Musing – Bartels' Universe

February 4, 2024

Acadian Musing.

Missing the mark. Being off the mark… Over and over… and…. weeping. Weeping and then deep laughter. A tune… the silent hanging instruments. Sudden sound… the intimacy of a song. The intimacy of a symphony. The intimacy of … an event. To experience a gathering… in house, in hall… on a street corner… dancing on the bow of a sailboat… dancing in the rain… dancing between puddles. Missing the mark… Off the mark… to see that care in connection.

Passings. Feeling the absence of neighbor. Feeling the absence of a long ago woven moment. Feeling the absence of a voice that is long silent… yet, so present in moment… moment memory. Passings, making room for emergent tendril weaving… a symphony of tapestry. A tendril symphony… woven… a tapestry… across the all and all of creation.

It is raining. thick drops of rain. The storm upon…

Thinking of long departed friends. The various choruses of … all gathered in song. The gathered ensemble. Sudden in raised song… woven tendril… sudden in raised song.

A friend has taken a leave. Another sudden gone in passing. Another sudden passing… and another… just passing… the gentle laying down.

Missing the mark… starting from off the mark. Music speaking in tendril weave. The guitars hanging… and now singing. The recorder… long in drawer… out and singing. Long silent… now singing.

Loving notes… tendril weave. Some sung… some touched… some – to make new living. All of creation. Just down on the farm… here and there… rain… now falling in sheets. Rain… now tendril weaving in tapestry sheets… thin and thick…

There it is… a song on the dancing storm. A song… on the dancing storm.

Long silent strings… singing… long silent muse now dancing… long silent … long gone… now gathered all around and in chorus… across the weave of time… all singing. In harmony … all singing. Just so… there in moment. A new suit of strings… bent to guitar… bent to dobro… bent to bouzouki… bent to requinto… singing… singing with voices of chorus… with solo song… with duet… with trio, with quartet… all in dancing song.

A lone cowboy… teaching to sing the middle french… and now, in canyon… the walk… that song of the walking of the lonesome valley… with chorus all around. there…

I think of Charlie… recovering from a stroke… brilliant and with care.

I think of bands… long ago… and bands now…

I think of a chord… sung with many voices… in this sheets of rain moment… they are all singing. Every one… even those who cannot be in same room the more…

Missing the mark… off the mark. Connected in tendril weaving. Hearing a song … from a different voice… yet, in tendril weave…

A song of voyage home… a song of love passing… a song of new birth… Yes… in each… the tendril weaving of … the all of creation.

So… in this moment… giving thanks. Those here… those passed… those moments of tendril weaving… a magic… just so… a magic… or … a sacred… the turning from missing the mark to being with the moment mark… a turning from being off the mark… to being in moment anchor… anchor and dance… To Roy… to Cam… to Roger… to Lyle… to Paul… to Leo… to Barb… to Pam, and Pam… To John… to Vance… to David… to Ellen… to Myrt… to all the voices… to Amy… to Spud… sudden to acadian … a place that … held silent… yet, so foundational… all on the tendril weaving… a gift. Just so… a gift.

January 7, 2024

Of Moment

… of the moment.

In each renewal, there is a death of passing on… the breaking apart of vessel on the rocks… the burning of ships on the shore… the emergence of the surviving moment… the renewal of the covenants of community… the pivot and delight of new living… the grief in comrades riven or separate roads taken… sadness of the wisdom which is passed on, and passing on… the curiosity of the all… A sunrise.

The setting of the day and the new sunrise… the liminal night… into the new sunrise.

Perineal in cycle. Day – Night – another Day… A breath, an exhale… another breathing breath. The moment of last breathing. The moment of first breathing.

The ‘breathe on oh breath of life’ – a song of rising.

All in pulse of cycle. The tides. The day into night into day… the phases of moon and passing of moment into minute… into hour, into day… in to week into month, into year… into years and decades… the long march of time…

Portal of moment. Always at the mouth of the long march of time… spilling into the sea. Rivers running down mountains… spilling into sea…

The bright sun, in invitation. Drops in air, leaping to sky… to fill the clouds with the tears of rain… to dance upon the winds… all over the earth. And sudden to cry down in falling waters… tears of joy, of rage, of long sadness… as a birth… that dying into new…

And on the porch… a putter sit. The instrument in hand… the playing of a new song… of an old verse… new in this moment. The rising of the wind… as song. The rising of the drops as invocation to weeping of the clouds… A harmony on the porch. Just so… a harmony on the porch. A gift…

In thanksgiving. This set of moment. This curiosity in layered rhythm… three with two… with six… with 13 and 17… all in one symphony. At the downbeat. In the rising through the movements… and the harmony of each instrument’s voice.

A flower leaps into bloom. The bloom opens in the bright sun… the drying wind comes to ease the petals away… all on the wind and tide of creation’s songs.

So, in moment… a quiet song on the porch. A quiet song on a walk next to the rippling and dancing stream… a quiet song out on the desert… bright sun… cool snow… the whole of the wonder of …

All in moment. Held and lifted… holding and lifting. In healing balm… In loss… in healing balm. All and all… The joyful dance of the puer… in the face of slaughter… even in that moment… the joyful dance. What … in every time there is a purpose… is this moment?

Invited or not… present. A gift. And the breathing breath. A gift.

April 14, 2019

The Rules… and the rule of Some

The Dove… a bird signifying peace, rising up, the harmony of… Yet, sold in a space or from a place… the taint of the space or place… does it taint the dove and the dove’s symbol? Does the taint of one set of belief or rule taint every aspect of the rest?

Or, as with all living, is there context?

Is the blanket taint the point?

In this story. The rule of Some rears its shadow large. Just as the care of a one is something that is … beyond.

It is a simple straw argument to say … all. It is so much more nuanced to engage the variation of some of this and some of that… that I could be a bit of this and that… you could be a bit of this and that… and that when it is this… there are some frames … when it is that… there might be different frames.

The rule of Some goes the other way too… application of absolute by some may mean that there is a moment of standing up and saying… not so much.

In this dance, the sun rose this morning. In this dance a few breathed their last. In this dance, the dogs got up, barked, boofed, and took their breakfast. In this dance a song ear worm began its daily work. In this dance lovers cuddled. In this dance couples shared a smile of intimate care. In this dance, cats came for a morning pat, a meal and a purr… In this dance, a day began. War was waged. Environmental damage was wrought. The ice caps melted a bit. Winds of change blew in every place and space… In this dance, creation wove in warp and weft. The tapestry of all creation … on this Sunday of palms… that tapestry of all creation… in the rule of Some… A star is emerging. A star is collapsing… And a rose is blooming … the first of the season. In some places … and in some other places. That taint of … speaks to each in that place of some.

The blessing of sunrise. In humbling gratitude. An ache and yet also a great amen. Here, emerging from the retreat cave… the candle now… joined in the world with the rising sun. Amen, and amen. Amen and amen.

Lent 40

“… and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves.” Matthew 21:12-17

April 11, 2019April 11, 2019

Of a dawning…

Those days when… the isms of my own mind invite some to put away all of their sharp objects. … Others, those of communion, know that the path of thought and thinking … may be curious. And, also know that a conversation or breaking the bread…

The twisted narrative of a tangle… deep winding over this or that… a spider tangle… wrapping all about … that narrative is one of limit and or… perhaps not. The … narrative of tied up in knots. The… narrative of a collapse. The… narrative of … something that is beyond understanding; and yet is also … just over there, in linked, connected moment… just over there.

The blended moment as the light of a candle… lit in dark cave… now, as lent comes to an end… the invitation to move, as light, out into the world. The retreat is … made and now the movement is …

A candle, lit in deep darkness… As the darkest hour before dawn… This is lenten retreat. Image speaks. The tangle … seen from a distance as a capture… yet, from the inner place of linkage… it is a great weaving of all creation.

All creation. A blessing.

Lent 37

“…’‘He has a demon and is out of his mind. Why listen to him?’Others were saying, ‘These are not the words of one who has a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?’…” John 10:19-42

March 29, 2019March 29, 2019

What do you mean?

03-29-19 What do you mean?

Lent 24

“What do you mean by saying, “You will be made free”?” John 8:33-47

A friend sent me a business strategy for the census to get a complete count which he calls “cage and engage” … it is the basic principle of the dislocation of the American Japanese right after Perl Harbor. It also has echos of the Reservation movement/genocide, the Armenian genocide and the Nazi’s solution to the jewish problem. It speaks to every solution model of environmental or ecological preservation. It assumes the limits of the problem and describes a deployment that fits a certain set of criteria. Instead of engaging the elements of community that havea dynamic place. It assumes that the identification of a supernumerary goal… to count every countable person with accuracy, allows the dislocation or assumptive caging… The means to get to the end. The power over… the very reason that the count is a challenge to begin with. “We” in order to help the most of “Us” … invite “all of us” to use these tools to get to the complete count. Implicit in this is the “They”. The entrance to Auschwitz… work makes you free… “you will be made free…”

The pervasive feeling of wonder… to be invited to be of the elect to make this perfect complete count happen… The wonder of delivering so much value for so many… all through the idea of cage and engage. Each of the carefully cared for engagements… the very best of engagement… and the outcome… a ‘perfect’ complete count…

That moment of mistake when … this idea, rationalizes the idea of cage. To entrap in order to identify… We laugh at the long lines of entrapment at say… Disneyland. The fun of beginning to moo… or of the slow lines to get in to a sporting event… mooing again. The concerned security people gazing… or the wending path, carefully designed by Temple Grandin to ease the anxiety as a cow or pig walks to slaughter… All carefully managed for reduction of cost and enhancement of product. The value add…

I understand the thinking of my friend. It is the cost benefit analysis that is evident in every behavior that is undertaken by institutional thinking of late. The cost and benefit to get to the wonderful ‘better world’… the magic of … “And then a miracle occurs” that creates all of this value. The miracle is the vesting of authority or system to get the caging done. Once caged, a population is easy to count accurately. The value proposition is straight forward. The act of caging can be a benign act… the incarceration to get to the better place… We, the people… in order to form a more perfect union… require of each of us… to coming to be counted… The hooking together of a set of ideas to engage a set of behaviors which, in this benign … and … the information, the data, gathered will ‘serve’ the greater good. Giving up … to get latter … the sacred deal with the higher power.

The challenge is that there are the cagers and the caged. If we all are engaged in all of us… then there is not an inside and outside the cage. This inside/outside is the tension, the problem. My friend is always outside. The problem is always inside. There is a separation of the elect and the counted… mostly because his counting is at a different level than those who must be caged and engaged. The subtle art of giving authority to the intercessor. And then, having that leadership have a different set of rules… rules of engagement. The subtlety of an equality play that makes the count equal and the access to count a binary. Those who engage the count and those who need to be caged so that the count can be imposed upon them. They who engage and those who must needs entrapped engagement.

Missing the mark by imposition of … the sin. The Mistake.

The work of the lenten moment of this morning. Humbling to see both and all. To see the both and… In seeing, to also see the subtly of and difficulty of … community in equity. Community in equity, informedwith equitable engagement. To allow equitable engagement through a path… a path … many paths. That many paths challenge. To engage complete count through many paths. So, that each may find a count place. The invasive model … leveraging community to make sure that a hearth is open for each and all.

That moment when each is a friend to … for then there is no stranger. At the well, the water of living … it is a dream inwholeness. It is a moment … an arc, a prayer, a blessing.

That hierarchy … to engage the whole of the hierarchy … there is the invitation. That each person… held in hierarchy, may come and see, may come and be, may, in communion, be counted in the whole of the host. Raised up and counted in the whole of the host. That the least and greatest … the lion and lamb are each among the “All of These.” That is the blessing prayer of this day.

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March 28, 2019March 28, 2019

The Mocking page to invitation

“… the truth will make you free.” John 8:21-32

The candle in the cave.

Light warming the darkness.

That place where, the empty page invites.

That place where the empty staff; music calls.

The invitation to dance with lyric, narrative, melody and poetry.

The invitation to dance in all creation.

Easy to put ‘truth’ in the context of demand.

Easy to put ‘truth’ in frame of law…

When the lenten candle lights the cave …

In preparation, in solitude, in quiet reflection…

In the cacophony of voices… all call truth…

Light warming darkness.

The meal inviting communion.

The soft touch of …

The light caress of …

The Candle in the cave.

No mocking.

Invitation.

No mocking.

And so the lyric, the narrative…

That lenten muse…

For in moment, in communion.

The page embraces.

The staff enfolds.

And the song pours forth.

In call creation.

Amen, and amen.

March 27, 2019

… The Swirl of the Deep Dive

03-27-19 Data and … the swirl of the deep dive.

Lent 22

“… but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come.”

John 8:12-20 –

This makes me think of tea parties. That amazing set of moments when one of the kids invites me to sit and share ‘tea’… We have little cups and saucers. It used to be my own kids… now it is the children of the Godmother or even a child at the office who has a few moments to sit for tea. … this phrase of arrest because an hour is not come… Arrest is an amazing thing. A heart in arrest. A fall in arrest. An idea in arrest. To see it in a moment of … not yet come.

As a life arc… that moment when the rising comes to a point of arrest and a fall to earth begins. Or, at the deepest arc of a dive… and then the arrest of the decent and the rising back to surface.

In the midst of rise or dive… we arc and get to that arrest point… and as we arc, we arc to path… as is set before … as our arrest hour is not come.

In this time of reflection, the dark which is not dark and the light which is coming into darkness… it is an arc. The cycle of arc. The darkest before the dawn. Not arrested for the hour is not come.

So what is the hour? To be in communion with this moment. The arc of this moment. For … that sharing is the light of all creation. And in that light, even in this dark… that light shines forth so deeply. The deep light of care, of linkage, of connection. In this tapping… the light of connection.

There is a swirl of data and granularity in the air this day. That data, gathering slowly over the past year. The activities now described in that data… It has been with some anguish that, as the delver into the pool of this granularity and data swirl… I admit to worry that the pool will not fill… now, that tap, turned full, has filled the pool. And, in the deep waters of information… a new arc of engagement begins. The filling has come to arrest. The dive is now begun. The darkness before dawn is now the warm pool of wonder.

What is the hour? The hour that is here. Awaiting an hour that… has not come; invites missing the hour that is the tea party. And, in the moment of a tea party… may we raise our cups in toast. Toast to the light in darkness. For that hour is come. And come again and again.

March 26, 2019March 26, 2019

Turning from … into living

The resources that have shaped this ‘all of creation’ are from everywhere and include everything. To have the law makers declare that not a thing of that … can come from there… it is a declaration that it is come. In that emergence, there is only the quiet sunrise. The birth of the day. It is the same with the going down of the sun. The dying of the day… All in the spinning of the earth. For a long time it was that the earth, as center, caused the sun to spin around… as center. Then, all at once, a vision, a seeing of far beyond the ‘standard.’

The voices of a meeting yesterday… actually, of several conversations… seeing suddenly, the binary of trying to hold the sun … first from rising up, then from setting. Thinking that the earth as center… seeing the system with earth as center… yet, in the new seen, not center place… the spinning earth is spinning …

And so we turn back to living. The new seen … now cannot be unseen. And, the old lawgivers… impotent in this new sunrise, may either engage the new vision or continue to defend, with loud and eloquent speech… not this thing can come from that place.

Yet still, the spinning, the rising, the setting… and in that time… also the passing away and into the new place of the tide, the stream, the river, the knowing. A gift of turning to living… as with each morning. In a humbled sense… knowing when I have lived as the yelling old one and as the exploring and new seeing… for we all live in both places… it is the wonder of living in all creation. A gift. Turning to living… in this wonder of lenten moment.

March 8, 2019March 8, 2019

Lenten Musing and… All Creation

Cleaning up the stables…

Sometimes the flowery words of scripture are like the duff on the stable floor. So overlaid with blather that the beautiful invitation to relationship and conversation are covered over in layer after layer of rococo …

What do you wish in your life? What are you looking for? What are you seeking?

Where are you going? Who is going with you?

The teaching of Augustine: … our hearts are restless until they rest in God…”

What do you wish in your life? What are you looking for? What are you seeking?

Where are you going? Who is going with you?

The teaching of Augustine: “… our hearts are restless until they rest in God…”

It is now a moment… where am I going? Who is going with me… resting in the heart of creation. In my world, the heart of God. The heart of all creation.

All from cleaning the stables. A gift.

March 4, 2019March 4, 2019

A Flexible Rule of Three

We seek to solve a problem… however, the elements of the problem are not clearly defined. The rule of three… an input, a process, an output. At a scope, a scale, and in a context. A who, a what, a where… with a when, a how and a why. Rinse and repeat. Deeper and deeper goes the wander. with each pass, a greater clarity can come. In the growing moras of a challenge; a new pass in the rule of three. The rule, when the questions are in the incorrect order… may kick up a fuss that says a point has been missed. True. In this miss, the projection error can now be corrected.

Movement from blather to insight. Perhaps insight through blather. Just a touch to understand that questioning in engaged moment can move a culture far along a path. Most especially, when the whole of the culture practices the questions of this simple rule. Not to find a one correct answer … no; to engage the garden that is found in the dialogue.