Love Letter To My Soul
I love you, Eric
You are wholly innocent yet
Your face is creased with care
Mountaintop molded
Wild wind winds your hair into
Dreadlocked braids of beauty
That trail behind you stars.
Your staff is crooked in the crook of your arm
As you stand by a creek that leads
Away from belief
Into knowing
Snow blowing
Wisdom into all the crevices
Of the rocky substrate that lives under the fertile soil
That rests easily on top of your vast experience
Bowing, genuflecting in your Northernmost years
You eye the sky
Blue, like you
Vast, larger than all you can see
It is what you wish for more than anything else
To be like Him.
To embrace the gently swirling planet
In a starry hug
And likewise all humanity
Their warring, slumbering, stumbling, beloved souls
Crying for all they could have
You would grant their every wish, wouldn't you?
I know you would.
It's what you are made of...
May the Creator of All That Is
Grant you your best hopes,
For Them and for You;
Those hopes that reach through your soil
Through your sacred stone
Into the beating red core
Of the holy, smiling intentions
Of your
Great
Compassionate
Heart.
--Eric Marley, for Aspen Tristan Marley
Two days before Hambleche, 2015
Thursday, June 11, 2015
Monday, June 8, 2015
Morning Mourning - Poem
Morning Mourning
In morning mourning
Hop scotched through dreams
Of lavender and pearl
Recollecting
And stopped
When it saw
Your blue eyes
Oh, your blue, blue eyes
That I will never see again
Outside of dreamtime…
And I remembered again
In decreasing detail
Your flowering face in
Intimate grace
And eyes of love with
Tiny lines around them
That told tales like back road
County maps through soul-filled
Sunshine days…
And I want to be there again with you
Lightning on the ridge over desert
Do you remember?
Smell of summer rain, sage
Making love like an open page
As the sky opens his fierce approval
Over our ancient rite
And a full moon howls through clouds
In our approaching night…
But I am left
With foggy mind
In morning mourning
Trying to hold the vapor
Just one moment more
Just one moment
Just one...
Your eyes are always the last to leave me
Fading tombs
Glistening dewdrop tears
You're gone.
Fading tombs
Glistening dewdrop tears
You're gone.
--Eric Marley
Friday, June 5, 2015
What Are You Waiting For? - Essay
What are you waiting for?
You were meant for more. You came here equipped with all the seeds of all the characteristics of Creator, carefully loaded into a backpack, especially for you. You were told to go, to find your bliss, to learn your Soul in a new place. You were excited to learn to follow your Inner Voice into the jungle to see what you were made of.
You’d heard of the jungle before departing, many times.
It was said that it was so deep and dark, with dangers so real, that they could make you tremble or run before them. It was even common for explorers, when faced with one of the inhabitants of the leafy maze, to wonder about a God that would allow something like THAT to exist. One of your friends left your little group and struck out on his own and you never spoke to him again. Tales came back, from time to time about him, like these: Early on, he was sick in a village and was healed by a witch doctor in a tribe no one had heard of. And there was the story that told of the time he had found gold in a stream and used it to make an idol that had allowed him access across what would have been an otherwise impenetrable border. And that once a shaman had come to him in a dream to warn him of an insatiable predator in the area. He left and when he passed through again a few days later, he saw a clearing the size of a football field that had been cleared by the monster's fury. In time, it was said that he defeated a dark witch, found a treasure, saved a village and became their king, but that he was coming back one day to tell of his amazing life.
You wanted an amazing life, too. You could see yourself living it. You were told before you left, and at one time you believed, that the treasure would be worth any risk, and that parts of that treasure would come as you continued your quest. They would be found within the journey itself. So you took your sword in hand with your heart full of the knowledge of your royal lineage, and walked into the garden of this life that held the bountiful, terrifying jungle in it’s center.
But you stopped. Oh, that beautiful sky, the abundant convenience, the wonders of ease! The jungle can wait another day...and then another. That question – the one that you learned to push to the back of your mind – could go unasked another week. You know the one: it’s the one that, if answered a certain way, would rock the foundations of all that had become so easy. It involved a relationship, concept, doctrine, or job. If you’re reading this, something may have sprung into your mind. If so, THAT may be keeping you from the deep and dark jungle. That is the monster that lies in front of you. If nothing jumped into your mind, your backpack is possibly resting somewhere nearby, and it’s possible you’ve become enamored of all that the earth provides those who have been blessed to live in a part of the world where water is found in a sink, and food is found in well-stocked stores.
But that’s not why you’re here. This wondrous place is not meant to be a resting place for you, or your soul. This is not meant to be Heaven on Earth – not like that, anyway. You were meant for the jungle. Your arms are meant to wield a machete, eyes sharp, peering, strong. You were meant to go days without food when necessary, to stitch your own skin, to learn the language of the snake, the gorilla, the elephant, the monkey and the fish. Your tools are a knife, a spear, a machete, your intellect, the soft awareness of your soul and your beautiful smile. Your breath is meant to be even, your awareness keen.
The story of your own soul’s journey, with its million tales of privation and blessings (in the nick of time) along the jungle path are what await you. But they cannot be found in a TV documentary about someone else’s walk, or in a store, or in a prepackaged system that keeps you safe. This story is uniquely yours and purely experiential. You co-author it with hosts of seen and unseen allies and enemies, all with one ultimate purpose: to test you to your core and to teach you wisdom from experience, the sacred key to eternity obtained in only one way: a solitary traverse through hell.
Anything that we rely upon to keep us from our dear journey is enough to keep us from wisdom. And if we return with stories of sunny days and abundant ease, the Masters that have gone before, that ones that did not shirk their duty to themselves in their days, will smile as one would to a three year old child that has found a penny on a sidewalk and is excited for their new treasure. And then they will send us back to find the questions we were unwilling to ask before. It is only a matter of time before you confront that jungle, in this life or another so…
What are you waiting for?
You were meant for more. You came here equipped with all the seeds of all the characteristics of Creator, carefully loaded into a backpack, especially for you. You were told to go, to find your bliss, to learn your Soul in a new place. You were excited to learn to follow your Inner Voice into the jungle to see what you were made of.
You’d heard of the jungle before departing, many times.
It was said that it was so deep and dark, with dangers so real, that they could make you tremble or run before them. It was even common for explorers, when faced with one of the inhabitants of the leafy maze, to wonder about a God that would allow something like THAT to exist. One of your friends left your little group and struck out on his own and you never spoke to him again. Tales came back, from time to time about him, like these: Early on, he was sick in a village and was healed by a witch doctor in a tribe no one had heard of. And there was the story that told of the time he had found gold in a stream and used it to make an idol that had allowed him access across what would have been an otherwise impenetrable border. And that once a shaman had come to him in a dream to warn him of an insatiable predator in the area. He left and when he passed through again a few days later, he saw a clearing the size of a football field that had been cleared by the monster's fury. In time, it was said that he defeated a dark witch, found a treasure, saved a village and became their king, but that he was coming back one day to tell of his amazing life.
You wanted an amazing life, too. You could see yourself living it. You were told before you left, and at one time you believed, that the treasure would be worth any risk, and that parts of that treasure would come as you continued your quest. They would be found within the journey itself. So you took your sword in hand with your heart full of the knowledge of your royal lineage, and walked into the garden of this life that held the bountiful, terrifying jungle in it’s center.
But you stopped. Oh, that beautiful sky, the abundant convenience, the wonders of ease! The jungle can wait another day...and then another. That question – the one that you learned to push to the back of your mind – could go unasked another week. You know the one: it’s the one that, if answered a certain way, would rock the foundations of all that had become so easy. It involved a relationship, concept, doctrine, or job. If you’re reading this, something may have sprung into your mind. If so, THAT may be keeping you from the deep and dark jungle. That is the monster that lies in front of you. If nothing jumped into your mind, your backpack is possibly resting somewhere nearby, and it’s possible you’ve become enamored of all that the earth provides those who have been blessed to live in a part of the world where water is found in a sink, and food is found in well-stocked stores.
But that’s not why you’re here. This wondrous place is not meant to be a resting place for you, or your soul. This is not meant to be Heaven on Earth – not like that, anyway. You were meant for the jungle. Your arms are meant to wield a machete, eyes sharp, peering, strong. You were meant to go days without food when necessary, to stitch your own skin, to learn the language of the snake, the gorilla, the elephant, the monkey and the fish. Your tools are a knife, a spear, a machete, your intellect, the soft awareness of your soul and your beautiful smile. Your breath is meant to be even, your awareness keen.
The story of your own soul’s journey, with its million tales of privation and blessings (in the nick of time) along the jungle path are what await you. But they cannot be found in a TV documentary about someone else’s walk, or in a store, or in a prepackaged system that keeps you safe. This story is uniquely yours and purely experiential. You co-author it with hosts of seen and unseen allies and enemies, all with one ultimate purpose: to test you to your core and to teach you wisdom from experience, the sacred key to eternity obtained in only one way: a solitary traverse through hell.
Anything that we rely upon to keep us from our dear journey is enough to keep us from wisdom. And if we return with stories of sunny days and abundant ease, the Masters that have gone before, that ones that did not shirk their duty to themselves in their days, will smile as one would to a three year old child that has found a penny on a sidewalk and is excited for their new treasure. And then they will send us back to find the questions we were unwilling to ask before. It is only a matter of time before you confront that jungle, in this life or another so…
What are you waiting for?
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