Plato’s Groove – Theme Song

Plato’s Groove with Aaron Dick free-styling on the keys

A little over two years ago I began to feel in a totally new direction. Ego shattered, directionless, like falling in a dream. There was nothing solid to cling to. I began to slowly try things that seemed odd to my old self. Something called me into a new way of being a me. My hair grew outside the older restrictions I had placed on it along with my Soul. In this new and strange land I began to find solid and hauntingly familiar steps to take. It was like coming home to a place I had never been. I had written this piece some years before but it had no voice. I had some vague wish that somehow my very talented children might take up my writing and give it life but that was not for them to do. I remember how nervous I was when Aaron started playing how strange it was for me to attempt it. A couple glasses of red wine helped and we created this together. I began to find my voice, even if it was timid and unsure, it was heard. Now I do this and more on a weekly basis and think very little about it. What was dangerous and new has become comfortable. What I know though is that there are new worlds I need to explore and inhabit still. I also know that moving from this horizon to the next will feel exactly like it did before I came here. And I will never figure it out before I get there. It is only in the going that I will know.

Time winds down. . . tick . . . tick . . . tick . . .

The clock ticks.
It fades in and out of my awareness.

The clock ticks.
Marking Time as It winds down to finally rest in Eternity.

The clock ticks.
Independent, without regard It plucks the very strings of the Cosmos.

The clock ticks.
Time now divided makes meter possible and cadence contingent.

The clock ticks.
The fabric of possibility is woven, lining the womb that is time.

The clock ticks.
Sacred Space emerges between the beats of past and future. Seeds can only be sown in the Now.

The clock ticks.
Slumbering Soul, never at rest, seeks completion of Its’ chord unresolved.

The clock ticks.
All existence is in motion, potential, moving toward harmony or dissonance, creativity or chaos, Life or death.

The clock ticks.
The metronome beats out the call to choose or not to choose. Both require a choice.

The clock ticks.
Whether background or fore, whether conscious or dreaming, It makes possible the awareness of Plato’s Groove.

The clock ticks.
Out of the shadows Life calls to life. There is underlying order within the chaos. The pilgrim seeks that which has always been hidden within view.

The clock ticks.
The artist’s heart does not create ex nihilo but rather chooses one and not the other, manifesting particular harmonies that resonate and call them into Being.

The clock ticks.
To act or refrain from motion is the artist’s prerogative. Variation ads pigment, or not, to the evolving tapestry.

The clock ticks.
Soul becomes more harmonious; at rest in the body, powerful its resonance with the Real. Dissonance no longer a mystery to be feared but rather consciously strummed to accentuate and more clearly articulate the Soul’s growing chorus.

The clock ticks.
Oh, Traveler strain through the dissonance to hear the notes which resonate with the pattern of your soul. Choose it at the cost of all others.

The clock ticks.

The clock ticks.
Each Soul’s resolution is to cultivate and balance It’s own polytonic sound in preparation for joining the romp with all other pure souls in harmony, dance, in art, in mathematics, and all other lenses through which we glimpse the mystery of the Eternal celebration that is Life.

Consonance. Congruity. Harmonious. Original. Authentic.

The Kingdom of Both – The Red Book

Image result for pathway razors edge

Two countries I knew
Two roads I walked
Both were exquisite and fine like the edge of a razor. Exquisite was the joy. Exquisite was the pain
Both flayed me, opened my soul to heights and to depths for which there are no words
One was ruled by the Sun
One was ruled by the Moon
One was filled with light, and joy, and the thrill of growing things
It is hard to breathe there, the air is thin and the light hurts your eyes
One was dark with a sweet, saturating, sadness heavy as the earth
It’s hard to breathe there under that weight, in the stillness, in the dark
One Kingdom promised the answer to dreams and desires of the heart
One Kingdom answered the dread of my deepest fears

Back and forth, back and forth, long I journeyed the bi-polar pathway
As high as I soared, even touching the sun, that far I fell, down, down, down
Longing’s ache, movement, hope’s teasing tug pulled me into the glorious fire, my wax melted and I fell
Great was the fall, epic was the ruin, dry, dusty, darkness, solitude, empty hollow ache
Long I lay there, time’s ticking warped, stretched into intervals that only the shifting Earth can reckon
As the mountains grew and continents shifted, dust settled over me, nothing grew but the rocks
Only silence and solitude and stillness were my companions, grief my nourishment
Then something stirred in me, a movement, an energy, a foreign force that frightened yet awakened me
I rose from the dark earth and made my way into the place between places, that space between light and dark
A region rarely traversed. The powerful pull of the poles seeking to claim me for the left or the right, the good or the bad, for gods or the devils
But I refused, something had changed, I rebelled against them both and was reborn on the utterance of the word No
Neither was my mortal home, neither was the land of my true habitation

The new way was neither/nor, but Both at once
The path, at first unstable, unfathomable, impossible like a drunk man on a tightrope
I learned to let go my clinging, my addiction to knowing, to allow the currents of emotion to wash over me
Stillness, the only way to move in that place between the paradox
And as I surrendered movement I was moved by forces larger than I, changed and rearranged
My pattern resonating with that which has called to me from forever
The lie of the either/or is tenacious and It’s powerful spell can only be starved slowly, never broken
The black sorcery practiced by the ancients continues still, hidden in view
The promise, the lure of distraction, life lived falsely, divided, unaware, asleep on the square, a bird in a cage
The Kingdom of Both is among us, can you not perceive it? Awaken to reality’s dream
Come walk with me here. I need a companion. We need companions to help us balance along the razors edge
Come and lay down your striving, lose all, and find everything here in the Kingdom of Both

The Artist (Audio)

The artist seeks to construct, enact, or proclaim

A construal of Reality and their relation to It

They carve out a sacred holy space where

Eternity can fleetingly inhabit time

The response, the praise

The worship, the erupting “Yes” is

The acknowledgement of a reality

Whose contingency lies

Beyond the everyday, the mundane

A frequency resonate with the soul

Which calls from beyond the shadows of the senses

Seeds Sown – Plato’s Groove

Spiritual path...

I had a crazy idea. It was connected to my soul somehow. It has been at the periphery of me for some time. It is funny how crazy dreams will manifest and change over time. I have a musician’s heart but I can neither sing nor play anything other than a few chords on a guitar and the CD player in my truck. But the crazy idea which was birthed a long time ago has persisted. I had no idea that it could ever become real. Sunday I decided to get way out of my comfort zone. I contacted some friends who are some of the best jazz musicians there are. We are going to do some experimental jazz improv along with my poetry readings. I figured that I can’t sing but I can talk. I have realized that the spoken word can be very powerful. It was and is still somewhat intimidating to think about but crazy might just be my path.

What follows is something that I wrote three or four years ago. Last January my sons were helping me start this blog and we did this one night after a couple glasses of wine. Now I’m thinking we can take this thing on the road. Or not. It don’t really matter. What matters is that we cast the seeds into frightening and new places. But I do have at least one place lined up that wants us.