Reflections in the Hall of Light

Sun in Unseen Wavelengths on the Computer Screen

Today I'm finishing the greenhouse project on our little farm. This is also the eve of leaving for a sojourn to reconnect with far flung friends and family. This morning I was caught by surprise by the memory of my father. I remember how a father's heart and eyes can reside in a child...even when that child is an adult.


I looked into the black screen and saw my father with sad wise eyes reflecting back. Is that who I am? An improvement by stealth and fire? What do I carry from him? What is truly my own?

Dad, 
I'm coming home. Right now you are probably sitting on your bluff above the wave wracked cove, so far away. Will you meet me there, one last time? Will you meet the eyes that cried the tears that you could not? Will you look at me with the look of a far away war that was never won?

Your eyes are like the sun to me, dad. Look at me one more time.

I remember you dad, how we built so many houses together. The day you left. The day I heard an echo of you, right here in the structure I built with my own two hands.

 ~~~~

The morning is calm. If the weather holds, I will arc the plastic roof over the greenhouse frame. I will make a translucent story board of heaven. The view that is nearly clear, but not quite. House of the sun. A shelter from the storms, yet gossamer thin. My hall to worship streaming light that came from millions of miles away.


Thanks for reading.
May you see and embrace the reflection in the dark mirror.
My you lift your eyes to that insubstantial boundary between here and heaven.
May you feel the warmth of the sun on this crisp autumn day.

Rick

Copyright (c) Richard Sievers, October 2013, All Rights Reserved.

It's Been a Good Year

Here's a slightly surly poem I came up with this morning. Please forgive the categorization of people in the poem and the misspelled alliterations. I'm poking fun at myself along with society. It's a pleasure and a pain to not fit neatly in any particular category. I both want to fit in and be a grinding buffer against the ideals of those who know they are right. I hope you find a few gems in here. I think many people feel like they don't conform neatly within our world of This Or That.

~~~~~~~

This Year

This year I've been

Mocked by the materialist,

Rejected by the religionist,

Raged at by the redneck,

Neutered by the newager,

Lambasted by the liberal,

Condescended to by the conservative,

Tackled by the tea partier,

Stigmatized by the socialist,

Whacked by the wealthy,

Pummeled by the poor.

This year I've been

Gutted because I use the word God in my speech 

and

Pandered to because I don't subscribe to a particular version of God.

I've been

An Idiot who believes in ideals 

and

a Reactionary for wanting what's real.

I was told I was

Lying when I told my truth

and

Misinformed when refusing to march to martial madness.

I sit here today in my posh poverty

and muse out loud:

"This has been a very good year."

My kids hear me for once and roll their eyes.

I think:

"Damn, I must be doing something right."

~~~~~~

May your categories be ever fluid... or not.

Rick

Copyright (c) Richard Sievers, August 2013, All Rights Reserved

Thought and Memory

A Scandinavian myth tells of Odin, the one god over all, the giver and protector, the slayer and destroyer, the one who discovered the song of the universe within the runes. Odin had two ravens named Thought and Memory. He would send these two out, to fly across the entire face of the earth. He asked them to observe everything with keen awareness. He asked them to return to him and report everything they witnessed and experienced. Like all myths, this one is living and dynamic. The story and facts will be different from person to person. But the Truth remains viable and worthy of contemplation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Being open and sensitive is brave, if not foolhardy to many. To be a live wire and sift through the static and electricity in the world may seem foolish and even suicidal. To feel everything, is that a drug or enlightenment? What would it be like to be Thought and Memory? What is it like to share all experience with the Spirits of compassion and The God over everything? To me, this would be the ultimate life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ode to Odin

I am twin souls,

Thought and Memory.

I wing across the hidden sky trails and

witness all in the world.

In the darkness I come

back home to You,

Mother Father

Slayer Lover.

I tell you everything

we've witnessed.

I give you everything

we've become.

Then I sleep

like the double edged

sword resting in your sheath.

In your hands I am

the gleaming might of love,

the edge that cuts 

everything together.

RSS

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Love,
Rick

Copyright (c) Richard Sievers, August 2013, All Rights Reserved.

How to Live Simply

A dialogue that came to me while writing in my journal this morning:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Please note: When I address the Beloved, I use the word God. I hope this is not distracting or triggering for some people. For me, this word is meant as the most inclusive, welcoming to EVERY person and beyond any particular religious persuasion.  And my personal agenda is to take the word back from those that have used it in a hateful or closed hearted manner. I address the one that I experience shining as pure love everywhere and in everyone. It is the still and quiet voice within.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 How do I live simply, God?

"Take a year to fill the pages of this book.
Then lift out a single sentence.
Give those words away, with no name attached.
Burn the book.
Begin the book again, as if for the first time."

That's a tall order, God.

"You will do all these things anyway.
(If you do it willingly you are truly free.)*
The meaning you seek is the space
between the words.
That space is sufficient.
That space is everything.
That space is me, within you."

Then, how do we live This day together, God?

"The Compassionate Spirits are here.
They know the winding ways of time
lead always to the place that is no place at all.
So, tend your garden.
Give all (that you seek and have)* away,
even in the exchange of wants and desire.
Love your friends and enemies,
especially those inside of you...
the ones you call yourself. 

Tell me one thing more about this living simply.

"Be free, write, say, sow, reap what wills itself 
out of the bardo called LOVE."



Love,
Rick

*(Parentheses) Are my interpretation.


Copyright Rick Sievers, July 2013, All Rights Reserved 

The Desk and the Mist

A rare summer mist hovers over the cabin. 

The grasses in the field are bent 

like an army of monks in prayer.

Outside I recognize the new Earth.

The old is healed, renewed and vibrant 

with all possibility.

Inside, I linger over my desk:

loving this altar of solitude, my old friend.

I fashioned the boards with my own two hands.

But first the grain ripened 

in the rings of sun circles and forest song.

Me and the desk, both from the wild, 

bent for a time, refined, awaiting renewal, 

cleansed by the morning mist.

O, Sacred Earth come.

O, Beloved, come.

Rick

(c) Copyright Rick Sievers, July 2013, All Rights Reserved

I Am Woven Into the Fabric of the Universe

A message I received while in circle with my shamanic friends this weekend. This was meant for me and my periodic embarrassment of being inspirited with gifts and love. Like many, I am often afraid to be different. I am often afraid to state the truth within me which is not yet quantifiable. This may help someone else out there too...I hope so.

"What happens when you don't channel the spiritual power that is yours to give with love? Others may fail or pull up the slack. No longer apologize, minimize or trivialize our holy humble purposes in your life. What right have you to deny what is wondrous and loving within you? There are consequences for you resisting alignment with Love (Love=The Beloved and Compassionate Ones). The ancestors, animals, the Earth itself may suffer."

"The World of Love is diminished when you diminish what is Most Lovely in yourself."

An inspiration for this post was a song:
Heart of the Universe
by Peter Kater and Snatum Kaur
Love,
Rick

Copyright Rick Sievers, June 2013, All Rights Reserved

God Does Not Kill!

Julia Sievers ca. 1870s

To the religious ideologues who insist they know what is right and wrong, to those who kill in the name of all that is sacred and true and to those who wonder why hatred appears to bloom in our world, a letter from my Great Great Grandmother written in her journal 1898.

"God does not kill! Neither by flashing lightning, the whirling wind, the roaring water.... God does not kill with poison, pestilence, plague, famine, or flame. God does not kill with disease or disorder, with heartache or headache... God does not kill anyone, anywhere, or at anytime!

The doctrine that God takes away a child to punish or afflict a parent; takes away a husband to humble the wife... that God comes into a family like a lesson of destruction, to kill afflict and sadden; that God bankrupts or burdens any one good or bad; the doctrine of providential affliction and distress and sorrow; This is (an) unloving, godless and pitiless doctrine, (it) has no place in the thought of today only because it has had the sanction of the hoary ages Not because it is true, or reasonable, or good, or acceptable, or helpful, or hopeful.

Julia Sievers ca. 1940

(It is) Not because the Bible, or philosophy, or history, or science would have us believe it. But simply because we have been taught it, and have not had the courage to deny it.

God pities and helps, and guides and leads, and teaches, and hopes for us, but does Not destroy us, or hurt us, or hinder us. The theologian may have to teach us apostate thought to harmonize us with his system of so-called truth, But We Know Better; and in all justice and fairness let us quit accusing providence of inspiring crime and promoting disease, and in encouraging death....1

"Think and speak love, joy, peace, truth, Mercy. The Good is here and it is ours, it is for  you and me and to you and me.

In exalting the faculty of the Soul, we annihilate in a great degree the delusion of the senses." 2

Written by Julia M Sievers, Dennison, Iowa 1898


I love you Great Great Grandmother. May your prayers of love and clear thinking bloom in our world.

Rick

Notes:

1. Julia's hand written journal is full of quotes and prayers and thoughts, all in devotion to God as she understood him. I was only the second person to ever read this passage until today. She notes that she adapted this first section based on an editorial from the Fort Worth, (Tex) Register.

2. This last four lines has the name "Martin" inscribed underneath it.


Copyright Richard Sievers, March 2013, All Rights Reserved