this
high desert landscape, and we have come to appreciate
a culture that celebrates white bones
and dancing skeletons, honoring death with as much
reverence as the abundant Hawaiian life, awakened
by fire and mellowing into golden sunset glows.

storm over Taos ~ bj 2023

Desert clouds ~ bj 2023

Sunset over Kohala ~ bj 2021

Winged Ones

Thunk! As the piñon jay hit the window;
I heard it from the greenhouse not far away,
and as I looked, albeit with a bit of trepidation,
I saw the creature from behind, dazed of course,
trying to get her bearings, and in two beats
of a heart, she toppled to her side;

Now I hastened over, picked the bird up,
turned it over to face me, his eyes wide open
in question, though no signs of brain bleed, and,
doubtless still dazed, I stroked his indescribably
exquisite indigo head, chest, spoke tenderly to him,
coal black eyes never leaving mine, asking why,
why would you do something like this,
and please tell your tribe to cease
this destructive habit, nothing we have done,
from hawk decals to hanging cd’s has worked,
and the jays and doves, the most sturdy of birds,
continue their intermittent hits;

One leg was folded up, the other outstretched,
and as I felt momentum building, I placed her
on the rock wall and she promptly listed nearly
over, yet as I ventured again to pick her up,
a loud squawk emitted from the beak, and I felt
like well, with that kind of response, perhaps
she would make it, and as I turned to go,
I sensed her taking flight, and looking back,
no bird was left in that spot, and I am left
to wonder, as ever, if I saved or simply
prolonged this exquisite winged life for just
a little longer.

Stellar jay, New Mexico ~ bj 2022

Re-reflections

The hot nights we loved, twisted in sweat and cotton sheets,
all the time longing for what we have now, cool breezes,
sleeping temperatures below 85 degrees, then just like
that, fall will jacknife into winter, and instead of agonizing
in temperatures that seem to stretch one’s ability to cope,
we will rail bitterly at icy howling winds, and how frostbite
nearly set in after getting boots wet while hiking across
that stream;

I wonder how long it will take before we collectively get it,
really see the damage done by our species to our host planet,
such that memories of childhood seasons wash into memory,
water over those flat rocks in clear, cool mountain streams,
and we bury them deep beneath the current crisis, immediacy
of issues too huge to contemplate for long, as so many continue,
hoping, praying for some, that science is dead wrong,
but in our bones, we know it’s not, and wherever we are,
we note striking contrasts to what once was;

Too many people for one, all clamoring to live in places
some consider paradise, then another pristine part of the globe
is ruined, trashed quite literally, full to the brim of human
detritus, cast aside along with the worries about one’s own
children nevermind grandchildren who will face, one assumes,
much worse, and nothing can cure these nightmarish thoughts,
not alcohol or drugs, not denial anymore, and choices
must change at the most basic level;

City folk thinking that life in the country will be sublime,
then they discover snakes, frozen pipes, distances traveled
just to buy groceries, and disappointment mounts as, in their
frustration, they pack up their hundred thousand dollar rvs
and flood the highways, sixteen miles to the gallon, crossing
and recrossing this US mainland, looking for the next big thrill,
nevermind mounting debt nor a sustainable future, as long
as they can make payments, and this is what the standard
is in this country;

If I long for anything, it is lucidity and sanity in the midst
of what clearly are the strifes and troubles of our world today,
and when I miss Hawai’i, it is mostly her more manageable
landmasses, the beauty and sanctity of Aloha, of a heart
centered people who taught me priorities that made sense:
family, community, music that lilts in context to the place,
food for everyone, always calling me back to the ‘aina,
to the breath that synchronizes with ocean tides, to a sane
pace of living that almost matches what one can handle
without fragmenting into a thousand pieces.

Fall day in southern Colorado ~ photo Chris Johnson

Dragonfly

Winking at the gods with those luminous blue green eyes,
the dragonfly sits perched on my knee, shoulder, head;
and as I duck under for another cool dip, she is there,
waiting, hovering in the golden bands of bright summer
sunlight while the loons’ tremolo bounces off granite
boulders and the clearest of waters;

Alighting on a slender blade of grass, it feels as if she is
still watching me, at home on land or water as she is,
and perhaps wondering how something that giant
in proportion to her can stroke so effortlessly
in this shared medium, all seems fantasy
when the damsels are around;

How can I not carry that magic with me, as I pad barefoot
through the woods and up to the cabin, regarding the trillium
and lady’s slippers speckling this part of the dappled forest floor
as high bush blueberries begin to bud and swell; soon we will
be picking these larger shiny blue orbs, so different from
the low bush kind with their powdery coating;

They thought I was crazy living that isolated in the woods,
but twenty five years later, a highway would widen
and encroach, bringing its jangling din to ears accustomed
to silence, and pollution in the form of algae blooms to those
pristine waters and where on earth does this not happen
eventually, and will humans ever treasure holy places
enough to leave those of us caring to steward them alone,
as we prefer to be, without trashing and slashing
sacred ground?

Goose Pond, back in the day ~ bj 2023