The Great Refusal: Unfinished Snippets

The Bodhisattva Vow of Taking Up One’s Cross

To venture into the Great Refusal

Is to rage a sublime intention never to cease

The advancing pulse of Emptiness and Form,

Kenosis as incarnation

…

This refusal as the awareness of…’Before Abraham was born, I Am’…Right now…You too

…

Refusing the laziness of sentimentality

Refusing the vanity of rogue heroism

Refusing to acquiesce to binary options

Refusing to waste this beautiful occasion known as Life

And only lastly refusing the Great Refusal

…

Renegade rabbi strung on empire’s tree like tinsel for the All glistening Eye to see -

A bodymind broken over the Caesar/Pharisee knee only to be transmuted as morphic resonating Divine bodypolitic -

Like trying to snuff out the dandelion seed head by blowing on it…the initiation of potentiation -

The Essene philosopher king exiled into the widening Dharmic vortex of wherever two or three are karmically tethered to the Sangha of…the Father and I are One,

For the Divine axe was laid to the base of the Bodhi tree

St. Teresea rides the Vajrayana non-dual escalator

 a poem written late at night right before meditation practice…

~ swan dive with the impotent illusion’s

stick of Dynamite between your teeth

and the Seeds of the Divine

in Your blessed groin…

explode Emptiness’ thick guise

and emerge as Pregnate Void,

birthing all Form,

all Texture

of the Surface of You…

_______________________

I have been thinking, again, recently about the congruence between western and eastern contemplative/mystical paths.  Take for instance the similarities…both have peak/flow/transcendent state experiences, both have critical transformative experiences (salvation, metanoia, satori, samdhi…and different levels of such), both have subtle energy components (charkras, kabbalistic energy centers, Holy Spirit, Kundalini, prana, ki, chi), both have healing practices utilizing energy and compassionate concentration, both have sophisticated and very similar/consistent epistemologies, phenomenologies, cosmologies, and cartographies of human/Divine consciousness, both have tend to have started out as heterodox/heretical, both contextualized themselves out-from their respective folk mythic religions……..and both describe aspects of all of this in very compatible, consistent, and perennial ways.  The details I will not pretend to unfold here but for those interested: read Ken Wilber starting with Integral Spirituality or Integral Psychology,  or Allan Combs “the Radiance of Being.” 

St. Teresa’s Interior Castle, Meister Eckhart’s “The knower and the known are one. Simple people imagine that they should see God as if he stood there and they here. This is not so. God and I, we are one in knowledge,” Julian of Norwich’s “And I saw no difference between God and our Substance: but as it were all God,” the Cloud of the Unknowing’s “Be willing to be blind, and give up all longing to know the why and how, for knowing will be more of a hindrance than a help,” St. John of the Cross’ “This soul is so near to God that it is transformed in the flames of love, wherein Father, Son and Holy Spirit communicate Themselves to it. The effect of the living flames is to make the soul live spiritually in God, and experience the life of God…” 

This is but a taster, a mere existential tickle of the Christian contemplative path…and radical congruency with the eastern brothas and sistas…I should quote them at length…but will have to do that another time…I am about to burn the sun dried tomato chicken sausages on the george forman…a mere taste bud tool for attaining Godhead in three bites….

…more to come…

The Future of Parenting…Now

…my first post. 

It is Monday, my day to spend with the kids and I am taking a short breather to reflect on an intersection of things: parenting, working, changing dipers, vocation, gender, wipping snot, making lunch, creativity, family roles, economics, reinventing marriage, public policy, tick checks, doing dishes, educating children, continuing to learn as an adult, sustainability, making zip lines, hacking life, loving my kids into deeper Being…  Once you begin to touch the web of reality, it all reverberates.

I read an interesting book recently by child developmentalist, Stanely Greenspan, called The Four-Thirds Solution: Solving the Child Care Crisis in America Today.  The short version is that the research is overwhelming…the children who spend most of the work week in day care, are not getting what they need.  That is, our society’s child care experiment which started in the 60′s with the launch of Head Start, to support low income families with more parenting skills and short term child care…became its own cultural norm where parenting became outsourced outside of the home, so that parents (male and female now) could ‘spend’ increasing amounts of their time being employed.  The consequence is that while the child care industry permits parents to work more (yet real wages have decreased in the past 30 years and second income does not always offset the cost of child care)…almost every indicator of children’s health (physical, social, emotional) is compromised in significant ways. 

Greenspan’s proposal is that, ideally, children have a max of 1/3 of the work week in day care and the rest of their waking hours are cared for by consistant family who practice what is commonly refered to the Attachment Parenting style.  Logistically, this means that, ideally, a two parent family will design their lifestyle around both parents working 2/3 time and then both provide child care 1/3 time each…enabling them to live off of 4/3 income and their children are cared for by them all but 1/3 of the work week.  His idea is not a static or unflexible model, and he offeres lots of different hybrid versions that people are utilizing.  He goes into detail responding to the likely initial rebutals: people can’t afford to live off of 4/3 income (his response, maybe, but do you have cable tv, or eat out regularly, or have items in your budget that are less important than optimizing your children’s first and most important years?), what about single parents (no question about it…more difficult, less options…but as in all contexts – maximize the options you have…be creative), etc.

…well even as the kids are clawing on me as I type, I can’t help but feel that this is vital work and a creative, though difficult to impliment at times, option.

…pause on this for now…time for praxis