THERE’S HOPE

    The way we human beings are designed
    Affords us both the latitude of mind
    As well as altitude of consciousness
    To help our special species to progress.

    There’s something we seem destined to become
    That, even though our future now seems glum
    Because of all our waywardness so far,
    Making our reckless history bizarre,

    There’s yet a hope we’ll reach maturity
    By cultivating wisdom that can free
    Our minds to recognize what serves all best,
    For only that way may our kind be blessed.

         Though Homo sapiens sapiens now is bent,
         We’ll straighten up, becoming sapient. 

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INNER DEPTHS
 

        It takes a cultivated consciousness
        To know how to act wisely in this world;
        And thus for ardent seekers to progress,
        Their inner latencies must be unfurled.

        That double sapience for which we’re named,
        The prospect of our soul’s development,
        Has no reality until it’s claimed,
        Or else remains unrealized intent.

        What acts or practices will then release
        Those powers and capabilities implied
        By Homo sapiens to bring surcease
        To sorrows, letting sapience abide?

             Deep meditation is the way to reach
             What only inner wisdom has to teach.

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SAGEING

   What better way to wizen than wise up
   By sipping from a philosophic cup?
   What better compensation for old age
   Than growing as wizard or a sage,
   Leaving behind the follies of one’s youth
   While seeking out some universal truth?

   The contemplation of some higher way
   For humankind to live, rules to obey
   Securing Earth’s sustainability,
   Should be our eminent priority.

   And yet, beyond such prudence, we must nourish
   Whatever makes our souls and bodies flourish,
   For elderhood should show us at our best:
   Exemplars of that Way we have professed.

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ONE MIND

for Larry Dossey

   Homo noeticus is the next phase
   Of our development, when we’ll have found
   A way beyond our present mental haze,
   Freed from beliefs by which our minds are bound.

   We know from pioneers who now report
   That there’s a psychic realm some call “One Mind,”
   And if we find our route to that resort,
   We’ll see a world to which most now are blind.

   Though long ago I think I glimpsed that state
   With visionary exaltation that
   Endured one night, but did by dawn abate,
   Like turning down my psychic rheostat,

        Yet ever since, I’ve yearned I might return
        To find what further wonders I could learn.

II

    Let’s say then that there is one Cosmic Mind
    By which the universe has been designed,
    In which all human beings participate
    And may commune with when we meditate.

    Imagine it’s a beacon in the sky
    A guiding star to set our courses by,
    By grace of which, when reverently appealed,
    Good Orderly Direction is revealed.

    And yet, most of the time, we’re unaligned
    With the designs of Universal Mind,
    And earthly chaos is the consequence
    While what should be translucent becomes dense.

         The only cure’s to go back in the Zone
         Where what is universal is your own.

III

    The theory goes that all minds are entwined,
    Being by Cosmic Consciousness designed,
    With which we are essentially aligned,
    Though many to this circumstance are blind.

    They then by their estrangement are consigned
    To ignorance for what they have maligned
    Until their circumspection is refined,
    Revealing they are kin with every kind.

 

IV

     One Mind pervades the universe 
     In which all separate souls immerse:
     The Source from which all thoughts disburse,
     An infinite and generous purse.

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BEING WELL:
POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

       Neuroses and psychoses are a bitch:
       They drive our woeful lives into a ditch,
       Requiring counseling and therapy
       To straighten out our skewed mentality;

       But once we’re back to normal, is there more,
       Some psychic higher reaches to explore?
       When we’ve been rescued from our living hell,
       Is there a higher way of being well?

       Indeed, there is a growing school of thought
       Called positive psychology that’s sought
       Just that, discovering new levels of
       Performance and serenity and love.

            Although in many ways this life is hell,
            There still are paths to take for being well.

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MY RELIGION

    
     The principles by which I mean to live
     Are very like the Holy Trinity,
     For Father, Son and Holy Spirit give
     A pattern to my own philosophy:

     Where Father stands for Wisdom to acquire;
     Son stands for Love, Compassion, Sacrifice;
     And Spirit is the Joy that lifts us higher
     Hence: Wisdom, Love and Joy, to be concise.

     This is not my religion to believe
     But mine to do, a practice to perform,
     A way to live exalted, not to grieve,
     The surest way to weather any storm:

          To practice Wisdom, Love and Joy foremost
          Serves best the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

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PRUDENCE

            If you’d be wise, then you must realize
            What is of greatest value to devise,
            For wisdom is the prudence to foresee
            And serve what is of true necessity.

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PROVIDENCE

An Etymology

for Robert Frost

    The wisdom that is prudence comes to be
    Once you have gained the power to foresee
    The likely outcomes of each choice you make,
    Then choose for heaven’s and the future’s sake.

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G. O. D.

Now that we humans have brawned and brained ourselves into the status of Earth’s dominant species, having gained the potential to exterminate all higher life forms on the planet, sanity behooves us instead to wise up and devote our intelligence to salutary practices, to develop cooperative ways for Earthlife to flourish.

The inherent mission of our species is to employ our native intelligence so that Earth’s miraculous initiative succeeds.  To do so would be to follow that Good Orderly Direction implicit in the cosmos which some have designated as the will of GOD.

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FUTURE CONSCIOUSNESS

for Tom Lombardo

     If you’d be wise, then you would realize
     What is revealed through future consciousness
     With greater certainty than mere surmise:
     Your surest avenue to true success.

     To think ahead, anticipating ways
     That this or that decision might play out,
     Developing the judgment to appraise
     Alternatives, will leave you with less doubt

     And give you confidence to raise your voice
     To advocate for plans and policies
     By arguing the wisdom of your choice
    Till each opponent finally agrees.

          Such consciousness is thinking’s highest end
          On which our happy future will depend.

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BE KIND

     Examine all the scriptures you can find
     And at their roots you’ll see that we’re designed
     For love, the way we’re naturally inclined:
     The only true religion’s to be kind.

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ONE SMART LITTLE DOGGIE

            Tiggly-Wiggly, bustle-butt,
            Knows the how, the where, the what,
            And though it’s more than you might buy,
            I think she even knows the why.

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AGNOSTIC
 

     I don’t know how I came to consciousness
     With this capacity to apprehend
     Both world and mind, and even to address
     The wonderment to which I now attend.

     In some mysterious way I’ve come to think
     And know I think, with a capacity
     For self-reflection looking for a link
     Connecting me to cosmic mystery:

     The Source of consciousness behind a screen
     I’ve yet to penetrate but sometimes sense,
     An intimation of what’s yet unseen,
     A mind that’s unimaginably immense.

          I know enough to know I do not know,
          Yet hope in time my consciousness will grow.

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THE COSMIC LAW

        If you’d be wise, then first you must be kind
        Since it’s for partnership that we’re designed,
        And recognizing that we all are kin
        Is how our social order must begin;
        Whereas antagonism, hatred, strife
        Are the antitheses of civil life:

        Although it was at first the jungle’s law,
        Such animosity is now a flaw
        That our advance in wisdom must transcend
        Lest this experiment ignobly end.

        The Cosmos over eons has prepared
        The way for us and seems as if it’s cared
        For our success—how sad for us to fail
        When with a show of love we might prevail.

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WALDEN

  
         We’re brain-washed and addicted to our stuff
         Being made to feel we never have enough,
         When what we need to do is simplify,
         Living essentially until we die.

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