• Home of Karma Life Readings
  • Karma Life Readings Home
  • Library
  • Writings of Spiritual Significance

Karma Life Readings

~ Insights into Tibetan Buddhism from a Western Woman's Perspective

Karma Life Readings

Category Archives: prose poetry

Pentagonal Babe

22 Friday Jun 2018

Posted by mickeypamo in prose poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Auschwitz, Autumn equinox, Ft. Belvoir, Immigrant children, Pentagon, Strategic Air Command, U.S. Air Force, World War II

adult alone anxious black and white

Photo by Kat Jayne on Pexels.com

 

Around and about the autumnal equinox of 1951, September 23, a single day of equal light and equal dark, I desired to enter into the happy egg and sperm of my mother and father—and did so. I guess you could say I planted myself ​ at harvest time, when most tillers of the soil had months ago planted their seeds in the warm sunshine of early spring and deep summer, and were now reaping the fruits. 

For some good reason out of this paradox​, I was conceived just as the scales tipped into darkness. Though I knew harmony from that first moment. I remember harmony. Half a century later came 9/11, that eye-opening series of phenomena, that sure beginning of the final shedding of the skin of the 20th century.

I was planted in my mother’s womb as the northern hemisphere that was the environment around and about the Pentagon and Fort Belvoir in Alexandria, Virginia, (where broken veterans were warehoused decades later, and where lost immigrant children will likely be squeezed in) began yet another slow descent into increasing darkness and cold. For those ensuing dark nights and hardworking days in the cold-lit halls of the Pentagon, I had an embryo-eye view of the cavernous enclosure that housed diligent dark secrets of the United States Military Industrial Complex. The five-walled bunker was sole place of employment for both my Air Force father and clerk typist mother.

My cells multiplied daily in a fortress of secrecy and fear. Surely fear permeated my mother’s body, as if the tribe of that community in which I was so deeply embedded in their fear revered some awesome dark force that promised to protect them in return for their pitiful compliance. And so each servant of the tribe would daily propitiate the secret god of fear through perpetual clackety-clacking of typewriters, answering phones, gearing up in the cockpit of a T-33 jet emblazoned with the elite emblem of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), ​and snapping salutes at the high priests dressed dark blue in winter and desert brown in summer.

That my mother’s fear was visceral is without question. At a mere 18 years old, fear permeated her blood and nourished me and became my blood, and bones, and spine, and throat clutch. And to this very moment of the darkening moon’s wane 67 years later, I carry this legacy of fear like an iron shackle around my neck.

And what has this to do with anyone else in this country? Nothing at all, if we are truly the heirs of the American dream of individuality, each of us endowed with equal opportunity in our separateness. But if there are gaping holes in our inheritance as we feebly realize something has gone terribly wrong with this picture, then a child nurtured in fear and groomed to be silent and obey the orders given in a strict military household, starts to bleed out and stain others’ lives, at school, at play, at work.

We baby boomers sprouted as a result of the age old effort to erase the memory of U.S. participation in the carnage of war. My older sister and I were born before a decade had lapsed since the end of World War II, since 1945, leaving the memory of Auschwitz fading in the smoke and chuffing chimneys of huge incinerators roasting flesh of people like you and me. We were born out of a nation-wide denial of the horrors of that death.

My parents seemed motivated by a strange kind of love as they grasped each other in a clutch for some kind of hope in life, that quietly agreed to forget death’s power, and to forget the incomprehensible abuse of that power . . . in which they, and now I, were and am, complicit.

 

39.144531 -84.520298

Share this:

  • Email
  • Pocket
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Reddit
  • Twitter
  • Tumblr
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

Sakadawa’s Dog

08 Friday Jun 2018

Posted by mickeypamo in prose poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Buddhism, Mind

King of Wands

from the DruidCast deck
Blessed be for your adornment

 

Just a short note to you, dear girl. You know this is all a fantasy that you

are allowing yourself to believe. As if an artist painting a picture, you

make broad strokes and tiny touches of color on canvas and make it

your single world only within the frame, bounded by fear of stepping

out of bounds. What is there? Why are you so afraid? Your life simply

IS, as Nan said . . . it just IS. Orphaned are you from the sad creatures in

this lifetime who had a moment of bliss, and that was you, beginning.

That moment of bliss that exists forever and is gone forever . . . is you.

Mother and father exulted and moved on. Orphaned Bliss is your name.

And every seeming concretizing moment remains and grows to crust

you, Orphaned Bliss, as you fear the change that never changes. Be

washed and soften, rinse your fearful armor to fallen leaves that

dissolve to mist. Let them all fall off and mistify. I tell you this

because the crust was never there. Only your fear formed them, and

fear is a secondary mental factor that is not.

Moment. Now. The flow has no impediments. All is the same flow.

R. is now on a plane returning from Amsterdam. Happy and wise in

pain. His life falling forward as mine, into death and beyond. And he

has fear as do all sentient beings. Your initial not-knowing, o Orphaned

Bliss, is a handicap from your previous life. And this time around, you

are alone, finally. Finally the opportunity to wrestle that handicap

without disruption. But you try and try, only to get glimpses of the

Understanding that is real love, Bodhicitta. It is good that you have

persevered for many years, however shabbily. Are nuns shabby in their

practice? It would be good if you had daily encounters with other

striving practitioners whose path is your path–a leisurely imprinting

on your mindstream pushed forward by others’ truths.

Leave others to their seeking. You cannot seek for them or force them

to seek for that which is alive under your ignorance, your handicap.

Orphaned Bliss, remember your name! Then stop there in your

remembering, that a concretized past contains pain, till it is no more,

and never was.

Share this:

  • Email
  • Pocket
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Reddit
  • Twitter
  • Tumblr
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

I Think Therefore I Don’t Get It

17 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by mickeypamo in image, prose poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Basquiat, dysfunctional family, military family

Dear Maggie,

I remember the chaos on Wabash –

Kally threw Clackers at the door mirror. I remember the glass that fell left a shape that resembled the United States.

When playing “Rescue 8” we tied sheets to our bunk bed and hung them out the window. Dave climbed down the ivy covered wall like a monkey.  As soon as I let go of the sill and grabbed the sheets, there was a big wooooshhh as I crashed through the ivy and landed flat on my back. The air was thrust out of my lungs and for about 20 seconds I could neither inhale nor exhale.

I remember somebody throwing a handful of silverware at someone as they raced out the front of the house.

Dave nailed me with a hard green apple, right in the face from about twenty feet away.

Jeb whipped me with a jump rope in front of the others because I had swung on the plumbing pipes in the basement.

I remember standing in a rubber boot full of my blood as I tried to reach mom on the phone after gashing my knee. The snow storm had caused a mess. I finally got a ride to the hospital in a cop car. 36 stitches.

I remember the most popular girl at school got hit by a car and died. It’s one of the three funerals I have attended; Jane’s Mom Rosie, and one of my students who also died in a car crash.

Mike pretty much beat the shit out of me on a rather regular basis. I cried a lot.

I remember hearing “Goddamnit Barbara!!” a lot.

I remember Jeb giving all three boys a military style lesson in wiping our ass. He was sick and tired of the soiled tighty whities. Two sheets to wipe, Two damp sheets to wash, Two sheets to dry. Don’t you just love the precision?

Ahhhh, those were the days….

J

Scull by Basquiat

Share this:

  • Email
  • Pocket
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Reddit
  • Twitter
  • Tumblr
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

Mercury Drops and Shatters

27 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by mickeypamo in prose poetry

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

AIDS, Apartheid, concentration camps

Dock

O Geshela Geshela,

thou art stirring this pot mightily to near hurricane whirl.

Faster and faster the filth comes to the top . . . memory after memory of the truth of the debasement all around me that formed this body (which is as debased as all others) . . . the pouches of energy in the One, where, from a narrow perspective such as I often have . . . these pouches of energy appear to be dark bleeding corrupt inconsciounable barbaric destructive greedy grasping AFRAID stagnant clutching the stagnant judgmental traumatizing thieving lying inability (long lost) to make Co-Respond-ences (connecting the dots, i.e., the Universal Law of Cause and Effect), or correspondence as in a good conversation.

Inquiring minds appear to be in vast decline.

Concentration camps appear to abound in this country.

Most Western mainstream medical workers appear to have AIDS                (Arrogant Ignorant Doctor Syndrome)

and appear to be killing and crippling and diseasing millions of people . . .

with complete impunity, it appears.

So, with all of these appearances that I see when I try to rise higher in the sky to get a better picture of the whole, I want to re-member it all . . . bring all the shattered mercury members together, and give them a nudge. They will find each other and instantly become One!

But it may not happen if I don’t re-member everything, every single drop. Because every single drop is critical to the Whole, the One. If a drop is lost, there is no longer One, but Two separate divided opposing conflicted forms or conditions.

And then I won’t Understand.

This is analogous to Apartheid.

Share this:

  • Email
  • Pocket
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Reddit
  • Twitter
  • Tumblr
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

Searching for the Tenor of the Day

02 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by mickeypamo in image, prose poetry

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Afghanistan, Druidcast Tarot, fire, Iraq War, Karma, Karmic Tarot, Religion Spirituality, root guru, Tarot card, Tibetan Buddhism, Vietnam War, William Lammey

9ofWandson11-1

I have consulted Karmic Tarot cards from a Tibetan Buddhist perspective for nearly 14 years now. While my Teachers stress that reading Tarot cards is not a part of traditional Tibetan Buddhism, I do have permission from my Root Guru to do this practice. My primary reference is William Lammey’s Karmic Tarot, a sound architectural system of correspondences that immediately remove the entire issue of reading Tarot cards out of the occult, and into the reason of a cause and effect universe.

I drew a card from my favorite deck, Druidcast Tarot, and came up with the 9 of Wands, as you can see. My question was simply, what is the tenor of the day.

On a microcosmic level, this would be a day of solitude, a day of much-needed withdrawal from the fray, to heal that left (female side) arm. She is broken. Wands represent the spiritual realm, so this wounded warrior leans heavily on his spirituality to steady him. His male side is supported by his adherence to his wand (spirituality). Has he just emerged from the still-raging battle in the distance? The other Wands of his spirituality safely protect him as he is still and alone. He is wounded. And he is Selfless. And he is enormously creative and strategic. The level of attainment is high.

On a macrocosmic level, say that this figure is the the US. We are wounded. Our feminine nurturing policies are broken or non-existent. We need rest and time to come up with more creative, more gender-balanced, and less destructive solutions. We are capable of this. The barbaric raging of battles in the distance does not require our participation, which would only add more fire (wands!) to the fray. You, the wounded warrior, are wounded and alone after selflessly attaining objectives for the good of all. May each and every Wounded Warrior have safety, comfort, love and solitude in which to heal inside and out.

Share this:

  • Email
  • Pocket
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Reddit
  • Twitter
  • Tumblr
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

28 Tuesday Sep 2010

Posted by mickeypamo in prose poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Dharma, Earth, Staff Sergeant, Tibetan Buddhism, United States Marine Corps, YouTube

Share this:

  • Email
  • Pocket
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Reddit
  • Twitter
  • Tumblr
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

Join 1,790 other subscribers

mickeypamo
scribbler

I danced with Harkness from 70 to 73. I continued to dance till I was 50. After getting a bachelor's and master's in English, I started, in my last few years of dance, to use my writing with my solo choreography, ie., performance art stuff. I've worked at University of Cincinnati and Morehead State University in publications management, and now (since 97) do free-lance editing and book design (see TheKarmaPress.com . . . still being built). I concentrated on poetry in university. I have a personal blog for simple thoughts I come up with: KarmaLifeReadings.blogspot.com. I'm living in Cincinnati. I have a beautiful 30-yr-old son, Chris, who is in his first year at Georgetown University Law, focusing on war crimes, human rights and abolishing of the death penalty. He is married to his high-school sweetheart. I also read Karma Tarot cards from a Tibetan Buddhist perspective.

mickey morgan

Join 1,790 other subscribers

Go Deeper Pages

  • Home of Karma Life Readings
  • Karma Life Readings Home
  • Library
  • Writings of Spiritual Significance

Blogroll

  • Alexander Berzin Archives
  • Black Plum Center: Meditation and End of Life Care with Rev. Trudi Hirsch
  • Culture Times . . . Luna Arjuna
  • Dongyu Gatsal Nunnery
  • Dutch Henry, author
  • LENORA'S CULTURE CENTER AND FORAY INTO HISTORY
  • Marc Mukunda Morozumi, of Yoga Mukunda in San Francisco
  • My Zen City
  • Peace for the Soul
  • Prof. Sarah Jacoby's newly-released book on Sera Khandro
  • Spiritbath
  • The Karma Press
  • The Palestine Center
  • The Photographs of Milton Oleaga
  • Trijang Buddhist Institute

Fairly Local Spiritual Resources (Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana)

  • Buddhist Mala
  • Dagom Gaden Tensung Ling (DGTL) Monastery in Bloomington, Indiana
  • Gaden Kachoe Shing in Bloomington, Indiana
  • Gaden Samdrup Ling (GSL) Monastery in Cincinnati
  • Ron Esposito, a Mystic Musician in Cincinnati
  • The Conscious Living Center

Earlier Insights

  • January 2020 (1)
  • July 2019 (2)
  • June 2018 (2)
  • January 2018 (2)
  • September 2017 (1)
  • March 2017 (1)
  • February 2016 (1)
  • October 2015 (2)
  • August 2015 (1)
  • July 2015 (1)
  • June 2015 (6)
  • May 2015 (3)
  • February 2015 (3)
  • January 2015 (5)
  • November 2014 (5)
  • October 2014 (4)
  • September 2014 (1)
  • August 2014 (1)
  • July 2014 (4)
  • June 2014 (2)
  • May 2014 (1)
  • April 2014 (2)
  • March 2014 (3)
  • February 2014 (4)
  • January 2014 (2)
  • December 2013 (1)
  • November 2013 (1)
  • July 2013 (1)
  • March 2013 (1)
  • November 2012 (1)
  • September 2012 (1)
  • June 2012 (1)
  • April 2012 (2)
  • March 2012 (2)
  • February 2012 (3)
  • January 2012 (5)
  • December 2011 (1)
  • November 2011 (3)
  • October 2011 (4)
  • September 2011 (1)
  • August 2011 (5)
  • July 2011 (2)
  • May 2011 (2)
  • March 2011 (2)
  • January 2011 (4)
  • December 2010 (1)
  • November 2010 (1)
  • October 2010 (2)
  • September 2010 (2)
  • August 2010 (3)
  • July 2010 (4)
  • June 2010 (4)
  • May 2010 (1)
  • April 2010 (1)
  • July 2009 (1)
  • February 2009 (2)
  • January 2009 (1)
  • September 2007 (1)
  • January 2007 (1)

Key Search Words

guest article image non-fiction prose poetry Uncategorized video

Karma Life Readings

RSS Feed RSS - Posts

RSS Feed RSS - Comments

RSS Karma Life Readings

  • A prophetic dream of the deepening suffering and schism that is to come (after George Orwell’s 1984)
  • Imagine You are a Book
  • “I am joining the protests in Puerto Rico”–Tulsi Gabbard
  • Pentagonal Babe
  • Sakadawa’s Dog
  • What is Socialism?
  • Greed and Ignorance from Doctors Ruin Our Lives with Impunity
  • magdala dipped in the black stream
  • Buddhism and September 11: It’s Not Easy Being Human
  • Exploring our potential for peace and omniscience

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Karma Life Readings
    • Join 111 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Karma Life Readings
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

You must be logged in to post a comment.

    %d bloggers like this: