When the name Jnana was bestowed on me back in 1972, it was soon expanded to Jnana-Devanandashram – or Jnana-Dev, in a diminutive.
Apart from recognizing my unique character and giving it focus, the name also linked me to a major saint and at least one mythical spirit in India’s past.
Prominent among them was Jnanadev, born in 1275 and described – I love this – as a mystic poet and slave of love. His Jnaneshwari is considered the second most-important commentary on the Bhagavad Gita. Alas, he died at age 21.
Now I see there’s another of our own time who’s a musician who performs with Tibetan monks.
That’s before we get to Facebook, with its host of entries, or the Jnana Yoga displays. As for Jnana alone in a Google search? There are millions, thanks to those software engineers from India.
Still, let me guess, I’m the only one you know. Am I wrong?
These field notes from religious aspiration and practice spring from a muse of fire. As much as Dr. Bronner’s bottle-label diatribes arose from a splash of water, at least when we read them, usually while showering or bathing.
A brief flash. Something that sparkles or shimmers. A half-seen motion, perhaps recollected later. Illumination. A beacon. A guide. A break in the night. Sometimes, this is something even the blind perceive. A word of truth. Prophecy or healing. A vision of eternal mysteries. A star or hint of coming dawn. And then, as James Nayler instructed: “And as thou followest the light out of the world, thou wilt come to see the seed, which to the world’s wisdom and glory is crucified” (Journal, 349). Everything is transformed and made new. Mind the Light.
~*~
DEVOLUTION AND RESURRECTION
Tat Ekam
that one thing
prakriti, pra = before
or kriti, creation
a sutra is only a note / a stitch / a knot
Wading into holy waters
to sink or be overwhelmed
decades later,
thunder
within
silence
returning to art
“keeps my feet on the ground”
carving wood and marble, “It’s so smooth”
these steps leading down to the water
in the sense water
is always below you
unless, that is, you’re in
up to your neck, as it were
some calm other than drowning
“We’re descended from lower-level gods
who mated with apes.”
Now outraged at other deities
next, we’ll encounter human brains
in tigers prowling along the street
all thanks to science.
Mine owners will be confined to the lands they’ve debauched / despoiled.
The Hidden Way –
Sometimes it’s Tao
Sometimes, passion
Sometimes, only a sunset
Or fog lifting
The saved love letters
become curled, black crumbling leaves
falling from the fire.
to UNBURDEN
AND MAKE NEW
first, burn all of the out-dated financial records,
then all of the old passionate drivel
that is, to MAKE FEW
as the Hidden Way
Is the route that opened
Through Glint’s own sea of reeds
Parting, at the base of mountains
she’s come through
a prayer of the earth, actually, of Seed
clearing, recentering
LIFT JESUS HIGHER
painted at the top
of a barn roof
Poem copyright 2017 by Jnana Hodson For more, click here.
best known for our anti-war witness
we could do much more
individually and together
to summon others
to transcendental worship
* * *
if we hesitate to strip naked or don sackcloth
to march brazenly into parking lots
and through malls
or the courthouse
or legislature
to proclaim Truth
to those who reach for a Budweiser
the first thing
1st-Day morning
or so passionately decry anything
smacking of religion or church
how else do we extend the welcome?
maybe we’re just getting old
or sedate
or muffling passion
this is more important
than placing a notice
in the paper or a line in the phone book
if anyone remembers
* * *
there’s no invitation
without an address
or sign
or billowing aromatic
celebration
made visible
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson To see the full set, click here.
In his Pendle Hill pamphlet last year, Marking the Quaker Path: Seven Key Words Plus One, Robert Griswold opens with the term “condition,” which initially seems familiar enough. Quakers often remark to a comment, “This speaks to my condition,” or even “the Friend speaks my mind,” conveying a sense of unity and affirmation.
Griswold, though, gives the concept a darker twist, noting that a meaningful spiritual journey requires seeing ourselves in our places of failure and weakness rather than a state of “being in charge,” as we so often do. Think of Anne Lamott’s “three essential prayers” — Help, Thanks, and Wow — and admit a long personal list invoking the first.
I would extend that awareness of condition not just to ourselves individually but to our families and circles of faith and then the wider society. I’d say there’s great need everywhere.
This, then, leads to the subsequent steps where we turn to the Holy One and our kindred spirits for direction and growth.
Curiously, condition is not a word I find used widely in either Scripture or early Quaker literature – not directly, that is – but it does fit the situation of many people as they set out in faith as recorded in both.
Could it be that in many of our religious circles, we’ve been running away from this very difficult but essential challenge? We go to worship looking for rest and renewal, not more turmoil and suffering.
Being mindful of what’s right in front of us can always be a challenge. Here are 10 new items from my end.
~*~
Hard to think Christmas is so near. It’s just not in the air, at least for me, despite the bell ringers and carols around the stores. But then I’m often off on another planet.
I always intend to put up our outdoor Christmas lights while it’s still warm. Rather than freezing my fingers.
I’ve long said if she would only dance, she’d be perfect. OK, there are few other details I’d add, all these years later. Learning to read music, for one.
Another old fear? If you get to know me, you won’t like me. Or maybe: You won’t like what you find. (That muscular reaction when someone gets too physically close in a conversation.
I seldom I feel myself fitting in – in a crowd, an audience, a group, a family.
NOT THE USUAL … one of my strictures in my desire not to repeat myself in blogging. Or anywhere else, for that matter. Not that I usually remember.
I miss being able to get the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts on local radio. These days I have to listen on my laptop or cell phone. Just ain’t the same.
In a depression.: Do I really LIKE anyone? Being with them? Am I having ANY fun?
Well, I am drinking Virgin Marys during Advent. (Cheers in the morning!)
You were supposed to save me.
~*~
Yes, light snow counts. We know what just might be really ahead.
how voraciously he climbs out
on the seeded maple twigs
* * *
incisor
domestica
rodentia
in residence
* * *
a squirrel with a martini
too much too often
fog in treetops before the wind blows
how do sparrows remember
once nested in this eave before rats or squirrels
found them out?
if it were only hickory nuts for high-fat content he’d
look shiny with such thought snickering abounds how is it
they acquire a taste for the Big Bad Wolf who bought the house?
* * *
nobody charged extra
for the vermin
* * *
in the walls they’re all wild creatures
of course, considering the jerry-rigged affairs
the preceding landholders had undertaken within this plot
(oh, the stories the neighbors were relating, all hinting
at more scandalous expansions now lost to posterity,
nobody could remember much in the way of detail,
except for the wild noises and all the coming and going)
the remaining evidence held no apologies
so what if we live
in cages of our own making? we still escape
into further flames or muck or fencing, all depending
on the company we keep
everyone’s a social creature,
the chattering
he’d considered birds was more or less
incensed squirrels, tearing about his estate
with that obscene flick of the tail
Poem copyright 2015 by Jnana Hodson
To read the full set of squirrelly poems, click here.
Jnana's Red Barn 