Gaia Community: Karuna's Blog

real life

http://karuna.gaia.com — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 06:43:32 GMT

Waiting for my Real Life to Begin

Any minute now, 

my ship is coming in
 
I'll keep checking the horizon 

I'll stand on the bow, 

feel the waves 

come crashing 

Come crashing 

down down down, 

on me 

And you say, 

be still my love 

Open up your heart 

Let the light shine in 

But don't you understand 

I already have a plan 

I'm waiting 

for my real life 

to begin 

When I awoke today, 

suddenly nothing happened 

But in my dreams,

 I slew the dragon 

And down this beaten path, 

and up this cobbled lane 

I'm walking in my old footsteps, 

once again 

And you say, 

just be here now 

Forget about the past, 

your mask is wearing thin 

Let me throw 

one more dice 

I know 

that I can win 

I'm waiting 

for my real life 

to begin 

Any minute now, 

my ship is coming in 

I’ll keep checking

the horizon 

And I'll check my machine, 

there's sure to be 

that call 

It's gonna happen 

soon, soon, soon 

It's just that times 

are lean 

And you say, 

be still my love 

Open up your heart, 

let the light 

shine in 

Don't you understand 

I already 

have a plan 

I'm waiting 

for my real life 

to begin 




click on song title above to play the song


song: waiting for my real life to begin

from the album:: "Going Somewhere" 

(written by: Colin Hay / Thom Mooney) 

performed byColin Hay

Tags:

autumn leaves

http://karuna.gaia.com — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 06:02:59 GMT

Eva Cassidy - Autumn Leaves

The falling leaves drift by my window

The falling leaves of red and gold

I see your lips, the summer kisses

The sunburned hands I used to hold

Since you went away the days grow long

And soon I'll hear old winter's song

But I miss you most of all, my darling

When autumn leaves start to fall

Since you went away the days grow long

And soon I'll hear old winter's song

But I miss you most of all, my darling

When autumn leaves start to fall

I miss you most of all, my darling

When autumn leaves start to fall

Tags: falling, leaves, summer kisses, sunburned hands, winter's song, darling, autumn leaves

heavy

http://karuna.gaia.com — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 02:05:42 GMT

The time

I thought I could not

go any closer to grief

without dying

I went closer

and I did not die.

Surely God

had His hand in this,

as well as friends,

Still, I was bent,

and my laughter,

as the poet said,

was nowhere to be found.

Then said my friend Daniel

(brave even among lions),

"It's not the weight you carry

but how you carry it--

books, bricks, grief--

it's all in the way

you embrace it, balance it, carry it

when you cannot, and would not,

put it down."

So I went practicing.

Have you noticed?

Have you heard the laughter

that comes, now and again,

out of my startled mouth?

How I linger

to admire, admire, admire

the things of this world

that are kind, and maybe

also troubled--

roses in the wind,

the sea geese on the steep wave,

a love

to which there is no reply?

- Mary Oliver

Tags: heavy, heaviness, time, grief, death, dying, closer, god, friends, nowhere, laughter

kindness

http://karuna.gaia.com — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 01:45:54 GMT

Before you know what kindness really is

you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,

what you counted and carefully saved,

all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be

between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ride

thinking the bus will never stop,

the passengers eating maize and chicken

will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,

you must travel where the

Indian in a white poncho lies dead

by the side of the road.

You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed

through the night

with plans and the simple breath

that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness

as the deepest thing inside,

you must know sorrow.

You must speak to it till your voice

catches the thread of all sorrows

and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness

that makes sense anymore,

only kindness that ties your shoes

and sends you out into the day

to mail letters and purchase bread,

only kindness that raises its head

from the crowd of the world to say

it is I you have been looking for,

and then goes with you everywhere

like a shadow or a friend.

-Naomi Shihab Nye

Tags: kindness, loss, dissolution, go, staring out the window, tenderness, gravity, death, journey, night, breath

where tigers belch + monkeys howl

http://karuna.gaia.com — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 18:10:30 GMT

B e n e d i c t o :

May your trails be crooked,

   winding, lonesome,

dangerous, leading to the most amazing

   view.

May your rivers flow without end,

meandering through pastoral valleys

   tinkling with bells,

past temples and castles and poets' towers

into a dark primeval forest where tigers

   belch and monkeys howl,

through miasmal and mysterious swamps

   and down into a desert of red rock,

blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and

   grottos of endless stone,

and down again into a deep vast ancient

   unknown chasm

where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled

   cliffs,

where deer walk across the white sand

   beaches,

where storms come and go

as lightning clangs upon the high crags,

where something strange and more beautiful

and more wonderful than your deepest

   dreams

waits for you-

beyond the next turning of the canyon

   walls.

-Edward Abbey (1927 - 1989)

"If a label is required, say I am one who loves the unfenced country"

Tags: benedicto, trails, winding, lonesome, dangerous, amazing view, rivers, valleys, bells, temples, castles

secret o' life

http://karuna.gaia.com — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 10:52:46 GMT

The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time

Any fool can do it

There ain't nothing to it

Nobody knows how we got to

The top of the hill

But since we're on our way down

We might as well enjoy the ride

The secret of love is in opening up your heart

It's okay to feel afraid

But don't let that stand in your way

'cause anyone knows that love is the only road

And since we' re only here for a while

Might as well show some style

Give us a smile

Isn't it a lovely ride

Sliding down

Gliding down

Try not to try too hard

It's just a lovely ride

Now the thing about time is that time

Isn't really real

It's just your point of view

How does it feel for you

Einstein said he could never understand it all

Planets spinning through space

The smile upon your face

Welcome to the human race

Some kind of lovely ride

I'll be sliding down

I'll be gliding down

Try not to try too hard

It's just a lovely ride

Isn't it a lovely ride

Sliding down

Gliding down

Try not to try too hard

It's just a lovely ride

Now the secret of life is enjoying the passage of time

- James Taylor

Tags: secret, secret of life, life, fool, enjoy, secret of love, love, open, heart, smile, lovely

let it cut

http://karuna.gaia.com — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 04:05:45 GMT

Don't

Surrender

Your loneliness so quickly.

Let it cut more

Deep.

Let it ferment and season you

As few human

Or even Divine ingredients can.

Something missing in my heart tonight

Has made my eyes so soft,

My voice so

Tender,

My need of God

Absolutely

Clear.

- Hafiz

Tags: surrender, loneliness, cut, deep, ferment, season, human, divine, missing, heart, eyes

it's a dream

http://karuna.gaia.com — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 03:57:51 GMT

In the morning when I wake up and listen to the sound
Of the birds outside on the roof
I try to ignore what the paper says
And I try not to read all the news
And I'll hold you if you had a bad dream
And I hope it never comes true
'Cause you and I been through so many things together
And the sun starts climbing the roof

It's a dream
Only a dream
And it's fading now
Fading away
It's only a dream
Just a memory without anywhere to stay

The Red River still flows through my home town
Rollin' and tumblin' on its way
Swirling around the old bridge pylons
Where a boy fishes the morning away
His bicycle leans on an oak tree
While the cars rumble over his head
An aeroplane leaves a trail in an empty blue sky
And the young birds call out to be fed

It's a dream
Only a dream
And it's fading now
Fading away
It's only a dream
Just a memory without anywhere to stay

An old man walks along on the sidewalk
Sunglasses and an old Stetson hat
The four winds blow the back of his overcoat away
As he stops with the policeman to chat
And a train rolls out of the station
That was really somethin' in its day
Picking up speed on the straight prairie rails
As it carries the passengers away

It's gone
Only a dream
And it's fading now
Fading away
Only a dream
Just a memory without anywhere to stay

It's a dream
Only a dream
And it's fading now
Fading away
It's only a dream
Just a memory without anywhere to stay

It's a dream
Only a dream
And it's fading now
Fading away

- Neil Young

"It's a Dream"

from Prairie Wind

Tags: dream, morning, wake up, listen, birds, true, you + i, together, sun, river, sky

the cove

http://karuna.gaia.com — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 00:55:10 GMT

Something was out there on the lake, just barely

visible in the dark.

I knelt and stared, trying to make it out,

trying to mark

its position relative to mine,

and the picturesque willow, the moon-silvered diving board

on the opposite shore. I listened hard

but heard

no sound from it, although I cupped one ear

as I knelt in the cove,

wondering how far I should take this, if I should seek

someone to row out there with me. Yet it didn't move

or grow darker or lighter. Most shapes,

you know what they are:

a rock-garden serpent, a house in the mist, a man's head,

an evening star,

but not this one. Whatever was out there kept changing

from large to small.

The mass of a wooden coffin surfaced,

then the head of an owl,

a tree limb, a window, a veil -

I couldn't resolve it. I ran one hand through my hair

as I stood up, shrugging. I had just turned fifty

and whatever it was that might be floating there

I didn't want it to be. Too much before

that came unbidden into my life

I'd let take me over. I knelt again and stared again.

Something was out there just beyond the cove.

- Dick Allen

Tags: cove, something, barely visible, dark, relativity, willow, moon, opposite, shore, listening, silence

where the sidewalk ends

http://karuna.gaia.com — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 04:02:35 GMT

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

- Shel Silverstein

Tags: place, sidewalk, end, endings, street, begin, beginnings, grass, soft, sun, burns

too alone

http://karuna.gaia.com — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 07:26:04 GMT

I am too alone in the world, and not alone enough

to make every minute holy.

I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough

just to lie before you like a thing,

shrewd and secretive.

I want my own will, and I want simply to be with my will,

as it goes toward action,

and in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times

when something is coming near,

I want to be with those who know secret things

or else alone.

I want to be a mirror for your whole body,

and I never want to be blind, or to be too old

to hold up your heavy and swaying picture.

I want to unfold.

I don't want to stay folded anywhere,

because where I am folded, there I am a lie.

And I want my grasp of things

true before you. I want to describe myself

like a painting that I looked at

closely for a long time,

like a saying that I finally understood,

like the pitcher I use every day,

like the face of my mother,

like a ship

that took me safely

through the wildest storm of all.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Tags: i am, alone, world, aloneness, every minute, holy, tiny, want, will, action, every moment

a ritual to read to each other

http://karuna.gaia.com — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 05:50:09 GMT

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider--
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

- William Stafford

Tags: ritual, be yourself, knowledge, self, other, you, me, respect, each other, patterns, god

hallelujah

http://karuna.gaia.com — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 07:47:59 GMT

H A L L E L U J A H

Well I heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
Well it goes like this:
The fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, and the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Well your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
And she tied you to her kitchen chair
She broke your throne, she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Well baby I've been here before
I've seen this room, and I've walked this floor,
I used to live alone before I knew you
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
But love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Well there was a time when you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show that to me, do you?
But remember when I moved in you
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah

Well maybe there´s a God above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you
And it's not a cry that you hear at night
and it's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah Hallelujah

- Jeff Buckley's version of Leonard Cohen's song

Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah

Imogen Heap - Hallelujah

Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah

Bono (U2) - Hallelujah

Late Tuesday - Hallelujah (Live)

John Cale - Hallelujah

Rufus Wainright - Hallelujah

Sheryl Crow - Hallelujah (Live Radio)

Katheryn Williams - Hallelujah

k.d. lang - Hallelujah

K's Choice - Hallelujah (Live)

Dresden Dolls - Hallelujah (Live)

Elisa - Hallelujah

The Junebugs - Hallelujah (Live)

Chris Botti - Hallelujah

Clare Bowditch - Hallelujah

Eric Beverly - Hallelujah

Arooj Aftab - Hallelujah

Allison Crowe - Hallelujah

Jack Lukeman - Hallelujah

Kate Noson - Hallelujah

Macbrolan - Hallelujah

Ari Hest - Hallelujah (Live)

Street To Nowhere - Hallelujah

Bob Dylan - Hallelujah (Live)

Damien Rice - Hallelujah (Live)

Damien Rice - Cannonball > Hallelujah

MP3s are for sampling purposes only. Please support the artist and buy the album if you like what you hear. If you have a complaint about the ownership of a track, please contact me directly and I will be happy to remove it.

Tags: song, hallelujah, secret chord, lord, music, faith, strong, moonlight, lips, hallelujah. baby, floor

i want

http://karuna.gaia.com — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 05:19:33 GMT

I want both of us

To start talking about this great love

As if you, I, and the Sun were all married

And living in a tiny room,

Helping each other to cook,

Do the wash,

Weave and sew,

Care for our beautiful

Animals.

We all leave each morning

To labor on the earth's field.

No one does not lift a great pack.

I want both of us to start singing like two

Traveling minstrels

About this extraordinary existence

We share,

As if

You, I, and God were all married

And living in

A tiny

Room.

- Hafiz

Tags: talking, great love, you, i, sun, living, extraordinary, existence, god, great, love

bukowski's cat

http://karuna.gaia.com — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 08:05:54 GMT

he came to the door one night wet thin

beaten and terrorized

a white cross-eyed tailless cat

I took him in and fed him and he stayed

grew to trust me until a friend drove up the driveway

and ran him over

I took what was left to a vet who said, "not much

chance…give him these pills…his backbone

is crushed, but it was crushed before and somehow

mended, if he lives he'll never walk, look at

these x-rays, he's been shot, look here, the pellets

are still there…also, he once had a tail, somebody

cut it off…"

I took the cat back, it was a hot summer, one of the

hottest in decades, I put him on the bathroom

floor, gave him water and pills, he wouldn't eat, he

wouldn't touch the water, I dipped my finger into it

and wet his mouth and I talked to him, I didn't go anywhere

I put in a lot of bathroom time and talked to

him and gently touched him and he looked back at

me with those pale blue crossed eyes and as the days went

by he made his first move

dragging himself forward by his front legs

(the rear ones wouldn't work)

he made it to the litter box

crawled over and in,

it was like the trumpet of possible victory

blowing in that bathroom and into the city, I

related to that cat - I'd had it bad, not that

bad but bad enough

one morning he got up, stood up, fell back down and

just looked at me.

"you can make it," I said to him.

he kept trying, getting up falling down, finally

he walked a few steps, he was like a drunk, the

rear legs just didn't want to do it and he fell again, rested,

then got up.

you know the rest: now he's better than ever, cross-eyed

almost toothless, but the grace is back, and that look in

his eyes never left…

and now sometimes I'm interviewed, they want to hear about

life and literature and I get drunk and hold up my cross-eyed,

shot, run over de-tailed cat and I say,"look, look

at this!"

but they don't understand, they say something like,"you

say you've been influenced by Celine?"

"no," I hold the cat up,"by what happens, by

things like this, by this, by this!"

I shake the cat, hold him up in

the smoky and drunken light, he's relaxed he knows…

it's then that the interviews end

although I am proud sometimes when I see the pictures

later and there I am and there is the cat and we are photographed

together.

he too knows it's bullshit, but that somehow it all helps.

- charles bukowski
the history of one tough motherfucker

Tags: home, homeless, healing, abuse, survival, one tough cat, bukowski, trust, adversity, you can make it, tough

nothing

http://karuna.gaia.com — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 06:03:11 GMT

i have phrases

and whole pages

memorized,

but nothing can be told

of love.

you must wait

until you and i

are living together.

in the conversation we'll have then...

be patient...

then...

- rumi

Tags: love, patience, rumi, you, i, conversation, silence, nothing, no thing, you + i, poetry

morning has broken

http://karuna.gaia.com — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 06:33:21 GMT

morning has broken

like the first morning

blackbird has spoken

like the first bird

praise for the singing

praise for the morning

praise for them springing

fresh from the world

sweet the rain's new fall

sunlit from heaven

like the first dewfall

on the first grass

praise for the sweetness

of the wet garden

sprung in completeness

where his feet pass

mine is the sunlight

mine is the morning

born of the one light

eden saw play

praise with elation

praise every morning

god's recreation

of the new day

-cat stevens

Tags: day, garden, god, heaven, play, praise, world, light, morning, wet, rain

i get very quiet

http://karuna.gaia.com — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 04:34:23 GMT

All day I think about it,

then at night I say it.

Where did I come from,

and what am I supposed to be doing?

I have no idea.

My soul is from elsewhere,

I'm sure of that,

and I intend to end up there.

This drunkenness began in some other tavern.

When I get back around to that place,

I'll be completely sober.

Meanwhile,

I'm like a bird from another continent,

sitting in this aviary.

The day is coming when I fly off,

but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?

Who says words with my mouth?

Who looks out with my eyes?

What is the soul?

I cannot stop asking.

If I could taste one sip of an answer,

I could break out of this prison for drunks.

I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way.

Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.

This poetry.

I never know what I'm going to say.

I don't plan it.

When I'm outside the saying of it,

I get very quiet

and rarely speak at all.

-Rumi

translated by Coleman Barks

Tags: poetry, quiet, soul, rumi, drunk, sober, day, night, bird, flying, taste

instructions

http://karuna.gaia.com — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 22:25:16 GMT

Give up the world; give up self; finally give up God.

Find god in rhododendrons and rocks,

passers-by, your cat.

Pare your beliefs, your Absolutes.

Make it simple; make it clean.

No carry-on luggage allowed.

Examine all you have

with a loving and critical eye, then

throw away some more.

Repeat. Repeat.

Keep this and only this:

What your heart beats loudly for.

What feels heavy and full in your gut.

There will only be one or two

things you will keep,

and they will fit lightly

in your pocket.

- Sheri Hostetler

from A Cappella

Tags: belief, god, heart, simplicity, world, travel light, instructions

peace prayer

http://karuna.gaia.com — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 01:18:35 GMT

Peace Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi

Make me an instrument of your peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy;

Grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console;

to be understood as to understand;

to be loved as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Tags: faith, giving, hope, joy, life, love, peace, prayer, understanding, dying, light