Is there a star I can wish on tonight
that will transform all of this life?
Oh I want space,
and a life that reinforces me
and what I came to say, and do,
and hear

Is there a fountain from which I can drink?
A radio I can listen to
while I down the potion you gave me
many years ago that is terrible
and tastes rotten, soured, like sewage?

Dear on, sweet one, what can I do to
protect you from murder and help you swim too-
Oh nervousness, oh trepidation,
oh twosome you are...
oh lovely girl who made up her mind weeks ago.

Oh porcupine, you swim to the rivers
like me-
oh semicolon, you punctuate life
as you please-

oh sermon please give me a chance to confine
these crowds
to these rooms in what we call time

I love you, I have said, oh
so many times,
to blue eyes,
to brown eyes,
to mirrors, cars and whines.

You never told me you would change
or you would change your mind

Fragile i can feel in this cellophane world
and paper thin I can be in my
tight skinned inner swirl-
which looks more like a hot dog than
a cone of soft serve but gives
off some poison as I can observe.

Not sure where that leaves us,
silly you and lucky I,
not sure what I want from this slice of
the pie.

Cement-like and tangible you
tell me your best, then
cranberry juice and rambles
always come next.

Flyers and sailors are
vividly here
as I sink into a sand dune and
age just a year.

Telephones, tractors, things built for 2,
have always amused me
and still confuse you.
You act like you know things,
I swim like I know too,
you knit sweaters of blankets
and tie knots in your shoes.
Put your hands together for a minute
or two-
and say a prayer for me while I
say a prayer for 2

What is Time All About?

Time is about usefulness, generosity, and play. Time is a game we play and the way to win is to kick time in the butt. To leave time behind, is the only true use of time. Yes, the questions that love answers are one paradox after another. Time is a fountain like the fountain of youth- it stays young forever, never aging. Every moment is young, just born and open to anything. Through some form of creative expression, you can arrive in a place where time has meaning, where it is not that you are waiting for a more opportune moment, wondering how to navigate this one, or planning something for a better one. Rather, you and time are one. "Hello time," I will say to you, recognizing that you ARE time. It is tempting, many times per day or hour or minute to want to beat time, conquer time, win at the time game, but ironically, the only way to win is to become one with time. In this way, you will become a time-a-holic, rather than a "time waster." But what does is mean to waste time? Is it to throw it in the trash before fully experiencing and absorbing it? Basically, yes. To live moments partially, feeling separate from them is to miss out on time as a game. To win at the time game, you serve the infinite in as many moments as possible-starting with this one. The funny thing though is that it is frequently through action of some sort that I find myself becoming one with time, swimming in the time ocean, with the tide. In thinking about time, I rarely can access it's current. Time is mysterious that way because it cannot be caught, saved for later, or even permanently mastered-only savored and worked with using the imagination. Imagination is key when dealing with time, in order to maximize the potential of the moment, the way a child does. Time is a lot like a childs game-full of wonder, amazement, expression, silliness and even what conformity would call craziness. Anything can be imagined into a moment, one breath at a time-colors, animals, plants, imaginary things, dances. The real truth about time is that every moment is truly of no age and every piece of reality is undefined when you master time. What does it mean to be a time-a holic? "You tell me, Time."

Life is a Ride I am Going For

This phrase just came into my mind. What does it mean? Does it mean I have no free will and everything happens "to" me? Does it mean life is always fun, I just need to remember I am in an amusement park? Does it mean I have no choices? The paradox about choices is that our choices lead us to choiceless states. Choiceless states are the only ones I would ever choose since they are always higher, freer and more joyful than states of choice. There is no choice really, and I mean that on many levels. We each have some kind of purpose which we have no choice but to fulfill, and who we are intrinsically is no choice either! I am choice-free and proud!
Choice involves duality and ego. True choice is choicelessness, for the only strong choice is the one that MUST be made-when there is no choice except a certain direction. That is a true Choice, but since there is no choice it is a funny paradox. Think about it-your strongest moments have been in choosing what you HAD to choose, and in knowing just that-that you had no choice. This is a fact.
A smiling fact.

Experiences with talk therapy as a child.

When I was about 8 years old, I started to see a therapist. My mom thought it would be good since my parents were in the middle of a divorce and neither of them had a lot of extra time or attention for me. They both worked full time and we lived in the busy Brooklyn, New York. Also, it was the 80's, and the thick of the Iron Age.

My therapist was pretty and nice and we sometimes played games or made paintings, or I told her about my life. She had a big fish tank in her hallway waiting area. Her face was kind, and she frequently used the word "loveable," in telling me that despite my pain, or frustration with my parents or fears of not being liked by other kids I was "still loveable." This did not impact me all that much, since the concept of being loveable or not had never occured to me. Maybe it was too advanced for my immature brain. It was a spiritual idea, that ones' loveability is inherent and can never be decreased, but that level of consciousness did not reach my soul. It only made me think how nice my therapist was, how perfect and ideal she was. I once asked her if she believed in God and she answered, "Yes."

This therapist, who I will call Marie, let me call her at home when I was in a crisis. This happened very frequently in my home and I would call her crying hysterically during a fight with my mom that felt so very unfair. And was. Sometimes Marie would talk to my mom, who was so furious at me, or so stressed a lot of the time. Marie described my life this way, "It is like you are carrying a boulder on each of your shoulders and you cannot carry anymore." This was generally how it was. I told her secrets about my family that noone else knew, and about the sadness I felt when my best friend did not care, or did not show interest. She spoke to my father about an unconscious perhaps, but harrassing nonethless action of his I was terrified to mention to him, something I was too scared to tell anyone but her. I begged her not to call him at first, but she kindly insisted it was important.

I continued to see Marie on and off through my teenage years. When I was around 15, she suggested I take anti-depressants. I strongly resisted at first, asking her if there was any other way I could be happier, anything else I could do. I was already an avid reader of spiritual books and I believed there were other choices. I also felt that her suggestion meant she had given up on me, that she saw me as hopeless and pathetic, a failure. The idea that someone would need to take a pill to make themself happy seemed to me like the ultimate "failing at life." She said that maybe once I got to college and connected with a group of people similar to myself, I would be happier, but until then, the only way she could see me feeling better was to take Prozac.

This began a slow decline of our relationship. I tried anti-depressants but ultimately found different ways to feel happier that resonated with me much more, and I stayed in contact with Marie throughout my college years. She made time to talk to me on the phone when I was a lonely freshman, miserable, and had my first heartbreak. I drank my salty tears readily and hunched over in the phone booth on my dorm room hall while she listened and gave wise suggestions.

When I had a complete meltdown accompanied with spiritual breakthrough and physical breakdown, she again saw drugs as the compassionate response. She told me that her sense of compassion is that if someone is suffering, she wants to give them relief. In some cases, a pill does that immediately. There were times when a pill gave me immediate relief, just to do something, to acknowledge that something needs to happen, but later it always backfired and caused me more problems, fatigue, anxiety, or other unwanted effects. I was almost 21 when I sat in her office and she told me this view of compassion, but I remember I felt differently about her than I had before. I saw her and I felt my own presence, and I knew we did not see eye to eye. I knew that my ideas of compassion were much more patient and involved much more faith. Fearful as I was of my life situation my own isolation, I had tasted a lot of fearlessness. I had also by now tasted a lot of bliss, joy, happiness, liberation, most of the tastiest flavors of spiritual nectar. I knew that more was possible and that a pill of any sort would lower the ceiling of how good I could feel. I knew this. I knew it is every cell in my body and I said to her, "We see life very differently," and that was that. I never spoke to her or heard from her again.

I remember her with gratitude now, though. The way she witnessed me as a child, the kindness she imparted upon me, the time and listening over so many years. I still feel that we see life so very differently, and I still wonder if her views ever changed. And I still wonder if maybe she knows me better than anyone else in the world.