on being conscious:

From a Meditation of Philippe de Saint Maurice, une entité mystérieuse by all accounts, best known for his Meditations, selections of which I’ve been tinkering at these past years. This one skates the edge of profundity and platitude in characteristic, unsettling Maurician manner:

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On being conscious:

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We are dewdrops in the dawn

Of sunshine on the thirsty lawn:

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We are sparks that fly

Through deep and darkening night sky

Till rainclouds quench us.

 

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Having spent time recently in Thailand I was able to reconnect with Philippe de Saint Maurice and go through some of his Meditations.

These two haiku on consciousness are part of a longer sequence called revelation realisation, but they stand well alone.

I took the photo on Bang Niak beach on the Andaman coast of Thailand last month (December 2022).

For those interested in epic literary hauls, translations of the Meditations are coming along fine and will be shared in Book Seven of The Dark Gospel; I’m sharing the odd snapshot and highlight as I proceed.

Rotterdam, Bright Monday

Rotterdam in spring

sun’s eastering glow—winter’s

in shadows, past us,

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Past us, waking fresh

soulsakes, godsakes born in light—

burning bright Passion.

 

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Poem and photo by Freddie Omm

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Notes:
Bright Monday is a name for the Monday after Easter.
– This haiku chain is based on a Meditation of Philippe de Saint Maurice—albeit the original was written in and about Jerusalem soon after the Crucifixion.
– In this poem, as in Port Vendres (September 2021), “godsakes”—and their relations, “soulsakes”—are again evoked. Godsakes and soulsakes are aspects of being human, according to the Tabernacle of Gaia.
– The central wording of the haiku chain—“past us,/Past us”—contains the idea of past selves, as well as the more literal idea of winter now being in the past, in Rotterdam’s hemisphere, at least.
– “Passion” refers both to Yeshua’s Easter narrative (Christ’s Passion) and to the passion all humans can feel, regardless of religion—the word is rooted in suffering, with a transformative tendency toward regeneration (or resurrection).

Untitled Haiku

Poets play with words

like kids with toys – in this way

We all are poets

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(When our thoughts are cut

up full of rage we need a

Monosyllable

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If we want to make

things complicated we get

Polysyllabic) –

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We all play with words

to shape our worlds according

to our needs and wants:

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Whether or not we

think life’s a game, only words

can change the metaphor.

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Freddie Omm

30 January 2020

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I wrote and published this one on the same morning – this morning. Like many other recent haiku, it is based on one of Philippe de Saint Maurice’s Meditations. The photo was taken on Scheveningen beach recently. The pawprints in the sand are Coco the Dog’s (the copyright, to all of it of course, remains mine!).

Coming Together (haiku chain)

In the still soft hours

Of night I wake as if alone

In bed although we’re not

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Still there in each space

Between kisses in each breath while

We sleep love completes us

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When we’ve way too much

Unsaid we want to say and

Much unshared to share

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Even in silence

Our closeness warms us fills us

Speaks us forever:

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Coming together

After time apart too long

Fills a voiceless void

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Our lovers’ talk so close

Lasts longer far than mere remembered life

Never really ends

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While we’re together

Hold each moment hold each one

In fullness of love

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Even in silence

Still warmth eloquence love

Speak us forever

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Freddie Omm

(very loosely translated from an original Meditation by Philippe de Saint Maurice)

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I took the photo of the sunset through a window, quite dirty, in San Francisco.

Stranger (haiku chain)

For millenia, humans

waited for god to show up

Now we are furthest

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from belief – closest

to meeting god in person:

Unwelcome stranger –

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Forever mortals

on earth forget our fate is

Eternal promise

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Eternal waiting

for the life that has no end

Mortals forever

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Unwelcome strangers

to their own lives and planet:

Strange and unwelcome

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Until they embrace

the passing of all that flows

and streams us is all.

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Haiku and picture by Freddie Omm

(Loosely translated from an original Meditation by

Philipe de Saint Maurice)

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The photo was taken at Scheveningen on a windy afternoon last month when the sand was seething along the beach in noisy funnelflows.

when we make love a billion cells break free (villanelle)

when we make love a billion cells break free

our bodies flowing fluid like disgendered

creatures of great beauty growing unbound gloriously

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although we’re only human too and so quite ordinary

we spiral into plasmic dust as spores sprinkling our eggshell world

while making love a billion cells break free

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in some identities we hardly see

among us – beside, within, beyond us – enraptured,

creatures of great beauty rising upward gloriously

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like stars that gleam and glow in space and transiency

like birds in deep still forest undergrowth unheard

love is made perpetually so billions of our cells break free

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our love in life is that which lets us be

ourselves in an intensity of moments scattered

creatures of great beauty growing unbound gloriously

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we find new freedoms freeform ecstasy

now top and out of mind and sight no need for thought nor any word

when we make love a billion cells break free

like creatures of great beauty growing unbound gloriously

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griffith park

LA

we come alive

from the way we act
when we’re in love you’d think love
wounds and hurts us most
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in life – though things far
bitterer are daily thought and done –
love hits us hardest
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– at times though we seem not
to even know we’re alive
while we’re here living
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we can’t remember
our births, don’t believe in our
deaths – all too human
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errors throughout life
shape our being – our delicate
small blue fragile world –
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it’s quite likely that
love changes us because love
makes us come alive
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as time goes past pain
fades but love’s the thing that lasts
to save us from ourselves
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when we kiss and touch
our loving tenderness makes
hard living softer
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we come alive then
love ourselves into being
loving mortal gods
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freddie omm

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This haiku chain is loosely translated from a Meditation of Philippe de Saint Maurice.

haiku

in case you’re puzzled –

these are my latest haiku

fresh from instagram

 

freddie omm

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The haiku on the bottom right (“Ego Fires”) is based on a Meditation by Philippe de Saint Maurice.

gulls

Meditations of Philippe de Saint Maurice, which I have edited and transformed into haiku and haiku chains, will soon be published by Mad Bear Books. The Meditations offer insights into spiritual growth, and I shall be posting some of them in advance here, interspersing them with my other work.

The first is gulls:

since I first could think

I always thought that thought

will turn me mad

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like gull-crawing skies

thoughts can sound portentous as though

from other species

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voices like aliens

we think into being as

thought will think us mad

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words crawl crazy like

lingual creatures who can fly

from our mind’s planet

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whether in rage or

loving-kindness – we know no more

than if we were gulls

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fly into the sun

illuminate a last thought:

they. we. light. are one

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freddie omm

text by freddie omm – title pic by thought catalogue – footer pic by yifei chen