For awhile I was getting caught up in the steps to where I wanted to go rather than setting my sight firmly on my goal. It amounted to watching my feet, making sure I stepped in the right spot, and getting lost for it. This all came of a head recently and while brooding over a Cuban espresso I found my way back to where I was going. The poem relates the backward flowing style of thoughts leading up to the present moment.


"Lost and Found My grand Design"

Come! A ride with me to take
To blackened soul and land of dull ache,
Where all are free and toy with glee.
Unwant’ly at my side for waking dream
Where cross we temped lakes & broken streams.
My failures of spine and spirit for to see.

Ways do twist and wind away
And to us show perhaps spirit in decay.
Years ago once I thought, clad in crimson robes I’d be.
But in shallow marsh of discontent
I stopped to struggle and stay a stint.
Here to sit and at emptiness to sip as would I tea.

The currents slow and sluggy drag me ‘long;
Unwilling I to fight them- Oh! How something did go wrong.
If not it be but more of this I my life ought’ of rent.
At crossroads once foretold, with planted feet
I eat the dust of well trod’n streets.
Where hath been bold youth ‘n its noble feats sent?

At every chance and turn I try just a scant.
Is’t fear then that maketh me shan’t
A single ere commit or by wholesome way to fail?
Be that as it may well be,
I’d on oceans of life rather wander with thee,
At ease, to will, on winds to grandly sail.

Once the world to end would I,
What became of such grand design?
It did die under life’s great stones?
Methinketh it not’, it has only been forgot,
In muddled mires of nearer times t’was lost,
For but a moment in such a grand design.

I've been intending to do more shamanistic workings in my effort to expand my understanding of left hand Buddhism and its implications for esoteric Taoism. To that end I'm going to start up my dream journal again. I don't think any one really reads this blog but what the hell ratter type them anyway.

The following is on going series of dreams taking place over a three-day period, that I have not had time to post. Asterisks donate the end of the dream. The two people in question have helped, in different forms, with other endeavors- some with more success then others- whatever is currently occupying my interest. If the thought fancies me I will post more from the twenty or so entries from my physical journal.

***
I found myself in a large kitchen with vary nice appliances, and one old Cantonese couple sitting in a corner enjoying a pleasant chat. When they notice I was standing there in the middle of the kitchen, they got up greet me. After many greetings, and shaking of hands, they placed me in front of a large leg of beef, and handed me a knife. They proceeded to show me how to trim the fat, separate the different cuts, remove tendons, and cut out the bone.

The lesson started with removing the mass of fat from the leg; easily accomplished a Brulee torch. Setting the fat on fire resulted in sputtering and popping. Next came the disassembly of the leg in to its component cuts. When a cut was finished it was placed on a sheet of wax paper and put on a long, low pedestal of ice behind the counter. Some twelve cuts where proudly displayed with garnish when we had finished dividing and sub-dividing the meat.

***

I was sitting at the small table next to the French window, removing the roots of moung bean sprouts, while one half of the Cantonizes Couple tended to some engrossing task. His wife was helping me with the beans, when he finished. I did not realize we had been working so fast; the pile of beans was already at my knees. I took the beans over to the stove and put them in a pot that had been preheated. After adding many ingredients to the pot, it was lest to cook.

***

Dream I had last night.

In my dining room, late at night, during what could have been a party, forty people from two Scottish clans- in the middle of a spat- are eating hard corn-pudding and stew from mugs. Oddly fitting somehow because they where from the reign of James V of Scotland. In any case, there was evidently a letting go of old rivalries, for everyone was singing a rather vaguer song to the tune of “I was walking through the park one day:”

“I stayed out too late,
Now, I got no pants,
And me willies got the chivvies’;
And me wife’s going to kill me,
So I can’t go home.
But that’s all right
‘Cause, we’re going to the brothel.
‘Cause, we’re going to the brothel.

The party had go on for some time, and I was vary into it, dancing from foot to foot. Sitting at the head of the table was a man flirting with what appeared to be a bar wench, when leaning back suddenly he shouted:
“Wait, wait, now I’ve heard a cord from everyone here but you,” He looking strait at me and emphasizing the last word rather accusingly.
I stopped dancing from foot to foot, and said, “well, it has all been swell, and I don’t think I can match it, but I would like to try… feel free to go on till I have something worthy to share.”
“That’s perfectly normal and right; and don’t let your neighbor lie to you.”
I woke up when I realized that nothing I came up with rimed or even sounded right.

Greetings all,

I have seen the big raven again, this time it was on the bus ride home from the library- some fifteen miles from where I first saw it. This time I was sure to note all physical features, as well as behaviors. The bird was about two feet long, had a gray or white tuft of feathers on its breast. It landed on a stop sign and looked at me for a moment, before the bus started moving. It flew in from the east- my right,- stayed on the sign after the buss left.

I have been doing some looking in to raven symbolism and myths. But there is too many conflicting traditions, to decipher meaning. Came across the idea of a spirit guide, but am unsure of how to find out this raven is indeed my guide- have yet to find out what a spirit guide is. More books are needed on this topic.

Cherry-Bye