SSJ7: Quintanka 39: April Poem

Early April Heights

The new moon is occurring
and the spring-melt river rises
with the morning tide—
as last night’s rain creates new freshets
falling through the fresh hillside.

~Kokoro Sonzai translated by Son Rivers 2008

SSJ6: Spring Peepers Poemon hearing the pseudacris crucifers the night before

Canticle On the Return of the Peepers

It begins just like the squeaking of a wheel
somewhere in the wetlands. Earth is turning
slowly on its rusty axis. Listen to
the innocence behind the worn cliché though—
this is particle collision in its essence.

Ice has melted after being in the shadow
of the earth for much too long. Twice hydrogen
and oxygen alone is giving little carbon-based
amphibians such holy voice and psalms are pouring
from their gentle bodies filling night with April

glories: Sun, they sing, has been here; Sun, they sing,
will be here in the morning; Sun, they sing, the sun!
And here I listen to their song, reflecting on
its meaning, lectio divina, so translating
what I can for you: the mystic coming then

to light again; the once becoming future now;
the always in your heart; the being in your blood;
the everlasting taste; its conscious sound;
this sight; our life;
new found.

~Son Rivers 2008

SSJ5: The Rites of Marchbefore the inhalation

The Spirit of Spring Journal 5
3/27/08 Reflecting on the End of March

The end of March here on the cusp of the Merrimack is like the stillness before the growth. It’s that point after the deep exhalation. The purge of winter has come and gone. Here on the cusp, there’s no snow. The ground has begun to thaw. But nothing is turning green. The grass is like a carpet of hay. Sure, there’s some catkins on the crazy birches, but they don’t really count. At best, they’re some silver reminders something is about to happen. But right here, right now, nothing is happening. And that’s the beauty of the end of March.

There’s a Zen-like quality to the light all around. Because the trees are still bare but the sun is approaching a Labor Day quality to its brightness, the woods are washed in light like no other time of year. As if someone was holding a magnifying glass and letting the sun amplify its brightness. And so, soon the earth will be on fire, green with the flames of life. But not yet.

Feel the pure emptiness. The shining void. Don’t miss it. It doesn’t last that long. Soon, the earth can’t help itself. An inhalation like you won’t believe will be coming. It’s the greatest show on earth. But right here, right now, the grounds are empty. The tents are still on the way. Feel the tingle of excitement. The red-winged blackbirds have arrived to watch the show. But stop, be still, like March. You, right now, are in that place before the Big Bang, when the Universe, or what many call God, was just about to breathe. The beautiful bare beginning is here.

SSJ4 Cool Spring PoemQuintanka 38 Meet the New Conformity

The Spirit of Spring Journal 4
3/22/08 Birth of Seasonal Cool

The sun is high in the sky but still the wind from the northwest makes things cool. The usual March cool. Speaking of which, we went to the Addison Gallery and saw the Stoller (a fantastic photo from the early sixties of the TWA terminal displayed on the exhibit website is indicative of the black and white flavor of the photos depicting modern architecture with all its curves and lines), Homer (an amazing watercolor featuring a predominately yellow rooster large in the foreground with cornfield, mountains, and farm house receding small into the background kept me coming back to look), and Birth of the Cool (think of the Roadrunner in a plastic chair meets Chet Baker resting on a rectangular chaise longe inside a steel and glass house overlooking sun-washed LA) Exhibits today. The first two were excellent as expected, but the latter was a pleasant surprise. A cultural look at Southern California Cool of the fifties from architecture to furniture to painting to music to movies to television.

Hence the spring poem:

March Spring Cool Quintanka

Cool is more than California
pastel architecture all
that plastic jazz. Conformity,
that king of winter cold is dead.
Long live this fresh conformity.

Kokoro Sonzai 2008

SSJ3: Good Friday ConcatenationAnd the first full day of Spring calendrical aria

The Spirit of Spring Journal 3
3/21/08 Good Friday Full Moon

And on the first full day of spring there was sun. And a fierce northwest wind and accompanying temps in the low thirties. There was also a Full Moon a little after two in the afternoon, creating this interesting fact of calendar. Because it's celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox, Easter this year will be March 23, "the second-earliest date ever. The earliest Easter can be observed is March 22, which last occurred in 1818. The next time Easter will be this early will be in 2228."

It's an interesting concatenation of astrological and calendrical events, like the human being itself. Now Easter celebrates a particular religious belief. But belief is besides the point here. It's the knowing that the true essence of Easter carries with it. Belief is thought and thought is a process of duality that can never approach the unity of essence. It can point the way though. Easter points the way to consciousness never really dying but resurrecting to some other form.

I always like to think of that boiling pot of water. The water takes on that form of a bubble, pops, and reunites with the water, only to take on another bubble, and so on, and so on. In such a way, the equinox bubbles, winter pops, spring emerges, the full moon comes around again, and we capture it all in our calendar, the form of our days. It might be the earliest Easter our human form has ever seen, but to our consciousness, it's neither earliest nor latest. The resurrection is always now.

SSJ2: The Wonder of the EquinoxThe spring comes on little cat feet

The Spirit of Spring Journal 2
3/20/08 The Day of the Equinox

The equinox came very early this morning, and by the time I woke, it was already spring. Light rain was falling and the earth was wet with forgiveness. I stopped at Alliance Park on the way to work and watched a black and white cat watch seagulls flying over and landing on the Merrimack. I'm sure there was desire in its eyes as well as wonder. Of course, spring does that to you.

Eliot added memory to the mix as well. It's an important ingredient of course, but wonder seems to go missing in the modern world. Take those seagulls. Too often we fail to see them as the miraculous creatures that they are, these wonderful white and silver birds with graceful wings. Of course too often we fail to see the wonder of the rest of the world as well.

There are two sure cures for that disease. Looking at the world through a child’s eyes is one (and possibly through a cat’s as well). And spring is the other. The miracle of life becomes so obvious, it hits you over the head with its 2 by 4 by greenery and flowers. That miracle is always there, of course. Our childlike knowledge of science sometimes dulls our recognition. But that's the Newtonian world most of us still live in.

The cutting edge of science has left that mechanical worldview way behind though. We need to too. Without wonder, we're stuck in a godless world where the game of human events is of prime importance. But in the world of quantum science or what's also known as the mystic, wonder abounds and those twin towering beliefs of fundamentalist religion and atheistic materialism melt away. The sacred life of grass remains, wet with waves, consciousness, spirit. Then we can rise. And purr.

The Spirit of Spring Journal 1waiting for the consciousness of spring

1. 3/19/08 The Last Full Day of Winter

Let's get poetic for a minute. There was a slight spray of snow on the grass this morning and a few flakes were flying in a slight breeze. Clouds dimmed the very last day of astronomical winter. The river sat at low slack tide like a long curving mirror, reflecting the other shore in perfect detail. In a way it mirrored the coming equinox itself.

Although one could make a more factual argument that it mirrored a solstice, that would only be an analogy based on hard fact. The real sense of the metaphor resides in the knowing that life returns with spring. On this day, things appear at their lowest ebb. The last snowflake (although more are factually sure to come), the lowest tide. Our greatest hope springs eternal. And life returns! Amen.

But what is life? I saw a car with a bumper sticker later this morning. Like that Christian symbol of a fish, but with little legs, and the word Darwin highlighted in its body. I know it’s supposed to be some witty comeback at Creationism (although the symbol of the fish has nothing to do with that theory). But, in essence, that's just replacing one belief with another. And a belief, that in my opinion, misses the point.

All beliefs ultimately are human-made creations, and have no real connection with the Truth. At best, they can be a pointer. Darwinian evolution is fine, as theories go, but it kind of leaves out the rest of the universe. So I'll point to evolution as the universal amplification of consciousness, in order to fill in the blanks.

Life, therefore, is consciousness become matter (to our eyes, although it's all energy and waves and particles in the eyes of the universe). So what will spring be? Consciousness re-amplified!

And when I think of it in that way, it reminds me of all the birds I'm hearing in the morning now. The sounds of consciousness. Turn it up!