How Do I Love Those That Hate?

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I was feeling distressed this past day with voices rising up from our world which promote hatred and a form of individual rights which trample the rights and needs of others. The thoughts about radio personalities and the wavers of an outdated battle flag have spun around inside of me. How will our world ever evolve if it is always about Us and Them? Yet I was thinking in terms of us and them. 

Then I asked a deeper question while meditating this morning. And then some answers came from the One I only know as Mystery and Beloved. I wrote it all down in my journal. I thought maybe these musings would also provide some insight to someone else, like you. Perhaps this would be helpful in finding your own answers to:

How do I Love Those that Hate?

 

How do I love those that hate?

How do I remain true to the ethics of healing without hating or dismissing those that know they are right?  How do I remain true to the wonders you have revealed to me without demeaning the people so wrapped in maya (illusion and suffering) that they openly carry weapons to kill and words to maim?

How?

· By Grace and Gumption (will).

· Just be kind to them anyway.

· You do not have to fight anyone if you only say what you are For.

· When you revel in what you are against you join with the dark.

· Go into the fiery den of those that hate if you must and then come fully out.

· Stay Not in The Pain by carrying such a message around through your rejection, resistance. Resistance and rejection are the energies of connection with that which is disliked. A shadow.

· No doubt the revilers and cynics can harm the body and destroy the civility in society. But they cannot touch the spirit. Only You can consign your spirit to hell or heaven here and now.

· Either I am all, or I am some, or I am none. (You decide which level of wonder to believe)

· Yes is the word of your dharma (Life work/calling). Yes to what is right and just and loving all at the same time.

· These trials and conflicts (in this world) will remain as mystery while you dream this life.

· Soon you’ll know what is beyond your questions of Why.

· Soon you’ll realize who you always are.
Love,
Rick


(c) Copyright Words and Image, Richard Sievers, All Rights Reserved, August 2015

Shores of Avalon

A simple poem sequence from a dream after falling asleep to a song by Tina Malia, called Shores of Avalon*. And then my response when awakening to a clearing sky after the rain. Finally a whisper of the Still Small Voice.

Today I am awed by the deep ocean of love within the misty song stream air of longing.

What is it, Who is it that you most desire? 

And where is home for you? 

 

Avalon

A moment to be still, beloved.

Just a moment and

you will be changed

into what you always are.

A breath now. 

The sea-song whispers

your true name.

Don't look back.

You are safe here.

You are home.

~~~

Is it raining upon your shores too?

Is the morning air soft and quiet?

Do silken songs stream seaward?

Is your sun lighting up the apple blossoms

from within the tree,

heart alight with such joy,

such joy.

~~~

Just a moment now, and

you will be home.

Love,
Rick

(c) Copyright Words and Image, Richard Sievers, July 2015

* The Song Shores of Avalon, is the creation of Tina Malia and is sung on Sound Cloud at Tina Malia: Shores of Avalon.

Releasing the Starry Light

The leaves tremble and the cottonwood tree releases her starry light.

I saw this cottonwood forest in Idaho last week shedding a whole sky of starry snow. It got me thinking about how the soulless world needs Our art and truth and beauty right now. I thought about the word Fecundity.


Fecundity is a shiny word with so many meanings. As an artist I use this word to denote powerful personal productivity, natural growth, rich mental ability and fluidic creativity.

What wishes to grow and create inside of you? What would natural growth look like if you released the limits of comfort and indebted service? See the cottonwood spread her snow everywhere. Her seed is both beautiful and worthy of attention. What if you grew and reproduced from your own pure rootstock? How would the world benefit? How would you live the life that you yearn to live?

For me, creativity comes often in the form of poetry. I consider poetry to be more than some clever or cute arrangement of idealistic sounding words. And sometimes it's more than personal therapy. I think of poetry as a prescription for soul loss, a prescription to annoy and soothe a society that is numbed by the sensational, medicine for a society that bypasses the beautiful and true.

Your winding way of wondrous artistic expression is a healing path too.

It seems that many of us either live by analyzing with intellectual prowess or by performing as actors in a play we did not write. We are often hooked on the academic or the ecstatic. I'm wondering what thin, vaporous membrane lives in the middle of these extremes? What incorporates the roots and the airy branches in a living synergy?

Poetry, or any creative effort, may ask us to live between the common and the unreal. We, as creatives, may ask ourselves if we want to be the ones to connect the soul of our work to the world, or live in hiding.

The cottonwood snow is an expression of fecundity that transmits living information while singing starry verses of wild exuberance. The result is a verdant woodland cleansing the air within our cities and roadways. Am I willing to release what fate, or spirit, or genetics, or God, has placed within me? Are you?

I say create from the heart, but also connect with the people that really need our dharma to be fulfilled in this numb and dumb world. Just tell your story and see it morph into THE Story... a living essence.  See it grow into a story that transcends even your original intention. Sprinkle a few obscurities in for the curious. Spoon a dollop of sugar for the ones craving sweetness. But most importantly let the world of people and beings and spirits feel what lives and shines between the extremes within you.

You can decide to let your art be seen and heard. If someone, even one person, can feel their pulse quiver when hearing your voice then that is the beginning of a verdant fecundity.  The quivering of the pulse means an arrow of spirit and heart has touched the recipient.

I say, aim for the middle between unbridled passion and regulated analysis. 

Aim for the ordinary, armed with the extraordinary song that lives inside of you.

Let the starry snow fly. 

Let the seed fall where it will. 

Let the wind make something real of your imaginings.

Love,
Rick

(c) Copyright, words and image, Richard Sievers, June 2015

Rules for Writing in Your Journal

Rules for Writing in Your Journal...

Or Any Sojourn into Expression and Creativity.

Just begin.

Start at the beginning:

A word, a thought, a sensation, a glimmering dream, nothing...

Not even nothing is forbidden here.

Say, scribe, strive, stumble, scribble, scrawl,

With longing or release,

Being precise or random,

Felling small or incomprehensibly huge.

Just begin.

Everyone needs a safe place 

To be the self they are 

In the moment.

Everyone:

Including you, even the spirits.

Maybe even God needs a safe space here,

Or not.

There is no sacrilege,

No trying.

There's just do-being.

Being still and moving at the same time.

That's the yin and yang of creativity,

Like a song:

do-be-do-be-do-be-do...

An effortless song

That you cannot get out of your head

Until you sing it.

So, sit still and sing.

Let the pen move.
Set it free.
You may be surprised
at what you see.

Love,
Rick

When you get stuck, lower your standards.

William Stafford

 

(c) Copyright Richard Sievers, April 2015, All Rights Reserved

The poem in the picture from my journal is an excerpt from
A Song Sparrow Singing in the Fall
by Wendell Berry
New and Collected Poems, p.176

What Difference?

Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.
                                                                        Luke 22:42

It is Easter weekend, a time celebrating rebirth that sprung from the roots of suffering and death. I’m reminded that even Jesus experienced the suffering of a fate that was seemingly beyond endurance. Then he experienced death. Like all of us. Now the story about his resurrection is fantastic, but what I have been interested in is the life lived Before the inevitable demise.

I woke up this morning thinking on the meaning of this weekend. Then I fell into a half dream/half wake state. I dreamed that I died in agony and my last words were:

Oh God, I didn’t want to die this way…
Imagine those as your final sentence. One Hundred and Fifty Thousand people will die in our world on this very day. Accident, violence, debilitation, slow decimation… these are all possible for anyone’s death. What would we be like on the other side of that fateful sentence, of that life lost? What would a “good” death look like and what difference would it make? What about a decent, happy life? What difference? All could just end in annihilation. What if the person you called “yourself” continued on the other side of death in some form? Then, how would you live or die?

Two questions rise up over and over:

1. If there is only nothingness in store for me after death how would I live now?
2. If I continue in some form after death how would I live now?

Does the answer vary from either question?
I reply to this query: “NO, the answer is the same to either question.”
This is my vision statement for living at this moment, no matter the outcome after death:

• Live lovingly, creatively and aware.
• Treat others as you want to be treated.
• Swim in curiosity. 
• Be grateful in wonder.
• Cling to what and who is sacred.

The vision statement is the same reply to either question, because the consequences of choosing other ways seems to be sad and uselessly defeating. There is no doubt, this is a miracle of a planet. And whether annihilation or immortality (other something else unimaginable) this life, This moment is undeniably a wonder.

It appears that not many beings are bestowed with consciousness and choice of behavior like us. Whatever the end, I want to remember that simple truth for me: I’ll choose Loving kindness, replete with all the consequences that come with being sensitive and open in this hard world of humanity. And when I fail to reach the ideals of my vision statement I will turn towards hope rather than nihilism, cynicism, and craving. When life gets to be difficult and unfair I will pursue peace rather than railing against the unknown. What other real choices are there?

Perhaps the question is not how one would want to leave this world. 
Perhaps the question is how would one long to Live fully in this world, no matter the reality or absence of after-life?  
What is a vision statement for living that you could believe in? 
And what part of life’s difficulties could change into simple peace for being alive if you chose gratitude rather than despair?

Love,
Rick


© Copyright Words and Image, Richard Sievers, April 2015