Journey Just Begun 11/17/03 O you prophets of the elemental worlds Can you hear me as I praise the earthly gifts? Where flowers bloom unseen a thousand years I go in dream above the sleeping steppes. I have walked the ancient glaciers of the north, Seen purities of blue no lens could hold And stood before volcanoes belching fire On a burning rim outlasting human time. And all these journeyings were home to me. I have gone below the surface of the sea And wonders found, a living kaleidoscope Of colours and designs some deity In a moment's inspiration by his touc

Beyond Death's Reach.htm Beyond Death's Reach Eternally before Thy feet I bow Knowing nought yet knowing thou art he Who in our chasmed darknesses below Bears the torches of infinity To light the stairs of our laborious climb From ignorance and death to worlds above, Within, beyond the iron vaults of time To the undying consciousness of love. Here on earth the nations vie in hate, The killing age continues among men, Desire, rage and lust still dominate, Our skyward efforts fall to earth again And though the being tries, attempts anew To scale the limitations of the mind Too weak our aspiration, far too few The souls who rise above themselves an

Warrior Souls We could not bear the strong and vast embrace That gathered us into a mother's arms Nor hold the beauty of a perfect face Beguiling us with all of heaven's charms. We could not make the final offering To sacrifice the self at Godhead's feet; So strong the sense of 'person' we would bring, The force She poured in us would then retreat, Welcomed by the soul, by body shunned, Or mind and vital nature might reject The cleansing fire and consciousness now stunned By light's descent no longer could protect The narrowness of old identity. In different ways we opened to Her love, Some through the lotus heart of mystery, Ot

Who Wakes the Sleeping Soul Tread lightly on shifting sand, loose the bond And slowly scale the great forbidding peak Communing with a voice from the beyond Ever aware that he whom you now seek Is lodged within this cabin made of clay, A silent tenant who sanctifies the room And sees through eyes though blind approaching day The breaking light dispelling mortal gloom, Who wakes the sleeping soul from reverie And stokes the fire on the sacred hearth, Assures the body's immortality The stranger we meet upon the sunlit path Whose face and voice from past acquaintance know And steadily into his image grow.

From Realms of God-Experience How calmly, silently you died And I, reciter of psalms, deprived Of limbs more sacred thanmy song That swelled to paeans when you lived. Foundation stone of calm and peace, Love enveloping delight Gift betokened, priceless one, Upholder of my day and night In which I dreamt my spirit-dreams And soared on inspiration's wings. Such beauty in thy wisdom'seyes A life of joyful offerings Now silenced to a single cry Of anguish that yet understands The being's need for pain and death And pressure of the soul's demands For deep regenerating sleep In planes beyond earth's influen

The Boon of God Soon the rose from thorny sleep shall wake Bare in the bosom of the new-born year And from the drowsy soil her dress remake, All memory of winter disappear. Shall we who greet returning Spring again Discard the heavy mantle of the past That long upon our consciousness has lain And all the karmic burden we amassed; To cast aside the winter of our dreams That we may grow possessors of the light Cleansed in love's regenerating streams, Armed with an imperishable might To rescue from the robbers of the deep Truth's golden coin, the boon of God to keep.

Nothing of the Self Night in silence tenders me Brief peace and marginal release. Distracted from my thoughts of thee I live a moment in unease, Unable to secure the peace Unable still to calm the mind, The poignant memories to cease And sorrow's legacy rescind. In the Ashram's atmosphere I kept A silent vigil in my room, Dreamless through the night I slept Distanced from the closing gloom. Alone now in this land of trees Where birdsong fills the fragrant day, Remembrance of suchtimes as these Wings back to me and I delay The journey that the soul must take. As grief upon the cleaved heart rains The inne

The Moon is a White Peony The moon is a white peony tonight Glowing in the firmament's dark surround With a diadem of stars tiara-bright, The reigning queen of heaven justly crowned. But when she slips across the dark frontiers Lost her gift of luminosity, The night is stark, the stars are silver tears Shed in grief for her inconstancy. Yet when we've wept enough the crescent horn Appears, a floating arc of mystery. Again in hearts eternal joy is born Her loveliness our earthly legacy. She waxes slowly, as the bride appears, Sovereign of poets, intimate of seers.

Earth Our Destiny Divine Forgiveness blooms in every flower Redemption rides upon the stars, We the blind and we the Knower Seek the isles across the bars Where time is not and motion slows To frozen peace in galaxies Beyond the reach of thought's stone-throws, Beyond the nebulae of seas To find the treasure somehow lost In our descent to mortality Surging forward torn and tossed Upon the winds of destiny. Death no bar to That we seek, So many lives recalled as ours Now the hero, now the weak Fallen we regain our powers God to find within this shell, Miraculous its flawed design That bears the fierce ass

God-built House To have circled round the consciousness of self And eyed the target in a looking glass Magnified the mysterybut missed By some skewed glance in all the seething mass The central core, a small pin-point of light. To have lived the fullness of each season's gift And loved the more for one another's sake And then by death, the Beloved lost, to drift Through days deemed dull and meaningless, and yet To hold within the memory and know The illusion we name time through which the soul Gathering experience must go, Eternal in the endless flow of lives, Recurring births and untold deaths until All is found that once w