I realize I've reached the time
That I must be selective
As to what my preferences will be.

I’ll continue to toss a coin
To determine the direction I should go.
Speed and haste will not be a concern,

My pace will remain slow,

I do not waste my energy
On things that can't be changed.
If I spent time on past mistakes,
I’ll have wasted precious time.

.
Life has much to offer
To each of us.
I hope to conquer many things
Before my time is done.

I spent the past four months sailing a 42' catamaran from the British Virgin Islands (BVIs) to, and through the Panama Canal, then northward to a private marina south of Loreto, Baja California Sur, Mexico.  Along the way we, I and might two hired hands Christian and Charlotte, stopped in Panama, Costa Rica and various ports in Mexico.  Lovely journey, with narrow brushes with tropical storms, one hurricane, choppy seas and fantastic downwind sailing.

Now back in Palm Springs, where I'm making repairs on my tiny home, as well as planning my next sailing adventure.  Holidays are arriving soon, and it will be great to be back in the SF Bay area meeting friends and family. 

Here are some photos from the ten week sail.

I had forgotten about this poem, written in the early 1960s, as a protest against the Vietnam War. It resonates even more today. The original follows, from Khalil Gibran, written in 1933

Poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

"PITY THE NATION"
(After Khalil Gibran)

Pity the nation whose people are sheep
And whose shepherds mislead them
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars
Whose sages are silenced
And whose bigots haunt the airwaves
Pity the nation that raises not its voice
Except to praise conquerers
And acclaim the bully as hero
And aims to rule the world
By force and by torture
Pity the nation that knows
No other language but its own
And no other culture but its own
Pity the nation whose breath is money
And sleeps the sleep of the too well fed
Pity the nation oh pity the people
who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away
My country, tears of thee
Sweet land of liberty!

Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.
Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave
and eats a bread it does not harvest. 

Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero,
and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful. 

Pity a nation that despises a passion in its dream,
yet submits in its awakening. 

Pity the nation that raises not its voice
save when it walks in a funeral,
boasts not except among its ruins,
and will rebel not save when its neck is laid
between the sword and the block. 

Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox,
whose philosopher is a juggler,
and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking 

Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpeting,
and farewells him with hooting,
only to welcome another with trumpeting again. 

Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years
and whose strongmen are yet in the cradle. 

Pity the nation divided into fragments,
each fragment deeming itself a nation.

Kahlil Gibran, The Garden of The Prophet

Beautiful rendition!

“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.” 

- Anaïs Nin

“When people don't express themselves, they die one piece at a time.” 

- Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

Our body is just something you accumulated. It is a piece of earth you imbibed through food... Your body is on loan from the planet. All the countless numbers of people who have lived on this planet before you and me have all become topsoil, and so will you. This planet will collect back atom by atom what it has loaned to you...

If one is constantly, experientially aware that both the body and the mind are accumulations one has gathered, then that is samadhi. You are in the body, but you are not it. You are of the mind, but you are not it. That means that you are absolutely free of suffering because whatever suffering you have known enters you either through the body or through the mind. Once your awareness is keen enough to create a space between these two accumulations and who you really are--this is the end of all suffering.

-- Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev (with Cheryl Simone),
Midnights with the Mystic

One Regret

One regret, dear world, that I am determined not to have 

when I am lying on my deathbed is that 

I did not kiss you enough. 

— Hafiz

I long for You so much

I follow barefoot Your frozen tracks

That are high in the mountains

That I know are years old.

I long for You so much

I have even begun to travel

Where I have never been before.

-- Hafiz

Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

-- Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha

Once in mid-reach, I inquired of my hand.

"What moves you in that direction?
     What hope do you expect to fulfill?"

And an answer came to mind, for my hand
     had never really talked.

A voice I heard within said,
     "It is freedom from the shackle that is the root
           of all desire."

It is freedom from the shackle that is the
      root of all desire.

I am at a juncture now, 
     where I never have to be serious again.

If I act that way -- sober and concerned
     about everything --- it is a charade.

For those people who are serious, let's face it:
     they seem to have lots of problems.

And, who wants those?
/

Your fidelity to love, this is all you need.
     No day will match your strength.

What was once a fear or problem will see
     you coming, and step aside...or run.

A lover has four streams inside:
     water, wine, honey and milk.

Find those in our yourself, and pay no attention
     to what others may say.

The rose does not care if someone calls it a thorn,
     or jasmine.

Ordinary eyes categorize human beings.

Walk instead with the other vision given you,
     your first eyes.

Do not squint , and
     do not stare blankly like a vulture.

If you are in love with the infinite,
     why grieve over earth washing away in the rain?

Bow to the essence of a human being.

A battlefield drinks war-blood,
     but, if it knew this secret, springs would rise.

Do not be content with judging people good and bad.
     Grow out of that.

The great blessing arises from the ground on which we stand.

That strength lets us wait and trust the waiting.

What is the light in the center of the darkness
     in your soul.  A royal radiance 
           or a fantasy like the way the full moon
                comes up sometimes in the daytime?

Humans cannot endure such clarity.
      We make statues, apply paint
           and use words with hidden illusions.

When the eye turns to look somewhere else,
      what does it see?

An east wind bringing infinitesimal dust
     from the desert is the most I expect.

Some other time, man or woman, traveler,
     later, when I am not alive,
          look here, look for me
               between stone and ocean,
                    in the light storming
                         through the foam.

Look here, look for me,
      for here I will return, without saying a thing,
           without voice, without mouth, pure,
                here I will return to be the churning
                     of the water, of
                          its unbroken heart,
                               here, I will be discovered and lost:
                                    here, I will, perhaps, be stone and silence.

These stones are not sad.

Within them lives gold,
     they have the seeds of planets,
           they have bells in their depths,
                 gloves of iron, marriages
                      of time with the amethysts:
                           on the inside laughing with rubies,
                                nourishing themselves from lightning.

Because of this, traveler, pay attention
     to the hardships of the road,
          to mysteries on the walls.

I know this at great cost,
      that all life is not outward
           not all death within,
                and that the age writes letters
                     with water and stone for no one,
                           so that no one knows,
                                so that no one understands anything.

I grew up drenched in natural waters
     like the mollusk in the phosphorous sea.

In me, the crusty salt resounded
     and formed my singular skeleton.

How to explain -- almost without
     the blue and bitter rhythm of breathing,
          one by one the waves repeated
               what I sensed and trembled with
                    until salt and spray formed me.

The wave's rejection and desire,
     the green rhythm which at its most secret
          raised up a transparent tower.

It kept that secret, and all at once
     I felt that I was beating with it,
          that my song was growing with the water.

Eventually, I want to live across the sea.

My home built in a magical place,

     with continuous winds and salt waves,

         my eyes viewing Eden's beauty.

Wondrous the sun’s extravagance,

     the palm trees ample green,

          backed by a forest of flowers and fruits,

               on the edge of a sea harder than a blue stone.

Under a sky newly painted every day,

     with the delicate boat of one drifting cloud.

Suddenly, an occasional absurd gathering.

     rumbling thunder and water falling in cataracts,

          a hiss of anger —

               a monsoon exploding overhead…

          

Then…quiet... sunlight revealing the beauty

     of rain soaked land, and the drip

         of pure gold reflecting in the sun.

                                 -- after Pablo Nuerda

Stay together friends;
     Don't scatter and sleep.

Our friendship is made of
     being awake.

The waterwheel accepts water
     and, turns and gives it away,
          weeping.

That way it stays in the garden
     whereas another roundness rolls
          through a dry riverbed looking
               for what it thinks it wants.

Stay here, quivering with each moment,
     like a drop of mercury.


                                    -- Rumi

There is a way between voice and presence
     where information flows,

With disciplined silence, it opens.
     With wandering talk, it closes.


                                            - Rumi

A Morning Meditation

The rata-tat-tat of falling raindrops rising to a crescendo as the rain paints the metal roof;

Trickles, now, streams of water cascade down the windows forming puddles, lakes then miniature rivers flowing to the underworld and to the seas unseen;

Thunder, faintly grumbling in the distance, sharply contrasted as sheet lightning briefly brightens the darken, cloud swept skies, and, highlight the mountains that grasp and cling to the tumbling clouds;

Ever so intimately, like a young girl briefly sharing her face beneath a veil, the clouds open, revealing a bright star-lit sky far beyond the reaches of this earth-borne storm;

Slight whispers of rain-cleansed wind ruffle shades of the opened windows, bringing the scent of rain-soaked new life; occasional gusts rock the home reminding me of sleeping on a sailboat as the tides and currents teased it at its mooring;

The dimly-lit, shrouded sun struggles to pierce the heavy, rain-swollen clouds; a new day awakens, and the cycle of life begins anew.