The magic of your larger blooming life has been trying to reach you -- pouring through cracks, seeping up through the ground around you. It has no aim, save one: to save you; to bring back the moist oasis of midnight wine and pillow talk to that dry desert you've become.

Mind connecting to Earthis not mere mental projection.You are, in fact, being met.Body connecting to Earthis not mere leisure.Life-healing powersare extending outward to embrace you.

I used to keep a strong scaffolding in place.It separated Pure Land from ZenZen from DaoDharma quarantined from theway of mountain spirits.With a sudden glancein the middle of a storm,the bottom dropped outthe scaffolding fellalong with my mindand all of these nectarspoured into the same vat.

In these times, when even a simple day can feel like a firing pin, stretching corpse-like upon the earth is not leisure. It is medicine.

He asked me, as if looking for one definitive moment in time: 'How did Zen begin?' I pondered the matter a moment. 'Some say it started with a flower held up in the air, but you can't rely on formulas. Zen man Ikkyu was enlightened by the sound of a squawking crow.

Sometimes the soul knows of an impending shift before the shift arrives.

The doorway to the Dao is at the end of your toes. Step through.

Spring night in winter. The door open to night air. A family walks by. A child laughs with glee. Night-Sit. I ponder an old phrase of Ikkyu's: The buddhadharma is also the Way of Tea. A bolt of lightning splits my brain open and I pour down into my own heart.

Ascension is not arrival. Ascension is making it back.

The festival is over.We sit quietlysipping on memories of the daylooking out past window boxesat revelers heading home.I turn and watchas hieroglyphicsflow from your mouth.Ancient architecturesare being released againfrom doorways openingup and down your spine.In this hour before sleep, we feel it.The fibers holding the world togetherare crackling again.