Poetry Chaikhana Blog

Ivan M. Granger February 27th, 2009

Scraps of moon
by Denise Levertov

Scraps of moon
bobbing discarded on broken water
but sky-moon
complete, transcending
all violation
Here she seems to be talking to herself about
the shape of a life:
Only Once

All which, because it was
flame and song and granted us
joy, we thought we’d do, be, revisit,
turns out to have been what it was
that once, only; every invitation
did not begin
a series, a build-up: the marvelous
did not happen in our lives, our stories
are not drab with its absence: but don’t
expect to return for more. Whatever more
there will be will be
unique as those were unique. Try
to acknowledge the next
song in its body-halo of flames as utterly
present, as now or never.

— from The Great Unknowing: Last Poems, by Denise Levertov

/ Photo by Irargerich /

Isn’t that a wonderful opening image Denise Levertov gives us? We see “Scraps of moon / bobbing discarded on broken water” — an image of the night sky scattered into separate, constantly moving pieces by the moving surface the water. But she follows with the statement, “sky-moon complete, transcending / all violation.”

She is building on the meditator’s metaphor of the mind being like water reflecting the vision of the heavens. When the mind is agitated, it reflects an image of reality that is fragmented, chaotic, broken into separate objects. But when the mind is brought to a state of serene stillness, it then reflects the wholeness. Even the moon itself is not separate from the sky, but a part of the single continuity that is the sky-moon.

Reality is not composed of separate objects and people. It is an interpenetrating oneness. This is the vision the still mind receives, “transcending / all violation.”

And from that starting point, Levertov drops into the awareness that “the shape of life” is “Only Once.” Within this wholeness, the present moment is always unique, a profound mystery, and never to be missed. Each glimmering upon the surface of awareness, each experience, each moment is unfolding now — not in the past, not in the future — and therefore it is occurring only once. Never repeated.

Somewhere in adolescence we start to mutter that mantra, “Been there, done that,” and we put ourselves on auto-pilot. Been there, done that is never true — not ever. Each experience is new, utterly itself and not from the past or to be repeated in the future. Even when an event occurs a second time, it is not the exact same event, but a new world unto itself.

Denise Levertov’s advice comes from a place of deep wisdom:

…Try
to acknowledge the next
song in its body-halo of flames as utterly
present, as now or never.

Denise Levertov US (1923 - 1997) Timeline Secular or Eclectic : Beat Jewish

More poetry by Denise Levertov

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Ivan M. Granger February 27th, 2009

Ask–
Who is this mysterious being
wearing my face, looking through my eyes,
answering to my name?

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Ivan M. Granger February 25th, 2009

Taken
by Dorothy Walters

First, you must let your heart
be broken open
in a way you have never
felt before,
cannot imagine.

You will stand there,
very still,
not seeing what this is.
Later, you will not remember
any of this
until the next time
when you will say,
yes, yes, I have known this before,
it has come again,
just as your eyes fold under
once more.

A Cloth of Fine Gold: Poems of the Inner Journey by Dorothy Walters

/ Photo by alicepopkorn /

I feel like it’s been too long since we were last taken by a poem from Dorothy Walters.

Something will flood into
your chest
like air sweetened by
desert honeysuckle…

Have a beautiful day!

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Ivan M. Granger February 25th, 2009

What you lack in natural devotion,
make up for with fierceness for the Divine!

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Ivan M. Granger February 23rd, 2009

Sometimes
by Ojibway (Anonymous)

English version by Robert Bly and Frances Densmore

Sometimes I go about pitying myself,
and all the time
I am being carried on great winds across the sky.

— from Art & Wonder: An Illustrated Anthology of Visionary Poetry, Edited by Kate Farrell

/ Photo by tanakawho /

What is there to say, but to spread our arms and feel the great winds rise up…?

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Ivan M. Granger February 23rd, 2009

Your life needs one crucial ingredient:

you!

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Ivan M. Granger February 20th, 2009

The black bee of my mind is drawn in sheer delight
by Kamalakanta

The black bee of my mind is drawn in sheer delight
To the blue lotus flower of Mother Shyama’s feet,
The blue flower of the feet of Kali, Shiva’s Consort;
Tasteless, to the bee, are the blossoms of desire.
My Mother’s feet are black, and black, too, is the bee;
Black is made one with black! This much of the mystery
My mortal eyes behold, then hastily retreat.
But Kamalakanta’s hopes are answered in the end;
He swims in the Sea of Bliss, unmoved by joy or pain.

— from Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, by Elizabeth U. Harding

/ Photo by Meanest Indian /

In the imagery associated with the goddess Kali (Shyama), black is the divine color, for it is the color of mystery, of the night, that which is beyond knowing, the color that swallows all other colors.

My Mother’s feet are black, and black, too, is the bee…

With devotion, the busy bee of the mind becomes quiet and “black” like the vast, still mystery of God (or, rather, Goddess). Drawn to the center of awareness, it loses itself in the blissful nectar’s sweetness, until…

Black is made one with black!

Beautiful!

—

(Kali isn’t normally depicted as such an old woman, but the eyes of the woman in this photograph, so quiet and keen within that beautifully weathered face, just made me think, “Those are the eyes of the mother goddess peering into the heart…”)

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Ivan M. Granger February 20th, 2009

Our awareness is too often
separated segmented, disunified.
Return every part of yourself to a single wholeness.
Re-member yourself.

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Ivan M. Granger February 18th, 2009

Today let’s experience a taste of bhakti – devotion and love for God. This isn’t a vague, bland, intellectual, or prim sort of love. The Bhakti’s love is passionate, powerful, all-consuming.

When he quickens all things
To create bliss in the world,
His soft black sinuous lotus limbs
Begin the festival of love
And beautiful cowherd girls wildly
Wind him in their bodies.
Friend, in spring young Hari plays
Like erotic mood incarnate.

- Jayadeva ( 12th century, India )

Love Song of the Dark Lord: Jayadeva’s Gitagovinda Translated by Barbara Stoler Miller

Bhakti poetry is passionate and erotic, but it is also highly spiritual, sung daily in many Indian temples.

Vaishnava Krishna Bhakti poetry tells us of the love play, separation, and union between the God-man Krishna and the cowherdess Radha.

/ Photo by solidariat /

When spring came, tender-limbed Radha wandered
Like a flowering creeper in the forest wilderness,
Seeking Krishna in his many haunts.

- Jayadeva
Love Song of the Dark Lord: Jayadeva’s Gitagovinda
Translated by Barbara Stoler Miller

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Ivan M. Granger February 16th, 2009

Love plays its lute behind the screen –
by Fakhruddin Iraqi

English version by William Chittick and Peter Lamborn Wilson

Love plays its lute behind the screen –
where is a lover to listen to its tune?

Every atom babbles the mystery –
Listen yourself, for I’m no tattletale!

— from Fakhruddin Iraqi: Divine Flashes (Classics of Western Spirituality) , by William Chittick / Nasr Seyyed Hossein

/ Photo by angela7dreams /

Valentine’s Day may have past, but the season of Love has just begun. We’ll resume the Lover & Beloved series soon. For today a sweet taste.

–

I like the double meaning of this poem’s first couplet:

Love plays its lute behind the screen –
where is a lover to listen to its tune?

On the one hand, Iraqi is chiding the world for not producing enough lovers of God. Love is eternally calling to us with its soft music “behind the screen” of reality, but few are actually listening; lovers can’t be found.

On a deeper level, it is understood that the true lover has no substance, because he or she is utterly merged into the Beloved, God. So, even where there are lovers, there are no lovers found.

Whoever thinks Divine Love is just hypothetical, isn’t really listening. “The world has spilled Love’s secret –” “Every atom babbles the mystery –”

Listen yourself, for I’m no tattletale!

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Ivan M. Granger February 16th, 2009

Don’t make every new minute
your master.

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Ivan M. Granger February 15th, 2009

The Buddhas say, “Come and dance!”

A beautiful video of Tibetan Buddhist culture and dance, set to a gentle trance groove, and the modern Buddhist teacher Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche reading one of his poems. I think you’ll like this one.

The Sakyong, Jamgon Mipham Rinpoche is one of the most respected lamas in Tibetan Buddhism. In addition to his role as teacher and spiritual guide, he is also a poet and artist, and an athlete who runs marathons to raise money in support of Tibet and its people. He is the son of the much-loved, but somewhat controversial Tibetan Buddhist teacher, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

His title “The Sakyong” means literally “Earth Protector,” and he is considered a spiritual king in the Shambhala tradition that emphasizes courage in the spiritual journey through earthly life.

If you’d like to learn more about Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, check out his website at www.mipham.com.

If you’d like to read more, here are a few of his books. The second two are collections of his poetry:

Ruling Your World by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

Smile of the Tiger by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

Snow Lion’s Delight by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

—

(Thanks, Jill, for sending me this video link!)

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Ivan M. Granger February 13th, 2009

Waking
by Kalidasa

English version by W. S. Merwin & J. Moussaieff Masson

Even the man who is happy
      glimpses something
      or a hair of sound touches him

      the print of them still there in him waiting

— from East Window: Poems from Asia, Translated by W. S. Merwin

/ Photo by Stig Nygaard /

and his heart overflows with a longing
            he does not recognize

I just love these lines.

It reminds me of revelation I had around age 20 that really helped me through a lost, lonely period. It was a time when I felt this excruciating inner ache, a hole in myself, an empty space, with no idea how to fill it. Other people that age were busy with life: schoolwork, friends, dating, imagining their futures. But at that age I was struggling with a terrible void.

But then I started really watching people. I wanted to watch all the “normal” people to figure out how I could be more like them. Then suddenly it struck me: No matter how “happy” one may be, everyone — without exception — has that same gaping hole in their life. Most people pour all of their energies into either filling it endlessly, and with the wrong things, or they cover it up, ignore it, avoid it through endless activity. That sort of happiness is brittle, all too fragile. Suddenly we glimpse something or “a hair of sound touches” us, and that empty space becomes unavoidable. The hunger, the longing overflows.

I came to see that the whole world is defined by that longing. And I also began to understand that I wasn’t really different from everyone else. It’s just that perhaps I found it more difficult to avoid staring at that uncomfortable question mark that sits at the center of everyone’s life.

That insight not only reassured me that I was fundamentally okay, it also gave me permission to feel compassion for people I used to quietly envy. Everyone, all of us, high and low, rich and middle class and poor, famous and infamous and obscure — we’re all struggling with that haunting hunger.

But why? What is that hunger? Why is there a hole in the center of the world?

To really know the answer, we have to stop looking away. We have to stop distracting ourselves. And we have to stop trying to fill it with petty things — money, sex, fame.

Turn and sit and just quietly look at that empty space. Get to know it. Learn its feel.

Here’s what I’ve discovered in my own exploration: That hole is exactly God-shaped.

But there’s an important corollary to that statement: God is not shaped like the cutout doll handed to us when we were children. The word “God” itself is too limiting, and is heavily layered with cultural assumptions. That’s why I often use words like the Divine, the Eternal, the Real.

The most important thing about that God-shaped hole: When we finally, truly, really see it, an amazing river of bliss pours through that hole and washes over us…

==

Boy, was that somber, or what? Ivan wakes up to an overcast Colorado morning, and this is what he gives us? I predict the sun will shine next week!

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Ivan M. Granger February 13th, 2009

If you don’t occasionally
make a fool of yourself,
you’re not fully alive.

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Ivan M. Granger February 11th, 2009

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
by Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi

English version by Coleman Barks

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down the dulcimer.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

— from Open Secret: Versions of Rumi, Translated by Coleman Barks / Translated by John Moyne

/ Photo by koshyk /

I’m back. (I took an extra day to make room for the full moon and eclipse. Don’t want to mess with those…

—

I want to thank everyone for the many thoughtful emails and blog comments. I was profoundly moved by the number and warmth of the messages. Although I wasn’t able to respond individually to everyone, I read every note.

To express my heartfelt thanks, I am sending you this Valentine’s Day card:

http://www.jacquielawson.com/viewcard.asp?code=1767921776517&source=jl999

Many blessings!

Ivan

PS - My dog, Koda, is shredding paper he’s stolen from the recycle bin. A comment on my recent writing activities…?

Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi Afghanistan & Turkey (1207 - 1273) Timeline Muslim / Sufi

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Ivan M. Granger February 11th, 2009

When every aspect of your life
turns your attention to the Divine,
then the Divine turns to you
and draws you in.

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Ivan M. Granger February 2nd, 2009

It’s been more than six months since I was last hit this hard, but over the weekend I had another intense bout of severe shakes, extreme sensitivity to touch and environment, and a drastic drop in physical energy. Some of the symptoms mirror descriptions of post-traumatic stress disorder described by veterans, though I haven’t been in a war or experienced other traumas recently. Sometimes I just tell people I’m doing my part to diffuse a little of the planetary PTSD.

While I think the most intense phase has passed, I’m pretty drained, and I need to put the Poetry Chaikhana emails and blog on hold for a little while until I’m more fully recovered. I hope you understand. I’ve also had to stop working at my day job for a while, as well, even though it’s caused some difficulty. (I’m blessed to have group of co-workers at my job who have been very supportive and flexible through all of this.)

I want to thank those of you who already heard through Facebook for your many kind-hearted notes.

And thank you also to everyone who has recently sent in a donation to the Poetry Chaikhana. Your support allows me to continue to cover the Poetry Chaikhana’s expenses even when income from my day job becomes uncertain.

My intention, assuming my symptoms continue to subside, is to resume the Poetry Chaikhana emails and posts on Monday, February 9. Not only is there so much amazing poetry eager to have its say, but we have a lot more to discuss in our Lover and Beloved series. Talk to you then.

Many blessings,
Ivan

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