Rising Up—Together

RISING UP—TOGETHER

I

I see you
Oh you little man
because I have one in me too
though you sit in the highest office of the land
a bully now
even as an old man
just as you were when a young boy
bullied by your father
you learned strategies
for surviving the bloody jungle of a world
manipulate and use people as you will
you are superior and they
but objects for the fulfillment of your desires

II

We see you
Oh you little man
sitting in the highest office of the land
confusing your passing social role for deep identity
such an old error of the heart
for men in love with power
and no love of truth for setting anyone free
born with a proverbial silver spoon in your mouth
yet hiding behind a screen of victim-hood
with fear and hate you evangelize
ferment polarization and chaos
authoritarianism and racism
to all who like you hunger for
but who have not yet re-membered
the One within

III

Oh I know
you believe you are the One
and so do your true believer followers
embrace you as Jehovah’s appointed
while you feed on their attention
hunger for political gain and willful blindness
yet you are so insecure inside
you crave for the accolades of millions
eternally your spirit aches
for what you have not learned to give yourself
simple self-regard love and compassion for starters
that’s why you rage with disrespect
against others so hard
accept no responsibility for personal failures
inflate your achievements self-worth and value
with the distractions of one
not at home in his own skin
because within you are
wounded and scared

IV

Oh we suffer too as you do
the entire world does as you sow seeds of separation
with loneliness hiding under deluded grandiosity
you have yet not learned to see the One
already living within
innately uniting you with all of creation
in wholeness and belonging
and so you seek outside yourself
hide from the Great Lie and pretend not to
the lie that—You are not enough—
and since none of us in our smallness can ever be that
you name and accuse others
of the sins and failings within
you fear to own
as rage and narcissism putrefy within
the young boy now haunting a man’s soul
occupying the highest office of the land
entrapped in the enactment of a story
that of an aggrieved child
you seek for ever more domination of others
lest you confront the nakedness of your own spirit

V

Oh but we all carry infections and traumas
from the cultural and personal stories of separation
some of us become graced by visions and possibilities however
discern the lies
that ride the terrors and sorrows of broken belonging
social inequities denying to others and tellers alike
 the blessings of wholeness
gifted with the re-membering of one’s innate birthright
to know all life is woven of a single thread
the world of the mysteries and wonders of diversity
and to so walk into a celebration of Life
as one family
perceive the power of love and dreams
to create a re-genesis of healing and renewal
know Earth and Cosmos itself as weavers of our very being
and so discover with the prophets of old
the wisdom of loving one’s neighbor
and the soil underfoot as oneself
and this is our prayer
for the little man or woman we each carry
and all our relations too

The above piece and the one below were written entirely independently of each other yet now I find an urge to follow the above piece with this one, One Tribe; for it also attempts to point toward a way forward even as does the ending of the above one.

I rarely find it useful to write to specific political events in this blog; yet now, with the Presidential election essentially upon us, I must. And while I find it a struggle, as I suspect most of us do, to feel like I have a voice in the world that makes a difference, I cannot stand silent and still live with myself. Even if no one listens and yet… if you, dear reader, find these pieces meaningful I encourage you to share them.

We each share in some degree the wounds of soul and spirit alluded to in the Rising Up—Together poem. Yet as also suggested, the antidote also lives within us. And I want to suggest… you were born for these times. Your spirit craves the breaking open of your heart and the spilling forth of your soul… let us seek the courage of both witnessing the tragedies and griefs of the Great Dying Back of our times. And let us too hold forth a more beautiful vision of what might be… of what it is possible to live into as we reclaim the wholeness of belonging.

Namaste, dear ones. And please: VOTE EARLY, if you can. But VOTE!

One Tribe

That I am enough…
Oh to feel such a sufficiency of being in the world
Oh to belong with an innate intimacy
to rest in the birthright
of emergence from the womb
with indigenous worth and identity
to receive and to know
through a primal intelligence and wisdom alive within
one’s place in the world
is held in a circle of community
a landscape of relationships and story
ecologically interwoven of with all of Life

I and you and we and they
all born into this one tribe
the tribe of no exclusions
all invited into openness marvel wonder and delight
as we swim together in awareness and gratitude
for the great unspeakable mystery
in which we find ourselves
awakening
and enough
just as we are