Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Look down



Parker River Wildlife Refuge


Pay attention to the road beneath you.
If you're lucky you might find
graceful, swooping, lyrical
road repairs. The in-
crowd will sniff
and call them 

accidental,
coincidental,
outsider,
naive,
void of artistic intentionality.

Those of us who are on the outs
however, are free to appreciate
these for what they are - 

beautiful.


~


Monday, February 12, 2018

옴 치 림


Om Chirim - protection mantra


옴 치 림 (pronounced Om ChiRim) is the mantra of protection. It's repeated three times in the sprawling Thousand Hand Sutra that is chanted every day in Buddhist Temples..

I love the Thousand Hands Sutra. It has litanies, vows, repentances, and the Great Dharani. It also has lots of mantras, like Om ChiRim.

Best chanted in a crowd, but by oneself is also good. 




~




Sink Session


Sink Session


~



Sunday, February 11, 2018

In waves...


Parker River Wildlife Refuge


"Like the sea, we are always in motion. The waves loom in our dreams and in our nightmares through all of time, their rhythms pulsing through us. They move across a faint horizon, the rush of love and the surge of grief, the respite of peace and then fear again, the heart that beats and then lies still, the rise and fall and rise and fall of all of it, the incoming and the outgoing, the infinite procession of life. And the ocean wraps the earth, a reminder. 
The mysteries come forward in waves."
~ Susan Casey ~




~



Wednesday, February 7, 2018

Perceive World Sound


Kwan Seum Bosal


~




That's Ok if That's What You Like..


Parker river wildlife refuge


Unless and until someone shows you
their messiness in all its tangled glory and
unless and until you share your ugliness,
with them, everything is play acting,
just well-mannered play 
acting.

~



But still


Self portrait 

It's not like he couldn't appreciate the allure
of being part of the group. After all, he
was a tree and they were trees,
very nice trees too, he
had to admit.

But still.. 


~



Sunday, February 4, 2018

The Imprisoned Must Remain Vigilant


Parker River Wildlife Refuge


There's a bend in the road where,
if you're not careful,
trees will reach down and
snatch your will to
continue doing the same
soul-crushing drudgery
you've been doing
for the last thirty years -
and then where
would you
be?



~



Only This...


Parker River Wildlife Refuge

By the time I arrived at the Cathedral, the Sun was already well on its way down. By the time I left, it was the golden hour and a cold day got even colder.

I found a new (to me) side chapel which was happily deserted. The hymns  were sung by Canada geese honking in a patch of still-unfrozen marsh water. The sermon was icy wind, groaning tree trunks rubbing together, and frozen grass crunching under foot.

Not a false word was spoken.

There were no promises of happier times in this life or the next.

There were no creeds. There were no vows.

There was Only This:
The spacious, healing, indifference of the Great Wide World. 
Parker River Wildlife Refuge


~



Saturday, February 3, 2018

Liberation


Parker River Wildlife Refuge 


Please stand and open your prayer books to The Book of The Prophets.
“To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides, to feel the breath of a mist moving over a great salt marsh, to watch the flight of shore birds that have swept up and down the surf lines of the continents for untold thousands of years, to see the running of the old eels and the young shad to the sea, is to have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal as any earthly life can be.” 
~ Rachel Carson ~

It's frigid up here.

With a high of 27 degrees and a 15mph southwest wind blowing, it'll seem like mid-teens - a perfect day for church. The slicing cold will sweep clear the sanctuary.

It will be birds and wind and sea and sky for company - an embarrassment of riches.

On days like this, it is easy to receive the great central teaching of the Cathedral of the Great Wide World -  that you are a creature like your fellow creatures, and a small, fragile, insignificant one at that. It is a scouring lesson to be sure, but a liberating one too. To be stripped of one's tired stories of tinny accomplishments, banal disappointments - the whole tiresome sack of perseveration - well - that is the very definition of liberation. 


~



Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Resolute


Torrent 

"There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed though you still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to everything."

Yamamoto Tsunetomo - "Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai"

~




Saturday, January 27, 2018

지장보살


Jijang bosal


 JiJang Bosal Likhita Japa

Written in Korean 

Characters

지장보살


~



Friday, January 26, 2018

I hope this ends up being as good as it looks...




Come Sunday - a Netflix Original

Coming out in Mid April

~


Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Teyata Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Soha


Teyata Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Soha


The great, bright, mantra...



Hand-lettered on Rhodia Graph Paper
Scanned on Canon Lide
Post-processing - 

Lightroom, Photoshop Elements 8.0
Tangled FX, iColorama
Stackables



~

Monday, January 22, 2018

Maranatha


Maranatha 


“...Our challenge as Christians is not to try to convert people around us to our way of belief but to love them, to be ourselves living incarnations of what we believe, to live what we believe and to love what we believe.”

~ John Main ~


~



And Speaking of Spiritual Direction


Parker River Wildlife Refuge 2018


....this is some of the best
I've ever received. 

~


The exception


Parker River Wildlife Refuge 2018 

Ten days ago I quoted Christian Wiman who wrote:
"What you must realize, what you must even come to praise, is the fact that there is no right way that is going to become apparent to you once and for all. The most blinding illumination that strikes and perhaps radically changes your life will be so attenuated and obscured by doubts and dailiness that you may one day come to suspect the truth of that moment at all. The calling that seemed so clear will be lost in echoes of questionings and indecision; the church that seemed to save you will fester with egos, complacencies, banalities; the deepest love of your life will work itself like a thorn in your heart until all you can think of is plucking it out. Wisdom is accepting the truth of this. Courage is persisting with life in spite of it. And faith is finding yourself, in the deepest part of your soul, in the very heart of who you are, moved to praise it."
For the most part I agree with him, but there is one place that has never become attenuated or obscured over time or has been filled with egos, complacencies and banalities, or became a thorn in my heart - The Cathedral of the Great Wide World. In fact it has been a most patient and generous institution, filled as it is with a deeply learned staff of spiritual directors like the sun, the wind, the sea, clouds, sand, rain, snow, heat, and all those furry, scaly, feathery, crawly, hopping, flying, swimming creatures. 



~



Sunday, January 21, 2018

Come Lord - The Lord Has Come






~



The Marketplace of Eyeballs



Rose Art Museum


You don't need to be paranoid because your actions really are being closely watched, evaluated, reacted to, rated, followed, and if possible - monetized. Your mouse clicks, your financial information, your medical information, where you drive, how fast you drive, what you look at, what you buy, what you eat, who you talk to, what you share, who you share it with, what worries you in the middle of the night - all of it - is meticulously observed and recorded for ongoing and future use.

In the marketplace of eyeballs in these "days of miracle and wonder", you aren't a person, you aren't a child of God, you aren't a Buddha.

You are raw material.

You are input.

You are ore.


~



Pith Instruction / Ruach Elohim




~ Breathe ~
The pith instruction from
The Cathedral of the Great Wide World

~ And also ~
A brief, wildly extravagant, manifestation of
the breath of God.


~