Unfolding

Born of the

Dust of humility,

Spread on the

Wings of pride,

Carried by

Winds of hope,

I grow with the 

Ebbing life tide.

Mattie J.T. Stepanek

January 1, 2001 (Age 10) 

Used with permission

In Loving Through Heartsongs(Hyperion, 2003)

Indian Winter

Hey!

It's cold out here today!

This is May,

And it's supposed to be 

Spring 

Turning into

Summer,

So I can have my birthday.

But I need my jacket,

And my hat.

Oh, bother!

I wonder ---

Who played with the seasons

Last night

While we were all sleeping?

            Mattie J.T. Stepanek

May 18, 1994 (Age 3)

Used with permission

In Heartsongs(Hyperion, 2002)

Heartsong

I have a song, deep in my heart,

And only I can hear it.

If I close my eyes and sit very still

It is so easy to listen to my song.

When my eyes are open and

I am so busy and moving and busy,

If I take time and listen very hard,

I can still hear my heart-song.

It makes me feel happy.

Happier than ever.

Happier than everywhere

And everything and everyone

In the whole wide world.

Happy like thinking about

Going to Heaven when I die.

My Heartsong sounds like this ---

I love you! I love you!

How happy you can be!

How happy you can make

This whole world be!

And sometimes it’s other

Tunes and words, too, 

But it always sings the 

Same special feeling to me.

It makes me think of 

Jamie, and Katie and Stevie,

And other wonderful things.

This is myspecial song.

But do you know what?

Everyonehas a special song

Inside their hearts!

Everyone in the whole wide world

Has their own special Heartsong.

If you believe in magical, musical hearts,

And if you believe you canbe happy,

Then you, too, will hear yoursong.

Mattie J.T. Stepanek

March 8, 1996 (Age 5)

Used with permission

In Journey Through Heartsongs(Hyperion, 2002)

Forest Madrigal

I

They deserve your close attention. Distant wails in the forest. Here we hold hands with shadow and light.

II

The passion always precedes the glory. The passion is fleeting while the glory endures. Like the fallen timber shrouded in moss, glory breathes in butterfly wings.

III

I say go until you stop and surely don’t quit. Never give up. You think that hemlock gave up? Covered in rot and what-not and it’s still not giving up. Just getting glamorous actually.  You never know what this place is all about so it’s good to stick around for what might happen next.  A pileated woodpecker might show up to tell you your whole life may give birth at any moment.

IV

Promises are fragile things but the forest never breaks her promise. The forest is always faithful.  Is there also then a promise of heaven?  Repeatedly witnessing    promises kept proves they are alive but how could I ever know if a promise of heaven is kept?  I walk in the forest.  Oh, I guess on this hike through God’s country I could fancy meeting a “psychic-friend” or “prophet” or “time traveler” who’d tell me. In reality it’s more like waiting patiently thousands of years just to see a single person who’s been convincingly dead for three maybe four days get up looking like hell and order a pizza. And so any promise of heaven and therefore friendship, love and forever are held gently in the heart. Probably.

V

Is Longfellow Trail getting steeper? I don’t think about death, much.  Although I do think we are genetically able to tolerate mortal thoughts in small spurts at a time and in this way thoughts of death are a lot like flatulence. Ok, or as my bride would probably have told you, death thoughts somewhat more tolerable than my flatulence. As I see it, death is pretty much exactly like the infinity of

blankness before I was born—an interval of time for which I couldn’t give an

“at’s rass” about.  No, the game is life and the point of it all has always been life. You’ve got to believe in it no matter how glamorous it gets. So, if you live here long enough or let here live in you long enough, you’ll feel the blood of life flow through you.  You’ll hear its swish-swish-swish as the wind in the trees and scamper of little feet crinkling crisp leaves.

VI

If given an ounce of thought about it the promise of life is unquestionably known, felt, understood. Like huffing and puffing on this hike.  It can’t be related in mantras, rally jingo or similar gobbledygook.  As men keep calling this;

“The Forest Cathedral,” tells me they do not know her. In spirit, sense and flesh they do not know her. That giant root-covered boulder over there knows more. So does that fern dancing in a ray of light.

VII

At the risk of repeating myself as I have been known to do more often as I grow older; men, and I suppose a fair number of women, will compare it to holy places on earth when it’s no such thing. This is heaven begging to be accepted in your heart as such, as love accepts love.

VIII

Acceptance greatly aids your walk here and fills the spirit with a sorta helium

that lifts you, though not like you’re some cliché walking on clouds but as if you

are a cloud permitted to walk as lightly as possible fulfilling your dream of walking. It’s like holy hiking boots, shepherd’s staff optional.

IX

Excuse me while I shake this bundle and take a breather here. Whew, it’s not the heat but the humility that gets you.  Everyone is always searching for the meaning of life when it’s the totality of life that is meaning.  This is easier demonstrated than defined, like the way nobody can define blue.  But will ya take a look at that sky? It’s like that. 

X

Of course the cool water is the best you’ve ever tasted, a quenching satisfaction without the pre-existing feeling of thirst. Could it be any other way?  I resist the impulse to re-baptize myself considering this a redundant redundancy.

XI

There is nighttime and daytime both considered equally beautiful yet different parts of a whole day.  There is no darkness, which is difficult to explain, so I won’t.

XII

You can see and hear bad things from here if you want, especially if you are one of those hanger-on types.  Frankly, I don’t know why anybody would want.   Your mind is drawn to the sway and rustle of tall brush. A kingfisher will bolt by with the blessing of Now on its wings and all is forgiven, forgotten, free.

XIII

My friends tell me I’m delusional about all this heaven business and they might be right.  I mention since they aren’t here much it may also prove my point and in one fell swoop the existence of that other place the kingfisher keeps trying to distract me from.  

XIV

. . .or then again, they may be right and I may be that personality type their nickname for me implies.  Spreading your bride’s ashes somewhere—at her request of course—plays with your mind somewhat. And my friends are rather convincing when they point out she’s nowhere to be found as Herself.  I tell them they are full of what my nickname produces and they reply that it’s what I have for brains.  I begin to use quotation marks when referring to them as “friends.”  Heaven is as heaven does. Probability and therefore doubt is woven into the fabric of the universe of which heaven is a part, so — maybe so.

XV

When I’m lonely here like today I call out her name, call to her and none too softly either.  The echoes help, help me. Men whisper or mutter only when they’re being polite. Men wail, wail, wail when we feel and when we mean it and so I do, I do, I do because every fall of my cloud-feet tells me she’s here, here, here with me.  So, if the rains aren’t my tears mixed together with God’s then this could possibly not be heaven.  Instead I believe she’s probably here, with only a little doubt, here, because we promised each other forever, forever, forever

. . .though we never said how.  And if this isn’t heaven, God has a very high bar for impressing me as she is here as promised in this place with me, with me, with me . . . with me . . . and. . .

I know her.

-Girard Tournesol

planted firmly in the ground

The pre-existing condition of consciousness doesn't prevent man-made rages. We masquerade in Nature in a ready-made wreckless oblivion always tempering self-induced levels of madness, as we whisk away awareness forgetting where we are. We are somewhere spatial planted firmly on Earth. Held down by gravity onto the ground. We are like planted, blooming flowers-- blooming out of chaos. -clw 3-28-19 C. Ward

Ultimate Beginners Guide to Bacon, The Presidency, and Getting Rich!

Words have power.  

The ultimate responsibility of any writer is to maintain a sacred awareness of the power of words.  Great Power. And in the words of Spiderman’s uncle Ben Parker, (as written by the late, great Stan Lee):

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

When you think about it, all the world’s problems involve words, and all the potential solutions to those problems require words.  All the world’s ugliness and beauty are words. What about a picture, you say?  Well, a picture is equivalent to a thousand words. The mature, enlightened writer will accept the mantle that words have the pre-eminent power to make the world a better place or add to the green slime.  

You’ll agree we’ve had about enough of the green slime?  As a writer, we think before we write. Or, at least I hope so! We hesitate, because we know and have been on the receiving end of powerful words. Words from both “ends.”  

If you believe in God, then you believe words communicated to you through the hand of a writer were inspired and directed by God, and that God started the universe with words. “His” words.  Why ‘his?’ Because that scribe, writer or translator—who I’ll wildly guess was a man—could only imagine God to be male and nothing other than a man like himself.  So, this particular God is of male gender. Eternally. The writer’s words, in my opinion, made God a “He.”  

“Let there be light!”  

In case you missed it, I’d like to point out that the first thing God does is create light. Further, in this belief system, the archangel of light is Lucifer.  The Devil. Satan. Beelzebub.  “Him.” 

Ok.  In my humble opinion, if yours truly had a checklist ready to go for the creation of the universe, I’m not quite sure that’d be first on my list.  So there is practical organizational efficiency and prioritization and then there’s—thematic and dramatic impact!  Check! And away we go! (Jackie Gleason, The Honeymooners).

Some more examples of powerful words:

> So let it be written, so let it be done  

(Pharaoh Ramses II to Nefertiti, Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments”)

> Never be petty

    (The 37th President of The United States, Richard M. Nixon)

> Let them eat cake

(Possibly French Queen Marie Antoinette)

> Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose

    (The 36th President of The United States, Lyndon B. Johnson)

> To be, or not to be

(William Shakespeare, Hamlet)

> 1488

(White supremacist code for “the 14 words and the 8th letter of the alphabet twice,” —suggestive “Hail” to someone’s “H” name)

> The gratitude should be commensurate with the boundless blessings we enjoy

    (The 11th President of The United States, James K. Polk)

> Eureka!

(The viral exclamation attributed to Archimedes)

> I have a dream

(Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)

>  For they slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God

(The 40th President of The United States, Ronald Reagan, The Challenger Speech, quoting the poem, “High Flight” by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.)

> Yea, though I walk though the shadow of the valley of death, I fear no evil

(The Bible, Psalms 23:4 kjv)

> Be patient and calm, no one can catch a fish with anger

    (The 31st President of The United States, Herbert Hoover)

> You burn me  (Sappho)

> All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream

(Edgar Allan Poe)

> The beauty of me is that I am very rich

    (The 45th President of The United States, Donald J. Trump)

> For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil

    (The Bible, 1 Timothy 6:10)

> I can never accept being dictated to

    (The 10th President of The United States, John Tyler)

Now, no one sits down expecting to write a document that will turn out to be the next Declaration of Independence, Magna Carter, Hamlet, or Tao Te Ching.   Because the writers of these documents had the inspiration of aspiration, they believed that what were writing was more than words. They were attempting to describe transcendent principles for humanity. A higher purpose.  They tried to reach a high place.  A purpose and a place they believed with absolute conviction—without a doubt. The writers sought a mystical quality.  Perhaps some sought magic or spirituality, but all some quintessence any human being in history or their future could recognize, admire, memorize and quote at dinner parties.   That quintessence was a quality they themselves had seen in their own readings of others.

This is the highest calling for the use of words, The Holy Grail of words.

However, by far and away the most common goal—and in my opinion lowest purpose— for employing the power of words today is personal gain.  Words are now the gateway to the wallet and bank account.  Key words. Searchable Words. Hits. Cookies. Words today are most frequently used to get rich individually not to enrich humanity collectively.  Good Grief! (Charlie Brown and Peanuts by Charles Schulz).

Consider how pop culture adopted the Big Mac recipe jingle, Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun (by Keith Reinhard, Needham Harper and Steers) that made McDonald’s Big Mac famous and their shareowners rich.  Ok. It made them rich. They are rich. They got richer.  You can never have too much of that special richness sauce. Rich is what’s beautiful, and what makes them, their lives and everyone and everything around them beautiful, right?  Actually, it’s a rather boring story. . . unless—“It's Christmas Day!” said Scrooge to himself. “I haven't missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night. They can do anything they like. Of course they can.” (an enlightened Ebenezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens)

For the record:  just like words, money means nothing unless applied to a higher purpose for the betterment of humanity.  And as people who love words, we

know there is wealth beyond riches, (shameless plug quoting poet, Girard Tournesol).

And for the encore record the name “Ebenezer” means the glory has returned. Word right there under our noses the entire time.  Stealth. Genius. Power.

Whether salespeople or preachers, all make money from words.  And if they are savvy in the digital age, those words appear as searchable quanta that again bring home the bacon. (Originally from Essex, England 1104 and in many various forms since until this modern version attributed a telegram from the mother of the first African American world boxing champion, Joe Gans).

Oh, there are a few silos of word genre where the reader’s demand for inspiration and edification intersect when it comes to money, but like an entertaining circus act, they fall flat from the real deal.  A few examples here would be fortunetellers, /mediums and cult leaders.  Oh joy. 

Chose and use words wisely and life gets a lot better for you, for everyone.  

Words are the best means toward the higher places and ultimate endings.

Peace,

Girard Tournesol