Dance in the moment
even if the moment doesn't seem
to want to dance with you.
Do it anyway.
Choose a lighter heart.

Show me your original face, before you were born.

Zen koan

Session

Who is this
that I'm here
to see?

I don't know him,
what he does
- his beliefs;

why should I listen,
what could he say
that might sound new?

I stand and knock.
A door opens - and
I find myself inside.

New You

All of a sudden
the fog lifts,
cobwebs are swept
from the attic,
people seem to bounce
instead of plod down the street,
there is optimism
where there wasn't any yesterday;
you feel like taking chances
so you do: go out and join
a Laughter Yoga Club
then laugh all day. Life
is rich, anything is doable.
You open up your windows,
dance around the house - and,
when you close your eyes to meditate,
see yourself on air,
flying over mountains,
brushing fingers through the clouds,
stealing sips of morning rain.

Most of all
you're not afraid the dream will end.
You've finally decided
not to let the gremlins rule your world.
You have choices - so,
you choose to cross the gap
from fear to hope. Every breath
brings gratitude, every sight - a gift.

It was in turning
that you saw this other way,
through a frame of new ideas,
looking at yourself -
what it is that makes you tick...

Now
you find that
all of life is wrapped in purpose.
When you open up your heart
there comes this giddy mood
of lightness smiling out - and,
every morning, in the mirror,
is a person that
you want to get to know.

Breath

Is it madness to want
And to want to tell someone what the wanting is,
To make noise about it,
Break something delicate,
Play music
Climbing and intense?

If I listen
And strain to see - or say
At levels no one else has ever reached,
Can I carve this wooden knot,
Paint this orange and red and yellow sun,
Cup the ocean with my hands
- Or heart,
Smell the incense of a lover's hair,
Understand
Why children laugh, then run away?

Is it wonder makes me search,
Is it love - or lust,
Or maybe something else? Can I bridge
These dual responses that I feel,
Come to find some balance in my art?
What is art, but hunger clothed as joy,
Action fleeing judgment,
Anxious thought exemplified?

This is what I do
Because I want to do it.
This is what I can't explain
But have to tell you all about.
Listen to the words between the lines,
See the colors,
Hear the trill of violin,
Take the pure refreshment
From this Muse that poses naked.
All of it flows in and out
Like breath.

Why We Do What We Do

It's like, there's this tide, this oncoming tornado, a great, rising blaze of unstoppable fire. And we have to go with it. We want to go with it. There's color, music, words - beautiful descriptives, a twirl and pregnant pause of dance. And we are in it. Our hands sketch, mold, express attitude. We say things - symbolically, or to the point. We make. It's all about the making, the interpretation of a Dream, the laugh and the cry. It's beauty; and we don't know how to say it any better than that. But we keep trying. We continue with this because it's fun, exhilerating, sensual - necessary. I understand what this means to you. I'm here because I know the light that's inside you; because it's inside me too. And I have to talk about it - with anyone and everyone.

To remember Light, to see Light, to inspire Light, to attract Light, to mirror Light, to be Light, to enjoy Light, to find Light, to give Light, to dance with Light, to sing Light, to paint Light, to speak Light, to hear Light, and join the Greater Light.

Laud

Beauty is the central seat of Joy.
Great things happen when you're there:
Colors happen, music - at a playful pace
of hearing. Heartbeats stutter. All the body
takes on warm, internal glow. There is sparkle,
there is smile, there is reverence as well.

Beauty is the pithwood of the Tree of Life,
Avatar and Saviour. It is feeling, it is
thought - risen to a lightness that
cannot be put to words. Words are only
messengers. Nothing can rephrase the
message that they bear. We are beings

with eternal souls, artists made of clay.
What we try to do, we do because of
Beauty. It is wonder, it is goodness,
it is half enough, but never really certain
- how we fuse desire to matter, try
to imitate the visions we conceive.

Beauty keeps ahead of us, runs a race
that tempts our feet to follow. We are glad
to chase the Dream, glad for bittersweet
and ache. If it hurts, it hurts for meaning,
hurts for true expression. We are hands
that squeeze and mold the elements
before us - voice of written word. Beauty
will sustain us through it all. This is why
we come together, what we live to say:
Beauty is the central seat of Joy

Personal Paradise

Here is the visualization: Let me tell you first, it is like a dance, a thing of play. I am walking down a street and "feel" the walk of others, sense the vibrancy of energy and am drawn to meet them at some inward place. I go searching for their light - see it in a smile, a sidelong glance, an optimistic motion as a person rushes towards a friend. Perhaps the light is from desire - a need to "get some place". Maybe I'll encounter someone that I know and I'll connect with them. The plan I have in mind is to remind myself to be engaged, to look for light and feed it with my own - maybe through the eyes, or with a friendly word or two. The biggest challenge that I meet in all of this is how to see a way to carry it into my place of work, or home, or in the church - anywhere where people look to me to wear a certain face and don't expect to see me as a being made of energy. There, I have to cloak my game in subtle form, probe discreetly for an opening - test my skills at building trust with words. I feel as if I'm in a hunt, looking for the proof of what is real: lightness in the way we walk and talk. It is coursing through my consciousness, elevating all my thought. All I want to do is interact with brilliance. Today, I breathe in air and watch it flood into my abdomen and lungs. I fill my body with a vision of angelic wonderment. Then....
I picture I am rising high into the air, where I collide and enter wave on wave, level after level of a pure illumination - going straight into the sun itself. I direct my astral flight to head into its core. As I do, I set aside my weightiness of body; flesh disintegrates - is replaced with sparkling atoms of a giddy blaze. I am growing lighter, brighter - feel completely free. Still, I travel farther, farther, and expand until I feel united with the perfect whiteness of this star. Ears have disappeared - yet, I hear the ringing pitch of joyous chords of my elation. As I enter deeper into light, direction loses meaning; everywhere I look, everything I am is omnipresent beauty.
Still, it grows and grows. How this is is far beyond my understanding. Wider, whiter, wilder, swimming like an infant's fretless giggle. Now, I am illumined. Now I am at oneness with this solar torch.
I know that I have traveled far and there is farther yet to go; but an impulse calls me back. In the twinkling of a moment, in the pause between my laughter and an anxious snatch of breath, I return to where I'm seated on my sofa, spread my arms and feel the titillation of a body filled with light. As I finger strands of air, it's like plucking on a golden mandolin. And I rise, to walk again, to enter in the game, give my light away and search for light in others - ask them if they've ever danced inside the sun.