Tag Archives: mental health

Poetry, Writing

Lesson 7 The Way of the Wizard

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(Poem 31 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

“…what if,
in your dream…
you…plucked
a strange and beautiful flower?
And what if,
when you awoke
you had the flower
in your hand? What then?”

-Merlin, Deepak Chopra’s The Way of the Wizard    

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/RJcz5B

I am quite busy when I sleep
visiting my other children
on other earths and gathering
stardust to water my soul
for the long day ahead.
Rather than commute by
light-speed rail, I prefer the
back of a mother turtle, she
and I have history, literally.
While I’m away, my DNA
rebuilds universes and plants
mountains in oceans of silkworm
pool blankets, concave spools
of gravity-fed time laced
with walnut-scented singularities.
I’m not interested in rethreading
Karma’s needle for her, so I leave
that job to the space inside my atoms.
Wouldn’t you rather reminisce  
with intuition over a fine meal
and skip stones with suffering to
give him a much-needed break?
I enjoy negotiating with objectivity
and teasing paradox with infinity
before pouring myself back
into the divot that is this simple
creature curled up like a snail
inside a tiny crater of the cosmos.

@Home Studio – 31st poem of the year

Chopra, Deepak. The Way of the Wizard: Twenty Spiritual Lessons for Creating the Life You Want. New York, United States of America, Harmony Books, 1995, pp.52-56.

Runner ups for the AI Sleeping with a Flower photos to accompany my poem:

Health, Poetry, Writing

I May Be a Widebody Homebody, But I Identify as a Hardbody

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(Poem 30 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/nHOS7T

No governing body can rule our spirits once
we have had an out-of-body experience
transporting us to realms of celestial bodies
that remind us we are more than mortal bodies
or just a warm body being body-shamed
and selling our bodies for survival.
The beauty of truth is that we have no
body double, nobody exactly like us;
even clones are their own, nor do we
deserve to be treated as such – no matter
what they claim they caught on their
body cams while hollowing out our
body cavities because of our
body odor…body piercings…frequency of
body shots…over our dead bodies.
We must refuse to do perpetual body checks
and shrink ourselves with body wraps
cranking the heat on our body temperature
to make ourselves smaller, then body slamming
ourselves for lack of perfect beach bodies,
our inner mafiosos dropping bodies out of the
body of a plane as punishment for our size,
while pretending to have body positivity.
Our body of work grows in proportion
to our body of knowledge like a vast
body of water when we finally
forget to pay attention to the
body of opinion of the masses aiming
their frigid body language toward any
body politic who chooses their
heavenly body over body building.
When we love, body and soul,
without a jealous bone in our bodies
and believe in the wisdom of others
akin to fruiting bodies, contrary to the
body of evidence doubters spout
claiming body mass index a god…
body snatchers will try to rack up
body counts, forcing people into body bags
with body blows because they are afraid of
somebody, anybody, and everybody who are
bodyguards of our own fate, more concerned with
body heat from bodysurfing galaxies than what
bodies without souls think of our body rolls.

@Home Studio – 30th poem of the year

Runner ups for the AI Mystical Big Bodies photos to accompany my poem:

Poetry, Writing

This Winter Bouquet

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(Poem 29 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

This winter bouquet

celebrating my new job

marks the occasion.

@Home Studio – Inspired by flowers Erica gave me to celebrate my first day of working in the corporate world (and I chose a Haiku style because I am currently reading a book about Haiku) – 29th poem of the year

Poetry, Writing

Lesson 6 The Way of the Wizard

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(Poem 27 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

“Because it is completely relative, your viewpoint cannot be called real.” Deepak Chopra’s The Way of the Wizard    

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/nSZbyu

I am experience become
memory ad infinitum no
other being can replicate.
You walk a separate path,
even if we travel together.
Do not bemoan the lonely
Dog Star during winter, for
what is a star but light?
There is no space between
Sirius and me, as we are
part of a continuous field
of light bridging from my
eye to his glow and all
the years in between.
And when the Dog Days
of summer are at their
peak, his hot breath
inspires longing for union—
our single drop joining
the ocean of consciousness,
which is both all and yourself.
Please forget me, the once-
living thing, forget every day.
Only then can we meet
again with fresh eyes
stripped of outworn
depictions, the real revealed
and seen anew.

@Home Studio – 27th poem of the year

Chopra, Deepak. The Way of the Wizard: Twenty Spiritual Lessons for Creating the Life You Want. New York, United States of America, Harmony Books, 1995, pp.47-51.

Poetry, Writing

Lesson 5 The Way of the Wizard

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(Poem 26 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

“Relativity allows us to bend our belief in linear time.” Deepak Chopra’s The Way of the Wizard    

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/al5DZw

Let’s grow younger each day
until we disappear at birth
defying immutable laws,
escaping such silly fairy tales
as death, for we know better.

Growing older is a worn-out
habit that traps us in time;
beings of light are not subject
to the man-made principles
of minutes and seconds.

False logic dooms us to repeat
the spell of mortality where we
insist on quantifying eternity.
We must unwrap our layers of
contrary beliefs to find immortality.

There at our core beneath
our deepest fears, lies the
deathless part of ourselves,
The part of us that “must be
unborn if it is never to die.”

@Home Studio – 26th poem of the year

Chopra, Deepak. The Way of the Wizard: Twenty Spiritual Lessons for Creating the Life You Want. New York, United States of America, Harmony Books, 1995, pp.41-46

Runner ups for the AI birth, death, timeless photos to accompany my poem:

Poetry, Writing

My Elephant

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(Poem 23 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/T6nFtt

My elephant thinks
she’s invisible, despite
the fact that I speak
to her daily and offer
to take her wherever
she may wish to go.

She prefers to lurk in
doorways, eavesdrop on
my conversations with
prospective employers and
watch Korean dramas
over my shoulder.

We’ve settled nicely
into a routine of
keeping each other at
trunk’s length and eyeing
suspiciously any behaviors
indicative of confidence.

She likes it when I nap,
over-schedule, talk on the
phone, or make pictures of
elephants in living rooms
with other elephants in
paintings and televisions.

I like it when she forgets
her vow of silence,
tells me what it’s like to
take up so much space,
to fill the room with herself,
and trumpet her name.

@Home Studio – 23rd poem of the year

Poetry, Writing

Lesson 3 from The Way of the Wizard

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(Poem 21 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

“…I forgot whether I was dreaming of this dragonfly or whether it was dreaming of me.” -Merlin, Deepak Chopra’s The Way of the Wizard    

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/eJQ4To

Merlin once ran around waving a
butcher’s knife like a mad man.
Arthur, alarmed, pleaded with him
to stop and explain himself.
Merlin said he wanted to try thinking
the way mortals seem to do,
chopping and dissecting,
using the mind like a blade.

The violent force of rationality
divides, dissociates, isolates, detaches.
It is the opposite of awareness
which unites, marries, coalesces.
The intellectual universe glue
is knowingness, not “knowing things”.
We see not by sight, but by tapping
into the water of life at the source.

The “mind behind the mind”
must be the “eye behind the eye”
for the seer to stay the same
no matter the scenery.
Depending on the observer,
this poem could be merely ink dots
on wood pulp or electronic pixels
rendered on a screen, or it could be
ideas and information—awareness
manifesting itself in “storable form”.

The eye reading this poem
is an energy cloud miraculously
capable of perceiving images.
Yet, that same eye cannot see
radio waves, neutrinos, dark matter,
love.

“Who saw the eye before the eye saw anything?”

This poem exists because a
consciousness wanted to share
this code and unfold strands
of energy to be revealed to
another consciousness, you.

Are you dreaming this poem or
is this poem dreaming you?

@Home Studio – 21st poem of the year

Chopra, Deepak. The Way of the Wizard: Twenty Spiritual Lessons for Creating the Life You Want. New York, United States of America, Harmony Books, 1995, pp.29-34.

Runner ups for the AI cosmic oneness dragonfly observer photos to accompany my poem:

Fiction, Poetry, Writing

Proud Bringer of This Is Me

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(Poem 19 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

“I make no apologies, this is me.” – Lettie Lutz in The Greatest Showman

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/FxZumQ

If he rejects all your broken parts,
he doesn’t deserve any of you.
If she can’t accept you scars and all,
she doesn’t need the pretty smooth layer.
If they want to kick you while you’re down,
they don’t get to celebrate your triumph.

If he hopes to bring you guilt and shame,
he shouldn’t earn your praise or loyalty.
If she turns away from your deepest pain,
she doesn’t merit sharing your joy.
If their words are meant to bruise and cut,
they are not entitled to your heart.

Make no apologies; there is nothing you
are not worthy of. You are a glorious,
barricade busting, drum major marching,
get back up again, not scared to be seen,
flood sending, meant to be,
proud bringer of this is me.

@Home Studio after attending Alamo Village Drafthouse’s The Greatest Showman sing along with Debbie and Liz – 19th poem of the year

Gracey, Michael. The Greatest Showman. Twentieth Century Fox,
  2017.

Runner ups for the AI circus proud and unique photos to accompany my poem:

Poetry, Writing

Lesson 2 from The Way of the Wizard

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(Poem 18 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

“You will know your own innocence again when you can see the love that breathes within every iota of creation.” -Deepak Chopra The Way of the Wizard    

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/epXhfI

Arthur could not see
his own reflection
in the clear water pond
and was afraid to confess
as much to Merlin.
I thought of him today
and the lesson he was
taught in response to
the wonderful news
that a lack of self-image
is a sign of innocence.

To gaze peacefully out
my sliding glass door
is an act of creation,
for the observer plants
the seed of life by
noticing, recalling,
becoming invested in,
and growing to love
the deer who stand
munching, daring the
dogs to bark, antlers
high in defiance,
the squirrels chittering
angrily as they race along
the fence top, provoking
growls and menace,
the birds who nest,
the possums who hide,
the mice who find
their way inside,
the skunks who waddle
around in the dark,
magical beasts who
sparkle with newness
if only we clean our
lenses, witness them afresh,
and listen for the faintest
of songs sung by them all
called, “Behold yourself.”

@Home Studio – 18th poem of the year

Chopra, Deepak. The Way of the Wizard: Twenty Spiritual Lessons for Creating the Life You Want. New York, United States of America, Harmony Books, 1995, pp. 23-28.

Runner ups for the AI cosmic oneness photos to accompany my poem:

Fiction, Poetry, Writing

A Duke By Any Other Name

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(Poem 17 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

“To those contending with chronic intermittent infirmity.” – A Duke By Any Other Name book dedication

https://www.amazon.com/Duke-Other-Name-Rogues-Riches-ebook/dp/B083J1L3ZN/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3UTA5AR2JPHDE&keywords=a+duke+by+any+other+name+grace+burrowes&qid=1705543354&sprefix=a+duke+by+any+other+%2Caps%2C211&sr=8-1

A duke by any other name
might well be a beggar
or find himself locked away
in Bedlam whether sane or no.

A lady of questionable upbringing
is as good as ruined
by too much enthusiasm
or too little interest in finery.

Heaven forbid the two
take an interest in each other’s
worlds, dictums of society be
flouted and customs ignored.

Only truth can heal old wounds,
restore families long separated
by fear of shame, and bring
peace to hurting hearts.

@Home Studio after finishing the book A Duke By Any Other Name by Grace Burrowes – 17th poem of the year

Burrowes, Grace. A Duke By Any Other Name, Forever, NY, 2020.