Morning Coffee Notes 26 6 23

on today’s tray ~ mara, german shorthaired pointer, oceans, beaches, grace, mother and of course coffee!

 

There’s the photo of our old friend Mara. Her first time at the beach, seeing the ocean.

 Got me thinking to the first time I was ever at the beach. Sure, I’d have been very young. My mother loved the sea. Even when there became five of us kids, my father would as testament to his great love for her,  made sure she got  a least one pilgrimage per year. At one point piling five kids into the station wagon. Family of seven in those days before the interstates when it took hours to get there.

 So, while I can get a picture of those travels and those beaches – Maine, Cape Cod, New Hampshire, I cant picture my first time.

But even though I’m sitting here hours, even with interstates away from any ocean all I have to do is think to myself – When was my first time at the beach? And there comes this feeling of small and big at the same time, breathless and able to breath deeper than ever before this wide open breath of body, mind, soul ~

 There is a grace that comes from nature

A grace un filtered by the hand of man

A knowing that my mother knew quite well

The gift she gave to each of us

First time at the beach

First time seeing the ocean

First time feeling grace

~

Morning Coffee Notes 8.5.23. w/ PD Lyons

on today’s tray : notebook, sunglasses, reflection, and coffee.

What day is this? This morning sun streams into the bed room. To the point of settling back into bed with coffee, glad I brought sun glasses. Went to turn the phone on, saw my reflection. Cool I’ll get a picture but the phone had died, no charge. So narcissus like I stare bright suns in my two black eyes smiling.

~

11.4.23. morning coffee notes

this morning at blue wren house ~

I don’t mind cooking

making something nourishing hydrating pleasurable.

I don’t mind clean up

restoration to a peaceful state

the chaos of creation.

I don’t mind sitting out on the veranda

an acrobat of birds

strobing cumulus sky

subtle whispering trees

a good morning  coffee

with you

4.4.23.Morning Coffee Notes with PD Lyons

 

 on todays tray ~ finches,dog, greed, weird things swimming in the cup of coffee 

4.4.23

This morning at Blue Wren House

The dog

Having been out

Having had her breakfast

Now curls up between her human pack in bed

While they are having coffee

 

Sometimes the finches at the feeders catch her eye

But not enough to make her bother

And I’m thinking,

 

How right now this dog is complete and satiated. She right now wants nothing more than to doze here between us, to be exactly where she right now is.

 She’s not thinking about how she can gain control over all the beds so now no other dog can gain access to a human bed. Unless of course they bring her feed offerings which will allow her to then control all dogs who wish to eat. She wont develop a way to compel humans to care only for dogs that she herself approves of. 

She will never worship incessant greed. Need to feel fulfilled by compelling others to worship her every thought and or action. In fact no dog will ever be that human.

Attentive to my getting up to make second coffees. She has no need to follow. She knows I’ll be back and even if not she still has her place, her belly full, the sun streaming in, the finches at play and a human to curl up to.

 

31.3.23 morning coffee notes w/ PD Lyons #pdlyons

on today’s tray Catholic spiritual path, mother and child, wrathgod, toxic masculinity & coffee

31 3 23

 

I’m thinking about reclamation of the catholic spiritual path. How exclusion is not a spiritual path.

 

Mary’s sacrifice remains unobliterated despite thousand of years of toxic masculine re writes. She was there for every inch of the way. She knew Jesus better than anyone.

She suffered every nail every thorn every piercing spear point. Her only child. Her only son.

 

The story about Jesus and Mary is to teach maintain and restoration of the sacred mother and her relationship with her child, children. The antidote to the wrath-god of the old testament.

 

When we respect, hold sacred the tears of the mother for the child more than the dictates of the masculine ego overlords, then we can begin to re enter the garden. Then we begin to see the heaven upon this earth.

 

We only have wrathgod’s word that he created anything.

To subjugate is not a creative act.

 

Jesus is not the old testament messiah.

He is the example of peace

Love of a mother so great that she gave her only son.

That peace and love is as sacred as it can get.

 

Where there is an insistence on the importance of the “male” over the mother there is a patriarchal patch oppressing the truth.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Despite all the opportunities

To sing to love to play

To heal to comfort

Rather indulge in petty ignorance’s

Proud to display

As if creating misery

A thing to celebrate

~~~~~~~~

Slender secret ghosts vulnerable to love

If it were long ago and my name was Jesus

Would you change your name for me

Would you be my Mary

 

21.3.23. Morning Coffee Notes by PD Lyons

On todays tray:

stories, energy, equanimity, democracy, boomers, oppression, religion , and coffee.

21 3 23

 

I have often told my self stories

Then believed them to be true simply because I was the one who told them

These have been the cause of all my suffering

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

There is energy. There is us needing to identify these energies. To categorise, conceptualise, judge. The defining of energies makes us feel solid, in control. That’s why joy, peace, kindness usually seen as strength. Not like anger or hatred, these give us a delusion of being solid, strong. These mask our fear of not knowing who or what we might really be. Through them we pretend to know what we are – firm solid strong hero of our own story.

There is energy.

It needs no identification

In order to be

But it takes a bit of courage

To let go of the pretence of being solid.

 

Reading life like poetry expands your world

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

EQUINIMITY = LIBERATION

 

There is energy.

Not

There is energy that is good

There is energy that is bad.

 

There are types

Tired energy

Joyous

Angry

Peaceful

Etc

Or

There is energy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Whatever tells you

Don’t look

Don’t care

Don’t question

Don’t learn

Don’t love

Don’t live

That isn’t democracy or religion,

That’s oppression.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

True Democracy

See I was taught that democracy takes courage. The courage to allow the rights of the other. Not only their right to exist but their rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That it takes democratic courage to allow the other a voice, a choice, a privacy, an equality.

The belief that majority rules is erroneous with regards  to true democracy. Otherwise, everything depends on the personal belief of the many. This is only might makes right, this is not democracy. Democracy is the courage of all to allow the human and civil rights of all.

The question we should be asking people is – do you really want to live in a country where the your rights and the rights of others may justifiably be revoked every time the majority demographic shifts?

Today when I look at my country that’s what I  see. Rather than the nurturing of courage, it seems to perpetuate the right to bully, the right to instil fear, the right to make money at all costs, the right of might – with no regard for the amount of misery, tragedy, or instability it causes  its own citizens or the rest of world.

It has always taken extreme courage to be democratic. It still does.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Boomerz

I live only in memory
The day to day does not inspire me
I only want to sit here think about what used to be.

Here only in my own home.
Locked doors, paid taxes, insurance policies, protect me.
TV,  petrol chemicals, nourish me.

People not like me outrage me.

by PD Lyons

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

It is much easier to philosophise about pain

While it’s not active

.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

5.3.23 morning coffee notes

On today’s menu

Pain, Hawks, Sea shore, joy, equanimity, writing poetry again, title piece from: my favourite dreams are of the sea

At first it was a bit sporadic but eventually

The lapse between pain and non-opposing

Grew shorter

Instead of zing-fuck

It became zing-oh you again

Managing  what is VS seeking comfort

~~~~

This mornings

Red hawk

Unfurls herself

Slowly into flight

Funny how something so big

Remains unnoticed until in motion.

 ~~~

 Where do they happen

Where do they go

Where do they come from

With Within Without – “Me”

Don’t know Don’t want Don’t need

Thoughts.

~~~~~

Mercy Plea

If I listen

I’d hear my own heart

A weakness which would put me vulnerable

To every heartless thing I’ve done

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I don’t know where it comes from

This turbulent impatience

 

Attachment to results

A wish that my writing made a “difference”

That people found it got it responded to it.

 

Or is it something else

An exhaustive ache pain

Redundant days after days

Seeming peaceful but inherently futile.

 

I’m where it comes from

Me

What do I do about that?

Old man blues what can you do?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Equanimity key

Resolution for suffering

 Enabler of movement instead of entrenched rigidity

 Breathe in What Is

Exhale movements with What Is.

Equanimity free from emotional reactions activity is infused with wisdom

~~~~~~~~~~~

Today for the first time in forever I wrote. Working some poems from my manuscript My Favourite Dreams Are of the Sea. I wasn’t getting it ready to send out, I’ve no one to send it to. I just found myself sitting with it. Started with a basic full word do edit and then began to read and work them. Getting to the first three. The changes presented themselves effortlessly. I had no doubt over every deleted word, lines even stanza each brought out the natural shine of the piece. It was a nice steady enjoyment of writing poetry again.  Left me looking forward to tomorrows session and able to allow myself that luxury.

So here’s the title piece ~

 

My Favourite Dreams Are of the Sea

 

Sky so bright it can’t be looked at

water dark and deep

the sky bends down in envy

 I am alone in this wide-open ocean

absent from any shore line

knowing as I lie back she will not let me fall.

 

 Barefoot playing on the beach sand castles built tall as my self

and now with my pail make a way so mermaids who have been watching

 can come up for a visit without leaving their home behind.

 

My mother meets me by the creek once marked the boundary of our beach walks

we are walking back I am telling her everyone is doing pretty well.

she is pointing out to where diamonds of the waves briefly meet the sky.

 

My cousins brother-in-law brings us to the breakwater to fish. I’ve smoked all my cigarettes and he, the brother-in-law, is generous supplying me from his own. They get bored want to go down to the beach side to swim. I don’t want to, So I stay smoking someone else’s cigarettes fishing for nothing keeping an eye on the gear. Nearby there’s woman on a huge flat chunk of granite. She has two children with her. They are playing together with bits of sea weed. She lays there luxuriant in the sun sounds of the waves and the laughter of her children.

 

Walking on the beach with a girl I know from school. tide high and slack.

we are finding things in the sand noting as we go strips of green weeds, bits of sea glass, bleached bones of small creatures skulls of small crabs. Sometimes there are these pink stones. I pick them up put them into the pockets of my cut-off jeans. She picks them up as well and even though she has pockets on her cut-offs she is rather throwing them out into the sea. I give it a go but mine fall short. They’re nowhere near the long effortless arcs of her own. So instead, I give all mine to her and watch. We continue on in that way. Me picking up small pink stones handing them to her so we can enjoy the long grace of her connections with the sea.

25.2.23 coffee morning notes

Some mornings are a long time coming

You begin to count on them and then to remind you not to take then for granted they become elusive. Taunting little false dawns, strange sounds, sensitive bladder, dry cough. Eventually they get here. Well at least that’s what happened today. Guess there are no guarantees though. Except for this,

If there is a morning soon there will be coffee. 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

At some point I realised

There is a place

One can go with pain

That is not oppositional

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

So not only can you give life

You can bleed without dying

amazing

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Don’t forget

Spiders want to live too

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

You Might Look To Remember Me

Walking the maple groves

When spring causes swift the sap to rise

The crisp hard frost early in the morning

When the hunting’s best

An old chair strategically placed in the living room.

Remote nearby

Joy and tears of my children and their children

Steadfast loyalty of my loving wife

Wherever & whenever comrades old and new should gather

The dogs barking at some random things.

Yet able to restrain themselves enough to wait patiently for their dinner.

Roll of waves playing guitar with the sunlight.

Old fishing boats at the end of a working day.

Sure, these and so many places you might look

Even occasionally catch a glimpse

Though through the years more and more elusive these might be.

But I can tell you this for sure no matter what.

As long as you have room in your heart.

That’s exactly where you’ll always find me.

Morning Coffee Notes 24.2.23 ~

On todays menu ~ Spring, Horseshoe Crab, Body/brain Memory According to Horses, This Mornings Repetition and of course  COFFEE!

Empty bird feeder

Dappled sunlight

Budding trees

I get to notice

Spring

 Again

 ~

 

 

Horseshoe Crabs

 

I think about horseshoe crabs, when child, discovering them.

My friend telling me they were dangerous because the ridge along their sone and tail would cut your foot. And they were poisonous too!

Notwithstanding I forum them fascinating. Would have called them alien but I didn’t have that word you. Extra-terrestrial creatures you know.

Later I heard that they were a creature that had silver blood and were used to discover way to treat leprosy. There were definitely a colour of unseen worlds. Upside down there was bits of orange a more familiar thing. sometimes we’d find small little ones not as intimidating as the adults which were about a foot or so wide. Besides all the little one we ever found were dead. Bleach whitish by the sun, shells thinner than a potato chip.

 Any way I don’t know how much of what I believed as a kid is true. Don’t want to know enough of my childhood has been disproven. So I’m keeping this for my childhood and my friends as if that would keep us walking along the big giant oceans sharing stories and the adventure of comradery.

The Body/Brain memory according to horses.

Has its own memory. Things a brain might rather not know. The body remembers and will act automatic to prevent, or at least try to prevent a reoccurrence of such things.

 I remember getting busted up by a horse. First time thrown, first time in hospital, first broken bone, first collapsed lung a long list of things. All firsts that I wished were nevers.

So after I was discharged from hospital I realised I need a cane, There was no medical reason, But I found whenever I was walking around in public and people got to close I’d flinch and it’d hurt. They weren’t really too close but according to the body’s memory they certainly were, So I carried a wooden cane. Not to menace folk but people generally give a wider berth to a person with a cane.

 

The brain too has its own memories. Maybe sometimes it decides the best way to manipulate what’s happened is to go full throttle out there. To prove to itself and the body too that though a thing happened once doesn’t always mean it will happen again’ Kind of rushing away from what the body remembers and mind does not wish to acknowledge. Apart of something that wants to prove something to its/my self?

So anyway that’s the reason I got back on the horse so to speak. Never rode that other one again. A difference between courage and stupid?

And so that was enough for firsts although my second time in hospital was from being kicked by a horse. That was the first time I lost a spleen and at least I know that can never happen again. 

 “Your spleen looks like smithereens’.” said the surgeon. Needed to be quoted somewhere don’t you think? They wanted to cut my chaps off. That of course did not happen. But that’s another story.

 

This Mornings Repetition

 

If I let these days

Gentle lie falling fallen leaves

Like green leaves

Wind whisper rain through poplar

 How can any one of them be bad?

This is my privilege

To be kind is my honour

These are my vows

Today tonight tomorrow

 To you to me to this whole world.

 

(Repeat daily)

Morning coffee notes 22.2.23

22.2.23

 

She told me she was going out to lunch with her friend. Even asked if I wanted to come along. I was busy at the typewriter, so I said maybe next time.

  Came back, told me she’d seen a lawyer and wanted a divorce. I was so angry I just said Fine. Packed a back, left.

 A while after, once it was settled I was picking up the rest of my stuff.

She asked me Why?

What?

Why didn’t you fight for me, for our marriage.

I don’t remember what I said but I wasn’t angry anymore.

 

~

How should I treat pain?

With kindness.

When I can.

No matter how many years it takes.

~

February sun dances

Crisp morning across my fingers

Each breath catches wonder

Each step keeps me close

 

~

In fact, we don’t really see anything. We perceive reflections of light. And of the light spectrum we only perceive partially. Our eyes are limited. So, what we can’t “see” we decide does not exist. Or we decide it might exist according to our own impositions. Either way, all the while our vision of reality is based on what we don’t really see much like that which our eyes cannot perceive anyway.

Why are we crazy?

 

~

Somethings I’ve known Come back to me

Meandering horses, stray dog, orange cat

A smile you had when you were three

grass is always greener – even if its a driveway

~