<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><span style="font-size:-apple-system-body">🤩 WoW! </span><div>Absolutely stunning!🥰</div><div><span style="font-size:-webkit-xxx-large">💛P </span><br></div><div><br id="lineBreakAtBeginningOfSignature"><div dir="ltr">Love long and prosper </div><div dir="ltr"><br><blockquote type="cite">On Mar 6, 2024, at 1:26 AM, Ed Balldinger via Thespiritexpress <thespiritexpress@lists.mcn.org> wrote:<br><br></blockquote></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><font size="4">Here is the entire prosaic poem of which I read most parts this morning in Pathwork. </font><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><font size="4">Blessings of connection to all, through all, and in all... </font></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><font size="4">~ Ed <br></font><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><div><font size="4">P.S. this is the <i>"getting close to finished"</i> version of the poem I read today in Pathwork. I seem to change parts every week to this poem as I find changes in myself changing... </font></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><u><span style="font-size:18pt">Endings, Beginnings and
a Few Things In Between</span></u></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> </span></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span class="gmail-long-line"><i> </i></span></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span class="gmail-long-line"><i>And beside the grassy banks of a slow,
transparent stream,</i></span><i></i></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span class="gmail-long-line"><i>You seemed to contemplate an unforgiving
history,</i></span><i></i></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span class="gmail-long-line"><i>and the difference between clouds and their
reflection.</i></span></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span class="gmail-long-line"><i> </i></span><span class="gmail-long-line" style="font-size:12pt"><i> </i></span><span class="gmail-long-line" style="font-size:12pt">~ N. Scott Momaday</span></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><br></span></p><p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> </span></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14pt;color:black;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">Another new opportunity blows
across this thinly veiled life of mine.</span><span style="font-size:14pt"> </span><span style="font-size:14pt">It
</span><span style="font-size:14pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;color:black">clutches my
eternal fabric as if all my garments have been left unworn.</span><span style="font-size:14pt"> </span><span style="color:black;font-size:14pt">My other suit </span><i style="color:black;font-size:14pt">(not the
one from my birthday)</i><span style="color:black;font-size:14pt"> awaits a good wear this year. Although it continuously alters itself, I’m
aware that it will be worn, torn, and sworn to some salient secrecy </span>in
mystery’s<span style="color:black;font-size:14pt"> midst. </span></p><p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"></span></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> </span></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14pt;color:black;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">That with which I
identify is clearly obscured by my own plain view with far greater frequency
than it once was. From context to content,
in a constant array, presence plays in silence where nothing is left unsaid. Where words stir friction in a slurry of
ritual’s need, perfect incineration prevails.
</span><span style="font-size:14pt"><br>
<br>
<span style="color:black;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">That which
triggers happiness is an unloaded, disassembled gun. I move toward its mouth with ease. A
friend inquires, <i>"Is that a trigger for you?"</i> I holster
my inadequate response momentarily – spilling favor in turn – a
transformational skill I picked up in high-school watching Cheech & Chong
educational films. There were other
trickery bits I learned along the way. I’m
not sure that anyone was aware of what I absorbed, but it all worked out in the
end as far as I’m concerned. </span><span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"></span></span></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> </span></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14pt;color:black;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">Then I reply in repose
to my friend, <i>“No, I don’t feel
triggered so much as I feel bludgeoned by public opinion pulverizing my pineal perception
with a common misuse of language without revealing how each one of us are so
uniquely connected to our collective disconnection.”</i> My friend kicks the dirt in circles as I go on,
“<i>I still learn from some sense of history – his, hers, theirs, my own – that
we </i>(a repetitious lot)<i> are often misinformed by our own factually elaborate
gaps, milking soft truths from the core of all cores, whipping our own
withering tit to the tata-tat-tat of a synaptic trap wrapped in this society’s great
misinterpretation.”</i> </span><span style="font-size:14pt"><br>
<br>
<span style="color:black;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">Jesus told
me once, </span><i><span style="color:rgb(192,0,0);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">“Three drops of
purple reigns a fistful of rock.</span><span style="color:rgb(192,0,0)"> A grain of sand, possibly once a mountain, is
on the move again.”</span></i> <span style="color:black;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">I’m not certain
why he told me so, and now there’s an overflow of suspicious redemption layered
in a clairvoyant residue beside me. I
pack lightly for the next trip. “<i>No
choice but to choose</i>,” or so I’ve heard it said. Some of these sand granules remain unshifted
in listless winds of wonder. I came to find
grooves askew in chasmic dispensations, lain low in the super flow of lava lamp
transfusions; an hourglass built on concurrent half hours, one hour at a time
when time devours its own identifiable transmutation. </span><br>
<br>
<span style="color:black;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">Matches
strike tinsel lips on mercury kisses stuck to uneven bricks out of reach from
finger’s tip to slow-down devolution done, and there is no union dissolved in
the <i>“un-one.”</i> This new unity no
longer disavows. It reaches through various
clarities yet to be unseen where sacred bread assimilation begins in line;
a millennial shift in radical disbeliefs roughly goes pervasive, and a rickety,
rocky fella scores rations in a can. No
land left unturned. No turnkey turns out
so low. No last rite reads its own ceremonial
farewell. And for none of that, there
shall be one guarantee. </span><br>
<br>
<span style="color:black;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">All this to
say that each adventure unties itself at the base, letting loose its own choiceless
choosing of a traceless trace soothing the beast within, without...</span><span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"></span></span></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> </span></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent:0.5in;margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14pt;color:black;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">hesitation… </span><span style="font-size:14pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"></span></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0in 0.5in;text-indent:0.5in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> </span></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0in 0.5in;text-indent:0.5in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14pt;color:black;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">hunger…
</span><span style="font-size:14pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"></span></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0in 1in;text-indent:0.5in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> </span></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0in 1in;text-indent:0.5in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14pt;color:black;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">emptiness…</span><span style="font-size:14pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"></span></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0in 1in;text-indent:0.5in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14pt;color:black;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> </span><span style="font-size:14pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"></span></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in 0in 0in 1in;text-indent:0.5in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14pt;color:black;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> despair. </span><span style="font-size:14pt"><br>
<br>
<span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"></span></span></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> </span></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><a name="_Hlk37055206"><span style="font-family:"Monotype Corsiva""> </span></a></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Monotype Corsiva"">Edgar Z.
Balldinger </span></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Monotype Corsiva""> January 3 – March 5, 2024</span></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><i><span style="font-family:"Monotype Corsiva""> ©
Nublin’s Pub, 202</span></i><i><span style="font-family:"Monotype Corsiva"">4</span></i></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><i><span style="font-family:"Monotype Corsiva""> </span></i></p>
<p class="gmail-MsoNoSpacing" style="margin:0in;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><i><span style="font-family:"Monotype Corsiva""> </span></i></p></div><div><br></div><div></div></div></div></div>
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