This Love In-forms Me

I will praise God in whatever form I choose,
in whichever tongue as I am moved,
I will praise God.

There is nothing exotic in it or strange,
this love informs me what to speak,
with what gesture or movement,
praising God.

At the core of all worship
is this love which informs me.
Embracing all Humankind
in this empathy, I submit
to the source of this love
which informs me.

Were Christianity's own Fountainhead
a raider who'd massacred and raped,
who'd deceived and beheaded,
whose vengeful, wrathful example in this manner
were glorified by multiple early biographers
setting the tone of what should be followed,
were he promoted as a despot unquestioned;

were his teachings and instructions in times
of weak numbers in direct contradiction
to those in times of greater force,
the end effect being conquest by the sword:
I'm afraid I'd quite have to distance myself
from both him and his example.

However, as he was and remains for all time,
rather the very embodiment of this love
which informs me, coursing through my every fiber,
uniting my blood with his, steeling my nerves,
filling my sinews with his might, my heart with awe:
how can I but love him?

The One in Whom we live and move and have our Being,
shows His countenance to me through just this,
this love which informs me.

And this one whose own form had lived at a distant time
in a distant place and has never left but is everywhere -
his love it is which so informs me, that I, with all my faults
and all my shortcomings, may inform others, bearing witness
merely by breathing with him, and being as I am.

His birth is my birth, his blood my blood, shed for me;
his death is mine, as is his resurrection, I own my faith,
and I call myself neither Jew nor Christian -
but one thing I do know:

After all my past training, however complete or not,
I am here with both feet walking, and cannot stop singing;
neither hopes nor fears rule me, nor the prescriptions of others
can tell me in what form or manner or tongue I should bend my knee,
only this love informing me, day and night, every breath and every step.

No zeitgeist may intimidate me, for this love is conscious,
steady and awake, present now, present regardless
of what darkness befalls, what ignorance, what evil moves
about us and over us.

It is all that I have, unborn and undying, a flame in my belly,
his soul is the light of the universe, and that suffices.
His mark is this love - I'll say it once more:
this love which informs me.

When A Man Makes Love

(July 1987, Monterey)

My lips parted   and I asked the Woman:  Woman,
       how does a man make love?  And she replied
       with such direct simplicity:  O - and
               are you a man?
My ears blushed and my breast flushed full
         I said Yes. I am.         Listen, she said,

For a man first makes love with his ears.
   He listens intently for the silent rustle
      of love's whisper, of skin wishing to yield itself
            to the hand's good touch.
From the fingertips to the soles of his feet
does a man make love   his tongue
    quivers at the mere thought of his beloved's form
                                     his ears
   carry the beloved's name whether it is known or not.
 

The lover is always erect,   never asleep,
                                     his attention steady.
His body is clean but washed with abandon,
     not primped as some self-adulator.  Every hair
       on his body responds to the scent of his beloved
         and his nostrils are always flexed for it.
   What of her absence, I asked, How
           does a man stand the loneliness?
                   She drew so close

 
I lost my breath in the sweetness of her kiss
   and therein was imparted - as the vital sap of my loins
      rose from root to trunk to branch - that
             Woman is never absent.
A man can never love enough.  To love as a man makes love
   is to come out his top    because
   while he loves the Woman he worships the Goddess that she is.

Woman is a body   and so she is every body
  and all that is beautiful in the eye
    of the Man who beholds her
             is Woman.
And in recognizing her she must be touched
   and kissed and carressed and looked at
     and fondled,    every inch of  her
    must be loved and dearly cherished first
       for her to be enabled to enter
         the body  where she belongs.

My eyes hazed in sweat      I asked How
     is a Woman's body never absent?  And her form
    burst over me and I was bathed in her
as though she were liquid air, and I saw with all my heart:
Woman is an aura, and even as you would stimulate
  all those areas of her flesh with your gentle fingers
     and tongue   so must you skillfully and generously
                                     speak to her.

A man makes love
   when he is direct and kind   firm and assuring.
  A man without sincerity never makes love  there is
       no interest there   and no balls.
A man makes love
    when his gifts are frequent and thoughtful -
    their spontaneity is what makes them original.
    Timing is everything  for the man.
Never an abusive word   never an abusive gesture,
  never even in jest hurting the Feeling of the Woman -
      That is how a man makes love.

For him she is ageless, a man does not make love
   by judging looks or counting rings on a tree.
       His eyes are fixed on the Woman timelessly.
I have wondered, I began - and she quietly
     inclined her face to hear -
           Can a Woman love too much?
She smiled and brushed my forehead
    and my temples with such affection I held her
        hand there with mine and breathed
            its touch into my pores.  She answered,

She might change her mind as to the choice of men -
   but she cannot love too much.  No one can love enough.
  When a man makes love he is knowing all the time
    that everything beautiful that he could ever set eyes on
          or give ear to   or touch and hold,
            every expression of beauty,
              every affectionate gesture    is Woman.
        That is Whom he loves.

And Woman?  She is herself the bottom line
        and the last word
           on the very Beauty of God.

 

"If you must know . . . "

I am the Jew no congregation would have a place for, I am the Christian no church could rein in, I am the Muslim no mosque would know what to do with. I am free to worship where I Am.

I am my only pupil. I am alone in the all-pervasive community of those like myself who worship and celebrate God on their own two feet, consciously and creatively and in joy.

My form of expression reflects East and West both, without the least contradiction.

What I do I've been doing already for thousands of years, I am very old. And I am very young, even newborn, I am a child. Like you, I am here to learn and to develop consciously.

I am your servant.

I am here to remind you that God is our Lover, not our Jailer.

I don't believe in some “God-of-Other“ much less try to love that.

I love God, only therefore do I believe in God, for I have faith in That which I love; this relationship only confirms and strengthens and increases my faith and my love. Belief is only an opinion – you can believe in something now and drop it later.

He is closer to me than my own jugular vein, closer to me than my own breath. Therefore I sense my pulse and stay fixed and concentrated on or in my breath, call it breathing practice if you will, the practice of conscious breathng.

Concentration here and now on pulse and on breath, the awareness of His presence, this alone makes me present. Conscious singing is also a form of breath practice, with voice – such are its qualities: it is celebratory and increases joy, or it is healing, or it is creatively enabling for me and for those on whom it works in the surrounding reaches of the atmosphere which it charges. This is a matter of factual practice, not philosophy or discussion. Nor is what is being sung discussed right here. That always depends on what is needed. Sometimes it is to ground, sometimes to elevate and produce more joy.

Imagine someone you love – someone not living with you, but someone you know and see often or rarely – someone you love ever so much. Imagine that that person was everywhere you turned, ever present for you wherever your thought was with or of that person. You wouldn't need to go to their house to find them. Likewise do I have no need of a church, a synagogue, a mosque. Nor do I reject them.

Someone landed in Heaven after living a life hell-bent on getting to Heaven – so she got there, and was ceremoniously ushered in to “Jesus“ - but after getting all excited over this figure who was cut right out of her Sunday-school idea of how He'd always appeared, she noticed it didn't move, it was made of cardboard. She got upset and asked where Jesus was, this is not what she'd quite bargained for all her life.

She was told, “Oh, He's hardly ever here, that's why this is up. Actually, He doesn't even look like this, no image could actually hold Him or depict Him, He's pretty indescribable. Where is He? Oh, He's probably in Hell, goes there a lot, spent His first 3 days there, you know, after His...well, you know. What's He doing in Hell, you ask! Well – what's He supposed to do up here, hand out candy? He passes through all the Hell realms, dear, He brings the highest light into the deepest darkness and...well, you know, transforms outer Being. Oh my, you don't know. Well, you'll have to go ask Him. So if you want to find Him, and be near to Him and give your hand into His hand - go to Hell, if you'll pardon my saying so – go there where He is, not here where you can take it all easy. But please, if that is what you want, if it's Heaven you want, then by all means stay here, you'll be sweetly taken care of, you can chat and gossip with all your fellow believers over coffee and cake. No telling when He may drop by, so stick around, it's very nice here you know.“

So I have no longing to go to Heaven to meet a cardboard Lord, I'll go meet my Lord wherever He is and wherever He'll have me meet Him, and if that's Hell, I can manage that with Him, my Beloved, beside me, my place with Him is there wherever I am needed.

Love of religion is not love of God, the latter has nothing to carry on its sleeve, there is no ego in it. And it carries no aggression or need of recognition or to “prove“ something, therefore it supports no missionizing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=YcOQY-n-EWs