October 9, 2012

October 9, 2012

(All photos are mine unless noted. You can bring the pictures up in full screen by double clicking on any image. Click on a border to return.)

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   Consumerism and the current state of men in American society:

    Once upon a long time ago when archetypes were being set in masculine DNA or soul, the hunter gatherer instinct was what men were about primarily - finding and getting food for family and children. This basic component of men's basic nature is still very much in place although it has been redirected along new pathways. In young single men the instinct to provide for others has been replaced by the necessity of getting goods and things for self-gratification only. Selfishness? Yes, yet goods are gathered, tossed aside and regathered in a new version with alarming frequency.

   What is considered the hot newest and greatest today will soon be passe and old before its time, enabling the new and improved models of objects to become that which is desired above all others - becoming the next necessary "animal to be slain for food," so to speak. A strange twist as the old is kept alive until the new arrives on the scene. Sort of keeping the 'animal' in the cave and killing it only when it is deemed ready for the garbage heap. Strange food, "strange fruit" as Billie Holiday sang about the dark sides of love. 

   I was taken with the photo below which shows a modern man being applauded by his tribe after slaying a salesclerk and bagging a new Ipad, Iphone, whatever, his "I,I,I,I" ego now satisfied for a few moments. What is amazing to me is that he is also on his Ipad thingy in his left hand which has a camera and is most likely showing the world on twitter his strength and ability to bring home the bacon. I imagine that the next day at work he will proudly show everyone what a remarkable hunter he is by letting lesser men know that they have a long way to go before they reach anything near approaching his killer attributes. 

   A week later perhaps this man will be lusting for a new kill, filled with expectations of the next modern day prey to arrive outside the cave. 

  So it goes in the wilds of modern day life. 

                                                                                                                                          AP Photo   

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Fall has arrived in Maine and is on its way out fast.

Here are two photos taken last week in Acadia National Park - 

Lee on the Jessup Path

The leaves of Autumn , so beautifully decorated,

are, as we can be in our final hours,

putting on their finest clothes to greet 

the next stage of life.

                                          - A Simple Yes –

Do not fret if you are the first leaf to fall come Autumn,

Soon there will be plenty of company to enjoy.

Let those who let go of the tree first teach you –

If you are first, be the teacher.

These lessons are best learned in Spring and Summer.

Ego always says, "Fuss and worry ! " It wants its way.

Wait. The waves of Divine Love will come soon,

To push you in the Right Direction toward acceptance.

Love comes in a boat with no anchor or sail –

What need can these devices be to the dying?

Once on board, we cannot sail back to known shores,

Nor hold on in place attempting to halt the inevitable.

God will have Love's Way –

The distant island's shores will be landed.

A simple "Yes," eases the pain of resistance

To the unavoidable, the What Will Be,

A Power Greater than all our refusals.

The request from Jesus was, "Follow me."

Stop, look, listen, and go.

                                                      Bill Lagerstrom,  2007           

This picture came from a photograph taken near Mt. Katahdin, Maine.

One of the wonders of the digital age and photo processing. 

Taken two weeks ago.

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   Here is a song by Gary Malkin titled "We Are Not Alone" - Something for the Fall season of all our lives. 

  Click here: https://www.box.com/s/0mh47a84gh6j3vpojeql

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A little humor from today's paper:

Until next week, Peace,

               Bill Lagerstrom

September 24, 2012

September 24, 2012

(All photos are mine unless noted. You can bring the pictures up in full screen by double clicking on any image. Click on a border to return.)

   It has been said in Sufi literature that if a rock falls, "That is the Nature of God." So, perhaps it follows that rocks and have their "nature," the ingrained, never to be displaced essence of their Creator. I, for most of my life have looked at God's wondrous Creations with the view that is more scientific than metaphoric - Rock is ......  formed by the magma from the earth's core ....  many types, granite, basalt .......  named and labeled to fit neatly in the box I placed them in.
   
     To stop, look at anything created with an eye that is both outer and outer and which desires to see what of God is imbued in anything, is relatively new for me. Learning to sit with and allow something to tell me what its seeming secrets are requires a different way of looking than I have spent so many years accepting as the way to understand what is around me. I am learning to stop, take several breaths, and ask for the vision to see what has been in front of me all along - that which is the living presence of the Divine in all and everything. That has become the petition of the present moment's prayer. 

    I do not, however, get down on myself for not having done this new kind of observation before most of my life has passed. To the contrary, I am only grateful for the Gift of sight which I now know has its eyes within my core - where the senses of the heart operate in us all. 

    Bless the Lord. Bless this moment in this day.

All of God's Creation desires to be known -

and will slowly show itself

to the heart that desires to see.

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Look to the heavens and see ......

" I am the Light within you.

My only desire

is for you

to allow Me to be seen. "

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There is a community of the spirit.

Join it, and feel the delight of walking in the street of love,

and becoming scintillating love. 

Bathe in the light of grace.

 Close both eyes to see with inner eyes. 

Open your hands, if you want to receive. 

Open your arms, if you want to be held.

Sit down in this circle. 

Quit acting like a wolf, 

and feel the shepherd's love filling you. 

Be empty of worrying. 

Think of who created the soul 

and who fashioned everything out of nothingness! 

Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open? 

Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. 

Live in loving passionately and bloom 

like a beautiful night-queen flower 

that opens to the starry night,

 silently, without any noise. 

                                           ~ Based on a prayer by Cynthia J. Alby

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   A talk on Light and The Inner Senses,

                 By Victoria Austin of The San Francisco Zen Center

                           Click Here

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A gray rainy day is still filled with light

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Some humor: 

Further adventures in "first love"

Peace,   Bill Lagerstrom

September 17, 2012

September 17, 2012

(All photos are mine unless noted. You can bring the pictures up in full screen by double clicking on any image. Click on a border to return.)

    This week I am offering "Light" the product of God's love for everything that grows openly, unconstrained, enabling growth with fullness and delight. Below the pictures I put in a letter I sent to a friend who, when we met and talked a few weeks ago quoted Leonard Cohen - one of the great poets and songwriters of the age. Please take some time to read the letter and the poetry that follows below the first two photos so the light offered by others can enter.

"There's a crack, a crack in everything,

that's how the light gets in."

                         Leonard Cohen

Look for the Light, there's always an opening

When the Light enters and we face and embrace it,

wondrous flowers will be offered in gratitude

for our turning to the direction where God can be seen

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- A recent letter to a friend -

Dear  (my friend) ________ ,

      I was thinking about the Cohen quote, "There's a crack, a crack in everything – that's how the light gets in." My thoughts are that to see this "Light' one must get inside everything – or at least make a start and get inside one thing, open the heart's eyes, and let the Light of God's Spirit infuse one's being at God's speed, not ours. Lazarus, in the total darkness of the tomb first heard the voices at the entrance, then saw the light at the stone was rolled away, but it was not the light of day he saw but the Divine Light shining through the eyes of Jesus. I believe this to be so - how often have we been illuminated by the Spirit's Radiance as it shone through the presence of another, or was carried on the wings of another's speech, or from the pages of a book, or from a piece of music that lights up our very core.

    

    To see the crack from the outside is simply an observation of a flaw. To get the Gift we go inside – everything. Yet, the paradox is that we can see the crack in another's armor and their ever present Light will come through from their interior. To see growth in someone I may be working with, an illumination of some sort, is also to see The Light. It all depends on sight, opening the eyes of the heart. So, the outside can also be the inside.

  

   Here are two poems by David Whyte;

 - THE OPENING OF EYES -

That day I saw beneath dark clouds

the passing light over the water

and I heard the voice of the world speak out,

I knew then, as I had before

life is no passing memory of what has been

nor the remaining pages in a great book

waiting to be read.

It is the opening of eyes long closed.

It is the vision of far off things

seen for the silence they hold.

It is the heart after years

of secret conversing

speaking out loud in the clear air.

It is Moses in the desert

fallen to his knees before the lit bush.

It is the man throwing away his shoes

as if to enter heaven

and finding himself astonished,

opened at last,

fallen in love with solid ground.

                                                    David Whyte

         - Loaves and Fishes -

This is not

the age of information.

This is not

the age of information.

Forget the news,

and the radio,

and the blurred screen.

This is the time

of loaves

and fishes.

People are hungry

and one good word is bread

for a thousand.

  -- David Whyte

   

 (And from myself, something of a resurrection story.)   

- Seeing The Light –   ( Bill Lagerstrom, May 24, 2011 )

Into the light, out of the cold darkness of long winter's reach,

Spring rushes in, quickly, as it does every turn of the circle.

The seasons are God's Promises coming around again –

The Teaching is made visible, death of the old brings the life of the new.

The beech trees outside our door are Spring's work in action,

Speeding to life the buds holding the brown leaves

That never left during the past months of cold, ice and snow, now fall,

As new life dislodges the long dead to the grounds grave below.

Emerging as the growth of the new leaves of Spring,

Life is nourished by the decay of what has already died.

What appeared to be lifeless, is far from total demise,

All the wisdom in still useful cells, is the food offering new growth.

God only says, "Yes."

My pleas for answers go unanswered;

What I already knew, the circle of my life,

Has for many years been visible to these eyes –

Spring to Summer, to Fall, to Winter –

And, Spring again.

Losing memory of Spring when deep into the short days of Winter,

God, realizing the nature of my disbelief, my loss of hope –

Fulfills the promises made that need not be repeated,

New Spring will arrive even if I am called Home in Winter.

Winter's last breath, as will be mine,

Is always followed by New Life,

A different Spring for a different day.

We will all know this truth eventually.

           Peace and serenity my friend, in and with The Light. 

                      

                                                 Bill 

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Though the night holds its terrors,

and fitful dreams enter everywhere -

the Light continues to find its way in,

The Always Present Sun of Hope

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And a little humor:

- Falling in love for the first time -

Peace and serenity until next week,

                    Bill Lagerstrom