Unexpected Rains II

The clouds had indeed come swiftly,
full and wet and black they were,
strewing tears of agony and grief;
it was truly a solemn occasion,
and they knew, better than I,
who and what had been lost.

My own tears now follow theirs,
and our comingled sorrows
soothe a world road-weary
of the march of pain and death.

This journey never ends,
‘tis true as true can be,
but this path we have washed together
shall be rendered clean by our service,
and will be lined with early flowers.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Flowers I Have Culled

Flowers, flowers I have culled

from the garden of your disaffection.

Small they are,
yet poignant—
they offer a wistful air,
as if afraid to breathe.

Yes, I have culled flowers,
flowers from the garden of your disaffection,
and I have put them in the sun,
to dry into memory.

Small and sad,
vague and rootless,
I could never get near enough
to find the center
so to transplant them
into more fertile soil.

So the only recourse
to their withering
is to cull the flowers
and to dry them,
like the tears I have shed,
to preserve their essence,
yet let them fade
into a less painful memory.

Perhaps I should walk away,
but there is yet a tristesse beauty
that draws me to care, and so
I continue to cull the flowers,
if only to preserve a beauty
that might have opened to the light.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Unexpected Rains I

They drifted in swiftly,
clouds, full and black,
giving up as much rain
as stored in their silver coffers,
a solemn offering,
a duty and service
to any valley, plain or hill
they encounter on this,
their journey that never ends.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Wholeness

The moon is not its phases.

The moon is the moon,
no different in the four directions
as from a cloud a boat or the shore,
complete in itself,
whole.

This is true for all and of all.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Offerings

Sun beams light everywhere;
rain blesses the desert places;
trees reach up to the sky
and bend their arms to make shade;
rivers and steams quench the fields;
seeds rise from prayer,
firmly planting their feet
in the soft and willing earth;
flowers unfurl their colorful smiles;
fruit falls into waiting hands;
grains wave on their stalks;
I give a freshly baked cookie
to a stranger walking by;
Moon draws all to needed rest
—life is an eloquent exchange
of offerings 

made for no better reason than 

just because.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Inside the Spiraling Moment

Floating from inside an interior web of warm vibrations,

Surrounded by blossoms within a glorious garden of sound forms,
I know my own voice rising, falling, and melding there, too,
Liquid, lucid, filling any welcoming space,
Longing to meet and melt into surfaces,
Hard ones, all the better to contact with gleeful bounces,
Soft ones, all the better to contact with joyous embraces,
There to be absorbed into a new life, a new being.

Inside such spiraling moments,
I know myself to be present, and
I know the presence of others,
I know we are conjoined not only in common outward purpose,
But also by a shared interiority that must be the home of Universal Heart,
That heavenly realm,
Which, while existing beyond past, present and future,
Lives within the sound of our voices,
For it is woven inextricably into our very flesh,
It is woven inextricably into all that is seen and unseen,
And, unfolding from the stillness of silence,
Is proclaimed in every unbidden gesture of beauty.

Music is indeed the most heavenly gift of all,
For even as we thoughtfully create and recreate moments in sound, in music,
We are the manifestation of the music of the spheres.

Music is at once the question and the answer to all our questions,
A map across the trackless desert to the Beloved,
A living and breathing Is-ness that renews Being
With the will to strive for an eternal More
In every Moment.

Music is analogous of the mystery of Life,
a meeting of spirit and witness
that flows continuously,
like radiant heat,
from the center of creative Being.

Inside the spiraling moment,
I drench myself,
I lose my self,
I find selves joined within selves, our very selves, ourselves;
I meld within the everlasting arms of Other,
And apprehend the infinite beauty of us All.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Selling Ourselves

I have been job hunting, for over a year. If there is anything that has come to my notice, during this time, it is that people seem to be morphing into products. (I can't call this evolving.)

Erich Fromm wrote this prescient statement in an essay, published in 1955, entitled "The Present Human Condition":

Man has transformed himself into a commodity, and experiences his life as capital to be invested profitably; if he succeeds in this he is "successful" and his life has meaning; if not, "he is a failure." His "value" lies in his salability, not in his human qualities of love and reason nor in his artistic capacities. Hence his sense of his own value depends on extraneous factors—his success, on the judgment of others. Hence he is dependent on these others, and his security lies in conformity, in never being more than two feet away from the herd.

Fromm goes on to suggest that we herded humans have become alienated "automatons." Albert Camus, along these lines, said, "Without work, all life goes rotten; but when work is soulless, life stifles and dies."

Is that what we want from the work of "making a living"? That certainly not what I want. I would venture to say that it must be true for everyone that we want to have work that is meaningful, either creative or useful.

I have seen friends turn themselves into consultants because they think that will free them from the rigors of office hours and give them "more time". Instead of freedom, they find that they are forced to work all the time, and that they have to pay the overhead that any office must pay, with regard to equipment. There is so much more to self-employment than anyone ever realizes. And sometimes the service we sell is something that could, maybe should, be given away for free, as a public service, neighbor helping neighbor.

The internet has become the perfect place marketplace for selling oneself. Well, not perfect. In fact, it is rather ugly and sick, this marketplace, with messages popping up all over, video messages yammering at you, while you are trying to find information on pages that are chock full of attention-getting blurbs that are not at all helpful to your purpose. Selling "old secrets",  rackets and scams, this sham marketplace is all hustle and no substance.

Modern life seems to be a cycle consisting of consumers who are, in turn, being consumed.

In his all but forgotten book, Good Work, E.F. Shumacher saw this cycle as a modern metaphysics he defines as "materialistic scientism."

"The world of work," as seen and indeed created by this modern metaphysics is—alas!—a dreary place. Can higher education prepare people for it? How do you prepare people for a kind of serfdom? What human qualities are required for becoming efficient servants, machines, "systems," and bureaucracies? The world of work of today is the product of a hundred years of "de-skilling"—why take the trouble and incur the cost of letting people acquire the skills of a craftsman, when what is wanted is a machine winder? The only skills worth acquiring are those which the system demands, and they are worthless outside the system. They have no survival value outside the system and therefore do not even confer the spirit of self-reliance. What does a machine winder do when (let us say) energy shortage stops his machine? Or a computer programmer without a computer?

The traditional workplace has been downsized, both of meaning and dignity. I see people now working as grocery clerks who I discern have been pushed out of professions that live by the "free market capitalism" credo of profit, profit, no matter what.

Who knows, perhaps I will soon be a grocery clerk.

These are things I have been thinking about, while I look for work.

//
Fromm, Erich. "The Present Human Condition," The American Scholar (Winter, 1955-56, Vol. 25, No. 1).
Shumacher, E.F. Good Work. Harper Colophon, 1979, p. 123.