A Message for Earthlings and a Psalm of Distress And a Cry for Help and Prayer to a Mute God

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A Message for Earthlings and a Psalm of Distress

And a Cry for Help and Prayer to a Mute God

By Jane Tawel

January 15, 2026

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Dear Earthlings:

Why do you need me to be a brand?

(Isn’t branding used for cattle.)

If I don’t know who I really am,

Do you imagine you can tell me?

I suppose, like all dumb animals,

you want to brand me to make me feel

special in my dire commonality;

wanting me to believe

that I belong to a group, separate from others.

Apartness in a herd –

the New World’s ultimate paradoxical joke.

And so, we rage and rave against our lonely planet,

Forgetting we were not created to be special

but to be One.

*

I have spent a lifetime (or two or three)

tripping over your purity laws,

sometimes landing in a soft bed of nails

and sometimes landing in the muck and mire

of a miasma of my own super-ego.

My finger aches from pointing;

My mouth grows canker sores

from all the preaching of my personal piety,

while my heart grows faint with praise in prayers

that seem to reach no further

than the next un-needed package arriving on my stupe — 

(how Stupe-id are my longings!)

My thoughts and appeals to the Silence

have no more strength to save the World

than the trembling tips of my eyelashes would have

to lift and hold a crying infant.

And my despair can not be quelled

By the swells that rise.

The Ocean has not been calm for many moons.

*

I take my pencil and scrap of paper,

And write this sincere letter to You, O, God:

Dear God (or Whatever-Whoever-Whyever- I AM):

“Why must You allow the humans

that You Created with such Love,

to endure the Karma of our own choices?

Will You not save us from ourselves?

Will You not come out from Your hiding place

And rescue us — if not because we deserve it — 

but because You do?

This beautiful, beautiful, beautiful Planet

This tiny cosmic miracle of atoms run amok

This abiogenesis of animated Life

This — Your very Origin — 

from our simplest aboriginality to our highest ascendance — 

This and All This — 

Why must something lesser be destroyed for something Greater?

Why must something die, for something else to Live?

Why must a leaf turn black and fall to the ground

To give life to the seedling?

*

Are You really mute, or have we muted You?

*

You, Grandfather, created us in Wonder, to wander

and to see the stars but not to plant our flags on them.

You, Grandmother, have created us with longing in our hearts

to seek Love, but not to contain it;

for Your Love is boundless

and it is the only Eternity we can know.

You, Oh Father, have created us

with the urge to conquer space,

But to also know that

our deepest fear is that we will one day

Be but dust to dust returned,

buried in the space we never conquered.

You, Oh Mother, have created us

to fly or fall from the Nest,

But to forever yearn to return to

the safety of Your Womb.

Why have You created me

with deep longing, if not to satisfy

the hungering of my heart

to return to Your Breast and be forever fed?

*

I am left alone, yet maybe not alone, with only this — 

That I can not see

but only walk blindly forward;

And that I can not know, but only trust

that in You, O Creator and Upholder of the Universe — 

there is:

Hope — in Something beyond us

that craves our Love.

Grace — that there exists

a Reason beyond the greatest achievements

of the human mind.

Purpose — that all our suffering

is the crucifixion we need

to find our resurrection.

And above all that every act

of unconditional Love

is Your active presence in the World.

*

I wish Oh, God, You hadn’t chosen

to live and act through us.

We — I — seem to fail at every turning

of the world upon its axis.

But, “okey-dokey, Smokey” — 

I’ll choose to try again today

To change the world,

And save the planet,

And love the truly unlovable

And well….

I have to assume You will give me

a little bit of help.

I hope I can look forward

to meeting You, Someday.

Until then, You, O God,

will just have to accept

my shallow, fearful, selfish, foolish

Prayer — which is all I can summon up

to say how much I love this world

and how much I think I love, You.

Maybe?

*

A Paraphrase of The Lord’s Prayer for Today:

Our ProGenitor,

Who lives in Entirety,

no one owns You or Your Name.

Please re-create us on this Earth,

as You continue to do in the Cosmos.

Help our unbelief that You know best,

and help us believe

that there is enough stuff

and enough food

and enough Love for all of us.

Create in everyone

the ability to let go

and may the spirit of Mercy have

more strength than any of our desires

for revenge or ownership.

Help us stop our mutual temptation to

destroy ourselves.

Deliver us from our own Egos

and the monkey-minds of our greedy, anxious thoughts.

For someday, we will wake up

to realize this has been Your World all along

And that You have always been in charge of it;

But only through Your Love

Are You able to act — 

and Your Love is the most powerful force in the universe.

May it be so in my life today.

Amen.

*

© Jane Tawel, 2026

We Walk the Trail Together

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We Walk the Trail Together

By Jane Tawel

January 7, 2026

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Each day before Dawn

I walk the trail with you.

But you keep your eyes averted,

pretending you don’t see me.

Sometimes you talk with someone

who is not there;

but I am passing so close to you,

that I could touch you,

while we are walking the trail together.

*

Each morning we are there,

individuals in a group of early risers,

early seekers of breaking dawns;

still, you pretend I do not exist.

I used to find it annoying –

I used to think you meant to slight me,

that I was not worthy of your smile

or your cheery hello, like some of us share

in the brisk and pre-sunned morning air.

Now I wonder –

Am I really invisible to you

like angels often are to me?

Do you come on purpose

in the darkling light so

none can see your guilt?

Or has your mind so imprisoned you

that you can not free yourself

to see that which surrounds you

in this precious present Here and Now?

What is it that has frightened you so?

Who hurt you in a way you can’t forget?

How do you return to your own home

still so alone, so alone,

without weeping on the way?

*

I used to save my smiles for those

who gladly greet me each morning

with the happy knowledge

that we are so very, very privileged

to have another — one more — day;

that Life is very good

when we can — when just because — we all return

to walk the trail together.

But now I smile at you

as big as my small self can smile,

with no expectation that you will smile back

or that you will even raise your eyes

from this hallowed ground

on which you carefully place your next step.

The smile is not only for you,

Oh yes — I smile also for me — 

for in The Ground of Being

there is every chance,

an angel you may prove to be.

We are but passing through,

yet someday, all trails

will lead to One Home.

*

© Jane Tawel, 2026

Farewell to my Belief-Prison

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Farewell to my Belief-Prison

By Jane Tawel

December 26, 2025

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I woke up — gradually

And in pieces

And slowly, slowly

It dawned — 

That my comfortable belief-system

had become a prison.

All the other people –

Friends and family that I love

Beckoned me

through the prison-bars of their beliefs

to: “Come back. Come back.

You are wrong to leave the safety of confined captivity”.

Holding out their hands

They did not

could not

would not

See.

(It is rather frightening, after all,

to escape from a prison in which you are only

being held by your collective fears).

Oh, how I looked with love and longing,

Back to those I had toiled with in the fields,

singing our jailhouse songs of Grace,

and doing penance in our mixed-up views that Faith,

would one day set us free, and we would be home — 

Never realizing we were already free.

And we were already Home.

Here. Now.

*

Oh, how I knew and understood

My dearly beloved fellow inmates.

For while their prisons kept their outsides clean

Their innermost God-cups

were overflowing in dogma poop.

In our belief-prisons,

Our fat-fingers, smeared with holy and unholy oils,

Pointed through our imagined prison-bars,

Neglecting to see the beams

We had used to build our barriers;

Thinking that the shacks made out of splinters

that our neighbors lived in

were what had put them into debtors’ prisons,

(prisons not nearly so nice as ours).

And yet we continued to chant — 

Forgive us our debts,

(but God-forbid! — 

don’t make us forgive

those we have made our debtors).

*

And so, One Day,

When I could no longer recite

the same old lies that buried the Truth

in our entombing stories,

of resurrection for Someone else,

but never resurrection for our dead souls;

I stepped outside the prison’s Open Door

(and knocked over a small table in the process).

And while the fresh air was bracing

And my heart was absolutely racing

I kept inching forward

Step by step,

Led only by the millenniums

of a thousand pinpoints of Light.

*

Balancing precariously

on the Universe’s Bright Enlightened Beam,

and tiptoeing carefully

on the Cross-road had never been many roads

but only, always One;

I stumbled upwards and onwards,

Here and Now,

along the Narrow Way.

I do admit, I miss at times

the custody I mistook for communion,

and the finely decorated walls

I mistook for Creativity.

Oh, how I raised my hands in praise

and feeble offerings to those I once thought

were blinded by The Light,

(but in fact, were only blinded by The Might.)

I preached from within my prison

to those (I thought) outside the fold

of the security of my imprisoned-beliefs,

And in those comforting black and white walls

of the old prison I had long embraced as home,

I did get glimpses of clear Sky.

And I am still so very grateful

for the many dearly loved prison guards –

who had, after all, only tried to keep me safe

and who had, as even blind guides can,

opened my eyes to what had been born

and Who was eternally being Born

in the Heart’s longing for salvation.

But I am no longer sorry, even though still sad,

That when I stuck one small-Soul foot,

Outside my belief-prison’s walls,

the other prisoners shoved me

the rest of the way out;

for they could not bear to leave behind

their imaginary Maximum-Security Prison

and they could not bear to think

that I might find a Home outside their walls.

I do bear the stigmata of their hands

shoving hard against my back,

pushing me out and forward

like a blowing Wind

that one day, God may use beneath me

to help my wings grow strong.

*

And I have found that Now — 

and wildly, freely, only Here and Now — 

(and yet also, There and Then)

I have stumbling found

that we were born for freedom,

and that Salvation is only ever, True-ly grasped

by letting go

as Love leads us

further out, and out, and out

and further in and In.

*

I thank You,

Creator-Word,

For sparking a burning flame

In this small human being.

And for standing at the door

Of my imprisoned self

And knocking hard and long

(and also softly and in Stillness).

I thank you, All

My freedom-fighting and freedom-finding

many and yet One, brothers and sisters,

Who trembled and still tremulously shine

from different points of view and

different points of the One Light,

to tell the World

about a better Way.

And I join my small self’s soul

With All of Yours

as One, we journey on,

out of all

the crippling, darkening belief-prisons,

and onto the Soul’s Free Path,

the One I-Am of Truth, and Love, and Light:

leading, yet not leaving;

moving, and being moved-in;

out of this world’s incarceration

and In-to Eternity’s

Incarnation.

Here. Now.

Born in each moment,

And eternally in and among us.

May it Be. Amen.

© Jane Tawel, 2025

Heroes, Not Monarchs

Don Quixote — The Literary Hub

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Heroes, not Monarchs

By Jane Tawel

December 22, 2025

This is my poor attempt today to wrestle with some of the brilliant, enlightening thoughts of Joseph Campbell and Richard Rohr and of course, some of the great myths and stories of questers and seekers and heroes.

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We foolish mortals who think the prize

is in being a queen or a king

so we miss the boat

and we blind our own eyes

and mistake the Soul’s Odessey

for ego-trips and small I’s.

We search and we search for that one special thing

that will make us feel better than,

mightier than,

holier than

all those who make us feel weak.

And there’s no happy ending

cuz we always want more;

so, we blithefully live with our bane of the poor

cuz we’re merchants and monarchs

in our ivory towers;

and we dirty the water and trample the flowers

and give up the whole earth

for our fantasy kingdoms

Never counting the cost…

Never counting the cost….

Never counting the cost

of not finding the pearl of great price

that we lost.

*

We are called to be heroes

all on the same quest

where the least and the lost

are the first and the best.

We are not dragon-slayers

if true heroes we be,

but we’re slain by the Dragon

and our windmills are tilted

and our offerings are jilted

at the altar until

in our search for the grail

we just fail, fail, fail, fail

because only by losing, we win.

*

True heroes are questing

and searching for more

of the wisdom that comes from

not reaching the shore, but from

Battling the waves, and from floating Inside

All the Mind’s raging tides and

The Heart’s endless strife

as we paddle and drift on the currents of Life.

True heroes are longing

and never at rest

but at peace beyond knowledge or lore.

And they know that in less, they are more;

for true Heroes must journey

in darkness and doubt,

trusting Mystery will lead them Ashore.

*

The heroes in history have found on The Way

that the gate is too narrow for war.

And the heroes we treasure

knew the gift and the joy

of the greatness in suffering

and the love of the voyage

that will end not in conquering

or in showered in crowns,

but in Kingdom revealed

that looked once upside-down

based on monarchs, and money and might;

but when Heaven’s doors open,

Life is now shown to be

only Truth, Beauty, Love and God’s Light.

*

Our great myths are communal.

Our story is One.

And since Time has begun

Heroes’ fingers have pointed

to the True Truths Eternal

of all under The Sun — 

that our treasure’s internal,

Grace-given, not won.

And the Son is the servant

The hero — Our Soul — 

and we toil and we toil and we toil and we toil

not to win, but to die to the self.

Not to rule or defend,

but to die for a friend

and to love ’til the story

has come to The End.

*

Only heroes can know

that there’s no place to go

where the true joy in living

is given for free.

For the quest is the same,

both for you and for me:

The Quest is the sorrowful yearning of love,

but the end’s a Divine Comedy.

To be home in this place — 

Just to taste, hear, and see — 

All the Goodness of this one precious life.

There is nothing to harm us or cling to or flee.

Yes, a transformed-by-Love hero

is what God calls us

to Be.

*

© Jane Tawel, 2025

A Letter in the Season of Anticipation

by Jane Tawel

unsplash freestock

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December 2025

Dear Friends,

I like traditions — well, many of them I do, (not a real fan of having a colonoscopy every 5–10 years, but I do it). This is one of the most tradition-full seasons of the year, at least in America. And yet, America and other kingdoms on earth are now undergoing, as never before perhaps, a time when traditions are being bucked to a rather outrageous and dangerous degree because truth and love are being bucked to a dangerous and insane degree. But one of my long-held traditions, as many of you have, has been writing a letter to friends and family that wish you felicitations for the season we call Christ-mas or Holy-days and to encourage you to have a good year in the next reincarnation of our calendars. And so it is this year, that I write again.

Sometimes I don’t feel like writing, especially when this season’s exceptional story of God’s Love seems so far from the religions and nations that claim it to be true; but I do appreciate all the traditions that try to keep this story alive — the nativity sets, the fragrant Ever-greens, the car rides to see neighborhoods decorated like electricity was free this time of year in honor of The Light of the World; the candy and cookies and sleigh bells ringing, the carols about Peace on Earth; and songs about St. Nick, giver of gifts to rich and poor alike — all the symbols that speak of joy and community; and of freedom, and kindness and generosity and care; of sacrifices for future generations and humble righteousness defeating power and greed for the benefit of humanity and the human good; and of love that has no barriers, no agenda, no judgement — because it is the love told and symbolized in the story of a helpless baby and his struggling mother and father. It is a Love that endures this life’s suffering and pain because of anticipated joy. I was incredibly blessed to go through the pain of child-birth four times, and let me tell you, there is nothing, no pain as agonizing as letting a new little human being struggle her or his way out of your body into the world — but the anticipation of going through that pain to the absolute joy you experience when it is over is worth every excruciating moment. I love that this season centers around that pain leading to joy because of love: the universal, very human story. As a long-time Literature-Geek, perhaps most of all, I love the symbols and metaphors and True Truths of stories and story-tellers that have those themes and unseen, but not unrealized, truths that transcend the place, time, and culture in which they were written and become ever-living testaments to what all humans seek and all wise ones find. And this season has some of the best stories ever written which can point us to True Truth — if we know how to listen with our hearts.

For me, though, the best part of this season has always been the anticipatory aspects of it; I love Advent. Traditionally, this year, my hubby and I gave all our adult kids Trader Joe Advent calendars. I have squirreled away stocking stuffer gifts from “Santa” and look forward to the family opening their stockings on Christmas morning (sometimes more like noon now by the time they can gather from their homes), and some of “Santa’s” gifts will be met with the surprise of “Oh, I love this!” and some will immediately mentally go into their “To be regifted later” pile. I don’t care; it’s the journey to the opening that counts. The house is decorated with all the traditional things in “hopes that St. Nicholas soon will be here” — the tree has ornaments the kids made in Sunday School, although some of the stars are missing a point, and the glitter ratio on most is diminished; I have the little ceramic table-top Christmas tree that lights up that a neighbor gave me years ago which reminds me of the one my Grandma Gladys used to have; and the nativity that my Mom gave me my first Christmas as a mom myself; and a ratty old four-foot stuffed Santa I have had since I was a one-year-old whose stuffed body has seen better days (as has mine, which is maybe why I like it so much). But my favorite tradition that I keep year after year, despite the fearful rumblings in the world, despite the personal trials or tribulations, despite my age, or despite the suffering of people I know and of those I don’t know — the tradition I keep despite any of that, despite my very own self — is the tradition of Anticipation. At odd times, like when I am doing the dishes, or lying in bed wondering if today will be the day the world’s insanity stops and we will all choose to turn it around in time, or when I am convincing myself that “yes, I do really want to head out at dawn again for my run”; or when I am snuggled up next to Raoul thinking about not a whole lot except how glad I am to have him with me all these many years and also just in this very present moment — sometimes — out of the blue — my heart will start pounding like a little drummer boy, (and at my age, you do worry when that happens); but then I remember — that is how one’s heart feels when there is a sense — not a thought — not a belief — not a doctrine — not a law — not a government instituted program — but a Sense — that something Good is coming. When the heart flutters like a butterfly taking flight, it is a sign that wherever and whenever human beings still anticipate that good things are just up ahead, that no matter how dark things may seem, that the Light of Truth will “Dawn” and that a Star will always dispel the darkest night, and that the truest symbol of all our truths can be found in the story of a mother giving birth to a New Life. When we can trust that the Heart of Love never lies then we can anticipate that tomorrow will shine forth with what a little baby-in-a-manger story teaches us — that Love wins. Love always wins.

Happy Advent: the season of the heart. May the stories of this season, and the examples of all those who came before us bringing truth, goodness, peace, and love, fill you in unexpected times and inexplicably joyful ways, with hope and peace — enough for you to give birth to your own renewed, and eternally-blessed Love.

May we live in the hopeful expectation that just around the proverbial corner, one day we shall have Peace on Earth and Good-will for All. May your hearts flutter at unexpected times with a sense beyond words, beyond explanation even, that God is Good and that we small, little specks in the Cosmos, we here and now and on-call-today human beings have what it takes to bring heaven to Earth, because somewhere deep inside, just like the story of heaven incarnated on earth in the manger scene, we each have the divinely-given desire and capability to Love. And Love always wins.

With Love and Hope,

Jane

A Ditty for “In”-Dignity-Out

by Jane Tawel

https://unsplash.com/@planner1963

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A Ditty for “In”-Dignity- Out

By Jane Tawel

December 10, 2025

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“You’re getting too big for your britches”,

I said to my ego today.

“You folly and flail;

You argue and rail

against pinpricks that get in your way.”

*

An ego’s a wondrous invention.

It’s evolved us from primordial stink.

But it’s out of control,

both for me and for all;

bringing nations, religions and folks to the brink

of believing we are what we think.

*

We’re killing the world with our egos.

We’re gobbling and gobbling it up.

Addicted to power and ever more stuff,

Numbing our conscience with shopping and shows — 

for the kind Gods to save us is going to be tough.

*

We often think ego’s validity

are the stories we use to protect

all the walls that we build

to enclose a false entity,

and the fears and the hopes we project.

But by armoring our outsides against our own hearts,

We unbalance our yang with no yin,

And we grieve our own Spirit of love, peace, and joy,

(which is really the ultimate sin).

*

Today as I went to the altar

where I worship the Me-ness of me,

I found myself groveling before all my thoughts

that swarmed like great howling banshees.

I felt all the shame of my past Mea Culpas

and the pain of vague future fears seared my skull so,

so confused by the conflab of my claptrap and woes

that I left my poor Gift at the altar and went

on a walk ‘mongst the trees and the sunlight.

I found my thoughts stilling and I finally sent

up a prayer to be free from the hold: strong and tight,

of an ego that battled True Truth and Clear Sight.

*

And with each little breath, Love’s peace silenced the din.

And I found, without pride, there was dignity-in,

not in-dignity-out of a life lived for me,

not in-dignity-out of my hypocrisy;

but the wisdom that comes not needing to “know”,

and from sensing inside I could be more than ego.

I can find Divine Self, if I only let go

and allow seeds of Love to flourish and grow.

*

So, tomorrow I may prove not to know how,

But today, to my ego, I say, “bye-bye for now”.

And I’ll walk in the Present and in Presence and Grace

and let go of the neediness in my cluttered mind-space.

I will walk step-by-step, doing all that I must

to embrace peace and kindness, and Heaven-bound Trust.

Mindfulness ruling ego, I feel myself freed.

Loving Self, loving Others, I am free here indeed.

*

Jane Tawel, 2025

The Lunacy of Them and the Big If

by Jane Tawel

https://unsplash.com/@yassermokhtarzadeh

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The Lunacy of Them and the Big If

By Jane Tawel

December 4, 2025

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The lunacy of the world escapes me

as power deranges the minds of the powerful.

I want to throw myself at their feet and cry,

“Why do you want to destroy our beautiful world?

*

The insanity of science alarms me

as knowledge plays with fire,

and smart men fly too close to the sun.

I want to shake them until their many brain cells rattle,

“Why do you want to eradicate human beings?”

*

The ignorance of religion deeply saddens me

as belief and dogma turn inwards

like ingrown toenails;

and snakey tendrils

eat away at the heart of faith.

They have set up their money-changers

at the temples’ gates,

and their egos masquerade as God’s truth.

They cling to victimhood,

ignoring the lives of their saviors and prophets.

I want to weep for them

as a lost chick for her mother hen:

“Why do you not keep seeking, seeking, seeking

when you know deep within you have not truly found?

Why do you not embrace wisdom and love

as you claim your Gods do?”

“Why do you seek ever more of

the temporal kingdoms of earth,

of nations that will dissolve into the sea as all nations do;

why do you settle for these

when you are offered the Kingdom of Heaven — 

shining cities on the Hill — 

and promised that all nations

would be blessed by you?”

*

The greed of the wealthy enrages me

as I walk past today’s lepers in the streets

and think of children — Children! — 

going hungry while the rich fly to Paris and back

for a cup of coffee or a McDonald’s from Spain.

I want to rob them blind and distribute their money

equitably throughout the world.

I want to take great handfuls of cash

and throw them at homeless encampments

and Trash Cities and foster homes.

I want to set the captives free

to raise families wherever they choose to feel safe.

And I want to find a cure for blindness.

And a cure for our lame excuses.

And make nests safe and trees healthy.

And heal the sickened land.

*

Today I saw myself in

that moment’s mirror,

and I was Narcissus looking back at myself.

Today I opened my scriptures and spiritual books,

and there was the mirror once more.

The Book of The Living and The Dead

opened its page to the story of Me

where my judgements of the world,

Revealed themselves,

and as in a mirror darkly,

my judgements of others

uncovered my true Face.

I saw in myself,

the many headed monster — 

It was I who was the hydra — 

Greedy,

Power-hungry,

Egotistical in self-righteousness,

Selfish,

Cruel,

Abusive of knowledge

Afraid of wisdom;

and prone to the insanity

of Me-ness.

And I thought,

I can not kill the triumvirate of Anti’s

or slay the evil in the world,

but I can crucify them in myself.

*

I long to see all the peoples of the world

joining their resources with the delight

in knowing that there is enough and always enough;

as together, no matter our color or creed,

we laugh at fear in the knowledge

that nothing Good is ever truly lost — 

not even in death.

May that longing, create in me a new heart, Oh, God.

*

I long to close-up my need to know

Like closing a trap-door that

Only opens to imprison me.

I long for all to open The Door

to The Way that is given to us to

multiply bread and fishes forever and

bring the Kingdom to Life.

May that longing for openness be mine today.

Create in me a new mind, Oh, God.

*

I long for that promised joy

that will come each morning.

And we will dance in the streets.

And the birds of the air,

and the lilies in the fields,

and the forests, and mountains, and seas,

will rejoice:

“Hallelujah!”

“Namaste!”

“We are Risen!”

“Amen!”

And all the earth and Her peoples,

Become the Holy Temple.

And all is One,

and we sing with joy.

Create in me, a new Spirit, Oh God,

that I may rejoice in Your Goodness and Love.

*

And as the prophet sang,

“You may say that I’m a dreamer,

but I’m not the only one.

I hope someday you’ll join us.

And the earth will live as One.”

*

Oh, Great Creator-Spirit,

Whatever and Whoever You Are,

Mother and Father of Earth and Peoples

and of my small, weak, often-hopeless small self;

Holy Beingness above the me, the I AM ,

Timeless, Spaceless, Nameless One –

I pray once more the only prayer I know:

“Help me. Help me. Help me. Help us.”

“Save me from myself. Save us from ourselves.”

“Free our hearts and minds to trust

that Love will always win and

Love will always Be.”

“May we Be. One.”

And may this be my desire today:

That I may step by step

moment by moment

seek that within myself

that I wish to see in others.

May I use all I am given,

both in material things and talents

in thought, word, and deed,

not for my will, but Thine Alone

and Thine in Love of All.

May it be

that I shall not run towards judgement

but that I shall walk and not be weary

in The Paths of Righteousness and

in the faith of that which can not be seen

but can be trusted.

And as I wait upon the Change

that will only come in the world

as I seek to Be that Change;

may I have the hope

that through my own small vision-seeking self,

our Salvation is right beside us;

our salvation is nigh,

our salvation is here and always here;

our salvation, like a great treasure buried in a field,

is within our very own hearts.

In this world, may I

partake in suffering after suffering,

share in sacrifice after sacrifice,

Releasing of all holding,

Accepting of all happenings,

Faithful through all doubts,

Seeking without knowing,

Loving without acception.

And above all,

May I love the very enemies

of this beloved place and time

as I work to love them as myself — 

because they Are myself.

May I forgive myself today

as I forgive others.

And may I be like a babe in the womb,

knowing nothing, trusting completely,

safe in my Mother’s Love.

And one day I shall be reborn

to what I do not know

but I shall then, with joy unimaginable,

see My MotherFather as They Are

and we will be One once more.

*

Is it not true, after all,

as all the Wise Ones say,

that I create the world I see?

Do not all of my perceptions

come to fruition because I want them to

and therein lies the Lie?

If I seek that “kingdom not of this world”

that is this perfect world in Love;

If I keep my lamp filled

with the oil of anticipation

that the Earth’s Bridegroom will come

and marry our imperfect longing

to perfection forever;

And if as the Light that comes from God,

manages to shine through my mud-encrusted lamp–

and I know that I Am–

the light of the world –

Then “If” — -

Well, then…

What might Be?

What If?

*

I think maybe I’ll try it and see.

It certainly can’t hurt any more than it already does — 

Right?

*

© Jane Tawel, 2025

Wishful Thinking

https://unsplash.com/@jason_edmunds

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Wishful Thinking

By Jane Tawel

November 28, 2025

*

Candid contemplations resounding hollowly,

for who can know the parameters of any single thought.

The heart knows, but has no words.

The heart knows, but has no thoughts.

The heart knows, but as it pounds and beats

with that which can only divine love –

with that which is — only Divine Love — 

the mind steps in to silence it

with rage, or lust, or fear

that masquerade as intellect,

pretending to protect,

but only punishing the heart.

*

To ask the heart to take control

is to ask silence to speak,

love to look,

and caring to control all feckless fantasies.

To ask the heart to understand

is to fall back on humanity’s first thought,

that the only idea at all that is a good one,

is that only God is Good.

*

The mind’s machinations and convoluted fears

are based on the illusions

that the power of merely wishful thinking

can do anything but lead us down

wide, wide, wide brambled paths:

paths that lead from one dream to another.

The heart knows

that only The Narrow Path

leads us Home.

*

Our minds, that we created

out of forbidden fruit and falling skies,

to work or use or strain or stain — 

are simply skipping, broken records of the brain,

or anxious agitations of notyetnotyetnotyet.

We take such pride, we fight so hard,

for what we think we know.

The mind is like a boxer in the ring

always and everywhere trying to prove everything

basing its illusions on its might and solidity,

only to find the terrible, unbeatable opponent

is one’s own supercilious, smugly dissatisfied self.

*

The heart rests, like a cat in the sun.

The heart is quiet, like the moment before dawn.

The heart is full of beauty, as Spring’s first bloom.

The heart is safe and peaceful, as a baby in the Womb.

*

As I have this small time,

Now, and only Everlastingly Now,

through Grace alone, gifted to me,

may my vision and my will

be Grace-bound, full of Light and Love, and freed

from my mind’s prideful prison of ego and need,

until I have become whole-ly Heart-led,

and holy in deed.

And if that is wishful thinking of the heart — 

so let it Be.

© Jane Tawel, 2025

Note: Some of this may come from my working through thoughts after a cool story I heard about some neuroscientists who invented one of those machines that they put on people’s heads to measure their thoughts and brain waves etc. The scientists took this head helmet contraption to a monastery to study the brain waves and thoughts of a group of Buddhist monks, but when the scientists asked the monks to put the machines on their heads, all the monks burst out laughing. When the brain-experts asked why they were laughing the monks told them they had designed the machine incorrectly and that if they wanted to measure people’s thoughts, the machines had to be designed to fit here — and they all pointed at their hearts. 

The Apes of AI Know, but I Do Not

by Jane Tawel

https://unsplash.com/@nicolasarnold

*

The Apes of AI Know, But I Do Not

By Jane Tawel

November 21, 2025

*

Take a deep breath;

No let me hear it.

Now relax all your muscles

and repeat after me:

“I do not know”.

That felt hard, didn’t it?

Maybe for some of you it felt impossible.

If you choked on one of the words,

Just try again — 

I.

Do.

Not.

Know.

Now give yourself a little pat on the back.

You just did something ancient and wise

and almost completely forgotten, abhorred, and denied

in our world today.

*

We have a problem.

We have long thought we have to know.

We have long thought we DO know.

And because we are, well, who we are,

Human-doings (and no longer human “beings”),

we convince ourselves that with small effort

we (or our kid, or our doctor, or our teacher, or our leaders)

can know everything; should know every thing.

And those who don’t know what I know

are — 

Just.

Plain.

Wrong. (“Wrong” is a nice word

for what most of actually think and say about those “others”.)

*

And now we have some mechanical monkeys,

invented to know

but not to understand;

Invented to keep humans

from being uncertain,

from exploring,

from resting in unknowing and unknowingness,

or from Wonder, or Anticipation, or Trust

or Awe — 

from not knowing, even for a moment

(which is often the life-span of what we know — 

a moment –then — forgotten.)

*

We have lots of “stuff”

that we can see or hear or say — 

at the tip of our fingertips –

or even better our two thumbs — 

just like the monkeys — 

even our digits have devolved.

*

We can find information

but not Wisdom,

on where to buy the best car,

or how to conjugate a verb,

or when to get married,

or who wore what,

or why –

and yet, when it comes to that most important

investigative, meaningful question of all — Why? — 

we still feel empty and alone and afraid –

because we no longer ask:

Why am I here? Why Am I?

“Know” and “No” — so much spiritual insight,

so much philosophy,

so much paradoxical Truth,

so much Literary device excellence that

only a Word-Nerd could love –

so much in those two words, contained

in two little homophones. (Look it up.)

*

So, we keep watching obsessively,

asking stuff (These are synonyms for “stuff”

which I thought of myself without having to look online:

stuffing, filler, padding, wadding).

We keep on and on and on,

not “training up our minds”*,

but treadmilling them;

asking our trained monkeys,

affectionately called by different names,

(Well, actually, they don’t have real names, do they?

Just acronyms, as if somehow an acronym

could lend mystery to their naked-ape emptiness.

You can ask one of the monkeys what I am ALLUDING

to with that “naked ape” line. It will save you having to read books.

You may also, though, need to look up what the literary device,

“Alluding” is. Hang in there.

Just don’t admit you didn’t know and you will be okay.)

*

AI, is the newest, the biggest, the baddest ape in town.

There is some lazy monkey, beloved of students,

called “ChatGPT”(I refuse to even go near that one;

I am terrified enough for our current generation.)

Grammarly — my favorite nemesis and bugaboo 

(Look those words up, people.

Look them up!) — 

that little monkey Grammarly

especially cracks-up this old English teacher,

so often inserting in her bananas to create a dangling modifier,

(Example of funny dangling modifier — 

although I know you all know — 

“Coming out of the grocery, the bananas fell on the sidewalk.”)

or where subjects should be, not objects

(Example of where subject should be

where Grammarly often puts in

a stupid-sounding object — .

“It was I that you found to be a pain in the neck for

giving you an old-fashioned grammar lecture.” I mean,

I know I was mean to say “stupid-sounding”, 

but do you really want to regress back to saying:

“Me is a pain in the neck”? Think about it — or don’t.

Oh, and “pain in the neck” is considered an idiom.

Look it up.)

Even Siri, that most willing of helpful little chimps

can “unwittingly” (literally — no wits) can send us

down the wrong path.

Ready for another allusion and paraphrased play on words?

(You can do this! I have faith in your uninformed curiosity!)

“I stood looking

only for the brief moment of attention-span I have left,

at two paths suggested by Siri,

diverging between my laptop and my cell phone;

And I, I took the one that had the most battery life left,

and it hasn’t made a bit of difference in my life,

except for getting me faster to somewhere I didn’t really want to go,

and except for briefly taking my mind off

of having to think about anything meaningful 

like poetry.**

*

Oh, I say I laugh,

I seem to mock,

and yet I see myself

like the old, grey lemming I have become

so often in fear or plain laziness,

rushing to “know”;

(and I just realized I am perhaps teaching

some of you to subconsciously understand

how to use a semi-colon);

creeping with anxious tapping fingers,

and breath-less, untrusting, certainty

at the back of the propelled, plodding pack.

There am I (practice makes perfect 

when I comes to grammar lessons, folks),

Searching with the rest of my simian-species,

And blinding myself (literally and figuratively)

with eyes wide-open

blurry with the ever-lit, lambent LEDs

feeling connected to my computerized-community — 

(until someone says something I disagree with or that I know is a lie

and then I unfriend those dummies) — 

As together,

We veer toward the cliff of knowing so very much –

and Understanding

Nothing.

*

Take a deep breath.

Stand at the two paths offered you,

and repeat after me:

We do not know.

We do not know.

Maybe we do not need to know.

*

And most shockingly peace-that-passes-understanding

Amazing of all is that when I do not know,

I experience.

And only experience can truly lead to

Knowing myself,

Knowing The Mystery,

Knowing Wisdom

(Dare I say it? — Knowing God.)

And not knowing how I know what I do not know,

or the knowingness of that which is beyond words,

and yet longs to find words that will for an instant

make a bridge between the subjective and the Absolute

(because none of that is brain-knowledge) — 

This searching-reaching-resting-Unknowing-sightless Vision Quest

is a joyful, peaceful, freeing gift.

Because Truth and Understanding

are not, and have never been, head-knowledge

but Heart-Wisdom.

*

Even after all these centuries,

and all these smart people,

and all these so-called smart machines

it is cosmically comical

what any of us has ever,

does ever,

can ever,

Truly know.

In light of the depths of the Ocean,

in light of the expansiveness of the Heavens,

in light of the marvelous vastness in variety

of animals, and sea creatures,

and plants, and bugs, and minerals,

and yes, the delightful diversity of apes! — 

In light of The Universe,

in light of God,

in light of Light! — and,

in light of what we do not know even about ourselves — 

Unknowing is not, as the poet said, unbearable;

instead it is weight-bearing.

Not knowing, is the weight-bearing raft

that floats our weary souls 

on the Great River of Acceptance, Faith and Hope.

And we paddle our little life-boats, our River-rafts, with the oars of

of curiosity and creativity and contentment with what is,

and all we need to know is that Something — SomeOne

Who lives and breathes and has Being 

in all the Life-Streams

that lead to and are the Ocean and the Oneness

 — that which Is, which is I AM,

and contains the Truest of Truths, 

which we can only faintly glimpse in a glimmer of Glory,

and “holds these truths to be self-evident”,

that Faith, Hope and Love are real and Eternal,

and if we can let go of knowledge, 

we can find Heaven on Earth;

we can find Eternity,

which our brains can not know,

but only the Soul can find.

*

Ignorance can be bliss;

ignorance can be Stillness;

ignorance can be freedom from

the monkey-mind of thinking that we need to know.

Because truthfully,

one thing we do know

is that even those smart apes

can never tell us

the most important thing of all — 

What Love is.

How to Love.

Why we Love.

Only the Heart can tell us that.

Only the Heart can know that.

*

I do not know.

Oh, how wonderful and wonderous-

to know nothing except

how to take the next small step

on the Narrow Path;

how to breathe the next small breath,

in this amazing, mysterious body;

how to look at the next small person,

with humble and kind eyes;

how to touch the very present and only moment,

with hands ungraspingly, un-fisted, unholding,

and a heart as wide-open as the Spaciousness 

of Love-Oneness.

(And maybe if we rename “God” 

or re-name whomever we make our gods, “Love-Oneness”, 

then there will be no more religious or national wars, 

because how can you truthfully worship “Love-Oneness”

and do the same old violent, hateful monkey doo-doo

that we humans keep doing in the name of our gods?

 And maybe we will finally know something important,

about all that we have never known, 

but have used and abused instead.

Just sayin’. But what do I know?)

*

By knowing nothing,

I may just have a wee, small hope

that I may one day

join the wisest of the Wise Ones***

and walk in Love as the Greatest of The Loving Ones,

and I just might evolve back and forward into being

a human Being.

But I can’t be sure;

because I do not know.

*

© Jane Tawel, 2025

*Romans 12:2

** “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost (Look it up.)

***Socrates: “I know that I know nothing.” “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”

My Small Lizard-Self

A Mish-Mashed Essay on Meaning

https://unsplash.com/@klikovam

*

My Small Lizard-Self — A Mish-mashed Essay on Meaning

By Jane Tawel

I am but a small, small person, living in an age of gigantic egos, no matter the reality of who they are, and no matter the justification. And the biggest ego of all — the biggest problem of all — the biggest complaints and worries and angerings of all that make my life miserable and fraught and painful is my own out-of-bounds, out-of-control, out-of-all-proportion Ego. People, who know me, may think they are being kind and truthful when they poo-poo this statement about me. And all the world’s psychologies and philosophies and spiritualities will try to help me or dissuade me from this albatross of my understanding of what the world’s problems are. Oh, I see the world’s problems and wrestle daily with the knowledge that if only every single person — my family members, my friends, the government, the religious leaders, and the silly squirrels and rather stupid lizards and one-minded ants would JUST LISTEN TO ME — well then truth, justice, and correct behavior would be universal if everyone would just listen to this darn smartness I have about how to fix everyone and everything. And you know I am right, because that is exactly what you think about yourself, right? (This is where if this were a text I would put a laughing hysterically emoji. So, I will just say –ha! ha!).

See what I mean, though, about my ego? And after the last years of studying the Greats — those who realized that their ego was a burden to let go of and that only by “laying down their lives” could they truly have Abundant Life and be their True Self — I have imbibed a lot of good hints about Who I Am meant to be and How to get there and What the real purpose of all our lives is and Where I should be using my desire to give and be of good use, and above all Why — Why I should gladly “die to my small self, the ego” and Live to the Spacious Self, the Deep I, the unattached Buddha, and the Love of Enemy Christ. (And yes, those capitalized words are the penultimate, Ultimate and well-documented for effective truth-gathering “Investigative Questions”.) And I love learning all that important stuff about The Soul of myself and The Soul of the World, and God, and my True Nature — and then I go out and just snuggle back down into the bed of my narcissistic, ego-driven, comfy little lumpy small self.

My ego’s biggest fears right now can be reduced perhaps to two: First, I see that we humans are literally intent on destroying the world, people and planet and all; and this makes me fearful and very sad and very angry because humans can be incredible and none of us (don’t lie to yourself) none of knows what really happens to humans when they or all this world are gone forever (Great humans = Mozart, Dickinson, Usain Bolt, Ghandi, Teresa of Avila…). And also the planet is the most beautiful, awesome thing I have personally every experienced (Trees! Aforementioned squirrels, lizards, and ants. The Ocean. Little streams that make their way around rocks and fallen branches. Rain and also, sunlight falling on an open page. My children’s hands and our knees — aren’t knees amazing!? And flowers — I mean, Why God? Why useless, lovely things like flowers? Oh, this glorious world!) And none of us really knows (don’t kid yourself) if there is some other place somewhere that is anything as glorious and delightful and awe-inspiring as this dear, dear place we call Earth with these unique creatures from bees to rhinoceroses to people. I mean Jesus said it — The Kingdom of Heaven isn’t out there, it is here on Earth, among you, within you — earth and humans = Perfect World. But of course, it isn’t. Cuz — well, our egos. We don’t want the perfection that is or at least could be, because then we would all have to give up our egos and just share it all with each other and love each other and be joyful and peaceful and how boring would that be? (See Book of Genesis for allegorical proof of this should you need proof.)

Secondly, my biggest fear can be reduced to one word: Time. Running out of it (from being late to not getting a project finished on time to dying — the ultimate running out of Time). There is also the constant monkey-mind fear of not being present in this moment of time and constantly trying to anticipate or actually anticipating what it might or might not bring me tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow as it “creeps in this petty pace from day to day” (Yep. Shakespeare — Another great human to mourn the possible eradication of from the memory of the Universe if we kill the planet and ourselves.) (Does the Universe even have memory? Does it need memory? I don’t know. Stop asking me these hard questions. I’m tired.)

And the ego has long accepted platitudes and mockeries of faith to shore up its sandy shores upon which I have built the house I call my home — my ego, my small self. And it is only in small ways that I have started to piece together a new shelter, a shelter cobbled together from bits and pieces and wrecked ships on past shores of desire and dreams and beliefs, and my soul or True Self has begun to seek that which creates in me a small sanctuary, created from moments of mystery, the calm of curiosity, the unfailing truth of Unknowing, and in lighting the small wick of Love in my small self for all people, all things, and all that is “not me” and perhaps is God. And for a few little seconds at a time I can dwell in the difficult but loving reality I happen to achieve in nano-seconds of letting go, of opening up, and of quieting and lovingly rejecting all that races as a false reality in my ego-driven mind, and I stop momentarily the babble of my brain and with my heart I listen for the Still Small Voice of “peace that passes understanding”.

***

Last week I was in and out of my back door hanging up laundry. My husband and I like to hang up laundry when we can because not using our dryer is pretty easy in California all year long, (it rarely rains, alas) and it is a small thing we can do for the environment. It has also become a rather “Zen” activity for me and gives me a sense of connection to eons of women doing small tasks with our hands in the open-air, praising the sun and breeze as gifts for our good and our pleasure. Our back French doors are a bit wiggledy-woggledy, and if you aren’t focused and careful, there is a slight crack left open when you sort of swing it shut which you have to kinda’ do, to be honest, with a basket full of laundry in your hands. I hung the clothes and came back in to find a small mama-lizard (I know it was a mama by the size — in SoCal you get to know the lizards in your yard — the baby ones are soooooo cute!). Mama-lizard had rapidly, sneakily, foolishly, crawled inside to warm herself on the warm sunny grey kitchen floor. Now, that would be fine, but eventually, the lizard would realize that once inside she didn’t really have escaping capabilities (or brains –I am not being judgmental here, cuz well, lizards, well… evolution, people. Lizards — not meant to be all that high up on the smarts chart.)

I hate for anything to be in danger of harm or especially danger of death. On walks, if I see a silly squirrel start to dash across the street with a nut in his mouth, unconscious of oncoming cars, I call out: “Don’t do that, Silly. Be careful.” I often caution the deer who come down from the foothills to be safe out there and try to head back up as soon as they can. And my dear bees who throng busily around my lavender are such marvels, but they do buzzily worry so when I come in the evening to water the plants. I always let them know to stay up high (“When I go low, you go high!” To paraphrase Michelle Obama, another great human). “I won’t spray you, dear girls. I love you. (Bees busily buzzing in their beautiful business around our plants are girls — I used to call them “guys” but if you think about it, of course those lovely busy honey-giving, plant-pollinating nurturers are Female! I mean, it makes me feel sorry for Queens to think about the queen bees having to stay inside doing nothing but making more baby bees with AI drone bees. Makes me happy to be born one of the female worker bees out here.)

So, the mama-lizard gets into the house, and I realize I have to get her out. If you have ever tried to catch a lizard — well, you will have a clear picture of just how fast I failed. So, if lizards are stupid, what does that make me? I was actually very smart. I quickly got a colander (air holes) and a thick piece of cardboard (sturdy). I cornered the scampering (well, sort of quickly slithering, to be honest) lizard but then — I choked. I knew the lizard could grow a tail again if I accidently bashed the colander down on it but I am really rather mechanically challenged and I feared I would clang the pot down on its head and I didn’t think lizards could regrow their heads, even though they do have very small, barely functioning brains. And when I choked, mama-lizard dashed under the washing machine. End of lizard. End of story.

Except it wasn’t. Because speaking of small-brained dingbats, the next day I left a crack in the French doors and Another Lizard Came In! Wash. Hang clothes. Repeat human stupidity. I came closer this time with the colander/cardboard trick, but this lizard got back behind a cabinet. End of story. End of my saving lives. End of my Mother-Teresa-ing it, and doing great things with love by a small person.

I spent the rest of that lizard-losing-and probably-dying day mourning mama and papa lizard and all lizards and all lives and feeling like a failure and thinking all kinds of Nietzsche-esque thoughts about the meaningless of life and in particular the meaningless of my small self- life. I mean who can’t manage to wield a colander and piece of cardboard to save someone’s life? Ugh! Useless me.

But the next day, a miracle occurred. Because miracles are really just those moments when you have given up your small self and ego enough to just not know anything and so all the walls and doors and boundaries and ideas that close you off to something happening can happen– despite yourself, despite your beliefs, despite your accomplishments and also, well, — just “despite” — and when you give-up, then a small little crack in the unreality you have created about yourself and the world and Nature and God — opens to the Reality and through that little crack, the miracle of one, small act of Grace can sneak in.

Here is proof of miracles. The next morning, one of the lizards came out from hiding and sat patiently waiting for me in the small shaft of sunlight coming through the crack in the door and I said to the lizard, “Please don’t run away. May I just open the door for you?” And my small little nobody of a self, quietly, calmly, without overthinking, opened the door, skooched behind mama-lizard and with one small, old, very-human foot gently guided forward and through the door-crack one small lizard — back into her lovely, lizardy world and home to her waiting, anxious family.

***

I don’t know the meaning — neither the small little meaning of why I was allowed to be born and live this long, wonderful life I have lived, nor the meaning of why I was graced with saving one life of one lizard, or why I was given the gift of my family, and friends, and my particular Space and Time on this planet; and I don’t know what or if I will have any meaning after this body and brain die; and I definitely do not know the Meaning of “It” “All”. And the biggest tragedy of my life is nothing any one has done to me but rather what I have done to myself in thinking I have to know too much of anything at all and not just live as much Love as I can, embracing all the wonder, all the beauty, all the gifts, and all the joy — in just the miracle of being alive, in just this moment.

Maybe the sole reason I have lived was to witness the salvation of one small lizard and to know that in the end, there is nothing I can do but accept the miracle of grace by opening to the small cracks that let in the Sun. In my smallness is the greatness of grace. And therein, I may find the truly miraculous meaning of it all and a stillness and peace with a mind like a small lizard that needs to know very little, except how to open my heart to everyone and everything and with Love, follow the Light.

© Jane Tawel, 2025