Re: Dancing the Dream (1992) – Poems

Da **Michaelforever** Ven Ott 21, 2011 9:29 am

But The Heart Said No

They saw the poor living in cardboard shacks, so they knocked the shacks down and built projects. Huge blocks of cement and glass towered over asphalt parking lots. Somehow it wasn’t much like home, even home in a shack. “What do you expect?” they asked impatiently. “You’re too poor to live like us. Until you can do better for yourselves, you should be grateful, shouldn’t you?” The head said yes, but the heart said no. They needed more electricity in the city, so they found a mountain stream to dam. As the waters rose, dead rabbits and deer floated by; baby birds too young to fly drowned in the nest while mother birds cried helplessly. “It’s not a pretty sight,” they said, “but now a million people can run their air conditioners all summer. That’s more important than one mountain stream, isn’t it?” The head said yes, but the heart said no.

They saw oppression and terrorism in a far-off land, so they made war against it. Bombs reduced the country to rubble. Its population cowered in fear, and every day more villagers were buried in rough wooden coffins. “You have to be prepared to make sacrifices,” they said. “If some innocent bystanders get hurt, isn’t that just the price one must pay for peace?” The head said yes, but the heart said no.

The years rolled by and they got old. Sitting in their comfortable houses, they took stock. “We’ve had a good life,” they said, “and we did the right thing.” Their children looked down and asked why poverty, pollution, and war were still unsolved. “You’ll find out soon enough,” they replied. “Human beings are weak and selfish. Despite our best efforts, these problems will never really end.”

The head said yes, but the children looked into their hearts and whispered, “No!”

Da **Michaelforever** Ven Ott 21, 2011 9:29 am

So The Elephants March

A curious fact about elephants is this: In order to survive, they mustn’t fall down. Every other animal can stumble and get back up again. But an elephant always stands up, even to sleep. If one of the herd slips and falls, it is helpless. It lies on its side, a prisoner of its own weight. Although the other elephants will press close around it in distress and try to lift it up again, there isn’t usually much they can do. With slow heaving breaths, the fallen elephant dies. The others stand vigil, then slowly move on. This is what I learned from nature books, but I wonder if they are right.

Isn’t there another reason why elephants can’t fall down? Perhaps they have decided not to. Not to fall down is their mission. As the wisest and most patient of the animals, they made a pact – I imagine it was eons ago, when the ice ages were ending. Moving in great herds across the face of the earth, the elephants first spied tiny men prowling the tall grasses with their flint spears. “What fear and anger this creature has,” the elephants thought. “But he is going to inherit the earth. We are wise enough to see that. Let us set an example for him.”

Then the elephants put their grizzled heads together and pondered. What kind of example could they show to man? They could show him that their power was much greater than his, for that was certainly true. They could display their anger before him, which was terrible enough to uproot whole forests. Or they could lord it over man through fear, trampling his fields and crushing his huts. In moments of great frustration, wild elephants will do all of these things, but as a group, putting their heads together, they decided that man would learn best from a kinder message.

“Let us show him our reverence for life,” they said. And from that day on, elephants have been silent, patient, peaceful creatures. They let men ride them and harness them like slaves. They permit children to laugh at their tricks in the circus, exiled from the great African plains where they once lived as lords. But the elephants’ most important message is in their movement. For they know that to live is to move. Dawn after dawn, age after age, the herds march on, one great mass of life that never falls down, an unstoppable force of peace.

Innocent animals, they do not suspect that after all this time, they will fall from a bullet by the thousands. They will lie in the dust, mutilated by our shameless greed. The great males fall first, so that their tusks can be made into trinkets. Then the females fall, so that men may have trophies. The babies run screaming from the smell of their own mothers’ blood, but it does them no good to run from the guns. Silently, with no one to nurse them, they will die, too, and all their bones bleach in the sun.

In the midst of so much death, the elephants could just give up. All they have to do is drop to the ground. That is enough. They don’t need a bullet: Nature has given them the dignity to lie down and find their rest. But they remember their ancient pact and their pledge to us, which is sacred. So the elephants march on, and every tread beats out words in the dust: “Watch, learn, love. Watch, learn, love.” Can you hear them? One day in shame, the ghosts of ten thousand lords of the plains will say, “We do not hate you. Don’t you see at last? We were willing to fall, so that you, dear small ones, will never fall again.”

Da **Michaelforever** Ven Ott 21, 2011 9:29 am

Children

Children show me in their playful smiles the divine in everyone. This simple goodness shines straight from their hearts. This has so much to teach. If a child wants chocolate ice cream, he just asks for it. Adults get tangled up in complications over whether to eat the ice cream or not. A child simply enjoys. What we need to learn from children isn’t childish. Being with them connects us to the deep wisdom of life, which is ever present and only asks to be lived. Now, when the world is so confused and its problems so complicated, I feel we need our children more than ever. Their natural wisdom points the way to solutions that lie, waiting to be recognized, within our own hearts.

Da **Michaelforever** Ven Ott 21, 2011 9:30 am

On Children Of The World

We have to heal our wounded world. The chaos, despair, and senseless destruction we see today are a result of the alienation that people feel from each other and their environment. Often this alienation has its roots in an emotionally deprived childhood. Children have had their childhood stolen from them. A child’s mind needs the nourishment of mystery, magic, wonder, and excitement. I want my work to help people rediscover the child that’s hiding in them.
Magic

My idea of magic doesn’t have much to do with stage tricks and illusions. The whole world abounds in magic. When a whale plunges out of the sea like a newborn mountain, you gasp in unexpected delight. What magic! But a toddler who sees his first tadpole flashing in a mud puddle feels the same thrill. Wonder fills his heart, because he has glimpsed for an instant the playfulness of life. When I see the clouds whisked away from a snow-capped peak, I feel like shouting, “Bravo!” Nature, the best of all magicians, has delivered another thrill. She has exposed the real illusion, our inability to be amazed by her wonders. Every time the sun rises, Nature is repeating one command: “Behold!” Her magic is infinitely lavish, and in return all we have to do is appreciate it.

What delight Nature must feel when she makes stars out of swirling gas and empty space. She flings them like spangles from a velvet cape, a billion reasons for us to awaken in pure joy. When we open our hearts and appreciate all she has given us, Nature finds her reward. The sound of applause rolls across the universe, and she bows.

Da **Michaelforever** Ven Ott 21, 2011 9:30 am

The Fish That Was Thirsty

One night a baby fish was sleeping under some coral when God appeared to him in a dream. “I want you to go forth with a message to all the fish in the sea,” God said. “What should I tell them?” the little fish asked. “Just tell them you’re thirsty,” God replied. “And see what they do.” Then without another word, He disappeared.

The next morning the little fish woke up and remembered his dream. “What a strange thing God wants me to do,” he thought to himself. But as soon as he saw a large tuna swimming by, the little fish piped up, “Excuse me, but I’m thirsty.” “Then you must be a fool,” then tuna said. And with a disdainful flick of his tail, he swam away.

The little fish did feel rather foolish, but he had his orders. The next fish he saw was a grinning shark. Keeping a safe distance, the little fish called out, “Excuse me, sir, but I’m thirsty.” “Then you must be crazy,” the shark replied. Noticing a rather hungry look in the shark’s eye, the little fish swam away quickly. All day he met cod and mackerels and swordfish and groupers, but every time he made his short speech, they turned their backs and would have nothing to do with him. Feeling hopelessly confused, the little fish sought out the wisest creature in the sea, who happened to be an old blue whale with three harpoon scars on his side.

“Excuse me, but I’m thirsty!” the little fish shouted, wondering if the old whale could even see him, he was such a tiny speck. But the wise one stopped in his tracks. “You’ve seen God, haven’t you?” he said. “How did you know?” “Because I was thirsty once, too.” The old whale laughed. The little fish looked very surprised. “Please tell me what this message from God means,” he implored.

“It means that we are looking for Him in the wrong places,” the old whale explained. “We look high and low for God, but somehow He’s not there. So we blame Him and tell ourselves that He must have forgotten us. Or else we decide that He left a long time ago, if He was ever around.” “How strange,” the little fish said, “to miss what is everywhere.” “Very strange,” the old whale agreed. “Doesn’t it remind you of fish who say they’re thirsty?”

Da **Michaelforever** Ven Ott 21, 2011 9:31 am

Berlin 1989

They hated the Wall, but what could they do? It was too strong to break through. They feared the Wall, but didn’t that make sense? Many who tried to climb over it were killed. They distrusted the Wall, but who wouldn’t? Their enemies refused to tear down one brick, no matter how long the peace talks dragged on. The Wall laughed grimly. “I’m teaching you a good lesson,” it boasted. “If you want to build for eternity, don’t bother with stones. Hatred, fear, and distrust are so much stronger.” They knew the Wall was right, and they almost gave up. Only one thing stopped them. They remembered who was on the other side. Grandmother, cousin, sister, wife. Beloved faces that yearned to be seen. “What’s happening?” the Wall asked, trembling. Without knowing what they did, they were looking through the Wall, trying to find their dear ones. Silently, from one person to another, love kept up its invisible work. “Stop it!” the Wall shrieked. “I’m falling apart.” But it was too late. A million hearts had found each other. The Wall had fallen before it came down.

Da **Michaelforever** Ven Ott 21, 2011 9:39 am

Angel Of Light

It’s hard to see angels, although I’ve stared at their pictures for hours. Some people can see them without pictures, and they tell interesting tales. Guardian angels are all female, for instance, which didn’t surprise me once I found out. A birth angel, recruited from the younger ranks, attends every baby when it appears, while another angel, older but not grim, helps the dying to leave this world without grief or pain.

You can pray to the angels and they will listen, but the best way to call them, I am told, is to laugh. Angels respond to delight, because that is what they’re made of. In fact, when people’s minds are clouded by anger or hatred, no angel can reach them.

Not all angels have wings — so the visionaries claim — but those who do can unfurl a span of golden feathers stretching over the entire world. If you had eyes that could look straight into the sun, you would see an overwhelming angel presiding there; a more serene one smiles out from the face of the moon.

Angels spend their entire lives, which are forever, spinning around the Creator’s throne, singing His praise. People with keen ears have listened in. The harmonies of the angelic choir are incredibly complex, they say, but the rhythm is simple. “It’s mostly march time,” one eavesdropper affirmed. For some reason, that fact is almost the best I have learned so far.

After a while it got lonely hearing about angels you couldn’t see for yourself. When an angel-watcher heard that, she was shocked. “Not see?” she said. “But you have an angel in you. Everybody does. I can see it right now, and I thought you could, too.” “No,” I said sadly, and I asked what it looked like. “Did it look like me?”

“Well, yes and no,” the angel-watcher mysterious answered. “It all depends on what you think you are. Your angel is a speck of light perched at the very center of your heart. It is smaller than an atom, but just wait. Once you get close to it, your angel will expand. The closer you come, the more it will grow, until finally, in a burst of light, you will see your angel in its true shape, and at that very instant, you will also see yourself.”

So now I am looking for my angel all the time. I sit silently, turning my gaze inward. It wasn’t long before I caught a glimpse of something. “Is that you, Angel, holding a candle?” One flicker and it was gone. Yet that was enough to set my heart wildly beating. Next time my angel will be waving a lamp, then holding a torch aloft, then lighting a bonfire.

That’s what the angel-watcher promised, and now that I have caught sight of glory, I know enough to believe.

Da **Michaelforever** Ven Ott 21, 2011 9:40 am

That One In The Mirror

I wanted to change the world, so I got up one morning and looked in the mirror. That one looking back said: “There is not much time left. The earth is wracked with pain. Children are starving. Nations remain divided by mistrust and hatred. Everywhere the air and water have been fouled almost beyond help. Do something!”

That one in the mirror felt very angry and desperate. Everything looked like a mess, a tragedy, a disaster. I decided he must be right. Didn’t I feel terrible about these things, too, just like him? The planet was being used up and thrown away. Imagining earthly life just one generation from now made me feel panicky.

It was not hard to find the good people who wanted to solve the earth’s problems. As I listened to their solutions, I thought, There is so much good will here, so much concern. At night before going to bed, that one in the mirror looked back at me seriously, Now we’ll get somewhere, he declared. If everybody does their part.

But everybody didn’t do their part. Some did, but were they stopping the tide? Were pain, starvation, hatred, and pollution about to be solved? Wishing wouldn’t make it so – I knew that. When I woke up the next morning, that one in the mirror looked confused. Maybe it’s hopeless, he whispered… Then a sly look came into his eyes, and he shrugged. But you and I will survive. At least we are doing all right.

I felt strange when he said that. There was something very wrong here. A faint suspicion came to me, one that had never dawned so clearly before. What if that one in the mirror isn’t me? He feels separate. He sees problems – out there – to be solved. Maybe they will be, maybe they won’t. He’ll get along. But I don’t feel that way – those problems aren’t out there, not really. I feel them inside me. A child crying in Ethiopia, a sea gull struggling pathetically in an oil spill, a mountain gorilla being mercilessly hunted, a teenage soldier trembling with terror when he hears the planes fly over. Aren’t these happening in me when I see and hear about them?

The next time I looked in the mirror, that one looking back had started to fade. It was only an image after all. It showed me a solitary person enclosed in a neat package of skin and bones. “Did I once think you were me?” I began to wonder. I am not so separate and afraid. The pain of life touches me, but the joy of life is so much stronger. And it alone will heal. Life is the healer of life, and the most I can do for the earth is to be its loving child.
That one in the mirror winced and squirmed. He hadn’t thought so much about love. Seeing problems was much easier, because love means complete self-honesty. Ouch!

Oh, friend, I whispered to him, do you think anything can solve problems without love? That one in the mirror wasn’t sure. Being alone for so long, not trusting others and being trusted by others, it tended to detach itself from the reality of life. “Is love more real than pain?” he asked.

“I can’t promise that it is. But it might be. Let’s discover”, I said. I touched the mirror with a grin. “Let’s not be alone again. Will you be my partner? I hear a dance starting up. Come”. That one in the mirror smiled shyly. He was realizing we could be best friends. We could be more peaceful, more loving, more honest with each other every day.

“Would that change the world?” I think it will, because Mother Earth wants us to be happy and to love her as we tend her needs. She needs fearless people on her side, whose courage comes from being part of her, like a baby who is brave enough to walk because Mother is holding out her arms to catch him. When that one in the mirror is full of love for me and for him, there is no room for fear. When we were afraid and panicky, we stopped loving this life of ours and this earth.

We disconnected. Yet how can anybody rush to help the earth if they feel disconnected? Perhaps the earth is telling us what she wants, and by not listening, we fall back on our own fear and panic.

One thing I know: I never feel alone when I am earth’s child. I do not have to cling to my personal survival as long as I realize, day by day, that all of life is in me. The children and their pain; the children and their joy. The ocean swelling under the sun; the ocean weeping with black oil. The animals hunted in fear; the animals bursting with the sheer joy of being alive.

This sense of – the world in me – is how I always want to feel. That one in the mirror has his doubts sometimes. So I am tender with him. Every morning I touch the mirror and whisper,

Oh, friend, I hear a dance. Will you be my partner? Come.

Da **Michaelforever** Ven Ott 21, 2011 9:40 am

Look Again Baby Seal

One of the most touching nature photographs is of a baby fur seal lying on the ice alone. I’m sure you have seen it — the picture seems to be all eyes, the trusting dark eyes of a small animal gazing up at the camera and into your heart. When I first looked at them, the eyes asked, “Are you going to hurt me?” I knew the answer was yes, because thousands of baby seals were being killed every year.

Many people were touched by one baby seal’s helplessness. They gave money to save the seals, and public awareness started to shift. As I returned to the picture, those two wide eyes began to say something different. Now they asked, “Do you know me?” This time I didn’t feel so much heartache as when I felt the violence man inflicts upon animals.

But I realized that there was still a big gap. How much did I really know about life on earth? What responsibility did I feel for creatures outside my little space? How could I lead my life so that every cell of living matter was also benefited?

Everyone who began to wonder about these things found, I think, that their feelings were shifting away from fear toward more closeness with life as a whole. The beauty and wonder of life began to seem very personal; the possibility of making the planet a garden for all of us to grow in began to dawn. I looked into the eyes of the baby seal, and for the first time they smiled. “Thank you,” they said. “You have given me hope.”

Is that enough? Hope is such a beautiful word, but it often seems very fragile. Life is still being needlessly hurt and destroyed. The image of one baby seal alone on the ice or one baby girl orphaned in war is still frightening in its helplessness. I realized that nothing would finally save life on earth but trust in life itself, in its power to heal, in its ability to survive our mistakes and welcome us back when we learn to correct those mistakes.

With these thoughts in my heart, I looked at the picture again. The seal’s eyes seemed much deeper now, and I saw something in them that I had missed before: unconquerable strength. “You have not hurt me,” they said. “I am not one baby alone. I am life, and life can never be killed. It is the power that brought me forth from the emptiness of space; it cared for me and nourished my existence against all dangers. I am safe because I am that power. And so are you. Be with me, and let us feel the power of life together, as one creature here on earth.”

Baby seal, forgive us. Look at us again and again to see how we are doing. Those men who raise their clubs over you are also fathers and brothers and sons. They have loved and cared for others. One day they will extend that love to you. Be sure of it and trust.

Da **Michaelforever** Ven Ott 21, 2011 9:40 am

A Child Is A Song

When children listen to music, they don’t just listen. They melt into the melody and flow with the rhythm. Something inside starts to unfold its wings – soon the child and the music are one. I feel that way, too, in the presence of music, and my best moments of creativity have often been spent with children. When I am around them, music comes to me as easily as breathing.

Each song is a child I nourish and give my love to. But even if you have never written a song, your life is a song. How can it not be? In wave after wave, Nature caresses you – the rhythm of each dawn and each sunset is part of you, the falling rain touches your soul, and you see yourself in the clouds that are playing tag with the sun. To live is to be musical, starting with the blood dancing in your veins. Everything living has a rhythm. To feel each one, softly and attentively, brings out its music.

Do you feel your music?

Children do, but once we grow up, life becomes a burden and a chore, and the music grows fainter. Sometimes the heart is so heavy that we turn away from it and forget that its throbbing is the wisest message of life, a wordless message that says, “Live, be, move, rejoice — you are alive!” Without the heart’s wise rhythm, we could not exist.

When I begin to feel a little tired or burdened, children revive me. I turn to them for new life, for new music. Two brown eyes look at me so deeply, so innocently, and inside I murmur, “This child is a song.” It is so true and direct an experience that instantly I realize again, “I am a song also.” I am back to myself once more.

Da **Michaelforever** Ven Ott 21, 2011 9:41 am

I You We

I said you had to do it. You said you didn’t want to. We talked about it, and we agreed that maybe I could help. I said you were wrong. You insisted you were right. We held each other’s hand, and right and wrong disappeared. I began crying. You began crying, too. We embraced, and between us grew a flower of peace. How I love this mystery called We! Where does it come from, out of thin air?

I thought about this mystery, and I realized something: We must be love’s favorite child, because until I reach out for you, We is not even there. It arrives on the wings of tenderness: it speaks through our silent understanding. When I laugh at myself, it smiles. When I forgive you, it dances in jubilation. So We is not a choice anymore, not if you and I want to grow with one another. We unites us, increases our strength; it picks up our burden when you and I are ready to let it fall. The truth is that you and I would have given up long ago, but We won’t let us. It is too wise. “Look into your hearts,” it says. “What do you see? Not you and I, but only We.”

Da **Michaelforever** Ven Ott 21, 2011 9:41 am

Mother Earth

I was walking along the beach one winter day. Looking down, I saw a wave push a feather up on the sand. It was a sea gull feather stained with oil. I picked it up and felt the dark slick film on my fingers. I couldn’t help wondering if the bird had survived. Was it all right out there? I knew it wasn’t.

I felt sad to think how carelessly we treat our home. The earth we all share is not just a rock tossed through space but a living, nurturing being. She cares for us; she deserves our care in return. We’ve been treating Mother Earth the way some people treat a rental apartment. Just trash it and move on.

But there’s no place to move on to now. We have brought our garbage and our wars and our racism to every part of the world. We must begin to clean her up, and that means cleaning up our own hearts and minds first, because they led us to poison our dear planet. The sooner we change, the easier it will be to feel our love for Mother Earth and the love she so freely gives back to us.

Da **Michaelforever** Ven Ott 21, 2011 9:42 am

Don’t Judge

Like the old Indian proverb says, “Do not judge a man until you’ve walked 2 moons in his moccasins”. Most people don’t know me, that is why they write such things in which MOST is not true. I cry very often because it hurts and I worry about the children all over the world, I live for them.

If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.

Animals strike, not from malice, but because they want to live, it is the same with those who criticize; they desire our BLOOD, not our pain. But still I must achieve I must seek truth in all things. I must endure for the power I was sent forth, for the world, for the children.

But have mercy, for I’ve been bleeding a long time now.

Da **Michaelforever** Ven Ott 21, 2011 9:42 am

The Last Tear

Your words stabbed my heart, and I cried tears of pain. “Get out!” I shouted. “These are the last tears I’ll ever cry for you.” So you left. I waited for hours, but you didn’t return. That night by myself I cried tears of frustration. I waited weeks, but you had nothing to say. Thinking of your voice, I cried tears of loneliness. I waited months, but you left no sign for me. In the depths of my heart, I cried tears of despair. How strange that all these tears could not wash away the hurt! Then one thought of love pierced my bitterness. I remembered you in the sunlight, with a smile as sweet as May wine. A tear of gratitude started to fall, and miraculously, you were back. Soft fingers touched my cheek, and you bent over for a kiss. “Why have you come?” I whispered. “To wipe away your last tear,” you replied. “It was the one you saved for me.”

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