Zombies Don't Eat Butterflies

The word on the street is you wanna save the world … house the homeless, feed the hungry ... unless they’re zombies … don’t feed the zombies … that said zombies are notoriously easy to cook for ... shield the attacked, free the exploited, and un-entrance the boy band obsessed. 

What to feed your zombie … raw vegan, of course. The paleo-set tend to be too well-armed and in possession of incredible aim.  

You will not save the world on your own. There are seven billion different thought patterns creating it …  yours is only one … you cannot play your super-hero theme song loud enough for everyone to hear over their own ego-erratic drum beat … you'll only add to the cacophony.

Unlike the moon landing … Thriller was faked ... zombies can’t dance. Butterflies … according to Mohammad Ali … had all the moves.

But you can turn down the volume in your own head, let go of the fear and anger, seek out the quiet and still, and let them transform you.

Chrysalis Entombed

there is no weeping

at a caterpillar’s wake

chrysalis entombed

a caterpillar’s casket

naught but a butterfly’s womb

Embrace your imperfections; they’re beautiful too and when it’s time, let them go. Emerge from the darkness and take to the sun-lit air. But if you’re going to save the world with your newly-minted, powdery wings, you’re going to need some reinforcements.

Just How Many Butterflies

tethered together

crawling on the planet earth

seven billion bugs

just how many butterflies

it a takes to vanquish a tank

It is the soft that will overcome the hard … so says the Tao … you wanna save the world; stop the fight and become that which cannot be defeated; It's there, lying within the fear cocoon that is your ego, just waiting for you to break through and take your first  winged-step. Love, compassion, understanding is the way to peace; is the way to a better world, there is no other.

Just How Many Butterflies and Chrysalis Entombed are published in Tattoo, Calling All Soldiers Home and available at the following link. http://goo.gl/1gf0Fc

The Ego and Its Naked Ambition

After last week’s blog some of you may be feeling a little love cold; I am here to tell you it is a beautiful warm and sunny spring day; it’s time to warm-up

                 The Boy Who Wore Clothes

(Excerpt)

A race of proud men

Resided in the polar

To clothes they said nyet

However bad the weather

No matter how inclement

In the windswept bleak

Lost in an icy desert

On a glacial scarp

Men of unyielding custom

It was adieu to their garb

Clothing was comfort

It would make them soft and weak

Make them chumps and simps

Sissies, milksops, and wussies

Make of them cry-baby wimps 

Some have adopted the idea that to be spiritual is remove oneself from the world of pleasure and comfort, to deny the pull of our desires and to seek out suffering. To defeat the ego by attacking from without. That is if we lob enough challenges at our ego it will crumble. Admittedly suffering has since the dawn of consciousness contributed to fuller awareness. As much my ego would like it to be to the contrary, there is the pattern. But it is not for you to seek out the suffering. You will not defeat fire by walking into it and pretending it doesn’t burn. Your ego is strengthened by your resistance to it.

But creation depends on duality you say … denying the dark is wearing blinders. 

Creation isn’t so much about duality; humans invent dualities to aid in understanding a very complex universe. It may be more useful to think of creations as being about contrast. There is no denying some things feel darker than others; existence needs the contrast to exist and evolve; for the creator … which is you … to arrive at a preference and feed it with positive thought and feeling. But you do not need to seek out shadows. Be open to receiving and just the right amount of contrast will find you and challenge you in just the right way. Acknowledge that something feels bad and figure out what you need to do to feel better … not what the world needs to do to make you feel better … but what you can do to feel better and most of the time you’ll feel better.

The Boy Who Wore Clothes

cont.

Then a boy was born

Surely he’d been switched at birth

An iconoclast

A snivelling malcontent

Nude, he’d face no arctic blast

With a hairless face

He took shelter with the gals

Til puberty hit

At his first crack of alto 

With wool, he began to knit

He grew strong and tall

His voice lowered two octaves

He’d face the tundra

Onto the vain plains he went

Clad in a hat and muffla

Even with his yarn 

Things were bitterly gelid

Limbs and loins tingled

To lift his spirits he sang

Apropos, balls a’jingle

Enough is enough 

Our clothed rebel did chatter

No more ice trauma

Half of us is frostbitten  

Gord’s in a frozen coma

We all need comfort 

Let’s wrap the boys in woollen

Become good axe-men

Get some lumber; light a fire

Snuggle up with the women

Now some of the men

Saw the truth in his lament

The wiser brethren

Brushed the snow from their shoulders

Went in; made some good lovin’

Alas for a few

Their beards had grown ever long

Frozen with virtue

They couldn’t move if they’d wanted

An army of ice statues

Don’t worry every ice statue will eventually melt and then the fun of spring can begin. But springtime for the soul comes only when you allow it. For the Buddha this came when he gave up self-denial and isolation for a mouthful of pudding. 

Chances are you did not manifest into physical form to maintain a spiritual holding pattern; if you did that’s great; but if you are constantly suffering, you did not manifest in physical form to maintain a spiritual holding pattern; you came here to create and to co-create at that. Acknowledge the dark contrast with acceptance; embrace your desires with delight and then let them both go … that’s non-attachment … trust the universe will keep delivering and you’ll be amazed by what comes back to you. 

Desperately Seeking a Good Twig Provider

Welcome to Tales from the Tragic Sip … otherwise known as … Dating for existential and angst ridden, spiritualist … no atheist … no spiritualist no atheist … no agnostic … yeah agnostic … Dating for the spiritually undecided. Me … single, white female in search of male; ethnicity not important, as we’ll all crumble to a dark beige dust, otherwise known as dirt, once the stink of mortal decay wears off … unless you’re lucky enough to perish in the desert; there conversion is most expedient; if you kick off in the Arctic you’ll be stuck with your crusty bones until continental shift sees fit to deliver you to Tahiti or rather to where Tahiti no longer is. Space and time is an illusion … but where was I … I … I … right … me single, white female .. although I do tan extraordinarily well ... looking for a male who loves to spend extended periods of time in the half-lotus staring into one another’s third eye looking for eternity and ultimate oneness. After you decide that there’s just only so much oneness your sciatica can stand … I’ll write something like this. 

Musing on Romantic Love

Lust it is not, not even close

Grief lingers, years, a decade

A lifetime … and linger, linger

Nothing but weeping remains

So I ask, the pain rushing

Cutting, burning caustic

Mercury, quicksilver sharp

Why this love romantic

I’m going to stop the poem here to warn you what follows is almost complete and utter balderdash. What can I say; I read far too many romance novels as a teenager. In my defence they were mostly historical romance and so I kick-ass at trivia and know a whole lot about dead queens and kings. But all that reading about romantic love taught me next to nothing about how it really works.  

Musing on Romantic Love (cont.)

Other loves are born

Or that which is earned

Romantic love is an offering

A soul laid bare

A bravest of rebuff

To the demon that is fear

Nothing gambled

Nothing gained

Nothing lost

The loss, at times, unbearable

But the gain

The lessons learned

The essence of why we’re here

Okay not as much balderdash as promised. Romantic love is an offering and given the risks it runs … the despair of a broken heart … most certainly a rebuff to fear. But it is almost always a temporary condition. Evolution has set it up so that the unaware individual is likely develop a wandering eye.  

Here comes the birds …

Like humans birds have a tendency to form long-lasting pair bonds. They will often bond for life. Genetic testing confirms, however, they like to spread it around bit while their beloved is out looking for just the right twig to place beneath their nesting bottom. Why? Because genetic diversity improves the chances that your offspring will survive. In short the more partners you produce offspring with the more diversity. But before you give the old woman who lived in a shoe a run for her money, be aware; evolution is autopilot; you do not have to run on autopilot … because like the old woman you’ll end up living in a shoe.

The pursuit of romantic love and its creative outcome, although certainly worth the effort, is not the sole reason you’re here. There are over 7 billion of us. We’ve got procreation down. If the right partner is not finding you … you can leave it to your cousins to act the genetic photocopier and explore other creative avenues.

But what about the longing …

We are not just flesh and bones but rather energy that has coalesced to flesh and bones. Have you ever wondered why a particular beauty with a great personality is unable to inspire romantic feelings in you. Everything’s right but there’s no chemistry. That’s because the energy is not right. We fall in love with the essence of someone … their energy … and like an addiction become dependent on it.  

So here is the big secret … drum roll please

You meditate to find a still energy … calm and peace … you can also use your mind to create the energy of the object of your affection or (a very near facsimile). We're all connected, meaning our energies are connected. The right thought without judgement will quickly have you feeling the very same as being in the arms of the one you fancy. It’s like magic … only it works. The trick is accepting that energy as valuable, as valuable as the physical presence of the one you adore. Remember we’re energetic beings first. Feed the hunger with the energy it craves; the longing will go; you’ll be free to explore as many experiences as imaginary time will allow. 

You're the beloved of the universe; accept this and the physical manifestations of it will follow. 

Spitting Swans and Evil Sleeping Beauties

I hope this week finds you happily inhabiting the sacred pond of your inner-scape. I know; I know; it can be a real struggle to keep the pond happy.

Swan Senryu

AKA Haughty Haiku

AKA Testy Tanka

long-necked swan swimming

long-necked swan spitting … at me

new swan down pillow

note: no animals were harmed

in the writing of this poem

The swan is the ultimate symbol of beauty and grace but to those that have ever dealt with them for any length of time or just had the misfortune to get on one’s bad side … beautiful yes …also aggressive little blighters … spitting, biting, and duck abusing abound. But before we get out the tar and feathers … okay just the tar … let's remember the swan is just doing what comes naturally: defending its territory and its goslings should it feel threatened. Their behaviour does point out however that physical beauty doesn't necessarily coincide with a generous spirit. Like with you … like with me … what gets in the way of true grace is fear

So yes … beauty and kindness do not always go hand-in-hand but no … all you jealous little birds … beauty and evil do not go-hand-in-hand either. except on soap operas and with James Bond villainesses … es …es.  Oh and that girl you fancy who does not fancy you back … she true evil. I get ya … not. Just because someone possesses physical beauty that for whatever reason makes you feel inferior … the reason is your ego … this does not make her evil. It makes you afraid that she'll steal your chance at happiness, causing you to strike out in an attempt to level what you to believe to be the playing field, most often with unkind words when she's not in earshot. She's so high on herself … she’s vain … she’s a narcissists … she’s a bitch … she’s a slut … ouch, that last one hurt.

Vanity is often confused with Pride. Pride being closely linked to the ego. Ego is rather fond of it … a belief that one is both separate and above others. But unless we're looking for identity and fulfilment what we label vanity is simply experimentation in form … make-up, clothes, hair styles and tattoos … selfies and commemorate busts. While we're incarnate, we're also biological beings and so yes, vanity is linked to getting a date, and your response to those you view as vain linked to your fear you CANNOT get a date. The opposite sex isn't nearly as picky as your own gender. You can get a date. Try asking. And the narcissist thing … the narcissist tends to be quite vane but vanity doesn't note a lack of empathy. The two aren't linked. Cruelty grows in small, tight places … the closed heart … hair and makeup are of no concern. So open your heart. When one celebrates the beauty of others along with her own, vanity simply becomes an artistic spirit. 

But I get it; the ego needs a wicked queen to reflect back the snow white complex in all of us.

Beauty Beauty Beauty

Beauty Beauty Beauty

I’ll apply this oil with ease

upon my icy décolletage 

Leaving not a drop, not a balm

To soothe your aching feet

Work Work Work

Sear under a blaring sun

Toil from daybreak 

Until your untimely death

Until you come undone

Beneath a silvered umbrella

I remain a chilled argent

I’ll not unearth my humanity

It remains sealed in the permafrost

Of what would have been my heart

Please Please Please

Show me not your weathered hands

But I’ll take what they’ve created

You see my not-so-comely friend

Wealth is beauty; wealth is power

Vanity is me

Forgive me for this bleak piece of personification. Do not seek out such an individual and shove a poisonous apple down her throat.  If you know someone like this she needs an awakening kiss like just about all of us. But it's the last few lines here to take note. Biology choses very wide parameters by which to judge beauty, in short those features that are associated with fertility. While you still have the urge there may be little getting around these. That still leaves a whole lot of playing room which is often crowded out with shows of wealth. That is what we associate with wealth we tend to associate with beauty. Get it; beauty is completely, irrefutably subjective; so no one person is ‘in fact’ any more beautiful than another. 

You wanna be beautiful … think it and its done. I already know this about each every one of you. All that's left is for you to embrace the knowledge; embrace the feeling. So put on those crowns and sashes and strut. Guys … you might go with a tiara … less is always more … unless you like more. Who doesn't like more … this guy.

Sharing Sacred Ponds with Possibly Poisonous Reptilians

A beautiful happy hello to all you rock stars. I come to you today directly from the stillness.

Many who've arrived at the conscious decision to live a spiritual life have done so after discoveries made with a still mind in a calm and serene environment. When one obtains an extended period of no thought and a willingness to let go of ego a very special thing occurs, leaving no doubt there's more to the world than our sensed and testable material existence. We feel the energy; we feel the connection; we feel the oneness; we feel love in its pure energetic form. 

There’s the how-to … here’s the snafu

Your mind and even your ego may be ready to take a siesta, to allow the universe to show itself sans illusion of senses and thought but the universe isn't always still.  The kids are crying; your neighbor decides they never liked that wall anyway; your favorite coffee shop is hosting the drill-masters reality renovation show; nature is blooming but you’re allergic to it. Calgon take me away … if you got that reference you're really old. Congratulations on surviving.

There's good news and bad news … you do affect the universe … your thoughts and actions can and will lead to change … if you guide your thoughts and actions with awareness the very change you want.  But Grandfather Time is an excellent bouncer. He makes sure no one gets to where they are meant to be too soon, that the crowd is just right, and the music just loud enough. He’s got very broad shoulders and an incredible reach; there is no getting around him; you'll have to wait … always … the trick is embracing the wait. Fully be where you are. Unless this happens ...

While in Japan a snake and I had a near run in. I was later told that seeing such a snake in such a place was a very lucky sign; I didn’t know that and from the way the snake high-tailed it out of there, neither did he. Because of fear we both maintained of our lives but lost possession of our shared, sacred pond. Now I'm not telling you to go skinny-dipping with possibly poisonous reptilians. DON'T. But I am telling you despite the tremendous noise and fear created by myself and the snake ... the sacred pond went nowhere.  

Okay the noise was all mine … the snake even in retreat maintained his cool.

So what am I trying to tell you … you do not need to control your environment to maintain your connection to spirit. You're always in the sacred pond. All you need to do is still your mind ... regardless of what is going on around you .. and not fight the flow; pretty soon the peace you create in the quiet and stillness will flow through you in times of increased noise and movement and even fear. Bringing the party works too. Either way you'll spread acceptance and love, calming every ripple or wave and charming all snakes and reptiles alike. 

Alright … keep on rocking in the sacred pond but keep the music to a low ohm. Blessings and I'll see you next week.  

Narcissus at the Edge of Eternity

Spring is letting loose its intoxicants and as John Paul Young would say love is in the air. Well not love … love as our source is always there … but love in its most messy manifesting, most all-consuming and lustful incarnation … romantic love is in the air. To the reluctant I say get ready to throw some salt over your shoulder to ward off cupids arrows. Birds are chirping and bees buzzy … tis the season for romantic love. 

What you say … romantic love is always in season … let's see about that.

An Eternity

excerpt

I could spend and eternity

looking at you

sitting over a pond

the envy of Narcissus

as blue as my eyes

as deep as your soul

drinking naught but love

but twenty-four hours later

we're both dead

Narcissus had it figured out. He knew that romantic love leads to suffering; he wasn't going to fall for any of that wine and roses nonsense. Even the beauty of a wood nymph was no match for his steadfast determination to remain his own man. Alas while he'd remain immune to the beauty of the female form … to his own strong jaw-line and broad shoulders he was no match. Catching a glimpse of himself in a pond he instantly fell in love, remaining transfixed until he eventually fell in and drowned. 

So what does romantic love and its seeming opposite Narcissism have in common? It's attachment to what exist on the outside … attachment to form. With romantic love we seek fulfilment from the form and actions of others, placing an inordinate amount of attention and pressure on another to love us in just the right way that will lead to our happily ever-after.  With Narcissism it's about attention to one's own form and comfort … and often when accompanied with a lack of empathy or even psycopathy … attention to one's own comfort at the expense of others. Actually both romantic love and narcissism are fixations are about one's own comfort. We just tend to wax poetically about one and condemn the other. 

Of course in real life the interplay between romantic love and narcissism is not polar and one can figure herself deeply in love and not care one wit about the others well-being or wishes. She just want what she wants … or in this case who … when and how she wants it. 

No matter how you cut it they're both about ego and adherence to ego leads to suffering. Romantic love is not there to make you happy or even to make the object of your amorous affections happy. Although it can create pleasure… just like with its ugly and oft-maligned stepsister, lust ... it is about making babies. It's about survival of the species, rock stars. It is also about learning and learning to truly love … that starts with loving yourself ... not for the way you look, or your accomplishments, or even for how others feel about you … but simply because you exist and because of what exists in every cell of your body… the eternal kind of love. When you find this it will colour everything do and feel, including your adventures in romantic love … giving your dealings with others an expansive acceptance … room to grow and evolve … room to feel.

Mountains to Disassemble

Excerpt 

Oceans of time

Prairies to pass

Mountains to disassemble

But still when you write me a poem

I smile and in that moment, we exist

The ocean becomes a puddle

The prairies a spring meadow

Mountains crumble, disintegrate

Time becomes a tear that falls in slow motion

* originally published online under the name Sarah Penn

Your form and the form of everyone you will ever meet will eventually crumble … its temporary. Everything in the physical world is temporary. Pinning your happiness to something that is temporary will only ever lead to its loss … but loving this world and everyone in it … that's eternal. When all else falls away … there is only love.

Blessing beautiful people. We'll see you next week.

An Eternity and Mountains to Disassemble are published in Strays, a Collection of Short Stories and Philosophical Love Poems and available at the link below.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=pryde+foltz

False Skin & Tulip Petals at the Disco

I sit on a beautiful spring day and ponder the nature of the Tulip. For about two weeks it exists as a flower … completely irresistible to all who lays eyes upon it … but for most of the year it lies buried in the ground, a misshapen lump of brown, standing as much a chance at getting a rendezvous with a bird or a bee as an unshaven, unwashed, and bun-bedecked you … has a chance of getting a date with Megan Fox. Proving there is somebody for everyone however … it is still irresistible to the squirrels who will dig up the comatose bulb, eat some but not all, and leave it's now rotting corpse balanced on the fence … to mock the gardening gods. So I ponder the changing nature of the tulip and then I ponder the changing nature of you and me.

False Skin(Excerpt)

Facade, false skin, an illusion

An invisible blanket

No warmth, only delusion

Weighted upon your shoulders

Yoked about your throat, facade

More millstone than any sheltering cloak ...

False skin was written specifically about posturing … that is … according to google … behave in such a way that is intended to impress or mislead … masking. Of course when one carries a facade around long enough it has the tendency to stick. Sometimes even the one enacting the posture forgets it's make-believe.

Posturing combined with a lack of awareness is like putting your ego on steroids. It promises world-wide recognition and acclaim … you may even get it … but in the end it's all about denial of self. Because if one feels she must posture … one feels she is not good enough. And like with all shams the truth eventually catches up with you … usually when the facade becomes impossible to maintain … then emotional suffering takes over.

That is the psychological side … 

                                         … now for the evolutionary take

Just about all animals posture. The why comes down to maintaining or establishing dominance … or you guessed it … to get a date.

Yep … just about all animals do it … which includes humans and most certainly that includes you. Whether you  … wear make-up, colour you hair … visit the plastic surgeon … wear shoes with lifts … where anything other than a formless, un-dyed smock … where something … not looking to get anyone arrested here … tell people you're fine when you're not … be nice to someone you don't like … be nice to someone to get them into bed, pretend you're confident when you're scared … you're enacting a facade. Some facades are more obvious than others … some are harmful, some useful … but on some level we are all acting.

There's no escaping facades because your true self is formless and boundless energy … consciousness that only happens to be inhabiting a body … consciouness that forms and reforms personality and its material body as it goes. So as long as you're alive you'll be wearing a costume and playing a role. The key is understanding that you're doing this … its called awareness folks … and not judging others for varying costume and fulfilling roles a little differently than you. 

False Skin

Continued

So Take hold

Go on now; reach deep within
Peel back the deceptive dermis
It only feels like skin …*

Shed the brittle shell

Bare your soul, scars, and sinew

Be brave, the blood, the shame

Washed away with a tear

Okay … maybe two

Take a moment to discover what lies beneath your skin … in every cell of your being … actually take many, many moments and then you'll understand that what you are is much more vast than any fleshed covered shell or inflated ego. Then you can play with form and facade without ever forgetting who you are or who anybody else is. You're not just a rock star ... you make them too. Blessings.

*denotes abbreviation