A PRAYER FOR THE LAND I LOVE (reprise)

Dear God or Whatever You Prefer To Be Called These Days:

I'm not in the habit of publicizing my private thoughts,

But times are such that habits must be broken.

And so I will utter my innermost feelings

In the form of words,

Even though I know

That words are what imprison us

In mindsets of No Escape.

For I remain steadfast in my belief

That words spoken from the heart

Have the power to free us from

The evil clutches of political expediency.

It saddens me to see such beautiful, graceful beings

Caught in the deceit of cosmetic piety,

Enslaved by the ugly dictum - "Money Talks!"

Enfeebled by the lame excuse - "What to do?"

Disempowered by the abject fear of False Authority,

And disenfranchised from their own glorious destinies.

Grant unto us the clarity and wisdom

To understand that we have no grander gift

To bestow on our children than the freedom

To speak their heart's truth

Without fear of punishment.

Grant unto us the courage and the fortitude

To truly embody the lofty ideals we hold so dear;

Let us not falter in our inner struggle

To throw off the mental shackles of Greed and Fear,

For those are the twin towers of Tyranny.

Grant unto us a Vision of the Real.

Let us not be misled by cunning projections

From the debased minds of "economic experts"

Who advise us not to "rock the boat" of Status Quo;

And whose dire warnings are couched in grave tones of

"Security and Stability."

Remember: INTEGRITY

Is the key to the Divine Sanctum of the Self!

And since each Nation is but a collectivity of Selves,

My greatest duty to the land I love

Is to always seek to be true to myself;

And my true self tells me:

Bear not the yoke of feudal despots

A moment longer than you need.

There's room and board enough for everyone,

Once you cast the Vampires of Vitality

From their vacuous palaces erected by the sweaty toil

Of half-wit slaves, who know not half their worth.

This beautiful, gracious land is YOURS -

Not THEIRS! (Well, it COULD be theirs too,

If they'd only see themselves as YOU).

The Reality of Heaven on Earth will soon be here,

And to that we are ALL heirs.

Antares

24 October 1998

[First published 26 August 2008. Cartoons courtesy of LAT. Reposted 3 July 2011, 29 October 2015 & 27 August 2020]

Wisdom of the Ridiculous: 3 timeless lectures by Alan Watts (repost)

Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was a British philosopher, writer, and speaker, best known as an interpreter and populariser of Eastern philosophy for a Western audience.

Born in Chislehurst, he moved to the United States in 1938 and began Zen training in New York. Pursuing a career, he attended Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, where he received a master's degree in theology. Watts became an Episcopal priest but left the ministry in 1950 and moved to California, where he joined the faculty of the American Academy of Asian Studies.

Living on the West Coast, Watts gained a large following in the San Francisco Bay Area while working as a volunteer programmer at KPFA, a Pacifica Radio station in Berkeley. Watts wrote more than 25 books and articles on subjects important to Eastern and Western religion, introducing the then-burgeoning youth culture to The Way of Zen (1957), one of the first bestselling books on Buddhism.

In Psychotherapy East and West (1961), Watts proposed that Buddhism could be thought of as a form of psychotherapy and not just a religion. Like Aldous Huxley before him, he explored human consciousness in the essay, "The New Alchemy" (1958), and in the book, The Joyous Cosmology (1962).

Towards the end of his life, he divided his time between a houseboat in Sausalito and a cabin on Mount Tamalpais. His legacy has been kept alive by his son, Mark Watts, and by many of his recorded talks and lectures that have found new life on the Internet. According to the critic Erik Davis, his "writings and recorded talks still shimmer with a profound and galvanizing lucidity."

NOTE: These brilliant lectures were digitally rescued from analog audio recordings and made available to the present generation by Mark Watts, keeper of his father's wisdom archives. I suggest you bookmark this post and return to it from time to time - whenever you feel prompted to lean back and be reassured by a warm, human voice of crystalline intelligence, mental clarity, infinite compassion, spiritual depth, and supreme eloquence.

Alan Watts & The Skin-Encapsulated Ego

Several decades ago I stumbled upon the writings of a wry English theologian and philosopher named Alan Watts (1915-1973).

I owe Alan Wilson Watts a huge debt of gratitude for having provided me effortless access to the essence of Eastern mysticism as expressed in the Tao Te Ching and the basic tenets of Zen. Ironic, isn't it, that someone like me whose physical body can be categorized as "Asian" has to engage the timeless teachings of Eastern mystics through the medium of an Englishman's mind?

The most endearing - and enduring - quality of Alan Watts's writing is its elegant, poetic lucidity, and the tangible warmth of his exquisitely noble personality. Watts had the uncanny knack of drawing his readers gently into his private thought-streams and lofty musings minus the intellectual haughtiness of so many run-of-the-mill academics.

[Read the rest here.]

[First posted 11 May 2012. Reposted 2 July 2017]

Thanks, Frank! (reprise)

With thanks to Solo Goodspeed who alerted me to the first video. First posted 13 August 2013.

WE WROTE'M ALL! (a poem for Antara)

Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510), The Birth of Venus (detail), c. 1482-83. Tempera on canvas

 every love story ever told

(or untold); every sweet nothing

(& everything) ever murmured;

every lonely balcony sighed from

upon a moonless night;

every saga of love requited

(or otherwise); every conjugating,

consummating, copulating couple

coupling under the twinkling stars;

every game of footsies under the stools

in every dim & smoky bar;

every wounded howl at midnight

from every chained-up hound;

every secret whisper

in a beloved's fragrant ear;

every wanton curling tress

cascading down a brazen breast;

every sensuous wiggle of a big toe,

every contented twitch of a mustache;

every squealing shimmering moment

stolen from a dolphin's delight;

every wonderful feeling

that ever filled a heaving heart;

every trilling note of morning song

from a robin magpie to the clear blue sky;

every single heartbeat,

every thrum & throb,

every riff that's ever been played

on a guitar well inlaid

with mother-of-pearl;

every flamenco dancer's fantasy,

every boy who's ever met his girl;

every tale of love undying,

every dream of formation flying;

each silent wish upon a shooting star;

every first kiss in the back of a car;

each shy penciled note passed from hand to hand,

every grand gesture that's led to instant death;

every mantra of devotion,

every image of divinity,

every prayer to infinity recited under the breath...

 

0 Antara my Soul, my Inmost Self,

my reminder of perfection...

with you I feel at One within:

9D, 7D, 5D, 3D, 1D we ARE free!

My love, my love, I can only say:

Love is never hard work,

Love is play!

(I'm glad we're not married to each other...

And that we aren't "legally" sister & brother...)

I'm so happy that we can simply be

Left to explore the furthermost outposts

Of pure love's possibilities.

 

[I HEREBY GRANT YOU TOTAL ACCESS TO MY FILES!]

18 June 1998