While laying under a white pine tree at a Sufi retreat in
Sarasota Florida last month, this poem wrote itself while
thinking of the connectedness of all parts of the tree. When
I went back into the retreat, Pir Vilayat used the tree as an
example of oneness. Sometimes we find that we are one step
ahead of ourselves. Those moments of synchronicity bring such
joy. BTW, if you ever get the chance to experience the energy
of the Sufi Master, Pir (teacher) Vilayat Inayat Khan, I highly
recommend it. He is the eldest son of Hazrat Inayat Khan who
introduced Sufism to the western world in 1910.

TREE OF LIFE

white pine,
giver of sacred breath,
how beautiful you are
branching into perfection
on the spiral of diversity

roots align the directions of balance
moss hangs out on limbs of surrender
bark inhales the colors of gaia
needles point and wave at creation
nectar entices curious seekers
cones plant seeds in response to slight breezes

all represent the grand play of oneness
deeply aware the unity of purpose
ingesting the light of the sun and moon,
the tree of life blooms in the cradle of love

by Sharon Pacione
February 25, 2002
Wdestiny44@...

In reading an article regarding crop circles, the
words to this 1967 Moody Blues song were used.
The post was about the "sounds of the crop circles".

IN SEARCH OF THE LOST CHORD

This garden vibrates complete.
Some may get a sound so sweet.
Vibrations reach on up to become light
and then through gamma, out of sight.

Between the eyes and ears there lie
the sounds of color and light of a sigh
and to hear the sun, what a thing to believe,
but it's all around if we could but perceive.

To know ultra violet, infra-red and x-rays,
beauty to find in so many ways.

Two notes of the chord, that's our full scope
but to reach the chord is our life's hope
and to name the chord is important to some
so they give a word, and the word is Om.

Moody Blues
from the album "In Search of the Lost Chord"
1967

And, when you stop and think about it,
you won't belive it's true,
that all the love you've been giving,
has all been meant for you.

Moody Blues' Justin Hayward
from "Question" 1970

I GAZE UPON golden fields of grain
They languish beneath the lonely loving moon
To remind me of my distant homeland scene
I recall the rectitude of former times
Coming from the crops,I knelt in the sanctuary's silence
Soon came the band of chanting priests
Who swayed and shook the sweetened food
Into swirling flame of the sacred hearth
That blessed burning blaze that crowned
An altar's white ascending mound
I had tended when still a beardless boy.

Later still,memory of lingering in shade
To love and look after the pale cows
And honour the Celestial Herdsman
And the matchless Maid.

Now I perceive the place of gathering
A beautiful barn that is my retreat
To the splendour of the past
While in stables stand the sacred steeeds
Who bear me out into the wider world
A mounted man seeking a maiden.

The God's glorious house of gold
In all its grandeur is gone
Replaced with senseless stones
As I lie in their pointless , pitiless shadows
A frozen larva weaves its tiny winter screen
Which was the greatest secret of the goddess
From sunset to the scheme of silvery stars
I wander the way of the wounded earth
And dashed to devildom
Is my radiant and renowned lorica of God's lore

I have as did the holiest flames
Endured the word wonderful reduced to nothing
Burned to breathlessness a baleful body
Carried mercilessly across the kalpas
Mistaken throughout millennia , I would see
One with winded robes fair as gold
Whose crown of hair is set with jewels
And hallowed with flowers of Joy.

JASON REDVERS LATHAM 43 years of age from GREAT BRITAIN

Pondering, "Forever"

For some mysterious reason
in rhyme and rhythmic season
we sing our colors ripe,
pulled and tuned
from chords with hues
shared among us all
the consequence to this
is that our fruit does fall.

Individuals born to seek and branch
travel along an infinite spectrum
tiny cycles build in and
among the big one
that is this, our finite human life.
These cycles hold our personal array
the fruits we create
from birth and decay.

We resonate to uncover
vibration's wide endless variety,
choices provided abundantly
in life's gigantic banquet
that's provided for us all.

Essentially, it's up to us
to explore and taste of it
as we do
we swallow up
our selected choices
and take them deep down
inside this vessel clothed in human skin.

We discover on this journey,
a place between the ranges
where some of us decide
to stay for prolonged play.
Beware, for here is where
it is easy to loose track.
Here among
the tastes that lay between
the rivers of life's sweet wings
spread wide and full of
sticky yummy juices,
dripping oozy goo,
smothered in laughter's song,
and out-on-over to the other side
of cold steel, fragility,
sour, pithy-picky things,
scratchy, withered, dried and dusty
with tails that rattle
forked tongues hiss between
a set of poison teeth.

At each turn we find
the landscape changes
to what we vibrate, we anticipate.
Spreading branches form
like rivers flowing over sand.
Out of each and every choice
we eat of life's big feast
we do design,
the architectural pathways
individualized blueprints
for our own unique amazing fruits.

We eat each choice in heavy meals
and nibble some on snacks,
each choice we take
has a consequence,
the fruit of which
grows ripe upon our tree.
This growth depends
largely upon
the nutrients and amount of light
we add with our unique song
that we provide to accompany
this ever-changing incubation.

On and on our fruits do grow
to the ripest point allowed
and then there comes a day
when the fruit
of choice and consequence
reaches maturation.

It served its cycle
a learned lesson, ripened
hanging off our tree,
without much warning,
perhaps on the wind of a butterfly
or in a torrential pouring rain,
our fruits give up their hold
to fall
back down
to mother earth
where they will end
this existence, in decay.

Sometimes from way up there,
a splat and thud, an ouch.
We may yell, "Yee, God, this sucks,
look at this damn horrible mess!
I am up to my chin by now."
We cry and carry on
the best that we know how.

Other times floating silently
on a silver whisper
our fruits land most gracefully
upon a soft moss pillow.
We may voice a different kind of cry and carry on
the best that we know how.

Some say,
If you feel it's an ouch, you'll stick with the old plan
and bear the same old fruit, again.
If you feel it's an ooh or an ahh, you're off to the new
to try out another variety of fruited grand display.

Yet, interesting to me
is how both ends of this cycle
strip us of our fruits.
They land us right back
where we started from
naked clinging roots.

We cyclically stand again
in front of choice's banquet.
Still through it all
something plain and simple
often over-looked:
There we are
we remain
the unique tree
we are always meant to be.

This smaller bearing cycle,
inside the bigger one,
allows us
over and over
round and round
under and above
to discover life's pattern
is right there for us to see.

Each fruit contains a gift for us
it offers with decay
the gift is the bones of experience
for display.
Will we, the tree,
examine them
or choose to look away?

Regardless of their purpose
I think we can ascertain
each set of bones
is there,
recorded somewhere
within this human skin.
Perhaps without examination now,
later to be revealed
as the same old fruit, again?

Is this fossil of experience
left over from our fruit
the switch,
to provide information
to what's stored in our human suit?
Is this the switch that tends
to make the ouch a sickly-grouch,
and the ooh a most vital, joyful-pleasant-friend?

Life is not the struggle
we make it to be
instead, our vibrations
can join in most playfully.
It's up to us to see our way
to pick and choose
more deliberately
which fruits
we will continue to produce
and which of those
no longer serve us day-to-day

When I look back I see
my own fruit dropping
used to petrify me...
I'd use all my strength and might
to hold on to all of it so tight.
I'd pray, "you are so beautiful
please don't fall, just yet".
Man-o-man, I'd worked so hard
for all I got!
All this toil and trouble
to ripen the entire crop,
would go for naught?
I'd imagined that
these ornaments I made
had described me perfectly, to a T.
Not yet understanding
that they
covered up me, the tree.

Loaded down, overworked
with heavy ripened fruit
like clockwork
the storm would arrive
to shake and rip it all away...

Ker-splat...

Robbed again, I thought
again, I closed my eyes
over and over
round and round,
under and above,
to avoid looking at
what I thought was
beauty gone by
in the ugly bones of decay.

When I finally opened them
I found to my surprise
that I had simply dreaded
all that life itself is made of...
birth, rebuilding and decay.

Right now, again I've got a crop
I know someday ahead I'll drop.
Yet, I'm understanding better
my fruit is not the tree.
That tree, I now recognize, is me.
So giving light and nutrients
is no longer a boring chore
all that changed to play
the day
when beauty saw herself
in fruit's decay.

Now that I begin to get it
to figure out the way,
I find it grand design,
just as it is supposed to be
to join my tree and dream
with love's celebration,
which is essentially
the cycle
which begins and ends
as fruits release
from the tree.

I see for me,
fruits falling
that's how life's meant to be.

I can't say that I'm an expert
and wonder if I'll ever be?
But it seems to me
that together with this lesson
is where I need to be.

Ker-plop.....

Hey look at that,
I think a fruit dropped.

So now my poetic path's
meandering has arrived
back to where I started from
and this fruit's bones
brought its surprise to me,
for now I see
I have changed my view...

Forever is a possibility
for two who know
they are trees.

Hilary Collins
4-12-02

Being Jane Goodall

There is a piece of me
that loves to hold
binoculars to my eyes
as I look out to the wild world.
I keep them handy
right next to my bed,
with my chapstick.

Today I study
the illusive three year old
woodchuck who lives
near my garden
in a tunnel
under the cool stone fence.

I discovered she, is a he
and he won't taste the
purple violets,
but he vacuums up
yellow dandelions
as if they would
light him up
when he goes back underground
with their sunshine.

I can trace his steps
in the field. He has
been where purple
is the only color
left snuggled in the green.

Hilary Collins
4/17/02

The Song in You and Me

There's a song we all arrive with
that beats in harmony with our heart.
If you care to listen, you will hear the music play
and your rhythm will remind you
why you are alive today.

Some say we carry our common human song
deep within the spirals of our DNA.
It is the song that recognizes
love as the universal glue.
It's not just all the fuzzy stuff either,
it's also love of slimy worms.

This song of ours resonates with light of
affirmation, harmony, peace, love, and safety.
We're all so different that is true,
yet we share a common tune for
belonging, health, respect, and freedom,
beauty, pure water, clean air, delicious food, nurturance,
ease and flow, prosperity, kindness and compassion,
justice, honor, understanding and reverence for life.

This common song is one that we are born to play
it creates our balance day to day,
sets us on the center point
with the Earth, with each other
and with ourselves.

Our gift of song is HUGE you see, it never goes away
it's always there inside to choose
to live and love unconditionally.

The next time you get the chance,
look into a child's eyes,
see if you can recognize the tune that's playing there, inside.
For if you hear the music's notes,
it will strike a common chord
and your heart's song will start to play along.
Your feet may tap and this exchange
will snap you back to life's joyful dance.

From there it's all left up to you, my friend,
to keep your station tuned-in
to what is playing inside you.
Sure it may be hard at first, to keep this dial tuned
so remember to give yourself a break,
as the pulse inside
balances and reveals to you
the love that you are made of
and what it means to share.

I have told you all the pudding fluff-stuff of life,
so now you wonder, where are all the tears, the spit and blood,
the stones and bombs stored, My Dear?

Glad you asked,
  "Is there a common song for war,
hatred, bigotry, murder, rape, pillage and plunder?"

Personally, I don't think there is a song like this,
not one that is born inside our hearts.
Don't get me wrong, I know this tune is real;
we can't deny what our eyes see and our ears do feel,
humanity's long scream of anguish,
squished bones and ashes, blood and guts
echoes throughout historical halls.
This refrain is certainly really real,
ringing all around us, in retaliation's recall.

Yet I believe, this song of hate for one another
is disregard imposed outside our human forms.
Composed long ago as a power trip loop
to control and possess what we hold dear.
Held in place with warnings of "worse than this"
and threats of shame and punishment.
Fear is the ball and chain that locks
our reality dials to the mean and nasty outside "sing-a-long".

So we listen to discordant slice and dice,
and greasy frying pans, chalk-board fingernails,
shivers and wide-tear-filled eyes,
hungry bellies, babies dying, dust flying
slaps in faces and putdowns of all size,
choking lumps that rise and slide back down our throats.
The song is so insidious, a tight knot in the rope
its notes are written on the lines with promises of glory,
posturing on mountains of possessions,
stabbing pains and people's backs,
and front's slaughters are in there too,
relinquishing the rights of others
for promised riches, more than one's fair share.

This cruel tone is really dense,
it's not easy to see through to the other side.
It covers, dams, distracts and generally messes up
the flowing light which sings inside.
It's acts rise in reaction form,
the kind that perpetuate the validity of power-over others,
spread like wildfire on the billboards and TV.
Hate wrapped in a pack of lies
made to seem so real, it's now... supposedly
a completely normal part of life....
as if war and dominating others, was just what's meant to be.

We are frightened, tricked and tempted
and so we yield our bow to those
whose lips and actions tell us they are kings,
more important and more worthy than
who they name the lame brain, small fry, other thing.
This is how we take our energy and starve our inner song
giving it away to the outside power that buys and sells
in stockpiles,
the love that life is all about
and we are left empty and forever craving.

With each bow and sucked in lump,
we are fully responsible
because...
we are standing there allowing
the crushing of each other to propagate.
Yet we know what is singing/ringing true in all of us,
why else would Schindler's List receive
our quivered lips, the river of tears and Oscar's rave reviews?

We leave our movie seats, kleenex still in hand
and with a sigh, we swallow the "why?",
return to pressure, push and shove, incinerate,
the tear track's remains
are covered up by our day to day.
So we dance and share this history with our children in our books.
Yet we don't provide the space to keep them free to ask us, "Why?"
"Why Mom and Dad, are you such cowards?", they would say
"What is the purpose of this game anyway, that we all play?"

So instead of stopping to take a look,
and falling into our selves,
like the Phoenix in the fire,
we continue to think the pain is less if we swallow the lump
and on and on we dance in this hurting-bleeding song.
This maddening circle is how we all continue to think
  the others are nuts who rally for peace and love.
We believe the lie that "it's only normal, human way"
to play the game dealing cards off the bottom of the deck
pointing fingers finding blame, with heavy price to pay.

This negating-life song is sung
all in the name and claim of protection,
as the bloody-bleeding outside song
marches itself on down the hall,
whose walls sole purpose is to maintain
the circle of communal ignorance.

Come in closer for a look,
it is not all as hopeless as it seems
the walls give way,
when we slow the mad organ grinder down.
Release yourself from cruelty's gravity,
and float up to a seat in a tree,
from the vantage point of looking in
you can examine hate more carefully.
Here is where the picture gets clear
as to the source of hate's energetic fuel.

You'll find something really strange
that will shake most people up
if they care to take the time to look
the lump will rise to their surprise
it gets too big now to swallow back down
So now it's out the lump tells us,
that we are in fact
both the chorus and conductor of this creepy crushing song.

The lump tells us,
our own worst crime seems to be:
we continue singing blind to this discovery.
As we do, we hide both our own
and each other's, and even the Earth's innate ability
to become One Whole Family.

Yet stepping of the hamster wheel
and spitting out these lumps,
lets us see that music's meaning
has a deeper sweeter purpose than
simply pointing fingers at the whole.

The view yields us the greatest hope we could imagine,
as our common human song floods our hearts
and fills our smiles, "YES", ahhha...
We know our potential is inside... We realize,
we are individuals dancing in One Collective Whole
balanced in vibration with soul-filled living and considering of all.


Hilary Collins
4/25/02 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sharon,
I enjoy your postings. I tried to use 'For spiritual
poetry, visit Sharon Pacione's Poetry Group
at:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VoicesOfThePhilosopher's
Stone' and got the message 'There is no group called
VoicesOfThePhilosopher's Stone'.I know what the
problem is but some might not. It needs to read
'http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VoicesOfThePhilosophersStone/'

Don

--- wdestiny44@... wrote:
>
> TIRED OF SPEAKING SWEETLY
>
> Love wants to reach out and manhandle us,
> break all our teacup talk of God.
>
> If you had the courage and
> could give the Beloved His choice, some nights,
> He would just drag you around the room
> by your hair,
> ripping from your grip all those toys in the world
> that bring you no joy.
>
> Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly
> and wants to rip to shreds
> all your erroneous notions of truth
>
> that make you fight within yourself, dear one,
> and with others,
>
> causing the world to weep
> on too many fine days.
>
> God wants to manhandle us,
> lock us inside of a tiny room with Himself
> and practice His dropkick.
>
> The Beloved sometimes wants
> to do us a great favor:
>
> hold us upside down
> and shake all the nonsense out.
>
> but when we hear
> He is in such a "playful drunken mood"
>
> most everyone I know
> quickly packs their bags and hightails it
> out of town.
>
> Hafiz from the book "The Gift: Poems by Hafiz" The
> Great Sufi Master
> (1320-1389), translations by Daniel Ladinsky
>
> For spiritual poetry, visit Sharon Pacione's Poetry
> Group at:
>
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VoicesOfThePhilosopher's
> Stone
>
>


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com

Don:

That pesky apostrophe!!! Thanks for bringing it to my
attention. And, I'm glad you enjoy the occasional post.
Please feel free to post your favorite poems too.

Peace and love,
Sharon 444

--- In VoicesOfThePhilosophersStone@y..., Don McCormack
<donaldj69@y...> wrote:
> Sharon,
> I enjoy your postings. I tried to use 'For spiritual
> poetry, visit Sharon Pacione's Poetry Group
> at:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VoicesOfThePhilosopher's
> Stone' and got the message 'There is no group called
> VoicesOfThePhilosopher's Stone'.I know what the
> problem is but some might not. It needs to read
> 'http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VoicesOfThePhilosophersStone/'
>
> Don
>
> --- wdestiny44@a... wrote:
> >
> > TIRED OF SPEAKING SWEETLY
> >
> > Love wants to reach out and manhandle us,
> > break all our teacup talk of God.
> >
> > If you had the courage and
> > could give the Beloved His choice, some nights,
> > He would just drag you around the room
> > by your hair,
> > ripping from your grip all those toys in the world
> > that bring you no joy.
> >
> > Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly
> > and wants to rip to shreds
> > all your erroneous notions of truth
> >
> > that make you fight within yourself, dear one,
> > and with others,
> >
> > causing the world to weep
> > on too many fine days.
> >
> > God wants to manhandle us,
> > lock us inside of a tiny room with Himself
> > and practice His dropkick.
> >
> > The Beloved sometimes wants
> > to do us a great favor:
> >
> > hold us upside down
> > and shake all the nonsense out.
> >
> > but when we hear
> > He is in such a "playful drunken mood"
> >
> > most everyone I know
> > quickly packs their bags and hightails it
> > out of town.
> >
> > Hafiz from the book "The Gift: Poems by Hafiz" The
> > Great Sufi Master
> > (1320-1389), translations by Daniel Ladinsky
> >
> > For spiritual poetry, visit Sharon Pacione's Poetry
> > Group at:
> >
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VoicesOfThePhilosopher's
> > Stone
> >
> >
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
> http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com

After nine year's study,
mind's completely free,
words come forth completely unbound.
By what is the body supported;
upon what do the feet walk?
Blown away, east and west
as a dry leaf torn from a tree;
is the wind riding on me
or am I riding the wind?

~~~~~~~~Lieh Tzu