Too Much Hatred (Goin’ On)

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Too much hatred
Goin’ on,
Too many fingers
Being pointed,
Too few mirrors
Being looked into:
Too much hatred
Goin’ on.

Too much of this you and me,
Too much of this us and them.
Too much fear,
Too much loathin’
Dirtying up the sunrises
Messing with the rainbows.

Too much dogma
Being spouted,
Too much minds
Being closed
And locked away
By our own keys.

Too much evil
Goin’ on,
Being given
Too much power.

Too many walls
Being built,
Blocking our evolution
As instead we crouch
In fear and hatred and blame.

Too much reacting
Instead of being,
Too much judging
Instead of loving.
Too much excluding
Instead of evolving:
Too much hatred
Goin’ on.

The Angels
Weep for us
With our false thirst for rage
And self-righteous indignation
Fueling these empty wars
We wage against long ago brothers
Who are suddenly our enemies.

Listen!
The Angels are singing:
Stop!
Be!
Love!

Let their song
Be your song.
Let their song fill
Your troubled heart,
Let it nurture
Your fragile soul,
Melt your fear
And erase this hatred
Goin’ on.

Namaste.

© Copyright 2016 by John David Higham

Picture: Windfall Sunset (July 2016)

The Gift (One Year’s Poems)

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With love
I have given
You, Dear Reader,
Glimpses into my soul;
Perhaps even
Glimpses into yours.
In these poems
I have celebrated
The joys of my path,
The trials of my being,
The depth of my spiritual love,
The evil I have evolved beyond.

What adventures
I have revealed
And
You have known
In these letters growing into words
Into lines into stanzas into poems.

Know, Dear Reader,
That these creations
Flow from The Universe
Though me
Onto to the page
Through you.

Thank you
For your eyes,
Thank you
For your words,
Thank you
For this connection
Via these letters, words, lines, and poems
Between the you and the me
In the waking and dream worlds
On our separate journeys.

Thank you
For the gift
That comes with
This poet having been read,
His poetry having been ingested,
His life having evolved into spiritual art.

I wish for you
The Angels
And the bliss,
And the abundance,
And the strength,
And the wisdom
That they bring.

Namaste.

 

© copyright 2016 John David Higham

Last March, Kathy helped me launch my blog, Empathetic Perspective. It has been a wonderful and crazy year in both my waking and dream worlds, it having been characterized by bliss, abundance, and miracles. To celebrate this part of my path, I was recently directed during a meditation session to give the gift of a brief individualized reading to each person following my blog. If you are following it and are interested in receiving this gift, please email me at johndavidhigham@gmail.com for details.

Thank you.

I Saw You, Brussels (I Didn’t Know Where; I Didn’t Know When)

 

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Empath,
Psychic,
Intuitive;
These realities
Are woven into my path.

Decades ago,
I, an adolescent so afraid
To ride the elevator
To the top of a tall building:
“They’re going to fall down,”
I sensed of it
And it’s twin.
I cried decades later
That September day
When they were humbled.
When we were humbled
By those airplanes.

I saw you, Brussels,
A month ago;
I didn’t know where,
I didn’t know when,
But, I saw you.

I grieve for you
And apologize
For the evil ones
Who crossed your path.

No
“Should have,”
“Could have,”
“Must have”
Litter my path
As this awareness
Of others’ evil
Is something
I’ve only recently
Been directed to know.

What is my role
When such visions
Embrace my awareness?
This I do not yet know.

Such a quandary
Will be resolved,
I know,
When I query
The Inner Voice.

 

© copyright 2016 John David Higham

Last Night (I Asked the Angels)

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Last night
Before slumber
Calmed my body and soul,
I asked
The Angels
To
Please grant me
More strength
Than I need,
Please grant me
More love
Than I deserve,
Please grant me
More patience
Than I’ve ever known,
And
Please grant me the persistence
Of the ocean,
The gentleness
Of the deer,
The power
Of the horse,
The spirit
Of the eagle,
And
The secrets
Of the lynx.

Angels, I said,
In this way
I will know and follow
My path
Through the sunniest day
And the darkest night,
Through love and war,
Celebration and grief,
Immersion and detachment,
Commotion and silence.

I then slept so
Soundly,
Awakening
To find all the gifts
I had needed:
Nothing more,
Nothing less.

 

 

© copyright 2016 John David Higham

Turbulence

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Air dancing, air slamming me
Closer toward the ground,
Making me forget
How high I have flown.

Turbulence; my sweet foe
Twisting my wings,
Pushing at my eyes,
And making me gulp
For the very air
That pounds at my chest
And quickens my pulse.

Turbulence, fucking turbulence
Making me plummet,
Turning me from a glider
Into a stone,
I wonder: How many seconds
Are mine until I
Will be smashing
Into the ground?

Turbulence; too much air
All around me;
Not in my lungs,
Not under my wings,
But instead
Twisting, twisting, twisting
Bouncing me to and fro,
Like a crazed puppet
Tangled in its strings.

Turbulence turns me upside down,
Pushes me backward,
Wringing all life out of me,
Forcing me into a midair standstill,
For an eternal moment
Of hellish inertia.

Will I resume defying gravity?
Will I rediscover propulsion?
Can I again triumph over drag?
Will I ever again celebrate
The ecstasy of lift, of knowing
I am gaining, gaining altitude?

My little heart bursts in fear,
My little mind races with contingencies,
My little body fights, flees, freezes
All at once in a crazy destructive dance
As turbulence from within explodes, joining
Turbulence from the sky to erase my aerodynamics;
But still, I make myself flop fly
Without thinking,
Without feeling
Instead just being, trusting this new glide path
That has its own awkward logic.

Somehow, flight is mine again;
I seem to have broken invisible puppet strings
And again bounce and bound
Through the skies
And choose when to land.

I am air dancing,
I am air slamming,
Flailing and flying,
Climbing and diving.
Turbulence laughs at me, it
Appearing from and
Disappearing into
Thin air that flows
All around and within me;
Sky and I are again at peace.

 
© copyright 2016 John David Higham

The Tree in the Fog

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The tree in the fog
Cannot see the world it knows
Except when it remembers
The hills, the forests, the sky,
And the sun.

The tree in the storm
Cannot hear the world it knows
Beyond the wind’s roar,
The lightnings’ flash,
And raindrops’ splat
Against the ground.

The tree in the deep winter
Cannot feel the world it knows
When snow and frosty cold
Numb its bark.

The tree always knows
That it is a tree;
Its roots growing
Deep into the ground,
Its branches growing
Far up into the sky
As it turns
Sunlight and soil
Into food
So that it may endure
Fog, storm, and winter
When they come to visit.

Some days,
I am like that tree
When I am being visited
By such forces
And must remind myself
To remain deeply grounded
While also allowing myself
To keeping growing
Toward the sky.

 
© copyright 2016 John David Higham

 

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

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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.

 

(c) Copyright 2016 John David Higham

I Must Today Visit a Very Dark Place (A Very Evil Place)

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I must today visit
A very dark place,
(a very evil place)
To be a sunrise with Light and Love,
To free another’s soul imprisoned,
To undertake a new journey
That will also liberate me.
I have now been directed
By the Inner Voice
To be generous of spirit;
To give, and give, and give
Before I embark this morning.

Behold my gifts…

Here is how you find a miracle:
Stop looking with your eyes
And start feeling with your soul
Through mindfulness.
That breath you have,
That love you feel,
That bond you embrace:
Know through gratitude
That they are gifts
Given you by The Universe.
Each moment you know these things
Is a miracle: fear and need arise
From the body, not the soul.

Bliss comes from within
Within,
Within,
Within.
Connect to The Light
In each and every being around you;
Let them love you,
Let you love you,
And bliss will pour through your being.

Faith and surrender
Will guide you
But only if you let them.

Achievement and attainment are empty vessels:
Drink from them when you must,
But accept they are poor substitutes for
The serenity that comes from stillness
The warmth that comes from love
The strength that comes from acceptance.

Beware the trap of abundance
As it has nothing to do with mammon
But instead with miracles,
But instead with love,
But instead with bliss.

Know that each step
You take along your true path
Will bring you greater challenges
That would have crushed
Your older self just months
And years ago
Before you learned transmutation
And spontaneous rebirth.

Beware the trap of transcendence
As being numb doesn’t answer the call
For authenticity and evolution:
Cry and retreat as you must,
Tend to your wounds
And turn those scars
Into the living fabric
Of your courage,
Of your soul,
Of your path.

Do not intoxicate yourself
In the empty quest to find meaning
In the empty quest to articulate meaning
In the empty quest to define others
As these follies are like tissue paper fence posts
On the path; they deceive you
Into thinking you are somehow
More profound than the fool
You have always been,
You have always needed to be:
Know and embrace your role.

Do not invest in asking “Why?” or “How?”
But instead query, “What is my role?”
And be prepared to answer
With action, faith, and love.

Endeavor to know
That the voices who speak to you
Are of Heaven and not of Hell:
Query each on your path
And cleanse yourself
Of the impure.

Know that although your path
Is yours and always yours,
You are never alone;
The Angels are waiting patiently
For you
To seek Them,
To realize that you need Them,
To accept that you deserve Them.

May your soul embrace The Angels,
May your being transmit Light.
May you know that
I am sending The Angels
To you as your eyes
See these words.

These lessons of mine
Are yours also,
Though only if they resonate:
If not, dismiss them
And find what is authentic
On your path.

Namaste.

 
© Copyright 2016 John David Higham

Step (What a Step)

 

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Step (what a step);
Do you see that step
That calls to my heart?
That says I will change
When I take it?
It’s too, too big
It’s too, too large;
I can’t take that step!
So, I push and I push and
I push with all my might
And
I take my step: whew!

Path (what a path);
You see that path
That calls my Inner Voice?
I don’t even know where it goes!
I don’t even know why
It’s here, what my purpose is,
Or how I’m ever gonna
Survive!
I better study it completely
And ask and ask and
Ask and ask everyone else
About their paths, their reasons
Before I decide anything
About this one.
So, I ask and I ask and I ask`
And ask and ask,
Memorize all their answers, then
Start stretching, stretching, stretching
As
I take my path.

Sojourn (what a sojourn);
You see that sojourn
That tests my faith, my discipline?
Should I even continue it
Or
Rationalize it away,
Belittle it,
Call it a “phase,”
Or just talk about it?
So, I stop thinking, thinking, thinking
And
Start being, being, being
As
I embark on my sojourn.

Miracle (what a miracle);
You see this miracle
That emerged from manifesting
And forces way beyond logic?
Should I see and accept it
Or
Complain about it somehow
Being wrong, inadequate
And greatly undeserved?
So,
I see with my heart
I accept it with my heart
And gently wrap gratitude
All around my miracle.

Evolution (what an evolution);
You see this evolution
That challenges my fears
And reduces them to past-tense punchlines?
Should I embrace it
Or just ignore it
And stay in my comfortable rut
Going around in circles?
So,
I consult with my heart
I consult with my Inner Voice
And
I evolve, evolve, evolve.

Mountain (what a mountain);
You see this mountain
That my heart
That my Inner Voice
Has brought to my path?
Should I just admire it?
Should I just be overwhelmed?
Or:
Should I just be?
Should I listen to my Inner Voice?
Should I continue to do?
So,
I just be and listen and continue to do
By
Climbing my mountains,
Embracing my miracles,
Undergoing my evolution,
Becoming my sojourns,
Experiencing my paths, and
Taking my steps.

© Copyright 2016 by John David Higham

Will You See The Angels (On Your Darkest Path)?

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Will you see The Angels
On your darkest path,
When bleakness and despair
Winnow all your hope?

Will you see The Angels
In the middle of your storm
That rages within (without end)
And batters you body, mind, and soul?

Will you see The Angels
When the foundations of your life
Are obliterated into a suffocating dust
That buries you upright in mid-step?

What of those times
When you look in the mirror
And do not see
Anyone who loves you;
Will you see The Angels then?

They are not invisible, my friend;
They wait patiently
Through the storms of your tears,
The prisons of your thoughts, and
Your self-imposed tortures
To love you,
To guide you
Beyond the ruins
You call home.

 

© Copyright 2016 by John David Higham