Tag Archives: poetry

Death – Soysal’s Teacher

you would know the secret of death…
but how shall you find it…

unless you seek it in the heart of life?
the owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light…

if you would indeed behold the spirit of death..
open you heart wide unto the body of life..
for life and death are one,
even as the river and the sea are one…

in the depth of your hopes and desires,
lies your silent knowledge of the beyond
and like seeds dreaming beneath the snow
your heart dreams of spring…

trust the dreams
for in them is hidden the gate to eternity…
your fear of death is but the trembling of the
shepherd when he stands before the king of whose hand it is to be laid upon him in honor…
is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling
that he shall wear the mark of the king
yet is he more mindful of his trembling?

for what is it to die but to stand
naked in the wind and to melt in the sun?

and what is it to cease breathing but to free
breath from it’s restless tides,
that it may rise and expand and see god unencumbered?
only when you drink from the river of silence shall
you indeed sing…

and when you have reached the mountain top,
then you shall begin to climb…
and when the earth shall claim your limbs
then shall you truly dance…

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Dream Within a Dream – Edgar Allan Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

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Alone – Edgar Allan Poe

From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

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Truth

The truth will wake you in the night and cause a peaceful slumber
The truth will set men free and bind them accordingly
The truth will make amends for unjust actions
The truth will bring brother to brother
The truth will hurt and break and heal and wake
The truth will open the gates to the land of Sidhe
The truth will hold up the walls of sovereignty
The truth will make the stones cry out
The truth will balance the center

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A part of all things

I am raven on the field
I am drop of rain cascading down the water fall
I am deer stepping softly through a wooded glade
I am moss growing on the ancient tree
I am ember blazing in the sacred fire
I am rock hiding beneath the soil
I am beam of light cutting through the still of night
I am wind rustling reeds of the bog
I am sound echoing from the dolmen
I am and was and will be

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Priest

We are people of words,
people of careful action,
living through our conscience,
steeling our wills with words.

To know,
To dare,
To keep silent.

We hold that as our creed.
Speaking twice over double tongue,
beneath our breath,
as our sacred quest.

Our utmost wish,
our fondest desire,
is to decipher
that which cannot be spoken.

Our character is often stoic.
Our nature is that of a babe;
four score decades old.
Our vision: transparent.

Our spirit wanders
about the world until
we perceive
the nature of divine.

Our judgment: weighted with mercy.
Our wrath is rightly earned.
Our vengeance: evenhanded
though not always evident.

Our sword is seldom brought to bear
on our fellow man
unless such a grievous act
compels us to take action.

When we must act,
the flash of steel
and glint of fang
find us as the beast.

Our love: bottomless
Without end
Almost infinite understanding

Such is the nature
of one who seeks
to understand the divine

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Now I see

From out of darkest fire
And deepest misery
We come forth
And renew our vows
To live life
From the heart

From the cold abandon
And the silent halls
We come forth
And renew our vows
To refill our spirit
From the wells of wisdom

From the solitude
And the empty arms
We come forth
And renew our vows
To find hope
From the promise of change

Stepping softly in the darkness
On a path of cobbled stone
There arises a new light
To illuminate our way
And promise of companionship

Perhaps it was always there
And we were blind
With night-bound eyes
To see the glow
Of the gentle white moon

Now I see
With clarity
Echoing words of wisdom
And peace enough for all
Perfection came

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We are all Connected

The thing that really comes to mind here is the part in the Disney movie The Lion King where Mufasa says in that great James Earl Jones voice, “We are all connected in the great circle of life.”

Mufasa was speaking about an ancient and correct concept but the reference was a bit abstract. He spoke about how the antelopes eat the grass and the lions eat the antelopes and then the lions eventually die and become the grass. This is very true of the physical cycle of death and rebirth but we need to dig a bit deeper for this discussion.

We are all connected by the force of life and inspiration. The Druids call this force Awen and look to it as the divine spirit that flows through all things. Christians call this The Holy Spirit and describe it as the living spirit of God. The Asian cultures recognize this force or spirit in the art of Feng Shui and go into great detail on how to connect and interact with it. Many other cultures recognize the presence of this force.

Christians also present this concept from the Gospel of Thomas that makes the following statements

“Split wood, I am there. Lift up a rock, you will find me there.” -Gospel of Thomas 77b

“Jesus said: If your leaders say to you ‘Look! The Kingdom is in the heavens!” Then the birds will be there before you are. If they say that the Kingdom is in the sea, then the fish will be there before you are. Rather, the Kingdom is within you and it is outside of you.” -Gospel of Thomas 3a

“the Most High does not dwell in houses made with hands.” -Acts 7:48
This is a clear and undeniable illustration that the force/spirit/presence of god is everywhere and within everything.

I would like to note that both the Druidic and Christian schools of thought relate this spirit to divine presence and inspiration. Druids cultivated a connection with this force for inspiration in poetry and divinitation while Christians are “filled with the Holy Spirit” and “speak in tongues,” often with a prophetic message, which is also a form of divinitation. Is this coincidence or are different cultures tuning in to the same force?

The other thing that comes to mind is Star Wars (it’s ok to laugh) . The books and the movie are all based off of some very heavy research into Joseph Campbell’s work. Campbell practically fathered the field of comparative mythology that strove to find the common concepts in all religions. He then surmised that the concepts that all religions have in common must be universal truth because they are all manifesting from the sub(or super)conscious of mankind. One of these central concepts that connect almost all religions is there is a divine force flowing through everyone and everything; the very same “Force” that is talked about so much in the Star Wars mythology. This force connects us with everything else everywhere because it is a part of all things and flowing through all things.

There is a quote that I use on one of my signature line in e-mails that is a further illustration of this concept from yet another source:

There is life on earth – one life, which embraces every animal and plant on the planet. The time has divided it up into several million parts, but each is an integral part of the whole. A rose is a rose, but it is also a robin and a rabbit. We are all of one flesh, drawn from the same crucible.
– Lyall Watson, Supernature, 1973

This type of principle is also presented in the Celtic (and druidic) poetry form that begins with “I am”. An example of my own poetry in this style is as follows:

A part of all things

I am raven on the field
I am drop of rain cascading down the water fall
I am deer stepping softly through a wooded glade
I am moss growing on the ancient tree
I am ember blazing in the sacred fire
I am rock hiding beneath the soil
I am beam of light cutting through the still of night
I am wind rustling reeds of the bog
I am sound echoing from the dolmen
I am and was and will be

The poem is also a meditation designed to open the doors of connection between you and all elements of life. You learn it by heart and close your eyes and with a relaxed focus you recite it line for line and visualize your life force being each of these elements over the course of history and with each visualization the door to the full awareness of the connection with everything around you opens a little wider.

Notice the poem identifies with animal (raven) and plant (moss and tree) and element (ember of fire, drop or rain & wind) and it is also identifying with the intangible energy given by light and sound. This is also energy and also part of the great circle of life.

The final line makes reference to the eternal nature of life stating that I have been all these things and that I am currently all these things because we are all connected and that I will continue to be all these things. You realize that you, as a form of life and energy, are eternal. “Energy can be neither created nor destroyed” as Albert Einstein once said. It can only change forms. When we truly realize this in the right frame of mind it’s like seeing the code in The Matrix when Neo realizes the truth of the Matrix. A whole new world of possibilities opens up that was always there but we just never saw it. Our perspective shifts from our own personal lives to see the greater picture of reality and how we are all connected.

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