The open mic must stay Open!!

So few places
Anymore
For people to gather
That are not already designated to
Jesus
Or a business
Or the next trendy restaurant
That will be the next scene
That will complete the takeover of that part of that town
But when I first started
Being a spoken word poet, there weren't many women on mic
And I was lucky to be featured more than once
Part of a genre and a counter culture
That was the heartbeat of the city at the time
And elitist groups who missed the whole point of our gatherings

and philosophical musings started mingling at these spoken word venues
Until before I know it
I'm being told you must "audition" for a place at this hosts open mic
And I don't know whether to laugh or cry
Because the whole spirit of these events is dependent on the ability

to walk in off the street an unknown
And sign up on the sheet
And when you are called
Pour out a stream of consciousness river
Your life love loss redemption
And walk away still an unknown
There are plenty of places for people to get known  and to make money
The open mic has a sacred vow to the

deliberate passionate random poet singer comic freestylist
To preserve a place to be
Off the beaten path
Reserved for those who question
Mainstream values and who perpetuate the questioning of reality as it is dictated to us by who ever is dictating it these days
And having to audition for the host kills the point murders the purpose!
Now it becomes a chance for him to shape the whole look and energy of anyone who takes the stage
A type of censorship
And I can't get with this

so I implore you to

Question everything

and keep open mics open

for ideas to flow

for people to grow

elitism has to go!!

Posting this in connection to the "we are mortal, we are shadow and light" post

Just as I was writing about Pope Saint Francis, this song came on! Nice synchronicity!!

We are mortal, We are Shadow and Light

Recently, I have been posting (on social media) activity that the Pope, of the Vatican nobility, has been a part of. I look very closely at times, without even meaning to, at the underlying possibilities of what I am seeing.

I was discussing with someone recently, that although people are in the public eye, famous or considered beautiful, their lives mean no more or no less than the person you just passed on the street asking for a dollar, convincingly homeless at that very moment.

One fact that faces all of us in this world, no matter what kind of category we find ourselves in, is our mortality. We will die someday. This fact, I see as one that unwittingly unifies us all. To put it in more certain and clarified terms, because we are born and die, regardless of status or wisdom or money or lack of money, we are in that same boat of mortality. Until you know for sure you have some other destiny, this is yours and mine and on and on.

All this said to point to the fact that Pope Saint Francis, like any other public figure, revered and held high over others for whatever reasons, is, to me, simply another human being, with all the light and shadow present in his inner world that any other may possess.

Since I am not (yet) gifted with the level of sight that would grant me a vision to know how light or how shadowy he truly is, I must go on some level of assumption that he manages himself in a fairly similar fashion as the rest of us do, struggling with what we know to be wrong or right, healthy or destructive, we pray, we struggle, we don't pray, we experience the range of emotions, we create our lives and levels of misery or joy due to each and every respective skill set.

Of course the glaring difference is that he is seen as a religious leader, famous the world over, in a long succession of other men, and only men, considered more holy than the average bloke.

I figure that in order to assess what needs to be celebrated, and what needs to have as little energy as possible going toward it, feeding it, we need to examine the deeds of a person, the actions they make known. Clearly the actions we are not made aware of may someday come to light and often do, unless some strange forces are protecting the particular person's historical image with some kind of agenda we may or may not know about.

The pope has done and said some amazingly smart and progressive things in my opinion and in the opinion of many who generally do not rally around Catholic leaders. We are happy about him because he has given us hope, he is not re-creating the suffering that Popes before him created, he is forging a new path. The fact that he is seen as threatening by people with such stiflingly conservative agendas is a point of beauty.

I choose to stay away from Organized Religions. It is my understanding that the Ascended Masters are not entities or deities who are tied into definitions and popular rule books drawn up by groups of humans who cannot prove almost anything beyond a shadow of a doubt. I am especially skeptical of people who reject science of all kinds, instead of welcoming what science can bring into an intelligent discourse of spiritual questions, topics and overall seeking.

I will come back to the themes I am outlining here soon but before I go and end this post, I say if you see or hear of a person, famous or not, who is putting energy and effort toward the upliftment of our turbulent and confusing human species; and if they show effort toward the protection of the vulnerable natural environments, healing and clean up, celebrate them, give them your energy and love. 

If you are the person making these efforts, give yourself love and encouragement; know that there are always forces of beauty, compassion and more, that are supporting you. Know this, know yourself, and keep learning and growing.

beyond comparison

I write
in order to
breathe out
injustice and confusion
I write to relieve the oppressive intensity
of that undefinable pain
permeating the days as they flow into nights

and I am stuck
for a moment
then free as the wind
I am the wind
until I am the rock
and ego is a crack in this rock self
and light gets in there
but so does dust
and the ego is blown out
huge like a parachute
being lifted off the ground
the ego is a story I tell myself

nature is a story we tell ourselves
and the articulate mind
is its own contradictory blessing
something
always
missing
but at the same time complete
the wholeness
of each experience
I could rhapsodize
I could look at you and rhapsodize
but then you would
quickly attribute that rhapsody
to your physical self
the most temporary
when I simply cannot help
but be struck by
beyond
below
beneath
beside
alongside or other than
spaces in between your cells
then the spirit infused
laughter
that arises or moves
through us countless times
so that the myth of our path
our trajectory
can spin
keep spinning
words on wheels of time
spun spoken spiraling sent out
into atmosphere
mysteriously tied to the souls of the stars

what is cosmic truth telling you
if not
that you are
a definition beyond
comparison

take refuge

love is the heartbeat of earth's pulse

father of the cosmos
sends storms of rhythm
to beat upon her atmosphere

knocking through the door of her answer
she peers through
branches and beckons him
to dance with her
come in or leave me alone
she pleads, he plants some seeds

they take refuge together
in the motion of earth around sun
the brightest star
from near here to far

love is her earth beat
love is his heart and cosmic feet

pounding out her soul
into dust
into rain
into pain all over again

get rid of clutter

listen, open to a place
of emptiness

and listen, how to be alone
and not be lonely

how to be among others
without being smothered

first get rid of clutter
distractions from emptiness
and work from there
listen
to that voice in you, among the many
that guides you with love
do not mistake attachment for love
do not be caught in the dream
listen.

crack your self open and
unleash your contents
start to die
keep dying until you fly
when you are flying
don't forget to listen

all kinds of weather

verse 1

people come in and out
of my life
like so many starry nights
people come in and out of my sight
like so many breath taking views

chorus

what makes you different
will you stay?
what makes you different
what you got to say?

verse 2

take 5 steps back
and look at our time together
seems like what we had
could endure all kinds of weather
you may not see it like I do
that don't make it any less true


"If you ever get close to a human, and human behavior, be ready, be ready to get confused"
-Bjork