My Goal for the Next Year

"Equality means a quiet and unmoved mind and vital, it means not to be touched or disturbed by things that happen or things said or done to you, but to look at them with a straight look, free from the distortions created by personal feeling, and try to understand what is behind them, why they happen, what is to be learnt from them, what is it in oneself which they are cast against and what inner profit or progress one can make out of them…"

-Sri Aurobindo, The Integral Yoga

True Desire (103/365)

Desire and passion
Seeds of unhappiness
How can we desire
Without personal gain?
If passion so moves you
Create for humanity
Lift others up
With your time and talents
Let them realize
The power of many
Expressed in one
Dazzle them with humility
Astound them with grace
Let them feel only joy
Let your love light the way

Mortal Dream (102/365)

Skating downhill on a fast board
Re-tucking my credit cards into my pocket
Hoping no one notices

Running over a child’s toes
Sorry’s not good enough
The old lady gets bumped on the way

Haunted by a 2-headed siamese demon
Looking forward to the next high
With his pants down

He moves into my loft
Violence ensues
I’m thrown over the balcony

I return in a fury
He bites, I scratch, I beat him down
Until there are 2 of them

I’ve forgotten to love
In the midst of my fear
And in doing so, revealed my mortality

I flipped the switch
In my dark heart
And the demons became sweet cherubs under my fists

I released my grip
And stroked their foreheads
I bathed them in love, ashamed but forgiven

Exiting Oblivion (100/365)

It took us a while to find oblivion
But now we know we have it
We carried it to the lenders
It sat with us and watched TV

It kept us working at our jobs
When profits soared and wages sank
Oblivion kept us trodding on to
Certain riches and to fame

But alas it was all a game

Our science does not speak
Of democracy, greed, or justice
We focus on the simple things
An atom bomb, Viagra
We’ve ignored five thousand years of wisdom
Time-tested values of history
Because our test tubes and calculations
Promised riches and security

We forgot that our most precious asset
Was not a lump of gold
But the child that carries our dreams to tomorrow
A child which thrives on things we can’t buy
Clean water-air-food, love, justice, and hope

Youth (97/365)

Like water dribbling its way down a hillside
We are all going somewhere
You can throw up a big dam
Do it your way
But in time you’ll realize
How small a part you play
In the lives of others

How the quality of interaction
Trumphs the quantity of efforts
And how your tone
Colors the memory
So become sensitive to the tides
And learn when to let go
And when to invite

A cat will tell you
Its fur your practice
Its claws your punishment

Eloquence Lost (96/365)

Where is the eloquence
Of days gone by?
How have the sound waves shaped us?
We can sing a thousand songs
And hum a hundred tunes
But we talk twice as slow as we used to

No one writes letters
Anymore
Pen pals a long lost notion
We email and text
We call and voicemail
Communicate faster than neurons

Thoughtful words are a treat
Well written prose
Luxury
That we rarely take time to enjoy
I rewind a hundred years
To find text that speaks
To my heart, my mind, and my soul.

Meatbag (95/365)

Gratuitous violence
Omnivore
Herbicides pesticides
Nervous system

Amygdala fear
The higher mind
Prefrontal cortex
Massive grey mass

A human has choices
And little information
Time to work
1300 books to read

We adapt to survive
Chaos dancers
Organize and thrive
Meatbag with legs