Failure....

Are you ready to fail,
to face failure in the face?
To start again and again
without losing yourself?

Are you ready to fail

by opening to new things
leave the safe zone of the known
to experience the unknown?

Are you ready
to courageously see
more than your
eyes meet?


Open yourself
to what is
and to what is
not yet seen?

Failure awaits you,
the target
will most likely elude you.
But once out of multiple times
the sprouting seed of so many failures
will tell you
"It was all
well worthwhile"....

mcr

Take me to peace...

Take me to peace
the place I long...
it is my goal the home
I''ll hold.

Take my feet
over those stepping
stones.

A step here...
another there.
Some patience here,
a nice word there.

Never a fist
but straight forward talk
sincere felt words
from the heart and the soul.

Take me to peace
not just for me,
let us join hands,
and yet...
the first thought
the first walk
towards it
will be
my goal!

mcr

(after reading Getting to Peace)

The art of war....

What kind of war?
To be, to do ...
to become.
To make things
happen,
from the front,
from the shadow?
And yet...
all is done.

The warfare is...

or is not?
The deception
the illusion
the ghost of what
is or what is not.

What will I gain?
Nothing now.
What will I gain?
Everything, later.




The war is on
and ready, willing
to march on.


Without fight, without effort
in a war that is not.
There's no conflict and
and there's every conflict.
But no one knows.
The whole of it,
not just a part.
The whole
and nothing more.

Discipline, control,
wisdom and courage.
Sincerity, integrity
the virtues that
makes us whole.





Deciding...
when to fight or not
to fight,
accepting to deal with
whatever comes forth,
breathing the same pneuma
with my peers,
preparing myself and
watching the unprepared,
making us capable
and owners of our own
ways.



Because after all
the best general
is the one
who knows
not to fight.

mcr

Weak...?

Am I weak
because I lack
the strength of my
younger years?

Time's inexorable path,
my body has not escaped
it's touch.

Am I weak
because the fire
has transmuted into
a different kind
of fire?


A colder , quieter
where stillness is the
root, the origin,
the source?

The strength
has changed,
the power
still inside.
A new venue,
road and path
the time has come
to walk.

Am I weak
really weak?
Who is to say?
Beware!...
The strength is still
there.

mcr

Determination....

This I that I am
ask to be
ask to live.
This I that I am
won't apologize
for being.

Old paths
and ways of being
left behind
a trail
of tears.
"No more", I say
"no more..."


The right, the grace,
the will to be
is mine.
This grace not from peers
but from a higher,
and deeper place
within.

The right to be
no one but me,
the right to feel
my own soul
within.

This I decide,
I choose
and don't ask others
to let me be.

mcr

Time...

Time...
enough time,
needed time,
great time,
abundant time.
This is what we need
to grow,

what we need to be.

What kind of time?
Time to enjoy...
time to play...
time to cherish...
all that there is.
Do we have this time?

Here in line,
waiting...
I just said,
"I am changing,
learning, being...
happy!"
Just happy
to be...

mcr

(While waiting in line at the bank)

Festina lente...

New cycle...
old path...
new ways..
and yet the same.



What was behind
caught with me
helping me see
what is to be.

Was I too quick?
Desperate...to see
to do and work
with those with me?

And here again
new beings with me
will they want to go
as far-fast as me?.

And yet, new eyes
replace the old
'fast' and 'slow'
with new meanings
ways and forms.

Still fast...
and yet a new kind of 'fast',
'Still'... slow...
a new meaning for 'slow'.

The bench of which
new tools in hand
will make the path
move...
ahead
and yet in calm.

mcr