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

 BOTTLED HEART red hearts trapped inside the polygon blue diamonds dots will set hearts free the polygon blue diamonds represent forces of the outer world that can harden and crystalize our exteriors...the blue diamonds are shaped like a bottle within which are trapped human hearts. ..the dots are forces at the edges of our bodies and outside of us that have the power to uncork the bottle and allow the love and care in our hearts to pour out into life. the process of uncorking the bottle is something that we all need to do every day...not only to let our love flow, but to release the build up of tension/stress within our hearts ...i've found the best way to do this on the regular is meditation and/or prayer...something simple like the relaxation response by Herbert Benson...sitting in a relaxed quiet place, repeat a positive word on each exhale, when other thoughts come remain passive (e.g., say "oh well" and go back to repeating the word)...continue for 10-15 mins...tha...

PEACOCK crisscrossing spirals green, brown, orange, and blue combine excited peacock this image began with two infinity symbols at center, grew outward with colors and ovals between the infinities... we come from the infinite center and add ovals and color to our lives as we grow...if we step back for perspective, we may feel the beauty and excitement of a male peacock. what small things in our lives can we bring together (or create) to form a beautiful excited peacock ready for action? how might we step back from our lives and observe the places where excited peacocks may already be strutting, ready for action?

SUNSET BEACH      the beach at sunset purples, blues, and tans combine footprint and seaship First Landing State Park in Virginia Beach, Virginia (formerly Seashore State Park) is one of our favorite family vacation spots. On the west side of the park, there is the Chesapeake Bay, on the east side there is the Atlantic Ocean, and in the middle runs several trails through the forest with names like Cape Henry and Fox Run. The image below is sunset at the Chesapeake Bay side beach with a lone ship at sea, and an exaggerated footprint hovering over the sand framed by colors of purple, blue, and tan swirling into each other. One can walk along the beach of life, look back and see footprin ts in the sand for a short distance before wind, water, and time erase them...and never know what it is like to sail on the ship at sea...where are we going on the beach of life?...would we rather sail on the ship at sea?...know that eventually this ship has to land and we will find ourselv...

PINK OVALS & PURPLE MOONS circles intertwined pink ovals & purple moons male & female joined the pink ovals with the black or red centers represent female energies while the purple and lighter violet crescent moon shaped figures represent male energies--the female energies near the center expand out, seeking the male energies while the male energies, on the outer rim of the figure, are moving inward, seeking the female energies...both are intertwined by the light blue cosmic circles, connecting female and male energies into a harmonious whole. one interpretation of this mandala is the male seeking to unite with the female and visa versa...the male moving from the outside to inside and the female moving from inside to outside...eventually the male is received completely by the firey red female energy and dissolves into the darkness of her womb (or we could flip it and say the male energy penetrates and enlivens the female energy which creates new life).. practically, we al...

  WEB OF TRIANGLES web of triangles connected with thin threads encircled with green the green circle and threads are inspired by the greenry around me at First Landing State Park near the shores of the Atlantic Ocean in Virginia. The triangles represent trinitarian dynamics of objects in the world: people, plants, animals, insects, micro-organisms...the green web of life. as a practice, imagine yourself standing at the center of your web of life...move out from your center, seeing and feeling into the trinitarian dynamics surrounding you...including  body, elementals, all living things...all interconnected, all in some sense unified and ONE.  

 BLACK , GREEN , ORANGE from the deep dark black comes the green stem and the leaves flower then orange fruit The sequence of colors from the center black , to the middle green , to the outer orange represents the life of a seed in the black of the soil, sprouting and pushing up a stem which turns green with leaves in the sunshine and eventually flowers, fertilizes, and produces orange fruit. So too, we have ideas that begin in the black void of the quantum field, pushing out of the realm of possibilities into some specific line of intent (the stem), which, given the proper nourishment from the soil and sun, will sprout into green leaves (ideas and actions), and these give rise to orange flowers, attracting pollinators (supportive people), that when fertile produce fruit (the outcome, art, love, invention, story...) to make life more wonderful. What ideas do you have lurking below the surface of consciousness in the black void? How might you nurture one idea to give it str...

PLAYFUL CONVERGENCE Converging forces                    vpmbrthomh gptvrd blue and violet color               n;ir smf bop;ry vp;pt playing in the shapes               [;suomh om yjr djs[rd There are many forces in our lives--inside our bodies, minds, and spirits...around our bodies in our immediate environment...people in our household, home, neighborhood, village/city... nature as incarnate in plants, insects, and animals...all of the elements, sunshine, water, earth, and air surrounding and connecting us all!  All of these forces converge inside us moment by moment, changing us (according to the quantum physicists) at a subatomic levels many times in a single second (i can't even fathom that!). We cannot figure it all out. Who can even describe all the mysterious and marvelous biological/chemical processes that happen within us to keep us alive ...

  LIFE-BEING-PRESENCE The great gift of LIFE The great gift of 2 BEINGS Finally...PRESENCE We begin with the most basic question of all: why is there something rather than nothing? How is it that we find ourselves in this great mystery called LIFE ? Life is, and we are, that is, we consciously experience ourselves as a BEING . In considering our being, we also realize that we are utterly interconnected to all life, including all other beings. This connection is what i call a sense of PRESENCE .  In the haiku the allusion is to 2 beings that create a new presence, a new being, but it need not be that...any and all beings create multiple presences all the time!  So there is  LIFE all round, we realize life in our BEING , and we come to feel the connection between life and being as a kind of PRESENCE . The most practical application of this 3-fold dynamic of life, being, and presence is to bask in, enjoy, wonder, and feel the life-being-presence connection through cont...

  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.