Translations and commentary by Coleman Barks
In complete Control, pretending control,
with dignified authority, we are charlatans.
Or maybe just a goat's-hair brush in a painter's hand.
We have no idea what we are.
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© 2010 Howard McQueen
Awareness in retreat,
into the mental un-realness,
seeking safe passage
outside of the here and now.
Our encounters with disturbances
where we experience confusion,
then distortion,
form the black hole
the place where we embrace our fear,
create the persisting infection,
blocking the passing through of what is no more
than a highly charged, energetic experience.
Elaborate defenses we manufacture:
fictions, fantasies and delusional scenarios,
played out over and over,
again and again,
Within the hyper-active,
concave and collapsing
inbreeding mind.
We become stuck in a faulty, repeating loop,
a subroutine of fear
needing the mastery of a program revision.
From this perspective,
our suffering represents the debug error messaging
that we ourselves have scripted.
All the feedback we need to clean our infection
is constantly feeding back and available to us.
All we need do is be still and see
what we have shaped and formed
and incorporated into our inner identity.
Our thoughts and beliefs,
especially those running in our depths,
form the blind spots where we allow fear
to lead us astray.
We have courage, compassion and love at our disposal,
these things we learn to actively engage
to return to ourselves the orphaned and abandoned
vital life force
covered over by our fear,
awaiting the ripening of conviction and
readiness to reclaim.
© 2010 Howard McQueen
Version 1.2 | June 20, 2010
I am the one who is loving you,
and you sometimes bring me your blame and anger.
I am the one opened and fully vulnerable to you,
and you sometimes feel trapped, controlled and persecuted.
I am the one willing,
yea, constantly delighted
to pick myself up
again and again,
and show you
this pain you bring into our relationship.
Every moment is precious.
Life is tenuous.
Our time together is indeed limited.
My wish and blessing for you is to get on with cleaning up your inner anxieties,
to join me, consistently, wholly, in body, mind and spirit.
in this loving festival of possibilities,
while we still enjoy the grace of being alive, together.
Please, my darling,
lay down your distress,
bring forth the fullness of your peaceful, loving kindness,
and walk this earth with me.
© 2010 Howard McQueen
So, you say you’re not a member of alcoholics anonymous,
that you’ve read and studied the ancient spiritual practices.
However, when the rubber meets the road,
you continually allow yourself to be hijacked,
snatched away from living and loving what is in the present.
Yes, I know.
You can cite a whole network,
a loose federation of folks
also plagued with similar addictions,
seemingly struggling with their inner pressures,
their inability to be at peace and present in the world.
Perhaps its time to let go
of these clingings to the academic spiritual practices,
identifying with all the other walking wounded
and face your spiritual bankruptcy,
and just do the work to clean out and restart
your corrupted and propped up operating system.
Just get it done.
Do it now.
Exercise your muscles.
Let go of the dramatic attempts to suck in others
Into your past that only you can let go of.
Let it come to rest in your past
Let that experience of old
no longer continue to disrupt
the radiant presence
of living and loving yourself,
and others,
in this most precious of now.
Get intimate,
uncover the courage to live in love.
Be in direct communion with choosing to practice love.
Let love rule every aspect of your life.
Phooey on all your stories of belonging to the walking wounded!
They no longer serve you.
See now how you can honor and appreciate this gift of living in the mystery.
The impatience and irrational nature of anger,
the boiling over and loss of control,
the venting of discomfort into the outer world.
Safety and love, short circuited.
We till these weeds in our inner garden,
sometimes feeling like we border
on the encroaching kudzu forest.
The tendrils have spread,
obscuring their source.
And yet, each time anger erupts
what is offered to us is the ever-ripening opportunity
to be with and recognize what we most fear,
what we most run away from,
that which triggers us to inflate the inherited angry balloon,
that which covers and smothers our innocence.
Be still in the midst of your inner storms,
be witness to the inner confusion and disruption
once held in the child's loss of innocence.
It is in this space we will reclaim
everything obscured,
everything thought lost;
all connections ultimately lead back
to the source of our abundance.
Life utterly surrounds and percolates through us.
This present moment,
this integration point;
the coalescing of possibilities.
Limitless freedom to choose,
responsibly as well as unconsciously.
Consciousness flows,
Unbound and unfettered
from the yet to be imagined
into the realized and manifested.
Breathing in the multitude of sensations,
the mind wanders and meanders,
stepping into busy intersections,
dimly lit alleys,
where the fear in man breeds,
where the mind may
feed on anxiety, panic.
Where the urgency to breath out,
to expel its disturbances
is born.
Friend, for this of all journeys,
remember to take your lantern,
to fill its reserves with the fuel of illumination,
to kindle your courage to fuel the steadfastness of compassion.
These phantom demons of the mind
protect and defend their turf.
They siphon off our very own life force,
sourced from the abundant fountain
where love flows,
uninterrupted and unimpaired.
© 2010 Howard McQueen
Stop – Drop – Roll!
The emergency procedure,
should you find yourself,
or someone else,
on fire.
Starve the flame,
lest it consume you.
When we become inflamed with anxiety,
When our pain body is activated,
We are emotionally on fire.
Stop – Drop – Turn it around!
The pain body arises and seats itself
in such subtle ways.
First signs can be:
-a slight discomfort
-a small judgment
-a buying into some dissatisfaction with our present
moment experience
Once activated,
once handed over our controls,
good ol' pain body is free,
to access old pain patterns,
engage our reptilian
flight-fight
do or die
survival programming.
As the pain body takes over our reins,
our inner sense of time becomes distorted
and many other mental-emotional reserves are rechanneled.
In as little as three seconds,
our pain body has loaded up,
and is running its own
manufactured matrix,
a complex fiction,
a virtual reality,
stimulated now by our own blood chemistry cocktail.
And, we are living,
breathing,
believing
caught up in acting out
the pain body’s contrived
drama and fiction.
We literally have but those first few seconds
to bring our awareness to bear,
lest we become completely ensnared.At the very first signs of resisting what is
-Stop
-Drop
-Turn it Around
Stop
Literally, stop everything.
Stop talking, stop walking, stop thinking.
Breathe deeply.
Drop
I literally immediately sit on the ground.
I want connection to mother earth, to be grounded
This constraining is meant to assist me with containment,
So that I can observe and be witness to the pain body.
Turn It Around
Become aware of what is arising within you. If you are with a friend or partner, have them already clued into knowing that you are purposefully constraining yourself and what your goals are.
Feel into the belly of the anxiety.
The Sufis call this eating your demons.
I would suggest you gently become acquainted with these demons, over a series of meetings. Consider taking the approach that you will leave bread crumbs back to this inner place of anxiety. Imagine lighting a candle and making the pledge that you will return, frequently, to check on the candle and re-light it.
In my own journey navigating through the inner quantum disturbances authored by my pain body, my focus has turned to bringing awareness to the earliest signs that the pain body is preparing to bloom. What I am just beginning to experiment with is the art of becoming responsive to “first contact”, else the pain body has already unfolded its sails and I find myself recovering at the end of its journey – and having to bring forgiveness and compassion to cleanup the suffering left from its wake.
Always pleased to hear from others and their experiences – Howard@mcq.com
Version 1.2; June 9, 2010
© 2010 Howard McQueen
We are life,
living at the thresholds,
right in the seams of the mystery.
What we imagine, we experience.
What is real, we often skip over.
Held within the personal me
are the clenchings,
the trapped disturbances,
that we form the
tissue-of-self to surround.
We are children of life,
thinking we are seeking
some mastery,
some way to escape what we’ve trapped,
so often feeling and acting,
as if completely surrounded by our clenchings.
Open up, all the way up.
Allow what is the personal of you
to be completely,
and utterly,
over-exposed.
This is our practice - again and yet again,
till time itself seems to fall apart. .
Do this for your life,
for all of life - now,
while the spark and courage
will serve as kindle,
will readily ignite.
“There is only one perpetrator of evil on the planet: human unconsciousness. That realization is true forgiveness. With forgiveness, your victim identity dissolves, and your true power emerges ~ the power of Presence. Instead of blaming the darkness, you bring in the light.”
~ Eckhart Tolle
must be forsaken to take
one whole heart home.
-- Rumi "The Book of Love"; Coleman Barks
;-)
Lightning, your presence
from ground to sky.
No one knows what becomes of me,
when you take me so quickly.
Rumi "The Book of Love"; Coleman Barks
Version 2.3 | 2010.06.04
© 2010 Howard McQueen
Our spoken word,
our way of expressing
our in-the-moment,
inner states.
Our spoken word
our energetic signature,
our inner psychic portrait,
reflected outwards into the external world.
As we become increasingly aware of how our words-as-thoughts land on others, we have the opportunity to assemble an adept understanding of our personally held beliefs. We gain the opportunity to see what is actively running within our own operating system.
When our psychic portrait is laden with the toxins of fear, anger and grief, we can bear witness to how we tune to and radiate these toxic frequencies, and how these impact and affect others.
As our awareness of suffering conveyed through our spoken word deepens, we begin to discover and experiment with methodologies that enable us to clean-up our tainted-with-toxin energy exchanges.
One approach that can be helpful to begin shifting our awareness so we can take responsibility for cleaning up our expressed toxins is the “do over”.
A do over is essentially a second opportunity to restate, and fully clean up the intent of the prior words spoken. An effective do over ensures that the new words convey a clear, clean purity and communicate heart-felt intent.
An example do over
The other night, Emory (my partner and wife) was working late on our shared laptop. We were both a bit tired. As she was finishing up her work on our laptop, she inquired if I wanted her to do anything. I immediately responded with the following words
You do remember how to do this! (said with a tinge of frustration and condescension, and under the assumption that she was needing a refresher in how to properly shut down the laptop).
Emory immediately picks up on the tinged emotions and starts to tell me that what I said carried the feeling that I was depreciating her, that I was communicating that she was dumb, not capable.
As I sat with her words (spoken in honesty), I felt the truth in her words and this opened me to revisiting my words. Revisiting these words put me into an intimate connection with my psychic portrait at the time of speaking them. What I uncovered, still running in my operating system, was a deep groove of frustration around an obligation to support a previous partner with what, at the time, felt like a burden of support around them being effective with their own computer.
The do-over I offered Emory
Emory, thank you and I am also finished with the laptop this evening. By all means, please go ahead and shut er’ down for the night.
I spoke these words from a generous, connected-to-Emory place in my heart. There was a gusto and appreciation conveyed in the do over.
Emory’s countenance immediately changed and we went off to bed feeling connected rather than separated. The next morning she revisited the do over again, and said that it was so clean and compelling that it completely dissolved the toxins carried in my initial exchange to her.
Do over’s are [often] much more effective and powerful than apologies.
An apology acknowledges that what was said (or done) could have been hurtful or carry words that attempted to depreciate another. Apologies do not necessarily build the muscles of learning to cleanup one’s words by taking responsibility to restate (and demonstrate) your highest intent.
I’ve been in situations where, after receiving a series of apologies from another person, the effectiveness of the apology seems to erode. This may sometimes be an indication that one party in the relationship is stuck and unable to break free of a habitual pattern, and thus unable to begin to construct a do-over.
I’ve experienced the magic of healing both giving and receiving do overs. Its best not to rush a person when they are feeling into the space within themselves to usher in their heart-felt intent. We need to be aware that in navigating our inner spaces we encounter darkness and confusion, especially around emotionally charged issues where we have been tainted by the fear, anger and grief of others.
In summary
An effective do over contains words that spring from the heart – making the intent uplifting and based in spirit and connection. We cannot take back our words spoken, however, we can take responsibility and clean up our toxic exchanges. The do over offers up the opportunity to come into contact with our own inner medicine and build the muscle to create our own antidote for our own dis-eases.
Version 2.0 May 31, 2010
The root seed of aggression
is assigning blame to the cause of conflict
arising within us – to someone else.
When we hold someone else accountable for our mischief,
we make someone else's business, our business.
And the mischief blossoms …
We place such stress upon ourselves,
in our rush and race to our
self-imposed, self-contrived finish lines.
We buy into these polarizing times.
we hustle down dark, dead-end alleys,
we forget our softness
our yielding,
our interconnectedness.
The sheer momentum of six.five billion humans,
striving to survive,
wanting the best possible life for themselves
and their children.
So many heightened expectations.
Lifestyles so out of balance,
when contrasted to the simplicity of flowing
with life's humble blessings.
See everyone as your family,
by being patient and kind.
Let your intentions flow
into the sweet spots
where authentic generosity and abundance is grown.
As other's lives are flooded,
their own bridges washed away,
let us all be touched and reshaped
by the heartfelt sense of feeling united in family.
CONVERSATIONS WITH YIN AND YANG
WHAT WE INTEND BECOMES OUR EXPERIENCE
© 2010 Howard McQueen
Our life experiences are paved with intentions.
The infrastructure that fuels our intentions either
enables connection and flow
or
separation and stuckness
YANG finds himself settled into this long-standing groove, one that has him taking unilateral action to navigate much of life. This causes others to often feel cutoff, disconnected and stranded by his lack of inclusiveness.
YANG feels so completely justified in his unilateral acts, so much so he wonders why. As he explores this, what he sees is a certain seduction, a certain safety of keeping his intentions hidden and secret, often even from himself. It seems that waiting until the very last moment to spring the modus operandi, then he is all action and doing.
To be another in relationship with Yang is to never be prepared for what may happen, to always be trying to adjust – to abrupt and sometimes radical shifts in stormy weather.
YANG feels into this and recognizes the inner disappointment, frustration, anger and sadness still lingering from his childhood. He sees himself-as-child caught in the acceptance-refusal ping-pong web spun by his mother and father. The experience, like a wood burning tool, remains as a living, inscribed psychic portrait.
To explicitly ask permission gains an immediate approval from mom, but then mom sends me off to gain the permission of my dad. When I ask my dad, he asks what my mom said and when I say she said yes, he immediately says no. He is told that the refusal is because he asked his mom first.
Better to not even try to seek approvals.
Better to not ever divulge or project your desires.
Just unilaterally take action, at the last possible moment, and let everyone else adapt.
YANG’S evolutionary intention is to inwardly evolve from the reaction energies of his grooved chutzpah, to the responsive, inclusiveness of gusto. The encumbent modus operandi is rooted in chutzpah. It is time to lay this down.
YANG says, I feel safe in this body. This is my reality, and I am safe, I embrace my innocence, my joy and my creativity.
YANG sees and surrounds in compassion, his extremely confused and conflicted inner child. YANG offers up the constancy and unconditional guidance and nurturing that was missing in his childhood.
YANG then turns to YIN and says Dear YIN, I offer you unconditional permission to hold up to the light of awareness my behaviors containing separation and conflict. This hurt within me hurts you, hurts others and short-circuits our field of intimacy.
I AM completely committed to my evolution toward and into gusto. I shall set my intentions to contain the chaos and conflict. I am deconstructing and building the inner infrastructure to bridge to gusto.
The transformation continues to manifest.
Another threshold is crossed.
© 2010 Howard McQueen
We constantly pave over our experience with life,
forgetting that we are merely the parchment,
the visible sacrament for the invisible omnipresence,
that breathes and shines through us.
We are connected,
yea, super-saturated
in the simple, yet profound divine-ness,
the utterly fantastical-ness,
when we open to the here and now.
Once, I was lost
in the delusion,
the pain wrought by the falseness
held in separation.
I see and appreciate this now
as the small me holding on to personal discomfort;
the childhood’s pain obsessed over,
energizing my personal delusion,
paying forward our collective nightmare.
I give all this up
to honor the in-being
within me
within you
within all of us.
This is what I am.
Draft Version 1.1
(C) 2010 Howard McQueen
There is an internal dialog,
a conversation awaiting your engagement.
This inclusivity contains and reunites
Those aspects seekings to sabotage intimacy
and those remaining connected,
in the flow of intimacy.
The predominate vibrant song
to be summoned,
offers the permission
to surrender to intimacy,
to do whatever is necessary
to uphold and reclaim the intimacy
that has been short-circuited.
It stems from a faulty interpretation that trust was lost,
a confusion, stemming from a momentary obscuring of love.
This discordant chord, seeking center stage,
need not continue the cathartic circus --
It offers us the music of liberation,
to be in service to halt the straying from our inherent freedom,
to stand in the nakedness and vulnerability of our deeper truth.
Our pain is inherited, learned and imprinted.
This circuit of suffering can be completely rewired,
And our beliefs, desires and intentions rewritten.
What we face as our opportunity-challenge
Is the transformation of pain and discord
Into this manifest, inclusive
Work-in-process masterpiece
of taking in all of life
as the sublime gift.
(c) 2010 Howard McQueen
When we surrender to intimacy
the lurking and hiding,
the pushing away and aggressing,
are supremely threatened.
That which interrupts the sacredness of intimacy
can then be illuminated in the spotlight of awareness
and seen for its rooted claim,
its clinging to separation and pain.
Available for summoning is an inner courage,
to support and service the surrendering and dying
of the self grown accustomed to its rootedness in separation,
its holding on to the inflamed intentions
to disrupt and attempt to scuttle intimacy.
The work is a process of surrendering the separation,
to consciously and continuously choose intimacy,
to compassionately witness when our intentions stray.
These are our pointers to the root causes,
breeding our discontent and suffering
In forgiveness there is the healing
of that which we judged and condemned.
What if we were to lay down and dismiss the judge and jury
and live without comparison, condemnation and judgment.
What if we were free to live from the center of our authenticity.
Imagine the wealth of spirit we would then appreciate,
share and exchange with each other.
The space
before there is doing,
the shimmering vibrancy
the pregnant hum
the threshold of life and form
awaiting its moment to spring forth
Where energy manifests and returns
this in-between mysterious existence
so full of stories
arising from the dynamic fold.
