Fumes

January 29, 2017 By John David Higham in blog, poetry, Uncategorized Tags: animal spirits, butterflies, faith, inspiration, mindfulness meditation, new age spirituality, personal evolution, personal growth, personal recovery, positive psychology, transcendence Leave a comment

What I run on
What you do not know
What fuels me with a passion
Others can only envy
Is knowing just how far beyond
Empty I am running running running

See that snow upon the land
That cloaks the earth in a dead whiteness
My soul knows it as rolling greens
And lush fields that will always provide
If I continue to allow myself to believe and be
In the spirit flowing through my soul my veins

Overdrawn bank accounts and maxed-out credit cards
And empty cupboards and empty gas tanks are no obstacles
When looking with more than the eyes
Speaking with more than the lips
Doing with more than the body
And living with more than the life

What I run on is amused by all things empty
Empty fears promoted by marketers fear mongers
So-called leaders of our land who live in shadows
Created and poured into towers of what-if-
fuming-combustibles-lacking-only-a-spark-explode-
worse-case-scenarios and who pull the strings
Of frantic marionettes thrashing around me

This puppets strings forever snapped
Connected to the power within this moment
Of unstable combustible fumes becoming
Cleansed air flowing in flowing out
With my every meditative breath

Can you hear the butterfly sing
In harmony with the air flowing
Over its translucent wings?

I Get to Fly (I Get to Love… Again)

April 24, 2016 By John David Higham in blog, poetry, Uncategorized Tags: air travel, animal spirits, bliss, Chemung County, consciousness, Empire Builder, evolution, flying, love, marriage, mindfulness meditation, miracles, new age spirituality, personal growth, relationships, romance Leave a comment

Edmonds Oct 7 2015 058

On the Empire Builder at Edmonds, Washington (October, 2015)

I get to fly,
Like a bird of a feather.
I get to walk
Through crowded
And
Deserted terminals
And
Watch people
Running, walking,
Riding
On their way
To,
On their way
From:
Too, I get to walk,
Run, and ride
With them
For at least a bit.
I get to fly
Somewhere;
I get to love… again.

I get to watch
Them sleep on planes
And sofas
And against each other,
And stand with them
Outside of airplane lavs
And make small talk
And feel how
They respond
To the bumpity, bump,
Bump of turbulence
At 39k feet.

I get to see
The excitement
In their souls
As they approach
Their vacations,
Their loved ones,
Their homes
And I get to embrace
My anticipation
That comes
With standing
At the arrival area
At PHX
In the dry heat,
Texting Kathy
As I walk toward
The street
On which she will arrive,
Knowing that
Her warm touch,
Our crazy loving moments,
And champagne bubbles
Await.

I get the red eye,
The short hop,
The puddle-jump,
The upgrade,
The check-in,
The baggage check
(And the fate it brings!),
The shuttle,
The economy lot,
The Lyft,
The ferry,
The train,
The valet,
The lounge,
The priority lane,
The frequent flier miles,
And the recited take-off
Instructions:
I get it all in 2200 mile commutes.

I get to talk
To strangers
About their passions,
About their families,
About their dreams.
I get to listen
To their words
And feel their hopes,
And share myself
As I click pictures
Of my views,
Write poetry,
And edit my works.

I get to wait
Outside
The terminal
And
Watch people
Hugging and smiling
As
I text my wife
At the end
Of my
Cross-country commute
And
We navigate
Around all those
Frickin’ idiots who parked
In the loading zones,
Laughing at them
Becoming impatient
At
Having been blocked in!

I get to love… again.
I get the pillow talks,
The facetimes,
The “coolness,”
The Olans,
The tooth things,
The “Bitches,”
The selfies,
The passion and the romance,
The bliss,
The abundance and the miracles;
I get it all:
We are The Lovers.

I get to fly
Out of the cage
That was once my life,
That felt like my death
But was really
Just my incubation.

At times,
I float like a butterfly,
Fluttering in
Love and light
Flowing over my wings.

Other times,
I soar like an Eagle
As the spirits
Of love, possibility, and hope
Of faith and surrender
Lift me
Far above
Who I once was.

Still, at other times,
I am the owl
Perched above
The darkened world
And seeing everything.
Or,
I am the crow
Shifting shape, time
Shifting place
From the here and now
To
The there and then.

I get to watch
The sun set,
The sun rise
Above the country
I had taken a train across,
I had driven across
So many lifetimes ago.

I get to love
Again; this time for keeps
With no returns
Or intermissions.
Forty thousand miles
Into this love
And I’m even more excited
About loving,
About flying,
About life’s
Endless miracles.

I am bliss now;
I get to fly.
I get to love… again.

Even TSA routines
Makes me smile,
As
Does the airport food
And
The little DH-8s,
The 757s sans WiFi,
The cramped A321s and A330s,
And
Taxicab drivers
Scaring the shit
Out of me as they race
A crappy yellow mini-van
To the Bainbridge Ferry
On a chilly Seattle night,
Or speaking in some language
Unknown to my tongue
In a Philly rush hour.

Hell, it all makes me smile:
I get to love again
After having known
That experience for so long
In only bits and pieces,
Living voluntarily in
Intimate relationships
Where I rescued
And lived lives
I thought others wanted.
My own co-dependent fool
I was then,
Grounded
And caged by my fear
Of being me,
Struggling to be
Someone else’s
Idea of the man
I could never be.

I get to fly
In this love
Like I’ve never flown before,
Like I’ve never loved before.
What a sacred journey I am on
With the self-awareness to match.
I get to grove on the feeling
Of fifty thousand pounds
Of thrust as machinery
As large as a house
Rises into the air,
Yanks me off the ground,
And allows me
To once again embrace
The Angels’ view.

I get to smile
And laugh with glee
At those moments
When the plane and I are racing
With all the universe’s might
Along the runway
And into the infinite sky,
And into our infinite love.

I get to fly,
I get to love… again,
Each moment of both
Warming my soul,
Freeing me from the ground
That I once stood on
And the past me
Who once held me down.

Wheels down at sunset: Chemung County, New York (April, 2016)

Breath In, Breath Out (King of Wands and Skunk)

March 3, 2016 By John David Higham in blog, poetry Tags: animal spirits, consciousness, empath, faith, intuitive/intuition, meditation, mindfulness, mindfulness meditation, personal growth, tarot Leave a comment

Tarot 3 3 16 002 Final

In the hours
Before the golden sun
Made itself known again to my eyes,
I sat in a Full Lotus
On my meditation cushions;
Breath in,
Breath out.

Breath in,
Breath out
Dissolved the litter
Of my waking world;
The bills
The commitments
The struggles
All faded
As the Inner Voice
Quieted my soul.

Breath in,
Breath out;
Two cards
I pulled,
Two directions
I know
On this day’s path.

King of Wands;
Embracing my strength
Embracing my confidence
Embracing my charisma
As I rule over my life:
Knowing that
I am today
The King of Fire.

Breath in,
Breath out.

Skunk;
Embracing my path
Embracing my self-respect
Embracing my charisma
Understanding other’s paths
Understanding other’s self-respect
Understanding other’s charisma
As equal to mine,
Experiencing each
As
The King of Fire.

Breath in,
Breath out
As the golden dawn
Evolved into blue skies
Evolved into stark white ground
I heeded these signs,
Thanked the Inner Voice
For these visions,
And flowed
Into my waking world.

How Black this Wind That Calls Me: The Dolphin and Temperance

November 12, 2015 By John David Higham in blog, chant, personal growth, poem Tags: abundamce, acceptance, angels, animal spirits, bliss, chanting, consciousness, Dolphins, faith and surrender, healing, mindfulness meditation, personal growth, recovery, self-esteem, serenity, spirits, tarot 2 Comments

How black this wind
That calls me
With grass so gray
And sky of ash,
How its cold roar
(Not like that of a lion,
But more an endless avalanche)
Of increasing weight
Binding,
Binding,
Binding
My soul.

It is all too easy now
To forget that I embraced magic,
That Angels had invited me
To their eternal dance,
And that miracles once
Were pebbles on my path.

A younger more foolish me
Back then, I rallied against
Such an oppressive blanket
By tossing it off in masculine anger
And
Running,
Running,
Running
With all my being, all my might
Into the black wind that called me
As I turned
Fear into rage into mastery.

Now, I
Meditate,
Meditate,
Meditate.

Dolphin and Temperance
Come to me.

The Dancing Angels
Tell me to allow the wind
To push me up, down
Along the dead grasses
And invite the sharp air
Into these lungs
And, smile, smile, smile.

I am The Dolphin:
Breathing,
Breathing,
Breathing.

I am Temperance:
Allowing,
Allowing,
Allowing.

I am again magic
In the black wind.

I am again dancing
With The Angels
In the black wind.

I am again miracles
In the black wind.

When My Inner Wind

November 1, 2015 By John David Higham in blog, meditation, poetry, tarot Tags: animal spirits, Awareness, cleansing, consciousness, creative writing, creativity, empath, faith, healing, inner child, inner wind, intuitive/intuition, love, meditation, mental health, mindfulness, recovery, self-exteem, tarot, writing Leave a comment

When my Inner Wind
Is no longer yelling
And I’m no longer
Pulling at this world
With all my letters and words.

When my hands
Are reaching for the sky
And I watch my fingers
Turn into sparkling dust
Woven into the rainbows.

When my lungs
Fill with more than air
And my thoughts stop
Stopping me.

When I become my dreams
And my prayers become buffalo
Bringing me abundant lightness.

When I see The Angels dancing
Just beneath my bedtime ceiling
And my eyes become otherwise useless.

When my minutes and hours mean nothing
And I am pulled away
From all those titles, histories
And objects that had defined me.

When my soul’s eyes open
Infinitely within each moment,
Seeing the subtly of the
Inner child inner breeze
And I allow all worlds
To flow through
Me one letter at a time.

When I am the loyal dog
To me and those on my path
That I may sound warning barks
As strangers approach
And I embrace their scent.
When innocence returns
Like a cascade of future recollections
And now empty past predictions
Moving beyond my intuitive self.

When meanings becomes meaningless,
Thoughts become music, and
Work evolves into whimsical play.

Then, and only then
Will my Inner Wind
Gently embrace you,
Gently embrace the many me
Without either of us knowing it.

Then is only here and now.
See The Hierophant
Is upside down…

Montreal (Stuck)

October 29, 2015 By John David Higham in blog, poem Tags: animal spirits, Awareness, birds, bliss, conscious dreaming, creative non-fiction, creativity, depression, dreaming, dreamwork, healing, leaf, mental health, mindfulness, Montreal, recovery, self-esteem, self-talk, wind, writing Leave a comment

Montreal (Stuck)
By John David Higham
Traveling to Montreal in dreamland,
I lived a life of possibilities then;
Of a spacious home in which I wandered about
In the early morning light
As the sun arrived, illuminating mansions and skyscrapers.
Meals were made as my family gathered;
Stories and jokes retold.

Then, morning arrived
Bringing in the mundane waking world
As annoyance rapidly blossomed.

Stuck:
A thousand times yes into maybe into no into never, never, never
As possibilities dropped from the sky as if leaden flocks of birds
That brought their lifeless heaviness into my heart.

Stuck
So quickly the ground beneath my running feet softened,
Swallowing me up to my waist,
My every movement hastening my inertia.

Ones are bad now and I see them all around me:
Tasks daunting, even the pleasurable ones.
People annoying, even the intriguing ones.
Obligations overwhelming, even the simplest ones.

Stuck
Stuck
Stuck…

Might I be still and surrender to the quicksand of my thoughts
Creating perfect reasons to become even more daunted, annoyed, and overwhelmed?
Going neither left or right, forward or backward?

I embrace this muck clinging to my soul;
My mind continues producing multiple webs
Of knotted tangles that form a dark soaked fabric
Now covering my head as I submerge further into my living grave.

Who has done this to me, I wonder.
How did this evolution take place?
Such useless questions give rise to nothing.

I am nothing when stuck.
I am not serene, I am not alive.
Stuck is not stillness, but freezing.
Freezing is not surrendering,
But the soul’s suicide.

I go back.
I go back to Montreal,
Returning to the feeling I was
When I looked out and watched the sun begin
The city’s day; the dream world’s breakfast
Filling my senses with anticipation of nourishment.

A stir of amusement passes through my consciousness like a leaf drifting by on the wind.
I am the leaf.
I am the wind.
I am the muck…

And, then my soul breaks free;
It dances
As my poem makes the birds
Once again fly and returns me
To Montreal…

Love and Gentleness (The Day Before the Day Before)

October 25, 2015 By John David Higham in blog, poem Tags: Abundance, acceptance, Ace of Cups, angels, animal spirits, Awareness, bliss, cleansing, consciousness, coping skills, deer, dreamworld, enlightenment, faith, growth, healing, insight, metaphysics, mindfulness, mindfulness meditation, mysticism, recovery, self-esteem, self-help, spiritual, tarot, waking world Leave a comment

The
Day before
The
Day before,
As
I sat in my den
On
My meditation pillow,
A
Deer visited
Me
During my daily card reading.

A
Totem
Of
Gentle heroism,
Of
Tenderness
And
Patience,
It
Eased into my soul.

“Be gentle to you,”
She
Said as she stood
In
My mind’s eye.

Gentleness:
Patience
Fully embraced,
Love
Sprinkled with tact.

Ah, love!
The
Same morning ritual
Directed
Me to embrace
The
Overflowing Chalice,
The
Endless gifts of love,
Its
Eternal power
To
Heal, bond, evolve.

“Why, of course,”
I
Reasoned to myself,
“This
Is how I live!”
These
Cards were affirmations
And
Nothing more.

Oh, that
Day
Before
The
Day
Before
Soon
Brought upon my path
So
Many varieties
Of
Frustration
(From
Both self and others)
As
I felt my pulsing rising
With
Self-blaming
At
Not having accomplished
All
I had set out to do,
All
I had determined to do,
All
That had to complete.

Frustration
Upon
Frustration
Built
As calls went unanswered,
Things
Broken stubbornly refused repair,
And
All plans slowly froze
Into
A crescendo of nagging inertia
And
Incompleteness
As
Too many clocks kept ticking.

Those cards, reminders
Of
That morning’s contemplation,
Sat
Near my meditation pillow
And
My peripheral eyes
Did
Catch sight of them
As
I hurried past in the hall.

Instead
Of giving myself
Into
Further disappointment
Or
Allowing assertiveness
To
Flare into self-aggression,
I
Stopped.
I
Stopped
And
Sat on the meditation pillow.
I
Meditated
And
Recalled the lessons
Of
The overflowing chalice
And
The still deer.

Thus reminded
Of
Myself beyond
The
Niggling waking world,
I
Allowed myself
To
Be an imperfect human
And
Feel rejoice (AGAIN)
In
The perfect gifts
Of
Love and gentleness.

Embracing laughter,
I
Visited my logic
And
Realized
I had accomplished
Much;
I had done all
That
I could given
All
That filled my path.

I must endeavor
To
Allow myself
To know
Love and gentleness
As
Lasting gifts
From
The
Day before
The
Day before.

The Lizard, the Snow, and Bill the Neighbor: An Afternoon Dream

October 21, 2015 By John David Higham in blog, poem Tags: animal spirits, Awareness, bliss, conscious dreaming, consciousness, creative living, dream, dream interpretation, dreamwork, dreamworld, enlightenment, insight, lizards, meditation, mindfulness, mindfulness meditation, Native American Spirit work, personal healing, playing, recovery, snow, stress management, waking world Leave a comment

Time and opportunity
Hounded me
With
Their draining energy
This afternoon.
Too much of each,
Too many options:
What to do?
What to do?
What to do?

Possibilities intrigued
Then
Overwhelmed me
While
A beautiful day
Tried
Seducing me
Into
Mowing the lawn.

On meditation pillows
In a half lotus
In my den
I meditated:
A lizard
Soon
Traveled into
My Mind’s Eye.

The lizard told me
Not to mow the grass
And
Not to do paperwork
And
Not to run errands.

“Sleep,” she said,
“And visit the dream world.”

So, I did.

There, I lived
On a town’s street
I had lived
Many times previous
In
The dream world
And
For a decade
Or so
In the waking world.

It had snowed
So much
That
Several feet
Of
Thick, heavy drifted snow
Covered
Everything
On the cold afternoon.

I shouted playfully
Trying
To
Make avalanches
Tumble off
My house’s roof;
The place a Victorian.

With wonder
With glee,
I
Watched those dislodged chunks
Become
Low clouds until
They
Plopped on my front yard.

Amused
As
I was
By
My discovered ability
To
Clear my roof
Of its burden,
Bill the neighbor
Amused
Me
Even more
By
Shuffling his feet
And
Pumping his arms
While
Pretending to be a train
On
His way to visit
A
Neighbor’s house
Up
The street.

I awoke smiling,
Knowing
Two worlds had again become one
With symbols assembled
Into
A resonating idiosyncratic moment
Of
Past’s present into present into future’s past
In
Non-linear metaphysical art.

“What, Lizard,”
I asked,
“Does it all mean?”

Lizard, who had been basking
On
My deck in the sun
Smiled.
“It means you didn’t mow the grass
Because
You were clearing off your roof.”

I laughed because she was right.
My head was cleared
Like
The roof
And
I could again embrace bliss
In
The waking world…

A Gathering Storm at Sunset

October 14, 2015 By John David Higham in blog, poem Tags: angels, animal spirits, bliss, blog, cleansing, consciousness, empath, faith, growth, happiness, healing, inspiration, intuitive/intuition, letting go, love, meditation, mental health, metaphysics, mindfulness, mysticism, nature, personal growth, self-help, storms, sunset 1 Comment

A gathering storm at sunset greeted my return to my distant home,
The sun given only the slightest piece of sky as darkened clouds
Settled across the hillside, itself shorn of its crops;
All in anticipation of a cold damp rain that invited memories
Of past vibrant fall days rapidly yielding to harsh winters.

My mailbox, earlier filled by the postman in his battered jeep
Now occupied my attention as I made my way through offers, bills, and magazines
Ignoring the magical art The Universe was busy painting on the horizon
Until the piercing light flowed from hilltop to my colorblind eyes.

My lap full of mail, I slowly guided my car away from the end of the drive
And saw the gathering storm at sunset not only with my eyes and heard its few
Heavy rain drops not only with my ears, but disembarked from my vehicle
And became one with it as I experienced the magic of The Universe.

There is That Moment

October 9, 2015 By John David Higham in blog, healing, poetry, self-help Tags: animal spirits, cleansing, empath, faith, healing, insight, intuitive/intuition, magic, meditation, mental health, metaphysics, mindfulness, mysticism, personal evolution, trains Leave a comment

There is that moment,
That moment
When the low, deep sound
Precedes everything,
When your crow becomes silent
And the morning becomes brighter.

There is that moment,
That moment
When you can hear
That deep roar
Just before the whistle sounds
As fantasy dances with hope
To magic’s song.

There is that moment,
That moment
Right near the yellow line
And
You stare up the
Continuous welded rail
And look with all your might
Toward the low hum
Toward the whistle blowing
It dislodging your crow,
Announcing to all your life
And the lives near you
Of your upcoming adventure.

There is that moment,
That moment
When the sunrise doesn’t mean anything,
When the ferry crossing Puget Sound
Doesn’t mean anything,
When your crow
Doesn’t mean anything,
When adulthood doesn’t mean anything
Because you are focused,
Totally focused
On the sound of that train,
The rolling thunder
That makes places become your past
To
Make way for your future.

There is that moment,
That moment
When the train
That
Transforms you
Transports you
To another place
As its deep roar grows louder,
Grows closer
Rendering insignificant
The merely human voices on the platform:
How can they compete
With the magic inside your head,
With the magic inside your soul?

There is that moment,
That moment
When the train stops right in front of you
And know your world is perfect
As
You climb aboard
Begin your magic journey,
And you are also the crow
Resting on a nearby fence.

John David Higham

Empathic Perspective

Tag Archives: animal spirits