Haiku Ellipses...Invitation...Response...

  2BE 2DO 1st there is 2BE Then there is meditation Last there is 2DO I like to play with numbers and words as in 2b, 2know, 2do, 2u, etc...out of this play came the ideas of 2BE and 2DO , fitting into a sequence marked by contemplation and action. Richard Rhor founded the Center for Action and Contemplation, prioritizing action over contemplation, but in this haiku, i highlight the opposite, prioritizing contemplation before action, that is, the contemplation/meditation informs our action in the world. Thus, first there is the state of being, followed by meditation, ending in doing. The practical implication for me is that each day i begin with prayer and meditation, dropping into the center of BEING . Next, i review my priorities for the day, making sure that i balance my needs/goals with others, realizing that this is a plan, that things rarely go exactly according to plan, that flexibility and adjustments will need to be made in the lived moments that make up a day. With the pl...

KOI POND   Below the surface of the little backyard pond Fish playing with light A very quick sketch of our backyard koi pond was inspired by the sparkles of light i saw bouncing off the fish below the surface of the pond. What is this miracle of light? The sunshine bouncing off the fish as they meander through the wetness, or is it better thought of as fish "playing with light"? Of course, it's BOTH! As we look deeper into things using the contemplative gaze, the long, loving, leisurely, look at the real that William Mac Namara writes about in his book, The Human Adventure: The Art of Contemplative Living, we perceive below and allow our gaze to penetrate into things "below the surface of the koi pond ." Whatever we see is REAL, and all perspectives are welcome, we embracing everything in our both/and contemplative gaze. 

  EJACULATION growing waves coming slowly at 1st then building ejaculation Biologically, we tend to think of ejaculation as the physiological release of sperm (and other fluids) by a male into a female during sexual intercourse as part of the reproductive process to continue the species, but i like to think of ejaculation in a much broader sense. In this haiku, ejaculation refers to ideas that grow, often slowing, on the back burner, over time, building, gaining momentum, and eventually spilling out into some creative art such as music, poetry, painting, and journaling. This kind of ejaculation knows no gender but does have sexual overtones. The process calls for skills in caressing, enticing, and loving into being. Both men and women can experience this kind of ejaculation . I find that journaling, and other kinds of writing like poetry, stories, blogging, words on  "post it" notes, helps me catch ideas percolating in my mind, opening up a space for them to eventually b...

  EXPANSION & CONTRACTION From the 2 come 8 Expansion & Contraction Joining Together The "2" is 2 overlapping squares with the 2nd square placed at a 45 degree angle atop the first square--see upper left figure in image below. The place where the edges of the squares meet (the red tips) are pointing outward, thus the idea of EXPANSION .  Let the tips fade into the background, and sharpen the focus on the areas within the two squares, finding an 8 sided octagon (the blue shape near the center of the image below). If the 4 red points from the original two squares are made into smaller squares, there emerges red arrows that point inward toward the center (see 2nd figure on top row with the red arrows in the image below). Both the octagon within the square and the inward pointed red arrows show the idea of CONTRACTION .  When the squares and octagon, the 2 & 8, merge, as in the colored figure at the bottom right below, we see JOINING. The squares are still ther...

  Star Being & 4 Masked Men Centered Star Being Surrounded by 4 Masked Men Integrationing Inspired by the hexad in chapter 6 of Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe by Michael Schneider (see blog of 3 x 5's for 1/1/2022), the diamond shape at the center took shape first and reminds me of a person. Since this shape resembles a star, i called it the " Star Being " in the haiku. The 4 parts that intersect in the center of the Star Being and move outward, splitting the 4 cardinal directions, are created next, reminding me of African masks that i saw that in the safari section of the Zoo cafeteria in Norfolk, Virginia in the early post 2000 years...distinctly male energy. These male energies appear to penetrate and intermingle with the Star Being , hence the final line of the haiku that ends with a new word that i coin here (i could not find the word in a google search on 1/1/2022): INTEGRATIONING , signaling the active process of combining energies to birth...

 DIAMOND STARE diamonds on her back coiling into a spiral starring into me The coiling of the purple diamond shapes on the back of this female snake end at her head with red sparkling diamonds that seem to stare into me when i gaze with soft eyes. She is surrounded by brown earth yet at the center where her head rests is a lively green patch of grass, symbolizing earth and plant, hard and soft, yang and ying. ANYTHING can become the focus of a " diamond stare "...a contemplative gaze that begins on the rim of the object of focus (the ground in Gestalt terms) and moves toward the center (the figure in Gestalt) where one may experience the feeling of being starred at (see Rupert Sheldrake's book The Sense of Being Stared At ), and/or the feeling of mutual gaze (a resonant connection). As we are gazed upon, perhaps we are in some sense "known," and the wisdom of the "other" comes into us.

  INNER WORKINGS      Enter the Chamber Undergo Transformation Exit Born Again The entry door invites us to "come in." Into the black box of an unknown process that will transform us...uncertainty, courage, fear, worry, concern, hope...all of these feelings abound when entering the door, crossing the threshold, into the unseen inner workings of a process that will change us. At the start, we cannot say how long we will be in the process, along the journey, traveling and experiencing life.  At some point, we will exit through another door inviting us to "go out," to leave the now more familiar, and enter another place/space/time. Through this exit door, we can look back, perceiving how we are transformed , in a spiritual sense " re born again. " Perhaps we even have wisdom to share with others, although language is often a poor rendition of the actual experience, but we do what we can with poetic, mysterious, and paradoxical language to provide others wi...

  HIDDEN FIGURE Triangular shapes Reveal the hidden figure Standing at center Often i begin a mandalla type of drawing at the center of the page, developing areas that slowly expand toward the outwarder edges of the paper, not knowing how the final piece will turn out. Gradually, a " hidden figure " revealed itself at the center of the drawing below made of different shaped and colored triangles. Michael Schneider's Beginners guide to contructing the universe describes how triangles are part of a "scared geometry" through which we can create and observe the world. I'm not sure how to interpret the hidden figure  that is revealing itself at the center of the drawing: an African chief standing noble and tall, an Egyptian pharaoh of power and status sitting on a throne, an interdimensional being phrasing into our reality, an angelic being here to provide guidance and comfort... what does the hidden figure reveal for you? Look for the triangular shapes in your ...

CRAZY 8's  Swirling around me Crazy 8's out of control Pull them to CENTER The multicolored figure 8's, off center and swirling, connected to the center by a colored tether, represent an infinity of "areas/ideas" in an individual's life. There are many ways to represent these: mind, body, spirit, or home, work, play, or self, other, nature, and divine, and so forth. In quantum physics, these infinity signs, represented as " crazy 8' s, " might be called "possibility waves or potentialities in the quantum field." Colloquially, we say these are possibility thoughts. When we place our attention/focus on these crazy 8's /waves/thoughts, they break through into our reality and become part of our center. Hence, the image of the intermingled crazy 8's in the center of the image. At center, we can play with them, work with them, add/subtract from them, dissolve them, interweave them...we engage and dance with them in the greater song o...

  K A L E I D O S C O P I N G colored squares align by 4 triangles cornered 1 kaleidoscope kaleidoscopes are usually circular shaped, but in this haiku i began in the middle of the image below with squares and kept building outward with more squares of different colors, ending in a pattern that seemed reminiscent of the kaledioscope i remember looking into as a child...the 4 green triangles (half squares) added to the 4 corners gives a feeling of dynamic motion, the changing patterns of the kaleidoscope, hence the title   " K A L E I D O S C O P I N G ." we only are conscious of a small part of our processing ability, some 50 bits of information per second, but we are actually processing over a million bits of information per second according to Willian Bengston...consider digesting, breathing, heartbeat, nerve impulses, respiration, listening, talking, movement, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting--even the air, seeing...ecopsychologist Michael Cohen posits 50-some sens...