Inspirational Poem for a New Year
Rosh Hashanah was earlier this week, so I wanted to share an inspirational poem for the new year. This poem was written by Max Redfire (www.maxredfire.com) author of Zen Popcorn.
Inside/Finding the In Instead of the Side
(Channeled from Ken’m Taan)
Following a dream inside
And flowing that dream outside, is Life.
Human spirits are like files
In a vast library,
But they often read like children’s books,
Simple, cartooned,
And redundant.
See-Jane-Run copies,
If open to wonder,
One can change within,
But only if one is willing
To awaken.
When the In can be let free,
When one’s true world uncovers,
Only then can destiny begin,
Walking alone
On the path of wonder,
Far away from words-and-words,
Defining, confining,
Trying to spell you what you aren’t,
Trying to tell you how to be.
Is your magical story
A blank page, a closed book?
Word followers are literalists
With an In.
And whose words
Might you be following?
Only your voice
Can tell your story.
Are you timid and afraid
Of reading yourself,
By yourself?
Hypnotized, dogmatized,
Politicized, nationalized,
Rationalized, unrealized?
Stuck in the shadows
Of someone else’s dreams?
True guardians guide,
Not to themselves,
Nor to any others,
But only to you, for you.
The more you are trying
To be like everybody else,
Like someone else,
No matter whom,
The less can you become
What you might be.
Escape- while there’s still time.
“If you utter the word Buddha,”
The Zen master said,
“Wash out your mouth.”
Because words are often
Traps that shut.
Wonder to wonder,
To wonder wanders,
Finding the light in which to grow,
Finding the places to which to go,
Finding the In instead of the Side.
Your Inside story will start to glow
Only when you can begin to let go,
When you can laugh at it all
For what it really isn’t.
Are you the same today
As you were last year?
Thinking the same,
Believing the same?
Are you just a convention,
A scaredy-cat cliché?
Chip-off-the-old-block?
Daddy’s-little-girl?
If you’re shyly aside,
And your story’s the same,
Then you’re not on the grow,
Your still on page one,
And your stuck on its side.
But the page isn’t turning,
Into the light, into the know,
Into the what, and away into wonder.
forget who you are,
Who you think you are,
And try to remember
How to become,
Not just a rose,
But a plethora of roses,
A whole field of flowers,
Budding and blooming,
Fragrant and full,
A valley of hills, A sweep of mountains,
A panorama of clouds
That endlessly change,
Appear and disappear,
Coming and going,
Hiding and showing,
Tumbling and rumbling
Into thunder and light.
Earth is a story,
Illustrated and open.
Read her carefully and well.
She is the mother of books,
Whose In is her Side,
Always being,
Alive and anew,
Whatever wonder
She can endlessly become.
–Max Redfire
