Going to whole Being preview now.....
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After the Opening:
I. I am home in whole being time
ii. Tiny walls fall in whole being time
iii. Coming down from the mountain
iv. Coping
v. Returning to wholeness
Touched by the meaning of bodies,
the pure meaning of bodies,
expressing the depths of what is open and alive,
I cannot leave for home, because I am home.
A part of me remains forever in whole being time.
The sane ones are the ones
who come once and never come back.
They know their limits.
They are sane and reasonable.
Maybe a little bit of the earth dies
because people are too sane.
The insane ones are those who go home,
feel their feelings, and return to whole being time.
Pain can come from touching what is real.
Pain can come when my eyes open
to something natural and innocent.
Pain can come even after my body finds trust
in many shapes and sizes of arms,
and I find safety in the dark.
Pain can come when my heart hurts
because I know know
I am not a drought resistant plant.
I am not a desert flower
who can open to could bursts,
shine in full beauty,
and then resign to drought again.
Such drought at least warrants tears.
II. Tiny Walls Fall in Whole Being Time
Is it possible that when whole beings gather
we can come away with new life?
In whole being time,
some tiny walls that keep me feeling separate
come down.
In whole being time,
life shows me
people can open their hearts
before they even know me.
Maybe they know the part of me that matters.
Life shows me what it feels like to be me, and be alive.
I now know: There are tons of people who take it
for granted I am good, and friendly.
Who I am as I am deserves to be supported in this world.
I am not alone.
Other people feel the same way I do
and they are here. Clouds lift from my head.
I am feeling deeper than ever before.
I wonder. What would the world be like
if people or every kind took an hour off and hugged
blindly with their eyes closed?
What would the world be like if all people felt like this?
Is it possible more rain can fall,
when people gather like this?
Is it possible that community
goes naturally with living on earth,
and when I am in heart to heart communion
with others the drought on earth ends?
Is it possible that in my abundant openness,
magical communion with all the elements is made possible?
I realize that the health, wealth, and happiness
that people say we have to work hard for are mine now
through simple enjoying my life and everybody.
I am big enough to surrender to now.
I am big enough to enjoy this experience now.
I am big enough to not wonder about anything but now.
I am making eye contact.
I am reaching out.
I am saying hello, even to people I never saw
before. I feel safe.
I feel good. I feel good here even about feeling bad.
My words feel so powerful.
Come on clouds. Sprinkle on me.
I will call you good weather.
Come on sun. Shine on me.
Anything you give me,
I will call good weather.
Oh world, I am in awe of you.
How you must yearn for the tiniest drop of cooperative living!
iii. Coming Down from the Mountain
And so another whole being moment is near ending,
a moment where people came together and expressed
the core of what it feels like to be whole.
Now I am going down into my everyday existence.
It seems there is nowhere else to go now.
On the way home, I stop with others
who have shared the intimacy of whole being time.
I stop for something heavier to put in my stomach.
My heart is still full. I am still feeling light.
I am still reaching out to everyone with love,
even people I don’t know.
I am doing all I can to prolong this moment.
I come down from the mountain.
I enter the city.
Why are people acting like strangers down here?
Why hasn’t the whole world discovered whole being time?
How come every body doesn’t know it’s easy to be friends,
and family, and care,
and all it takes for the world to be
on a first name basis is a name tag?
V. Coping
I reach for something sweet, but nothing will do the trick.
Candy can’t take the place of a miracle.
There are ways to cope after whole being time.
I can sleep in late the next day,
even if this means calling into work
because I am too “well” to work today.
Today I am going to stay in whole being time.
Today, I am allowing all my wonderful feelings
a chance to come down to earth inside me.
I am allowing my rich new feelings
to inspire my life here and now.
Glimpses of beloved memories
fill my mind from recent days.
They come as faces saying
Hi! Hi! Hi! You! I love you!
I know that in just being here,
I am receiving all the good feelings other
have sent my way.
Tears come too.
My tears will make the rain that will fall
on all of us because today I am not holding back
anything.
I can call some people whose numbers
I took home while I was in whole being time.
This feels good.
I can trust the sincerity of the people I met
and stay in touch.
I can enjoy having the doorways to my perceptions
cleaned by love, and enjoy my new freedom to express.
I can use my new energy to go beyond impasse
with close ones and distant ones who weren’t with me
during my opening.
I discover while the glow lasts,
I can continue magical experiences
with people, even people I do not know.
I discover the glow comes from staying open.
I discover the glow comes from taking risks.
I can explore deeper and deeper ways of
staying in touch and living with others.
I can make meals with others, and eat good food.
Most of all, I am staying open to flashes of
insights, pointing out what is important to me
so I can in whole being time.
V. Returning to Wholeness
Days go by. Weeks go by.
I’m getting back into what stole my time before.
I’m letting myself keep safe distance
even though some part of me believes
this keeps the world flat.
I can resolve to never open so much again.
Mopping up feelings takes time. Growth can hurt.
Somehow, life conspires again to help me forget,
but I wonder, can I really forget the taste of wholeness?
Every raindrop, every earthquake,
every flower on earth knows without knowing it,
that their life on earth is consciousness-raising
for everybody and everything.
Can I, as a human flower, be any different?
One day, how sane I imagine I am,
I will come back because I am whole,
and because I have touched whole being time.
Leslie Goldman
September 17- 1990-May 8, 1991
poems inspired at the Whole Being Weekend
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A Gathering of Whole Beings
I attended a gathering of whole beings
who heard without knowing it perhaps
the call to be themselves.
We traveled to a mountaintop
to make sandwiches together
of bread, and sprouts, and good feelings.
We were the sprouts for a new kind of being,
amazing fertile grains
for a new human flowering rising like a mixture
of dough and water, yeast and fire.
We traveled into greenery and windy breezes
to blow out the stale air inside ourselves,
to let go of things that didn't matter.
In our new breathing space we shared like children,
and showed little torn hurts we then mended with hugs
that lasted three days.
After dark and by daylight
we remembered how to heal ourselves.
We danced until we sweated
and yelped like coyotes in the country.
Some of us jumped out of trees leaping to unknown reaches.
We sang honoring something innocent inside.
We trusted blindly with closed eyes;
with outstretched fingers we touched nature
and were guided into other's arms.
We listened in silence to everyday sound we never heard before
though nothing we knew had changed.
Love was in power here and reached out to show us
a new kind of possible leadership,
a leadership where everyone had a chance to be heard
and didn't have to fight to be heard;
love bent over backward to include and encourage
the gift in everyone
to give and give again.
We felt open to dare to dream
and tell what we each did as our service to make life, or planned to.
When it came time to eat, our bellies were sending up messages
they weren't that hungry, something deep inside had been fed
through all our speaking out.
Ever so slowly,
touched in so many ways,
we began to sense ourselves as family, as something
in that instant the earth had made to do her bidding.
We came to see we were her mouthpiece and hands;
there was new meaning in the way we picked up little papers
cleaning the campground.
When we left, we carried the mountaintop with us
into the city below.
The city was cleaner and clearer and greener
because we returned to it, because we returned to it
as whole beings.
Leslie Goldman
"A Gathering of Whole Beings"
September 26, 1985
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If you like this poem, please keep your Enchanted Gardener
writing and planting Seeds to grow a more whole world.
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Shed the city; shake it off.
Welcome the mountain.
Open to the peak experience.
Gather as you have always gathered,
as brothers and sisters.
Leave disparate feelings behind you.
Be touched. Touch others.
Be free to love the mother in every woman;
the father in every man.
Be free to love the innocence in everyone.
Be the birth of everyone; be the birth of everything.
It's Whole Being time.
Leslie Goldman
Excerpt from
Entering the Sacred Lodge
1987-revised Fall 2000