today I woke up alive on a warm sunny planet
filled with birdsong and beings whom I love
the flower scented air shimmers with susurrating light
and the wind of all vibrates through the skin
we are the honeyed taste of music
and the sensual lingering touch of delicious appreciation

©John Greenleaf-Maple 4/11/17

Fish love is based on fulfilling one’s needs through another, or seeking to complete oneself through a partner, a form of gratification (like taking a fish from water to consume it). True love is based on giving, not in expectation of a return, but because love precedes it, i.e., because I first love you, I give you something, a part of myself. Then I am invested in you; we share something meaningful.

This is why I want to occasionally speak a few small words of heartfelt appreciation, that Love, through bravery, will keep expanding across the vast plains of commonality that we all share together. The point, though, is that bravery is needed and is indeed an indicator of where the possible lies. Where it is required, there we must go, for on the other side is the gift of transformation and greater connection, a treasure truly worth finding and sharing. Do the scary thing to genuinely share your heart with others. Although you won’t be asking for it, love will return to you many-fold, and all the world around you will be a better one because of it.

the death of my first son,
born to live through one painful turn of this earth, is no
longer the seed of my own unending death, no longer an
empty gesture of the wind,
no longer a life in partial realization; i am still,
we are both still
but rising on the movement unraveled by lungs and a
portion of the wind,
by water and the touch of wind on water;
and the cast-off leaves also belong to the water, to the
earth above and below the water;
and the water collects in lungs;
sunlight penetrates the water and the earth and the
graves of the earth.
many years ago i sat beneath a willow and saw the
pond turn down,
the shadow of winter water roll up to be
touched by fingers of sunlight. but when the
clock struck eleven when the clock struck
eleven
i could only see the earth sloping down,
a cold hillside matted with chaotic grasses; forgive me
my son.
forgive this blind succession of nights and days, the
stomach shriveled around fetid whiskey
in the solitary hotel rooms of Iowa;
again iwaited for the train back to Kansas,
the train lumbering through the frozen darkness of
Minnesota with its thousands of tons
of lumber, grain and steel, coming to
exchange its movement
for my hours of insuring its movement, the train of
endless destinations coming. forgive the palpable
stab of the headlight,
the empty light by which i roared through river valleys,
swept past the smell of cottonwoods rotting in water, swept on in
the fumes of diesel fuel.
and when the deer leaped into the light and serenely to its death,
the eternity through which it always had moved,
i saw only the glazed reflection of my terror;
forgive me.
forgive the anguished
words by which i tried to
keep you; forgive the
damning words.

Born of this earth are skies
and the working of rocks upon the skies
which bellowed forth from volcanoes of the earth;
praise to the clouds and all movement of the clouds.
stirred from the water from beneath the water
are all living things upon the earth and beneath the earth,
change wrought within the water and upon the earth
and in the air above and within the earth;
praise to the oceans and streams entering the
oceans; praise to the mud where ocean enters the
earth; praise to the earth;
praise to the sun streaming forth its death
and the death of all things upon this planet;
praise to the sunlight spilling over the
branches of elms and aspen, spilling onto my
naked skin, the skin that has been touched by
hands
in expressions of love,
and the skin touched and touching
in their layers of death.
o my son,
all movement has stopped and forever continues;
these things you are forever teaching me.
in my own forgiveness i no longer expect,
no longer cry you down from your uninterrupted flight.
praise to your time and all things offered;
praise to the return and all things that be;
praise to the ceaseless, unmoved.

©John Greenleaf-Maple 1978

after the operation they wagged their heads at us,
                               led us,
as the mindless require,
through the delirium of doorways,
past polished machines throbbing
with their cycles of liquids and air
                           led us
to Phillip,
            yes,
here is Phillip, he is here,
has escaped the plastic shell of incubation
and at last found mama·s breast;
delicate sparrow wing hands
are crumpled
into weak purple fists.

we choke on the mechanisms
forced into our throats,
give the numb chrome touch of death
to the dead, now dead.

we clutch our arms,
drift into the fluid night.

©John Greenleaf-Maple 1978

Don’t get me wrong. I am glad to be able to think, and when problem solving or planning is needed, you can’t beat thinking for getting buildings built, surgeries performed, books written and published, and aircraft safely landed at busy airports. In such cases the question is probably fine for soliciting an opinion about a logical matter.

Since I have been retired, however, and especially when I am feeling content, thinking is not my primary objective, and I don’t react well to being asked what I am thinking in relaxed settings because:
1. It presupposes that logical, rational thought is what I should always have rolling through my head
2. It immediately forces me to drop out of the flow of most of what I directly sense and enjoy – unique combinations of color, scent, sound, taste, texture, air flow, movement, etc., – and substitute for it something similar but “less than” built out of words that can be conveyed to a listener
3. If I am trying to listen to what creativity may be unraveling in the way of metaphorical thought, it is most often destroyed by the premature request that I express something that has not yet made itself known to me, let alone anyone else
4. It presumes one has a right to my thoughts whether I wish to share them at that moment or not
5. It often sounds like uneasiness or worry about what I am thinking rather than a genuine interest in what I think
6. You will never get a completely honest insight into who I am by asking about my thoughts, which are just temporary collections of beliefs, after all.

If my actions and the manner in which I do choose to express myself have brought us to silence, then we probably don’t have much else to talk about right now and can go back to just being ourselves. Unless, of course, you have something to say that doesn’t involve coaxing me to produce thought and opinion statements when I am really not in the mood. Then we can appreciate the moment as it is.

My beloved, we are one,
not as our mind can comprehend,
but as your light is entangled with mine,
as the orbit of time is in one sublime instant
no longer receding or preceding, but altogether gone.
My beloved, this is Now, when we are One.

©John Greenleaf-Maple 4/3/17

Here are some interesting human body facts. Approximately 10,000,000 chemical reactions per second take place inside each of our cells. We lose and create replacements for 3 million cells per second. Each human cell contains ~100 trillion atoms. An adult human body contains a total of 50 to 70 billion cells, or 10 octillion atoms (10^28).

Atoms are mostly energy and empty space. If you combined all of the proton particles which scientists say have measurable mass from every atom from every human on earth, it would be about the size of a grain of rice. Even proton particles are not here all of the time. All elementary particles are observed to be switching on and off at Planck speed, 5.39 * 10 to the minus 44th times per second. The particles are assumed to be in another dimension when not occupying our universe, which I personally like to believe is the unity that is beyond space-time, the nothingness out of which all arises.

Our eternal being co-exists with our finite being as a natural part of a unity connection. It is an enjoyable mental exercise within quantum physics theories to envision how things might work on a level that is comprehensible to our limited human understanding. The nonlocality of human consciousness is now an accepted fact (e.g., flatline patients observing themselves in operating rooms and recalling every detail after resuscitation). To identify ourselves most closely with an energy body that is constantly in flux and is constantly arising from eternity makes sense (and is very fun), while we still enjoy the solid feeling of our finite experiences.

©John Greenleaf-Maple 3/6/17

This blog is mostly about what happens when love and genuine human connection drive out fear, and the mysterious things that follow. Many of us have dealt with confidence issues of one sort or another as we grew up, and one of the easiest things to squelch in ourselves as a result is the public expression of our creativity. Amazingly, though, as friends and I have had opportunity within safe groups to discuss such things with one another authentically, a lot of people have just been busting loose lately, doing all kinds of things they’ve never tried before, or had just put on the back burner.

When a fellow writer posted his WordPress link, I realized I had actually created an account of my own some three years or so ago and had never utilized it. Maybe, I thought, I should put my writing out there, and I could certainly use a central place to maintain it, but, that would be like being pretty public, and would anyone really want to read it anyway, etc. The day got busy, that went totally to back of mind, but at a service later that evening, a friend who was a bit under the weather showed up last minute in the last row behind me and immediately tells me that I should start a blog because she would totally follow it, seriously. So yeah, now here it is. I commented that it was very surreal and reminisicient of angels the way the whole thing transpired, because when the service was over this friend was long gone before I could even say goodbye. I guess telling you specifically what to do and #byebyealready are comfortable aspects of a real New Yorker. But it was strange, and very kind. And then today, more angels.

On the drive home last night, I was thinking of calling my Aunt Bonnie, who I’d not had the pleasure of speaking with for eight or nine months, but thought it might be too late for her. One of the things we enjoy talking about is spirituality. Today, I had just sat down after tending to the dogs with the intention of calling her, like right then, when a little thing about angels and karma popped into my Messenger inbox – from her. It was kind of a rambling thing that was hard to follow, but it was important to forward to 14 people right away. Aunt Bonnie is in assisted living care now, and I think has sent me maybe three messages in her entire life. I point this out only because it makes this message and its exact timing very improbable because she just doesn’t post or text in general, especially as her hands have become less nimble. Anyway, it had angels in it and had arrived synchronistically with my thoughts about calling her, plus there was the sudden appearance, disappearance of my friend with a message mentioned above. Who am I to argue? I’ve never forwarded one of those things that says forward to so many people within such and such a time in my entire life, but I just did it today if for no other reason than because of all these recent synchronicities. Yay, throw some confetti and light some fireworks! I am totally convinced on the whole angel matter now. The illogicality of it is a big attention-grabber.

Mom is one of my angels, and the silver hummingbird that I wear is in honor of her. She did point out a time or two that sometimes it was hard to get my attention. OK, alright already, I can see now how that might be true. Regardless, I do enjoy living in this miraculous world of connectedness.

May the angels surrounding you now, angels to the right and left of you, angels in front and behind, angels above and below, bathe you in grace and open before you all possiblities. May their peace suffuse your heart with love.

The biggest threat to our freedom is our inner critic. Let’s be loving and kind to ourselves first and foremost, because that’s who we usually short-change the most, causing a chain reaction of unnecessary suffering both within us and all about us. So here’s to us, good hearts! Peace and love to all! ✌️❤️

I’ve been thinking about suicide prevention, #resist vs #persist, and the law of attraction. The question that arises is, what are we moving toward that fills us with life? What brings us joy? And if we don’t feel it, or feel at all, what story are we telling ourselves that prevents us from moving toward happiness? Is that story actually true, or is it what we have learned to use as a defense against being hurt? Or is it a story about ourselves we have come to believe because we were told we were not enough, not worthy? What if we used a different story? Or do we need any story about who we should be at all? Are we ever able to pause long enough to consider WHAT we are?
So now I may start sounding a little preachy about suicide prevention, but since I’ve dealt with it all of my life and my life is fairly long, I am entitling myself.
Think of what love and effort you would extend to help a friend or relative in need, or a small child or baby. It’s important to love yourself at least that much. To think of it another way, what your heart really wants is worth doing. Don’t keep yourself locked away from your dreams. The critic in your mind is weak because it is only a thought, and thoughts can be changed. You have all the power you need to move into a better neighborhood in your head, the only place where your perceived reality takes place.