Lovers of learning
And all life
Ponder meaning, over steaming cappuccino
Wafting cinnamon
And smooth cream.
Chill snow
Dusting the bright spring morning
In ancient pueblo country
Heart of the Land
Of the Eagle.
What high purpose
Gives deepest meaning to their lives?
Teacher? Learner? Enabler?
Just helping others along?
Lover! Why not say it plain!
Perhaps such candor might offend,
Misconstrued by those in cultures
Which blind people
To their own divinity.
All life is sacred.
Truth that loses its meaning
In a welter of high-tech toys,
Trendy tricks and
Counterfeit spirituality.
Yet each one of us is sacred still,
Holy children of Gaia’s love
And teeming plenitude.
How deep, deep we now must reach
To find our
Inner glory.
Blest are those who find special ones
With whom to share the search.
Even as we see the love in
Every one we meet
In every stone and flower
Of the great creation
Still the warmth and comfort
Of each other,
Communing together
In awe and celebration,
Loving the magic, the dreams, the faith,
Is pure benediction.
How best to communicate these meanings?
And the essence of the journey?
“The Hero’s Journey,” we are told.
Sounds a pompous note?
Separating us from mother’s blood,
Soil, trees,
Pots and blankets,
Toys, and
Sacred babies’ diapers.
“The Lover’s Journey”
Feels better for life’s daily round
Of Holiness,
Each task performed
With mindfulness
Each encounter with friend, lover,
Vendor, passer-by,
A pious opportunity.
This loving impulse,
Born anew each day, each generation,
Is the sacred core
Of all the sects and cults.
The Golden Rule, Mythic wisdom,
Cultural DNA encoding all our learning,
Distilling all our prayers.
Life’s Lovers
Glean the images of history
For universal themes.
Archetypes that symbolize
The sacred understandings in
Friendly garb and metaphor.
What deeply-known roles
Can the players don
To help reduce the strife,
Re-weave the patterns that bind us all
Within the wheel of life?
Trader, builder, host,
Juggler, jester, scribe,
Artist, musician, hunter,
Poet, farmer, weaver, or gypsy-nomad,
Bearer of strange treasures from afar?
All can bring messages of light
More palatable than those in haughty masks.
King, guru, sage,
Orator, emperor, warrior chief
In horns and antlers
All lead by power and fear,
Dimming each soul’s sacred flame,
Creating only dependency and shame.
Lovers lead gently, by attraction
No longer to capture females or DNA,
No longer to give birth to many young,
But to nurture each other,
To make a difference with their sacred lives,
To weigh in on evolution’s side.
No longer impaled on sad crosses
Of guilt,
But singing and dancing the songs within
Their souls
And celebrating art!
Lovers always recognize each other
And all who share such meanings.
Beyond all roles, garbs, and many-hued
Disguises.
Lovers with high purposes
May also choose kingly roles,
Accepting karmic risks of leadership,
Some pure souls may don the mask of “success.’
Others prefer to flit as butterflies,
Tuning, blending, sharing energies,
All keeping faith mid unlikely scenes,
Honeycombed industrial hives,
Corporate ranches mushrooming
In holy snow-capped wilderness.
When all remember they are lovers
Then all places are sacred once again,
Each red pepper drying in the sun,
Each seed of com,
Sweet smelling cedars flanking
The peaceful stream.
The spirit of all things in the brisk, chill wind,
The untidy, boisterous dogs,
The winter-coated, sweating horses.
Sacredness is everywhere,
From the lonely pueblo ruins,
To mysterious dugouts, black pots
Lost on sandy isles,
Amid tangled seagrape and diving waterbirds.
Neither is sacredness the province
Of antiquity, or any age,
Each time and culture offers us its gems
Even our own “post-industrial era.”
It is for us to see the beauty in this too,
Amid the strutting “Information Age,”
The nuclear nightmare.
Lovers always seek and find the grail
Anew in every time and place
To show the truth that art is everywhere.
In beads and shells,
Weavings, pots and purses,
In all the subtle rituals and little things,
In healthy meals,
In warm-fleshed human intimacy,
The highs and lows of daily lives.
No rose without the sacred shit
On which it thrives,
The chaos out of which
All forms are born.
The grail is in ourselves.
Verbs are truth,
Nouns sometimes mislead.
If all things are sacred,
Then, at last,
Each lover’s inner light
And reverence
Shine forth.