some tastes also have the taste of past tastings.
this hot mulled cider is like that. it tastes of juicy
autumn apples – ones upstate new york
i picked once. it tastes of their grit, their skin,
their way of shining in the slightly dulled autumn
air breezing between stalls around fourteenth street.
i can taste the spices, cinnamon chief among them,
flirting with each other, and me. it is so hot i almost
put it back down, wait for it to cool off, but it smells
so delicious; familiar. i take one more taste, somehow
a sad taste. it tastes just as it's tasted before
only now something else— it tastes now
also of that past tasting. i can taste not only that i have
known this taste before: i can also taste that when.
i relive her look in this taste, the way she watched me
before things were clear, uncloaking myself
with the smell of the cider between us, no space
and uncomfortable stools. i can taste my desire
just to entwine a bit, perhaps our bodies hinting
toward intercourse, to the meaning of our dancing.
it tastes so strongly of that hiddenness she left for me
to move me more slowly into her, to make my own
sharing lush with attention, the weight of the thing,
the thing shared silently between us, the poem;
i taste now her refusal to recite that poem aloud
as she quietly muttered it to herself, knowing a poem
must be spoken. i'm tasting the icy chill of approaching
wintertime through the opened and reopened door,
the taste of a scarf and a cute hat, and especially
above all else, i taste in this familiar taste, her look
shyly out from behind whatever it was there between us
birthing love out of lust, birthing intimacy out of distance,
giving birth out from herself to a kind of me— the way
she looked at me when she let me look at her
and when she let her look mirror my need to see,
the intimation of some me-to-be, that hint, that taste.

yet i also taste a different tasting. her look was absent,
that i may never see her eyes again. waiting, drinking
hot mulled cider that i wished to be drinking with her,
and though i can taste that earlier taste now, and her look
and all that subtle starving presence, never almost,
i can taste, almost came. and now perhaps that never
has arrived. and yet, unfortunately, i can taste it
the never-againness of this taste i taste in this very mug.

I. distraction

my stomach grumbles
and i see her face

especially her mute-blue eyes,
holding themselves behind
dark pupils, and me.
what am i, holding her
little hand, as i slip
from hunger to hunger
further distraction
and isn’t it all?
what else matters if
i am unable to speak that blue
        or at least
                to adore it?

what else is on my mind?

        distance

especially her thin lips
        closest contact
how does one kiss those lips?
even to approach them is to overpower—
and yet the hunger.
my organs are failing
along with my words

even my eyes are failing me,
how long it took for me
to notice even her eyes
just to notice their patient blue
       are they withholding
       or is there nothing more to say?
or are my eyes failing me?

what of this image
is of her?
yes, my stomach grumbles
and as i turn my attention back
out from that place
       i glimpse her

especially my way of looking at her
without looking,
my way of thinking about her lips
instead of thirsting after them
but, oh, how does one thirst
for such lips—
what does that desire taste like?

or am i doing something
to myself,
my large intestine is ill
my liver is stressed
this jaundice
is the parasite
really
any other than
that abuse i tell myself will come
from her? are my organs failing
or am i my failing parents,
she my tool, my distraction
from just how disconnected
i am from her
toward-blue eyes, and me?

II. labial

something of lips
at least i can hear their sounds: p-, w-, m-
at least, i know, there is something i can trust

and i have no need to inquire anxiously
it is enough to observe
the way i see her eyes.

but more,
how do i feel her skin
though i have yet to touch even her hands?

it can be difficult to observe.
what is it i lose
when i lose myself
holding her face in my hands –
just to grace her cheeks, has there
ever been a face of such sensitive consistency?
how does her glance remain so open
all the while sharing so little…
her skin is not inviting, though it is welcoming,
have you seen the way her eyelashes flutter?
and when they part once more
once more her predawn-blue eyes
hold themselves almost back.

i do not believe it.

even her lips tease and deceive me,
i know, there is something i can trust.
what else is there?

and she is sweet, i know,
without pathetic self-destruction,
and has no need of my old habits though,
perhaps, of my new,
and she is out of reach,
and i perhaps will not let her eyes look into mine,
or will not let my eyes look into her looking into mine,
or perhaps i see something
fueling this hunger
something those soft blue eyes neither hide nor reveal,
and yet,
see so much more clearly

a past that has nearly destroyed me
remain.

III. cerebral

there are meandering thoughts and arguments
but, on the other hand, when i think
just a little
of her tongue

my lips, my hips, and my tongue
wriggle
expecting her to taste me
and lull my mind
back into my body

and really, all i was thinking
was what her tongue must do
for her to speak in so many languages.

and i wonder why i haven’t asked yet
for a recitation of Neruda in Spanish,
maybe one with a lot of r’s.

IV. guttural

as my eyes blink open
and my throat grumbles
i see her face

not sleeping well
i wonder
did i dream her so many times
or think of her each time i woke up?

yet this week i have seen her eyes:
i sleep fine,
it’s getting to bed that gives me trouble

some say heaven, but it's not heaven exactly.

that's eternity; up here everything just blows away.

and where are all the souls? are they

hiding? do they go haunting on stormy

afternoons, screeching down from heaven? well, it's not

heaven exactly. it makes one wonder

what God does with all those souls—

God, You Poet.

i wish i'd dream Your eyes, God,

just once more, so they could haunt

me awhile longer.

i'll never see a heaven that lasts,

but i'm holding on... just awhile longer.

it's Your eyes, God— they saw me once.

Hi everyone, here is a little little glimpse of what life looks like out here at the edge of the Great Basin in the extreme NE part of California.  This photo looks south; Nevada starts somewhere out there on the left.  If you're looking for a good spot to meditate on emptiness, try this place!

I'm spending the next month at the edge of the desert, working on a brand new organic farm.  Hope you check out their blog!

I feel so lucky to be here, contrubuting to this project and learning about sustainable agriculture.  After spending a few years in the City, getting my hands into the dirt in this expansive place where one must completely adapt to the extremes of landscape is so rewarding, spiritually and emotionally.  So I will try to stop back and share some of my experience with you from time to time.  Lots of love!

I’ve awakened to my voice: I’m grateful to be alive so that I can cultivate compassion for all beings without exception.  And now it’s 7AM; it’s been around an hour since I’ve texted my friend with the message, “Please sit with me.”  We sit together every morning and then I receive a text saying, for example, Page 147 please.  That was this morning’s text, which I will leave on her voice message.  What she means is page 147 of ‘I AM That,’ by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, whose Niasarga (natural) Yoga is commensurate with the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta.  Its injunction is simple: penetrate the mind and recognize not this or that, here or there, then or now, but just “timeless being,” what Buddhism calls Pure Awareness, the highest cognizance from which to truly understand the ultimate nature of reality, which is empty of inherent existence.

I chose this particular page because you can see the play between nondual and monistic perspectives, both within the advaitic mind.  however, in its deepest transmission, monist or nondual are irrelevant.  In fact, change the words around and I could be reading Nagarjuna. 

From the chapter `Mind is Restlessness Itself,’ the advaitic essence comes through as the questioner asks: In the ultimate state there can be no happiness?

Maharaj responds: Nor sorrow. Only freedom.  Happiness depends on something or other and can be lost; freedom from everything depends on nothing and cannot be lost.  Freedom from sorrow has no cause and, therefore, cannot be destroyed.  Realize that freedom.

Q: Am I not born to suffer as a result of my path?  Is freedom possible at all?  Was I born of my own will?  Am I not just a creature?

M: What is birth and death but the beginning and ending of a stream of events in consciousness?  Because of the idea of separation and limitation they are painful.  Momentary relief from pain we call pleasure – and we build castles in the air hoping for endless pleasure which we call happiness.  It is all misunderstanding and misuse.  Wake up, go beyond, live really.

Q: My knowledge is limited, my power negligible.

M: Being the source of both, the self is beyond both knowledge and power.  The observable is in the mind.  The nature of the self is pure awareness, pure witnessing, unaffected by the presence or absence of knowledge or liking.

Have your being outside this body of birth and death and all your problems will be solved.  They exist because you believe yourself to be born to die.  Undeceive yourself and be free.  You are not a person.

                   ---------------------------------------------

This last sentence is most important: “You are not a person.”  What Nisargadatta means is that you are only a person in name; person is the mental construct you designate for the psychophysical aggregates, one of the 12 limbs that represent an interconnected complex of the human being.  Importantly, though elaborated separately, the 12 limbs of the human complex cannot be properly understood if viewed as separate entities, for they represent features of a complete field.  And so, the person is the fourth limb, which is called, name and form.  Name identifies consciousness and its various aspects while form identifies matter and its various aspects.  The aggregates of perception, feelings, karmic formations and consciousness are included under “name.”

When viewed in this way, the ultimate nature of reality is revealed: that everything in the universe is interconnected through the web (“fusion”) of cause and effect so that the whole and the parts are mutually interdependent. The character and condition of entities at any given time are intimately connected with the character and condition of all other entities that ONLY superficially may appear to be unconnected or unrelated.