All posts tagged: Illusion

Choice and Consequence Part 4: Benevolence

January 29, 2022
by Michael
comments 16
Course Ideas / Reflections

Part 3 of the series is here. Last time I wrote about the distinction between unity and separation—the two possible cornerstones of our individual thought systems. Each of these serves as the organizing factor for all that follows in our perceptual navigation of experience. In describing the transition from the state of perfect communication within the primordial state of being—which is unity—to the condition of separation, I noted that “the experience of being separate was granted, […]

Choice and Consequence Part 3: Reality vs Image

January 18, 2022
by Michael
comments 30
Course Ideas / Reflections

Part 2 of the series is here. When I was a child my parents had a painting that fascinated me. It depicted a dinner table with countless guests on either side that tapered to a point and disappeared into infinity. My parents were Roman Catholic at the time and I believe it was a metaphorical image of heaven. I remember asking, “How far does it go?” and being told, “Forever.” Which is all well and […]

Choice and Consequence Part 2: Prelude to a Story

January 12, 2022
by Michael
comments 34
Course Ideas / Reflections

Part 1 of this series is here. I think I was a twinge unclear last time, so let me begin with a slight reset. We are each absolutely and without doubt unique. The network of capabilities, talents, inclinations, perspectives, beliefs, desires and experiences that make each of us who we are exist in no one else but us. This is so. What I’d hoped to convey is not that the possibilities for individual expression are […]

Entering the Dialogue, Part 2

February 3, 2018
by Michael
comments 23
Course Ideas

A quality of wholeheartedness is peace. There is a knowing of Creation’s completeness. We sense the unchanging center on which all things depend, and know it as our own center, too, as beings. We know it as the center of the bluebird on the branch, the center of a field covered with snow, the center of the Himalayan mountains, the center of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the center of the sun. When we are wholehearted, […]

What I Believe and Why, Part 6

September 4, 2017
by Michael
comments 34
Christ / Course Ideas

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] I want to close this series by stating that I believe Love, and expressions of Love, are all that truly exist. When I say that expressions of Love truly exist, I mean that they endure, they are timeless in a sense, they add unto the eternal fabric of being, they open pathways to new modes of being, and they enrich all aspects of being simultaneously. […]

What I Believe and Why, Part 4

August 6, 2017
by Michael
comments 36
Course Ideas / Reflections

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] I realize I’ve been slow in getting to the point. About what I believe. You’ll want a point to all this, I know. Three, four, five parts. At least. You’d be crazy to read it all. It’s clearly a little self-indulgent, but on the other hand I don’t think the what matters so much as the how or why, maybe. The process. The route. I probably can’t actually tell […]

The Lesson of the Birds

March 30, 2016
by Michael
comments 21
Poetry

I’m still learning the lesson of the birds. The one about sitting in the cover of spruce needles wearing the colors of fire and not questioning my birdness. Just letting it happen. Not questioning the tides of daylight and nightfall that inhabit me, that rinse my memory clean of silt and jagged edges and leave me singing about sitting in the cover of spruce needles wearing the colors of fire. I’m still learning that lesson […]

The Sensation of Miracles

January 10, 2016
by Michael
comments 56
Christ / Course Ideas / Creative

The other day there was a miracle, but I was looking the other way when it happened and it blew past me like a round of silent artillery.  So does it count if I figured it out a week later?  If I pieced it all together?  And if it does count, do I just make a notch on a piece of wood or something?  Once I get ten, can I trade ’em in for something […]

Strange Ideas About Love

December 27, 2015
by Michael
comments 28
Poetry

Once I was mumbling under my breath about a feeling that kept coming back to roost in the lee of my chest like a forlorn and beaten pigeon– a feeling like I was mumbling at altitude and couldn’t get enough air inside of me on the upstroke, or like I was gonna’ blow my own heart’s timing belt if I did anything too, too crazy… …like play a few rounds of Truth or Dare with Hafiz. […]

A Tantalization of String

November 20, 2015
by Michael
comments 30
Poetry

The string had many ends protruding wantonly from its various epicenters of line, curve and catastrophe, each one of them meriting careful study and consideration, because it seemed very clear to those who dared to look, that a string with more than two ends was surely more than one string, and thus reducible, though simultaneously such logic broke apart upon close examination of the thing itself. Because also, the string was routed upon and through […]