johnprice

Pat MacDonald (aka Purgatory Hill) is an accomplished life-long musician, a thinker, poet/songwriter, and all-around saintly human in scruffy black denim and leather.

I. passing the day
around some side of setting
imagining the end of it all

further imagining the end
of it all

then the end of nothing
everything the profoundly
imaginable

fades into the most magnificent
description of all and then some

waiting as always
for the this and possibly only
miracle

II. one of many beautiful renditions...

passing the day
around some side of setting
imagining the end of it all

further imagining the end

then the end of
the profoundly
imaginable

fades into the most magnificent
description of all and then some

waiting as always
for the this and possibly only
miracle

Kabhir-John Price (into the poems; 2009)

Ordinary time? -Catholic Bible
Ordinary mind? -Zen concept

"Do not work for food
that nourishes but
for the food
that endures
for eternal life
which the Son of Man
will give you
for on Him the Father
God, has His seal."

Catholic Scripture (extant)

Love, in the ruins of our past and the sands of our futures...all, but in neither does it sit...

Kabhir-John Price (musings in the journal)

I did my first Sesshin at this place in 2002.

~~~~~~~~~~~

It's a miracle
a miracle when you least expect it.
In the zendo,
In the zendo,
Nothing happens,
A miracle you least expect...

[I am not simply passively waiting for all manifestations of the Intelligence behind everything, knowing full well that this Intelligence is completely pervasive of course escaping all words, though I try mightily. The shape of existence forms the remarkable out of the dust.]

Kabhir-John Price (into the music; 2009)

Dream of Flying

Last night
while asleep
I showed two wizards
how to abandon the I Ching
they played with jewels,
to lift lightly
as far up
as we could breathe.

"We'll circle the world, looking down,
but we must be careful. . .
If we hold together too long
we will fly too high
and die from the thin air. . .
It can be a beautiful way to die,
But we are not ready,"
I told them.

Then up we flew,
to where the air became so thin,
the sky turned blue to black.
The stars still tiny
but diamond bright.

When we were too high together,
we let go,
and flew alone
without feathers
far above the land.

And then!
There was home.
A green shore, no houses.
Like natives,
we peered between the bushes
At a great ship.
About to pass.

We knew it was the only ship,
as we held on
to catch a ride.

And yes,
it was the Ark,
the Titanic.

The wizards and I
know of mountains,
but we hold on still
to reach the promise

Of the edge.

Kabhir-John Price (into the poems; 1986; rev 2009)

...who spent his latest days quietly, marking minutes not by the clock, not even by the breath, putting aside his age-old question, "What more could we dream of if we could fly?"
...who has begun to learn not so much about starting over but that when he sees a corner coming up, to walk into it with a glimmer...
...who now would never be surprised when a miracle comes.

Kabhir-John Price (into the poems; 2009)

So, "they" speculate about Being and Nothingness. I know Zen to be not about (nihilism) non-existence which is simply not possible.

What used to be an imaginably rush-producing question: "Why was there ever anything?" has come to be a simple but powerful acknowledgment of the blessed ability to see ourselve...This, or that.
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