Riding the Light –

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  • ErROR PRONE – TRUST NO ONE

    ErROR PRONE – TRUST NO ONE

    Just when I think I have made a positive imprint, I find ‘tis not so. A relationship can trigger me, one email set me to firing full throttle. It has been a “scare” at times how much anger rises, an unexpected eructation – forcing gravity up – volcanic – my closest word is tripwire. I’m paying attention as I go. However, I need to power that with a lot more intention.

    Tripwire.

    (Remember how I said it feels like someone is rifling through my memories?  Experiencing my experiences, tugging now-me along for the revisit? Remember how I thought it might be my life passing by? Studying up for my Life Review?)

    I could not be now who I was in any of these snapshots tossed in front of consciousness. I have forged my own memories & ideas I took from them, or maybe with them. The moments when I wanted to be another ride the farther side of the merry-go-round in a tidal lock.

    Relationships?

    M. batted away ideas like cats do yarn balls… especially if they involved improvement. His standstill propelled me into action. He was enjoying his entropy & I could no longer bear witness to his severe “weltschmerz” (world-weariness).

    E. & I paralleled for a time & he gave me [of his] life. A most beautiful & timely surrender on both sides. For all I knew, I knew less then than now.

    D. & I met too early & me too bedazzled. We were there for Ellen.

    It turned out the one I married is me. Was that why I ate all that cake for a decade?

    Going fearless is going stealth. You turn sideways & slip into universe to disappear.

    I stand today at the intersection of Ready/OrNot.

    I cannot shatter a mirror & not be cut passing through. What I do with the wound is up to me. I bow my head with the responsibility as the radio sings “have mercy.”

    Mercy

  • The End Includes A Beginning

    The End Includes A Beginning

    It is not enough to know that the end is near (if this is what you believe) or that it will be at all happy over the long spells of time classifications we are inured (bonded? branded?) to live.

    What real thought is being given to what you are doing? What learning has lasted thru the ages is that of the Classics. Being around the longest, these carry the weight of having dredged through so many minds they are left behind after move-outs, repurposed & in that way carried forward with everything magnetized along the way. We eat each other’s earth all the time. Round or flat, it’s a closed system so we continually breathe each other’s air. My earth can support me. Why cannot ours support us all?

    In a closed system, everything must run according to the last running thing. Deus ex Machina. The story gets passed along to the next to be embellished or pared down. Right now, we live in a word desert, the most lack of imagination among the collective consciousness. Words are gutted of meaning, brought down from the Great Table as bubble gum. Perhaps it is a meaning desert. Vague repetitions of slogans replacing language. Emojis replace emotions cuz people don’t have the words.

    This morning, for me, there is a tug of history threading my spine…a few passes over the Internet have fired me up. The books I just finished have fired me up. The music given to me to hear by chance discovery & rolling the dial on Pandora has fired me up. All these firings are seeking one another in my brain. I can feel them doing so…I encourage them for the most part. I understand these last points I pick up in life as learning have, hold, and relay, the best resonance to how I’ve lived my life so far. I read once that after the kids are raised & most life-housekeeping stuff in hand, the time arounds to thinking, “what’s next?” It generally enters that care of the soul at a personal level is that.

    And here I am. This is when the tiny muse buried in the soil of my soul chooses to sprout. She is the unification which will occur when the firings reach their own “brainiacal” joining. If I’m not making sense now, there’s a good chance I need to find the place where I will . . . where this will.

    Suddenly all the mythic & magic I enjoy reading lays a rail alongside the technology I watch with a kind of stupefied fascination.

    Social media is anything but either of its names.

    I am compartmentalizing far less than I did. If a work does not align with a pathway whereupon I walk, I move off from it. I have become familiar to all the voices speaking at once, I have become one of them. Simultaneously, I’ve moved on from outside voices to inward. These swell the chorus immeasurably.

    Harmonies manifest.

    It is safe to become a stranger to the life so many want to be living. It is okay to disconnect to a less busy-fied way. I have no close family raised within my mythology. Most friends are too busy for abstract discussion. Now, what I grew up with is easiest to do as stand-up: “remember dial phones?” jokes.

    What is simplest for me to know now & ally with now are the more “esoteric knowings” which have become acceptable as a “mainstream, allowed kookiness” – the separate source of knowledge always out there on the fringes but around so long they’re now popular, familiar, & fraught with promises to continue deepening into the center of the world.

    Thing is, the direction is up. Why aren’t we facing up?

    I am in dire need of silence. Even if what I get is only a grave’s worth, it is enough.

  • NONET

    NONET

    MINE IS YOURS, OR IS IT?

    Poets are thieves

    Making off with the best words.

    Hoarding them for careful distribution.

    You cannot tell a poet much

    Has not already crossed their mind.

    Quarters in a piggybank

    Turning into silver dollars

    Coming out of the belly –

    Runes & reads & roads

    Everyone counting every one.

    POEMS ARE SKINNED ALIVE

    From living language

    Arcane & mottled

    Visible only to the see-r

    The ti-leaf reader

    Appearing from the cards

    Like images of medieval life

    Depicted in peelings

    Left in runes in the sink

    Gathered for composting minds

    Forever nourishing.

    POEMS ARE LIKE RAIN SHOWERS

    Of words

    Skies sweeping by of a patchworked day

    Everything having a voice, telling its own story

    Some listening: write it down,

    Lest it just run off brazen rooftops

    Into gutters

    Alleys

    Streams

    Rivers

    Oceans

    Clouds

    Showers.       

    DOUBLE HAIKU

    Crystalline rainbows

    Dappling the stubborn vacuum

    I roll across them.

    Vain undertakings

    This two-step dance of cleaning

    Vacuuming rainbows.

    PREDAWN

    Is the new 7 a.m.

    All those mornings I rose before dawn

    That light would find me out upon the sunrise.

    I now reclaim the nights,

    All the stars I did not see

    Shining still so patiently.

    Now it is not just mornings

    When I am

    But whole motherships of night

    On the other side of the clock.

    WHAT IF

    What if this life was the preview to the real event?

    A prelude, the someone laying the red carpet was me

    I liked the feel of it & climbed on up

    Following worn & wary dreams to arrive

    Where I need no defenses,

    I made my own way

    To where I shoved my suspicions under the bed

    I made my way.

    Now can I shine?

    DAISY CHAIN DAYS

    Suspicious of such good weather, I am.

    The tender center of midday

    Sealed by the hunkering night;

    My heart counts down beats now.

    Idly wondering will I be happy in the Hereafter?

    CORNERS

    Weedy & overgrown

    The yards of my childhood

    Good to cut across to shorten the way

    Blue uniform, cloth coat, Buster Browns

    Crushing crunchy growth.

    Mind stratospheric: ablaze!

    Body trudging home from the schoolbus stop

    Lopsided with a leather schoolbag

    A Lone Ranger lunchbox (featuring Silver.)

    Of two minds about homework

    But well-acquainted with inevitability

    Consigned to childhood’s compartmentalization

    Free as the sky / sand / sea

    All my boundaries

    Bled out to edges

    Of omnipotence.

    THAT FAMILIAR CADENCE

    Of my heart

    On its own riff

    Tipped over the lever

    Into countdown

    As faithfully as it counted up

    To here.

    Where we are now,

    Feeling the world

    As a flashlight does the night land.

    Now it starts a little flicker

    Pushing out the limits

    Of all achieved before.

  • Message from my Guardians

    Message from my Guardians

    Dear R,

    Good Godly morning! Are you enjoying our Great Life Adventure these days?

    Oh yes indeed, beloved, believing Carol – indeed – word & deed – we help you to enact the Script authored so long ago in festive planning. All your Team is here, present for the ending…this ending – as we were for your first steps into it.

    We watched you step forward toward darkness, laughing, singing, waving at us. You were walking into a Void as all-encompassing as the sea & you have been surfacing ever since. We smoothed the parts of the bottom you could not see as blankness & blackness closed over.

    We filled your pockets with grace & waybread. We blessed your waterskin. We warned off the predators who would have devoured you, even as we picked off seaweed tangled in your hair. We summoned warmer currents to steer you into. We were not anxious, but more than once, we held hands to send you strength as you faltered or turned blindly about wishing a way either onward or out of it.

    We knew how precious your life would become to others; smiled when you were surprised by their recognition. Many cheered quietly on this side of the veil. We pushed through when you suffered from lack. We lit up colors when all went gray. We sent these, plus cards & flowers & clouds & all manner of tokens large & small in acknowledgement of your efforts.

    It was never only me, Child, it was always us creating in harmony for you. Look at what you have valued to bring this far: seashells, poems, pictures, stories & memories, feelings, hopes, dreams. We fastened fins to your feet & water wings to your shoulders, all the while transmitting to that tiny point on your head as a prayer antenna tuned to us.

    We’ve pulled, pushed, propelled you forward. Now you approach the farther shore. Not for nothing do the old songs call of crossing River Jordan, poling the Styx, parting the waters. You’re not dry yet, but we await with warmed towels & hot coffee!

    So, keep it up, dearest, most blessed Child. You are our vanguard to earthly plans there on the earth plane. Stay oriented to the stars you so stubbornly sleep through, being a creature of morning Light so long.

    We wait, each time you sleep, to see you once more. You regale us with tales of 3D life & your keen observations thereof. And we so enjoy these. You left Here to discover & record these tales. These are the reason we let you go, to bring them back to us in style & smooth delivery. And, darlin’, you make us laugh!

    There’s a bunch of us here who gather for your nightly appearances – we pop popcorn & plot your arrival trajectory, arranging our wings to fashion your stage. Sometimes you bring us sad tales of shipwrecks. Other times – and mostly these of late – you bring jokes & delight & rueful observations. When we laugh, you find feathers.

    You salt our wisdom in seasoning & flavor both. You shake off sorrows like a dog does water & your beginnings & endings are only a mystery to you. We trust you to find safe harbors as you wander. We encourage you forward always, always, always.

    We’ve watched & encouraged the schools of fish you swim among. When needed, we’ve helped you flee in bereavement & often, joy at new freedoms to explore. You see these situations as endings; we see them as new tides of circumstance & flows of opportunity for strength & well-being.

    You’re a surprise & a delight. Your scars glisten in rainbow colors. You break the water frequently now as laughter lifts you from banal 3D with its weather wars & inept attempts to keep you subsurface. Don’t believe in these, Carol, but believe forever in us for you are our brave explorer, dishing up reality as we never expected.

    We lift you in such a loving energy – a Gulf Stream of pure grace. You have navigational tools now, a compass & sextant & barrels of fresh water to tap at need.

    Don’t ever doubt us! We won’t fail to hold you up. We will never let you go & tho you think it, you can’t even begin to imagine forever, dear one. It is not beyond our skills to keep candles burning underwater, watch for these. Your every laugh lights another match. Your tidal pull is our tidal lock to fix you more firmly upon the way we show you to live.

    We wonder at your growth on so many levels of this water world… each a call to be unlimited.

    We’re absolutely breathless for the next installment! Popcorn is in the pot, butter on the stovetop, fresh cheese by the grater. You’re a delicious one indeed & our love is what we have to offer in return.

    Take this with the delight in which it’s offered & sing Hosanna to everyone in your sea. Permit your thoughts to flourish. You’ve mastered the dark now. The shore awaits as do we.

    Love,

    R

  • Stairstep Miracles

    In Taos, I walked a dirt road where many stones were heart-shaped. The end of the road was a heavy bar gate tattooed with “No Trespassing! Reservation Land” signs. I believe it was what is left of the Tiwa reservation. Originally, the Taos Puebloan people owned the land, allowing others to live nearby, build their small houses & stay. Now the Reservation is contracted as they seemingly sell edges of it for million dollar homes while fencing off the rest. I totally grok the “No Trespassing” signs. They have been trespassed upon quite enough.

    There was a magpie flitting from yard to yard: remarkably colorful for being just black and white. Gambels Quail called liquidly from the sage, thrashers curried the yard.

    A huge tree shaded the sun passing by.

    Beautiful art everywhere.

    Shady places downtown to rest.

    Truth on mild display.

    Mouth-watering food at Michaels.

    Breakfast Burrito Smothered Green

    Yard art.

    Bees were a constant & the silence I so sought was based on their soothing hum. (I can go anywhere & bees will come to land on me. Taos was no exception.) I’m glad to refer myself as Carol B, not Carol Elephant! When they landed on my glasses I got the close-up. They investigated my pen, my books, my water bottle, hovering just to set up a sound track to “get busy!”

    There were moments, however … as in any spiritual endeavor, doubt & phantoms come to haunt, to be dissolved into the confidence of prayer. I chanted my way through these & felt victorious to do so. Resolution came easily when I pushed through with not allowing it to frighten me, contract me, put me into a barred corner & poke me with old fears. Hallelujah!

    A great retreat & time away for me, this Taos trip turned up to be. I was able to cull out many affirmative prayers to add to my personal resources. I experienced blessing upon blessing with a wonderful view.

    Love to all –

    Carol

  • Potpurri

    Potpurri

    I recently spent days in a place where scents were forbidden. Since my world includes incense, essential oil diffusion, sage burning, lots of patchouli & Somali Rose every day – to the point where opening my clothes closet is a bouquet drifting out, I was perplexed. How long could a shampoo with rosemary destroy peace of mind? (I know about allergies, I just don’t have any.)

    My teabags became a problem, ginger heavily owning the air. I kept these on the bathroom windowsill & made sure the window stayed closed.

    Scents are an important part of my day. Who doesn’t like passing the burger joint at midday for an appetite perk? I remember on the Boardwalk, the owners would roll up the shelter door & toss onions on the grill. Soon heads would turn, bathing-suit-clad people would drift up from the beach & line up for food & drinks. It was a no-miss situation.

    I was really pleased to get home where I could light up the joss sticks, push the diffuser buttons after pouring in Spiritual Healing blend, or peppermint or wintergreen. “Ah! I breathed. “Home sweetly Home!”

  • Your One Wild Life

    Your One Wild Life

    Poet Mary Oliver asks,

    “What will you do with your one wild life?”

    So I came to thinking about how un-wild my life had become

    As it lived, how it loved, why it closed doors so quietly

              sometimes the people being closed out did not even know.

    I came to no life-altering conclusions save the one that altered it first:

    Whose life has ever been theirs?

              Knowing that set me up to understand there were many Masters to serve, some I chose my own self. There were also Those who chose me.

              Now one by one, I begin the Divestiture

    The Departure. The Conclusion Protocol ~ ah! (As many flowery ways to say “die” as flowers on a grave!)

    Life deepened on me. I ripened from seed to nut to blossom to fruit.

    Now to firewood? To blaze along a horizon between worlds?

    Someone told me, “Don’t worry about it.” I never heard the “don’t.”

    Until I stopped saying it to myself as I no longer did worry.

    I lived rightly. I bowed my head in all the right places.

              Remember, I had no manuals, only instincts & the Baltimore Catechism.

    Betimes I was feral myself, I tasted of earth all over, and salt.

    Is this the Wildness she speaks? Is it enough? I can’t care now for it is what was.

    I walked the outer fringes of two worlds many times, perhaps always do.

    I lived both vicarious & victorious; all life alluded to this me.

    I made familiar choices until I chose to venture around that.

    I was given to make it up as I went along, imagination my only tool.

    Carol Borsello      10/15/21

  • Resolve to Evolve

    Resolve to Evolve

    RESOLVE TO EVOLVE

    How interesting, the faces of old women,

    Maps to the many places we go,

    Holding court as Queen or serving as serf.

    Shadowing all between.

    How fascinating the hands of old women

    Shaping worlds, setting them free

    Saying “Survive & thrive! Don’t even be

    My child, lay no claim to me:

    I did not create you: you came through me

    And you came for me.”

    (We seldom expect that which comes for us… do we?)

    Blessed are the feet of old women

    Travelled in bonelands & over water

    Which have worn stillettos

    And lazy mules, seeping at the seams.

    Walking heaven, hell, just walking on;

    Finding the strength to bear us up

    For 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s of years.

    Holy are the bodies of old women,

    Our heads bowed,

    Our knees unsteady.

    Our hips fused.

    Arms skinny with wattling flesh.

    And none of the above matters.

    We were here.

    We were present.

    We knew it.

    We owned it.

    We owed it.

    We took it.

    We won.

    October 9, 2021 – Carol Borsello

  • Telling Time By The Tides

    Telling Time By The Tides

    When all the clocks went away during lockdown, one of the pillars in my life gave way. First hours disappeared into the fissures this created, then I lost days and then weeks. Yesterday blended seamlessly with today which segued into tomorrow, each iteration essentially the same. Having lived for decades with it left Time a difficult habit to break.  

    I do not know about you, but I have always felt time as a second skin. It was a treat to take it off on Sundays which became the leisure day. Like bank drafts at midnight, it reappeared at 12 a.m. when the ticking resumed. I stepped right into march to it. At that time, it synced so well with my system. From syncing to forcible extraction I went.

    We all did what we had to do, right? I have no media to binge upon, but I fed well from the free book tables in town.

    I changed the energy flow in the apartment one room at a time, moving furniture, exchanging curtains among rooms. I wrote pens dry. I talked to myself quietly until masking, when I picked up volume.

    I named the cats frequenting my yard on an enviably purposeful schedule.

    Music sustained me, as did reorganizing files drawers, boxes, closets…you must understand these are not chores for me. There are bits of both past and future slipped in between all of it. It was time for me to check the notes & chuck what would never make reality hum for me. New emerged as each old slipped away.

    Journals filled. The constancy of doing dishes became my daily joust with universe.

    Of the dreams I found in storage, many had powdered to dust, having been moved too many times to contrasting environs.

    I learned to live less outwardly. it was not a matter of fear, but a kind of response to the energy. I showered by ten to get me off the computer, then deliberately dressed well so as not to have too many Pajama Days in a row.

    I missed Time. I missed the guise of being somewhere by nine to open by ten. I missed the candle-sized fires of being almost late & crowing to myself for being the first to arrive

    I carefully constructed Other Rituals: lunch became a production that extended all the way to dinner & once that was done, the day seemed ready to bed down.

    When Time got locked down, it pooled onto the floor, settling into a runnel of current that moved me to where I am now. It’s a different place altogether. I continue to change as Time flickers from pre to post to present.

    I am regrouping now in this different location. Oh, the outside hasn’t changed that much other than wearing my transition face; yet the interior landscape is thawing an Ice Age. A reality I had relied on before has emerged with the clarity I needed to notice it.

    I walk towards it. I became an Ordained Minister yesterday. I named my church Sanctuary. I stated my purposes of leading others to prayer of their choosing as the bridge to the next space. I pledged to be a Servant to Earth – to put my heart into that service. In a way, it was a wedding ceremony, a renewal for me, it gives me permission to wield my Free Will as holy.

    This is serious since Time could have taken me to so many places. This is where I let go of the decades of obedience to exercise newly-acquired skills.

    This is where I put the exclamation point for now.

  • Amity or On Opening My Heart

    Amity or On Opening My Heart

    Amity or On Opening My Heart

    The Heart seeks amity in all. Heart understands Discord, comprehends Pretense. In the end, however, Heart desires amity in the practice of Doing No Harm.

    When Heart energy is attacked by an event, by physical/emotional shock or trauma, the chi in the body sinks. News hits: We sink to our knees. It is harder to raise energy to prior levels. Some damage occurs which time may or not resolve (re-solve.)

    Heart workarounds function long-term but no longer last through lifetimes. As our collective vibration rises, as Source makes Itself known to us, we rise to meet It, hopeful & eager.

    We reveal & suffer Revelation in return.

    When I observe my conversation, I find too many flawed clichés. Since the “lot of mankind” seems to be bipartisan struggle, the effort must be conscious to climb above this into … you guessed it … Forgiveness. Ours is a ladderlike ascension to our best selves, led enthusiastically by Higher Self. There are future me’s awaiting my arrival, allowing my spiritual immaturity space to grow, always listening for that deep beautiful breath of awakening, that inspiration, to signal a closer harmony with All-That-Is. They hold the door open, or at least prop it with a rock. We, like feral cats meowing at the door for sustenance, may one day enter Paradise by virtue of a single step.

    I am told to move on in my life. I hear “Walk on, Carol” when I stop to check some exciting new activity which doesn’t serve my ascension by direct approach to Home. Maybe you hear these sweet, compelling voices as well? I’m simply one who passes the message.

    By now, we’ve all heard the Heart has brain cells within. It’s not far out admission to extrapolate this to each organ in turn. After all, how many times have you relied on your gut brain over time?

    Overtime. We’re in Spiritual Overtime. We play out scenes causing our energy to sink, our Hearts to hurt or be hurtful to others. When do you think this will end? I contend it will be gradual as we learn to hear what Heart thinks about it all. I know my Heart has a reality where thriving is all that matters along with how to continue bursting with Life!

    I learn I must speak to my Heart each day & listen for reply. Often my Heart answers more quickly than my brain processes.

    I know if I let my energy dip to liver, anger emerges. I allowed one such interaction recently & have listened to Heart going over it many times since.

    My only resolution (re-solution) is scrambling into my Heart as fast as I can. Therefore I keep my own doors open, with gratitude for those I’ve been able to close.

    Does this make me a better person? In a word: yes.