INTO THE NOW

Why the hell are we now perfuming trash bags? Come on now. Are you telling me that on self-destruction we are just so hell bent. We compulsively multiply consumerism's chemical footprint. By mindlessly destroying with all our toying Earth's environment. We show no respect for our home. And we're overdue with Earth's rent. I wish I could end this one hopeful be more song less lament. But we are trading away the only habitable planet we even know exists. In exchange for trash-bags now featuring a “Fresh Clean” chemical scent. Humanity looks to have ordered hell… and added on super-sizing. We're spending our last days cooking up chemicals for refuse-stench disguising. At least the future smell of the dead planet will be slightly less putrefying. Because marketing companies now make the trash bags full of some shit that's odor neutralizing. And yet… From the quantum of individual self-sacrificial decisions hope against hope is arising. So, I'll hang up this pen stop wasting time philosophizing. Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

52. Into the Now I for One… want to ‘Be' present. To shake the dust off ‘Just What Is'. Because here and now God is calling for our presence. Like a smiling childhood Friend. And this Friend has all the good toys. New eyes, new ears, a burden light, and a big smile …just like a child! Eternity is made-up of Our moments so we're growing ‘Heaven' wild. And We human beings, We have the capacity to consciously create it. We know now thoughts create forms. We each manifest as lives march forward. Jesus Christ knew something we've forgotten and into the now, His life, Love poured. Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

51. Home Grown There is no such thing as the future! …ok I came right out and said it. The future is a myth, so is the past. Present moments are all we've ever known. That means ‘Heaven' is here and now. Not out there… somewhere-else, some-place, some-time unknown. I don't think we are waiting on admittance beyond some clouded throne. It must already be taking shape as what it is destined to one day be. The inevitable singularity of Love… What Must Be will one day set us free. But if we stay caught up in separate egos, and within thought patterns spin. Imagined sufferings and pleasures increasingly become our focus as games of preferences, we try to win. The egoic “fruit of the knowledge of good and evil”* has grown like this since the garden of Eden. But, then Jesus Christ came along and told Us, “the kingdom of heaven is inside you”.** But I'm not sure we know just what that means. Could it be that from the quantum of conscious moments? We actively manifest what Heaven will be? And if we can lay aside separate preferences. We'd all find another way from the inside. From a place called Love that feels like Home. Heaven will be home grown. *Genesis 2:16-17 **Jesus of Nazareth: Luke 17:20-21; Matthew 10:7 Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

50. Miracles Do you want to hear about a miracle? And I don't mean a miracle that's satirical but literal. Even though as typical it will come out a little lyrical. First of all, it's a miracle if these words have reached… you. These words've had a bumpy ride on their way to meet you. If you have listened this far, that is miraculous! These words became vernaculous. Along the way, though these words will have transcended a legion of opposition. They came to me like a hurricane. A veritable obstriction of diction. But that's not really the miracle I sat down to write about. But a little extra I must acknowledge a gift of God, I must point out. The miracle I wish to speak of is a hope From dystopia it's our way out. We are not yet damned!!! Mankind is not yet over a barrel! A harmonious, fulfilled, free, humanity… The singularity of Love is… just inevitable. Though the path from here to there may take hard years to escape these perils. Because power-systems now mandate domination. As human hostages now live in virtual prisons held-behind electronic bars. Installed by corporations who've purchased our nations. In my country our cages are adorned with pretty trinkets. The miracle I speak of though is about how we do life and that blessed day when we rethink it. Rethink it and realize the fact, that all these separate preferences that fill our brains, are just well-crafted games… Games that promise joys and deliver chains. Custom built to maintain control and profit shackling the world to more of the same. Thus, humanity staggers drunk… drunk on the froth of assigning blame. Prisoners to preference, plastic-egos, and electronic fame. Though cultural conformity and cancelations will not remain for eternity the borders of life's frame! It will not be this way forever, so don't succumb to their lies of “never”. The times we live in are ripe with child. Pregnant, with the miracle of a future birth. A miraculous arising up of ‘Heaven'. Christ Conscious Us re-making Earth. Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

49. Consciousness and… Breath at last will one day cease. Consciousness and… pass on, into peace. When from there we look back on this life will we mourn lives, we traded for trife? Possessions, things, our treasured baggage, houses, cars, and clothes, remembered as garbage. Consciousness and… will ‘Be' in ‘heaven above' Consciousness and… present moments magnetic Love. Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

48. God Saves Through Self Emptying Sitting in my daily morning meditation I caught myself in a forced smiling frown. The kind I have to will up to resist tears that promise relief by escaping my eyes and falling onto the ground. I learned right before I sat down of the passing-away of a visionary. The last day. Of the great teacher Thay. Christ Consciousness just lost a giant. Thich Nhat Hanh, the friend of Thomas Merton and Martin Luther King Jr. Thay, last night passed away. But he's now being "called by his true names".* In this morning's sit, came to me a rephrasing. A Name. As another way to say. “God Saves – Through Our Self Emptying” is “Jesus-Christ” reinterpreted today. What else does the name above all names say? But to convey kenotic love in sheer dramatic display? An Incarnation spent as moments of loving awareness poured out upon Just What Was. With no account for separate preferences cost. Just smiling, breathing, Being. All the way to the old rugged cross. Thay, through mindful breathing somehow "tamed the tiger within".* The Holy Spirit moved him to "Interbeing".* Thay's life was breathed as "peace in every step".* So, his passing left me sort of reeling wondering if there are any more giant's left.? This planet is desperate for meaning. We need a modern day Ram Dass, a Buddha, a Jesus, a Thay, Because our ears are all stopped up with profits. Materialistic-consumers busy lining our pockets. Tuning out and killing off all the prophets. That Just What Was in sacrificial love sent our way. Who is left? To teach us to live "in the here and the now"?* In the turmoil of Heaven growing wild? So that the next "twenty-four-brand-new-hours"* will be conscious moments chock full of loving smiles. Who will tell us the next time we lose our conscious smile to "remember the dandelion has it"?* And God saves through self-emptying trials. *Thich Nhat Hanh – various writings, quotes, and teachings. Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

47. There is something made of Love up next. It has got to just feel mental to stare into your own impending death. Death's goodbye, sure makes us fearful. The abyss opening up after breath. What is next? Will we float or will we stand? Is Someone waiting reaching out for our hand? Will we sink into fear? Will we breathe into faith? Or will we hide in depression's dark lands? Because my time at the precipice will soon arrive. Human life is so cosmically brief. Or should I've said comically brief? So before God draws this soul from its sheath. I'll speculate. Take a guess before my grave wear's a wreath. There is something made of Love… up next. And there are things here, that make me sad to think to miss. Marriages and births to be witnessed. Laughing at friends when they trip. The electricity of a kiss. Picking up fruit, drawing it close, taking a whiff. But there is something made of Love up next. And there has never been ‘nothing' – anywhere. In the same way that steel pouring out of a foundry is sub-atomically still mostly air. Matter is just a field of perceived spatial boundaries. And yet there is no emptiness anywhere. Out to the farthest corner of the Cosmos nothing… nothing just plain old does not exist. There is Spirit, movement, potential in the quantum. In the fractal field of the sub-atomic there is no bottom. The light after the darkness insists, it is Love. It is Infinite. It is Heaven. There is something made of Love up next. Where Our purpose will be manifest everywhere. It is the land of Union. Communion. Where we'll Be… after laying down cares. Though the flight from here into eternal reunion. It does not come with a map. So, it falls to each of Us to smile, let go, release. “God is Love”* and will fill in our cracks. Provide courage, faith, vision where we lack. So, as you fly Home don't turn and look over your back. Your circuitous flight into the singularity of Love will always remain eternally on track. *1 John 4:8 Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

46. The Physicist's Key Physicists are presently seeking a fundamental pattern of division. They postulate if they can find the fractal pattern that grows division. Humanity could escape the earthbound three-dimensional prison in which we're living. As a key to a lock, this understanding could birth creation. But with such power over things would we end power-systems? …Or just remake them? I for one, do not think we are ready, as in the sorta… “this is why we can't have nice things” kinda way. Watch for yourself, on tonight's news. Watch us accuse, watch us bruise, watch us judge, watch us weigh, watch us peruse the divided highlights of yet another divided day. It's a spinning fractal vision of division. Souls torn asunder as internal combustion we've become the fuel. And we're being driven into their engine. Power-systems preach “worry”! About “other”! And bow down to power, just don't awaken. Just focus on this year's must have ‘things'. Things, we are trading Earth away in making… Unconscious profit chasing, and social faking. With Corporate-Politicians behind the wheel we race to hell… and we're not braking. Maybe this pattern, of fractal division… is our ticket? Maybe we sink the full court shot of saving Earth. Maybe we brick it? That kind of math though is well above my limit. Instead, I'll work with my moments, try to be present to those I'm given. To bring unguarded loving awareness to life has been the key from the beginning. So, I'll meet you in the now forgiving ‘thisness' in fractals spinning. Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

45. ‘It'… Is Happening ‘Christ', (the word for God's self-emptying) is happening. Now. ‘It' is – happening now. So, "what would Jesus do"??? About… ‘It'? That situation in your home. Or with your friends. Or another struggle against-the ‘others' we separate from and then contend? Only the Christ, would not by now have come unglued! With our attitudes and our behaviors The way we ‘other' both our planet and our neighbors. Far afield from Jesus' points mankind has moved. We often miss His story's arc. The plot behind Mary's broken heart. Why He did just what He did. Why He said just what He said. And why the lesson had to conclude with Him hanging up there, dead? Can I dare..? Can I dare? To wonder out loud, what into these times, what He might say? …Maybe something like “Hey, you know that separate-ego you tend to live from?” “Well dig it out by the roots and throw it away.” Or would He speak up for His planet? Before our consumption finally damns-it? Or tell us our power structures, and our pursuits of ‘success', are just the sparkle on the bodice of the antichrist's wedding dress. I believe Jesus Christ lived that life for more than this. Died that death for more than this. The “knowledge of good and evil'* became our Judas, when the ego claimed us with a kiss. When later Jesus multiplied His presence by sending out His twelve. He told them to take nothing, leave all that distracts back on the shelves. Because the point His life seemed to make… Was that the point of life attachments take, as worries and clinging's slowly grate away at our Divinity and compromise our Center. We toil away our lives, and the kingdom of heaven we fail to enter. Bound to old wood and rusty nails I hear a distant voice, a silent wail. It says “Take courage. ‘it' is… ‘I'… so do not be afraid.”* Our Father's love it is inevitable And heaven is the road We together pave. So, ‘Christ' meets us. As here and now. In and as this very moment where we will finally see that ‘it' is all the ‘Christ', even when ‘it' nailed ‘Him' to a tree. Then as promised went on ahead and waits right here… in Galilee.** *Jesus of Nazareth: Matthew 14:27 **Jesus of Nazareth: Mark 14:28 Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

44. Divided Lines Religion… is how we live. Not the structured belief system with which we identify. So, it is past-time we all start asking why establishment faiths refuse to transcend the script. Of defended agreements and divided lines? Selling fears, followed closely, by systemic rules to then live by. Why is modern religion still focused on words? On what ‘they' believe, and what ‘we' believe? Not on creating a new Earth, but defending idolized-ideologies. Power systems of competing egos paying blood taxes on their greed. Scoring eternal-points through very sweet external charity produces ‘Religion'. Not surrendered hearts. But religions of ‘me'-over. Our way over all ‘others' who don't quite agree. All consumed by precise wording dividing who is “in”… and who is “out”. But not enough contemplation about how religions of divisions… is turning out. Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

43. The Universe is Breathing Me I am not so much breathing as the Universe seems to Be, breathing me. I don't have to attempt to will it, the Cosmic Christ's outpouring fills it. Thus, to be breathed is grace, it is a gift that's given free. The universal offsetting balance is also grace always yin, always yang, humans breathing, breathing trees. Take a moment, watch yourself be breathed. In and out breath's unrelenting tide. Makes you wonder what is the point of consciousness' breath-less ride.? It will not remain us forever clinging to personas, to egos, to separate ‘I's. But in Being breathed… as a grace. like Eckhart says, we're “One With Life”.* As we consciously perceive the Universe breath, we form a relationship with Spirit. And join the dance… of Just What Is. Realizing not in our thoughts but in loving awareness,** we are fulfilled. *Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose.. **Ram Dass, mantra (1931-2019) Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

42. Humorous Diversity Have you ever contemplated Earth's cosmic birth? I mean really, really think about it? Consider all the crazy things, on their own that just grow up and out of it. How in the Cosmos… in the mind melting immensity? Did We grow Earth filled with such a humorous diversity. Take an example like any old nature show on the tele. Or better yet take a field trip stroll through an Appalachian wooded valley. Or how about the example of tropical birds. With their crazy shapes, crazy colors, crazy dances for their girls. Or how… somehow inevitably natural shapes end up in curls. From the mosses to the mountains, to the sprouting up of men. It's a reminder it is all One. We grew from Earth's soil since who knows when. Earth is not filled with diverse enemies. It's filled with humor. Filled with friends. Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

41. The Threshing Floor I just saw an image… somewhere inside my brain. It was a large stone inside a circle, a whipping post for the releasing of grain. A hulk of stone was positioned just at the center. Like a saddle horn for the threshing of wheat, purposed to test resolve, of grains that strong and grains that weak. I'm not exactly sure? Just why I saw it? What this image was intended to convey? All I can think is that it was an analogy. Like a parable… for the meaning of these days. Somewhere along the way to today, we decided the point of life was to live like kings. Demanding, more comfort, more pleasures, more things. What have these recent times been but a threshing floor? Freeing humanity's seed from Our bondage from attachments, unconscious desires and cults of more. It seems humanity is being flailed in order to free Us, from scarcity-consciousness and endless economic-wars. Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

40. The Sam's Wholesale Church It seems like a lot of people have stopped going to church. Instead on Sunday's they all go to Sam's… Piling in there in all shapes, colors, and sizes, pouring out of trucks, classic-cars, and minivans. …If our ‘God'… is from what we derive our meaning. Then bulk consuming and material-goods competing is now what draws in the congregants streaming. As we crowd-fund plastic water bottle pollution. And keep the masses satiated and sleepily producing. But this exponential producing seems to me to be end times inducing. Because ‘meaning' is now sought in ‘stuff'. Stuff emerging from merciless environmental abusing. As separate-ego's bow… bow down before the gods of consuming. What is the future we are growing from this now? What is the consciousness grown from material goods as the object of our bows? The world's foundations sure seem to be getting pretty shaky. Meaning is disappearing as quickly as rotisserie-chickens lately. Because our Sunday sermons now come from the sample lady. Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

39. Transcending the Temporal Fill your lungs. Breathe in deep. To your belly, breath is a reminder you are still here. Still experiencing, this side of death's sleep. Presence to this present moment always births understandings never fears. In actuality fear too often is imagined, the ego whispering otherness in our ears. Into black mirrors our culture casts spells weaving myths that our plans keep us well. Yet, each moment is a fractal of potential. When we join into the now's dance. Let go of the mud you're dressed in it's a rental. Your “I” my “me” is not the point it's a trance. The eternal stretches out as life's crossroads. Good and evil, Just What Is, manifests the I AM. Christ Consciousness is the path of loving awareness. Kenotic exchange not protections and plans. While ego consciousness bows down before the idol of protections. Tribalizes opposing ideologies and calls them elections. While corporations sell colored plastic and pills for erections, more comfort, more couture, more confections… Thus, humanity drifts off dreaming of temporal distractions. But one day, I believe we'll wake up to Oneness. To Purpose. Human consciousness will unclench, will breathe, will one day, transcend waring ego's and divided factions. Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

38. A Practice Join me in contemplating the mystical words “Let there Be”… they are heavy. God, pouring out of an infinite levee. Into a donut bubble of spinning energy – we call the Universe. But did ‘Cosmic-Karma' or ‘Divine-Will' pour in first? Which concept get the credit of first mover? Where did we come from? Form within the heart of life's Ruler? Or does that not matter at all? In the midst of the Human-Being's great fall. By the present moment we just refuse to be held. We're too busy creating then habituating hell. So, let's join in a practice just now wherever you are. Sit up straight on the couch. Or pull over your car. Come back to the peace… that is this very moment, relax eyes, relax tension, relax breath. Feel Spirit in the wind that fills your belly then fills your chest. Be here and be now in this moment from in presence while “One, With, Life”.* And practice asking of your thoughts is this thought even true?.?. ** The answer often ends the tyranny of our fears. The practice of present moments lived freely unites ‘Life' through "new eyes and new ears."*** * Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose. ** Byron Katie, “The Work”. ***Ezekiel 12:2 Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

37. Everything is True Everything… is true. Well, I guess I did it again. Start out with a statement shocking just to circle back to it at the end. Well, everything is true. Truth can't be contained in just one view. And the way I learned to find it was to become willing to undo. If it is… its ultimate origin is God. That's true of every-thing from joy to suffering, humans to sod. God is truth is not limited to either perspects pole. Our source cannot be contained, but contains all that is inside the Whole. Jesus, taught to worship in Spirit and in truth. But it does not sound like Spirit defending idolized-positions claw and tooth. What is truth? But ‘Just What Is'. If it is… it is true. So don't let yourself be reduced, identity captive to current views. Defended group positions and biases justify how egos feel. But the All-Yes is all sides and waits to meet us as the Real. So yep, everything is true. Every-thing spins from Creation's force. So I'll meet you in the present moment where we abide in the vine…* Love's, Truth's Source. * Jesus of Nazareth, John 15:4-5 Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

36. Our Destiny Be quiet. Pay attention. Without thinking notice breathing. Maybe even watch, as it changes how you're seeing. Damnations begot Nations, who begot divides of our creation. Christ-consciousness will eventually beget a unification of our species. But the question of our time remains , how long will we wallow in the ego's feces? To the point of Life! Existence! we act, as if we're blind. We will be evolving toward a Divine destiny. When presence transcends unconsciousness and mankind is freed from our conditioned self-seeking ‘mind.' Or right there – should my syntax have again been the word ‘ego'? Or maybe right there used ‘separate-self'? Because our separate-successes and separate-protections have humanity on the verge of mass insurrections. Have we all just given in? To social media and being mean? Do we just so love our shackles, chained in hypnosis to the more-machine? Or could conscious breathing teach us Being? Ontological Oneness is Our destiny separation the-dream. Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

35. Attachment Strings come with things. And things come with strings. Why do they draw me so? Yet to Be… is God in living where the deer and turkey go. Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

34. This Game We Keep Playing The wages of ‘otherness', we don't yet know. But our shared future no longer comes slow. Collectively what we are Becoming, is how God falls into form like the snow. God's self-emptying love. Living-water. The Cosmic-sea. Evolving in and as, You and Me. And currently ego-consciousness is driving this planet to its knees. Multiplying suffering and injustice by the little threes. Trash… may end up the legacy left behind of Earth's trees. We all know the adage - “sex-sells” But I think the powerful would now disagree. Otherness sells better than sex. The selling of pride and protections has all the grease. Yet somehow, in the inevitability of Love I still believe. One day we will all take a knee. But on earth, right now we're all losing. Because this game we keep playing is not free. Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

33. Polar Breeze This thing that we are doing. This way that rules our day. This curated rage we are consuming. This spirit of enmity that leads our way. It leads us far from freedom, instead feeds us fear and tucks us in. Because we are what is consuming us consuming ourselves, from within. The way that we are going, the way we treat our fellow-selves. As we fight with each other over finite resources on finite shelves. Our culture is a buffet of attachments, and the collective ego is engorged. Such a silly game we inflict on Us squabbling over a preference scoreboard. So, what then is our way forward? What is the future we will co-create? I believe it will be love… flowering from oneness within the present moment. Polar opposites masquerading as politics manifests instead only hate. So, the fruit of separate egos the fruit of sins disease is that I guess it should feel this gut-wrenching as the hope of America, blows away in a polar breeze. Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

32. New Skin I woke up one day and decided to change my skin.* I'm sure that sounded crazy so I'll say it all again. I woke up… one day and decided to change my skin. Not as much my idea, as that it grew out from within. It seems new skin was required because the old had become tired. A frame of reference turned brittle inside a paradigm too little. Or picture this idea I am spitting as an analogy like… knitting. But the fabrics random where we're sitting and the patches we are sewing are all ill-fitting. Or how we eat and drink too hearty when we're with friends or at a party. Because a vice grows from a crutch when we reach for it too much. Ok… apologies for my ramble. Thanks for dealing with that preamble, While I get back to the bottom line We need new skin to hold new wine. Fresh capacity designed to hold a consciousness Divine. I noticed a new consciousness… Let's call that new wine. When I released the incessant fears of an uncontrolled future space and time. So old skin - I'll summarize as the egoic-mind. And if I tried to contain this New along with the egoic burdens I usually hold onto. Then projected shadows I would spew, and all my ends would come unglued. So, I resolved to “just let go… I woke up one day… and decided to kill my ego”.** To shed my old skin! Now that's some ice that's thin! To “just let go”. As an exchange. Of all I “could not hold onto. And exchange it all, for a hope… That lies beyond the blue”.*** But as a child of this big-blue That's a hard thing to do. How do we shed the egoic-mind? Within this myth called space and time? I can't lie. It is a constant struggle to shift my awareness from habitually imagined trouble. But at the same time this new wine has been so freeing. To finally live out “In Christ we live and move and have our Being”.**** *Jesus of Nazareth, Mark 2:21-22 **Sturgill Simpson, “Just Let Go”. Metamodern Sounds in Country Music 2014. ***Josh Garrels, “Beyond the Blue”. Love and War and the Sea In Between 2011. ****Acts 17:28 Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

31. What If? What if in the end - I wasn't let in, through the old pearly gates? What if I didn't even get-a… “Stand over there… sir, and wait”? If this life of toil, this life of mine did not measure up on the scales of the Divine? Food stamp lines confused life… as a grind, to a fragile young mind that now cannot unwind. A life spent grappling for more. From friends, to girls, to sports, to stores. From money to pleasure to pride to my drawers. I always seek the fight, whether it was needed or not. Fights with those that I love, and those I've forgot. Every person, every test, every instance of trying, life became a treadmill of striving. War-ing every challenge. On no one taking mercy. To wake up at 40… asking “what's with all this hurry?” But I now see what's the point. I can see Just What matters. And it's ending my bondage to preferences and rathers. No longer seeking ‘eternal life' by willing it so. But Spirit - smiles at Itself, because It knows, and I know. That the path has been paved, victory already won. ‘Eternal-salvation' is accomplished. And. It will be done. So set down preference, seek Ye presence, find God's eyes in this here place. Smile, breathe, Be! “The kingdom of Heaven is within you”.* And your consciousness did not manifest to ‘rat-race'. Instead, take a stroll with God as the cool of the morn. Just relax little striver, the veil is already torn. “Well done, good faithful Servant”** …I sure hope I will hear… So, I'll meet moments with the confidence of those words, echoing loving-presence eternally in my ear. *Jesus of Nazareth: Matthew 10:7 **Jesus of Nazareth: Luke 19:17 Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

30. The Precipice Humanity… stands on the precipice. Captive to the corporate appetite for profit. Our insatiable consumption created the ledge and now beckons us to jump off it. We're held at this edge by collective in-action. And media, politicians, and advertisers creating factions. The devil of consumerism grins with each transaction, knowing ‘things' will never deliver satisfaction. But more, more, more, remains our collective re-action. As we writhe in a frenzied egoic-spasm, and in sickeningly-full stomach's - fear breeds. Scared egos brainwashed as slaves of separate needs. Life on separateness' edge is about ‘Me' to hell with ‘We'. Thus, We stay chained to the wheel. As an excavator of progress digs round our feet. Mother Earth is literally sweating hurricanes as she overheats. Our soil is being sacrificed before us. Rich, life-giving, fertile dirt is disappearing faster than Earth's forests. As the promises we built lives on now fail us. The transition to Oneness, requires changes most courageous. Because the behaviors and actions of today have life itself shackled to an existential ledge as prey. Until once more we engage all ‘others' in and as a unified presence and turn this hell we've made… back into heaven. Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

29. Undying and Unborn Could it ease the collective grind of the collective mind to remember? Remember that what ‘I' see as ‘I' is stardust… become aware of itself. ‘I' with my bluster and mistrust, preferences, and lusts have eternally spun into Being. Now ‘I'm' a food-formed body, a husk. And this shell, these cells, will melt back-to the turf. But, awareness, consciousness, is not bound to this Earth. In truth what ‘is' our center is eternal, but separate egos are obsessed with forms. And form is fundamentally finite. But the Monad, the Divine-Self, the Christ, remains undying and unborn. Where “the knowledge of good and evil”,* where separate-self thinking takes Us. Has dominated humanity, made Us constricted not spacious. Will ‘thinking', will ‘mind', will ‘ego's' remain mankind's prison? Or can we transcend the false narrative, Become God's unified vision? To see consciousness as shared Divinity beyond just stardust, with breath. Is to admit we are the Creator… of each moment we have left. But if our collective consciousness stays chained to separate ‘I's. Vacillating back and forth between individual pride and moral slides while consumption spins suffering man-made hell multiplies. As separate selves crave divides we fuel the rising of tides. And record cries from the skies. Decay and suffering it seems has become the demon of ego's grand-prize. But the separate ‘I' is simply a disguise. Fundamental Oneness is what an infinite Cosmos implies. To Be… loving awareness** is Divinity realized. Realizing itself… through stardust with eyes. Yet, “everything dies, baby… that's a fact. But maybe everything that dies, some day comes back”.*** The dance, of God manifesting God is the point! Not these temporal forms. Remember. We are Christ… Conscious… as Stardust undying and unborn. *Genesis 2:9, 2:16-17 **Ram Dass, mantra. (1931-2019) ***Bruce Springsteen, “Atlantic City”. Nebraska 1982. (The Band, Various) Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

28. COVID. I hear her upstairs coughing, home from school on a Tuesday at noon. I'm home too, instead of where I “should be”, (quote unquote) “in the Emergency Room”. Instead, I'm in a recliner alternating ice and heat on my back. It is in a locked-up, in-tense, defensive-spasm. A mind-body reaction as if I'm under attack. Before leaving work I just about fell to the floor. I caught-myself on the frame of a door with a smack. My complaints against this country's corporate over-lords have officially-become a tumbledown stack. Corporate grief has given me more than gray hairs. There's also pain that comes along with their cares. For starters, why are we still dealing with this virus? A “pandemic” they've weaponized against us, that's why the virus is still with us not behind us. Thus, my daughter, is upstairs coughing. And craving comfort via Chick Fil-A. Life has thrown another challenge her way. This time around it's COVID, so, for my daughter… who has COVID, I pray. America was once the pinnacle of innovation. Before corporate media and politicians divided the nation and began treating us people as pawns in their game. Bartered over as fuel. Or traded off as cheap meat. Our divisions are now mass marketed in the news, by politicians, into our streets. Instead of a triumphant American transcendence of a sickness. We are eating ourselves in utter confusion, consumed by this ‘otherness' delusion. But God, once upon a time said, “Let there Be”*. And somehow or other what blew along, was all this. You and me. So why are we fighting each other about vaccines? When the enemy is not us, but ravenous, impersonal, corporate-machines. Using tax funded profits to buy future decisions. No longer just excessive pay, opulent homes, and extravagant vacations. Thus, our nation's corporate-politicians have not given us a single recommended at home treatment or prevention protocol. It's as if they're objective is not our well-being at all. Forget sharing preventative healthful living measures, no, no, they just sell fear. Followed by injections. Amp up a consuming competiton over pleasures. And shame all generic, inexpensive, yet effective solutions. So that the god of Pharma, the god of Healthcare, and the god of Science, will become modern man's golden idols. …Thus, my daughter is upstairs blowing her nose. I'm confident she'll beat COVID like the rest of us Jones'. Even though helpful treatment science has-been effectively silenced. How best to help her? None of us at home are allowed to know. Our leaders are too busy burning down the world in exchange for a future, they alone own. For all the greed, all the power, and all the thrones they pump fear not health into our homes. Censor freedom and censor knowledge as our health… it endangers their game. So, my daughter who has COVID is upstairs. Guess our daughters are more profitable stuck there. Marketing targets in their rooms with their pain. *Genesis 1:1-31 Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

27. My Generation What is the role of a generation? I was thinking all that through the other day. And sort of thought it might be to enable the next generation to thrive on their way. But on their way to what? …And in these times first, we'd need to decide, just what is our definition of a well lived life, and what does it look like in these times to thrive? I was thinking about my kids. Thriving! All our children thriving vs. just surviving. But our mass material consumption, this current game. My generation is being compulsively driven by economic striving and illusory electronic fame. What have our souls given up? In modern-life's unconscious exchange? There is a cost for our support of damned power-systems. As lives, souls, nature are being fed into the engine. Responsibility for the technological-corporate takeover of life itself falls to this generation. Or for the next generation to thrive. Or to have a good ol' fashioned career first, they'll have to bow down, and accept shackles. Prostrate before corporate gods out of fear. Or risk somehow scratching a living off the land. The price of freedom, for future generations may well be lean times, getting by, empty hands. My generation's proof will be in our pudding, it will be proved in the taste of our fruit. Is what we are growing sweet or is it rotten? Mother Earth seems to be screaming out “rotten! Rotten to the bottom”. At this point… is what we're begetting, even worth getting? Because what we're forgetting is that comfort… is not worth this trade! So as my generation rolls over, as our light turns into our shade. We must sacrifice and from Babylon courageously un-couple. We will leave future generations Oneness… or rubble. Book: "Into The Now", (presale) by Arch Cowan Jones Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

The poetic alchemy of one man's journey into the mystic. Drawing on the perennial wisdom at the root of all world religions Into the Now seeks to deliver afresh the good news of Ontological Oneness through a raw and rambunctious poetic tapestry. The mystical core of Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Sufism, diverse wisdom traditions, and indigenous thought all share a timely message of hope for a planet drowning in the illusion of ‘otherness'. Thus, it is now incumbent upon the present that we turn our collective ears toward these foundational truths communicated across history. In that spirit we journey. Into the now. Book: “Into The Now”, (presale) by Arch Cowan Jones Website: IntoTheNow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial

1. Image and Likeness We are made in the “Image and Likeness”* of God. What are we supposed to do with that? To live into it, live underneath it, the pressures of it clinging to our back? Image is Life. And Life's Spirit is eternal. As Christ self-empty's the universal consciousness of each and every One The same life, the source, the essence that compels a flower to grow up stretching out in praise to the sun. Image is a product of our Mother's very breath. Ever expanding, ever donating, presencing forth through life and death. Thus, ‘to Be' – defines ‘What Is' – as image. To be image… is just to Be. Image is the unified field of this. As ‘thisness' is God's very image Humans, stones, trees, and birds. Why then have our religions Become just a squabble over words? All that is… is God's image, So we are all truly One. We must be present to ‘Just What Is' with that as purpose. Or blindly chasing preferences into extinction humanity will run. Likeness though is different; likeness allows mankind to play the tone. Consciousness a lifelong project building a rocket to take us home. Likeness grows as We surrender into the infinite unknown. Death then ignites a homing beacon, careening back to our Creator's throne. Our choices then become our likeness Likeness grows as a flower mirroring the sun. Will we continue to grow into illusory egos? Or grow into the consciousness of One? Image and Likeness… how do we live it well? Through cul de sacs and finish lines, Only time will tell. Will mankind honor Image and Likeness? God… within all life! Seek “the kingdom of heaven”** and lay aside egoic-strife? To Image. And to Likeness, in human beings… should become verbs. As religion was the single seed that perished it was buried by idolizing words. Now instead Christ grows from within my chest. Not just in ‘heaven up above'. As in Me We live out the verb Love. * Genesis 1:26 ** Jesus of Nazareth, Matthew 10:7 Book: "Into The Now", (presale) by Arch Cowan Jones Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: __________

2. Just What is Somewhere on the road to ‘What Must Be' is this rocky shore we're standing on; they call this place – ‘Just What Is'. But when folks swim out-into the ocean of pasts and futures, under waves of illusion, they often drown. Until the Cosmos calls them back, to wake up, ‘live up', to turn around. They say right here's the only spot where you can glimpse infinity. So, breathe it in, deep. Be here. Be now.* See the horizon of the cosmic-sea. If you look deep you can just make it out as living water pours fresh from the spout. When you calm your breathing, calm your vision, you can see What Must Be's horizon. People say it looks like a mirror, a sort of holograph of heaven. And it's always reflecting here and now. earth and humans, and all our weapons. Still yet, What Must Be is growing wild, growing from this moment. Out of a single thread of ‘now's' the ‘future' will be what Our now's have woven. Consider what we are doing to the animals, to the soil, and to the oceans. Is it not clear to everyone now that separate ego-consciousness is irrevocably broken? And in that breaking we have access to a change of Being, change of motive, change of skin. Humanity pouring loving-awareness** into each moment and just like that… Christ comes again. A re-membering. A re-ligioning. A re-ceiving of all ‘Just What Is's'. It's time to lay down these ‘separate-selves' and get on with heaven's unifying business. Wake up. Breathe in deep. Look and see. Just What Is, is smack dab in the middle of the road to What Must Be. Could a clearer view of this timeless Unity usher in the Spirit to set us free? Free to try. Free to hope. Free to go “Live up Rastaman, Rastaman live up.”*** Drink deep this living water flowing from What Is's cup. *Ram Dass, mantra (1931-2019) **Ram Dass, mantra (1931-2019) ***Bob Marley and the Wailers, “Rastaman Live Up” Tuff Gong 1979. Book: "Into The Now", (presale) by Arch Cowan Jones Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: __________

3. Withins I heard a prophet's song and it inspired me to sing. He sang to; “The one who holds the sun's fire”. He asked “How am I to describe? the one who holds the sun's fire?”* We describe God in our Being. As life stretches back into glory. We are described as God's breath in our shared religious stories. Ontological Oneness though seems to solve all of the riddles, eases burden, changes yokes, inspires charity big and little. I sought out God's face, and God showed me all my friends. God is not without, God is not other, but is patiently waiting within our withins. ‘Science' and ‘religion' now sing the same tune though they refuse to listen. God is pouring out God as moments of existence for us to Christen. What is this all about? Life!?!? And why does suffering get to join us? And when will kenotic-love once again become humanity's chorus? I sought God… and God showed me all my friends. And gave me eyes so I could see the fractals of God within Withins. *Trevor Hall, “31 Flavors”, Trevor Hall 2009. Book: "Into The Now", (presale) by Arch Cowan Jones Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: __________

4. In You… I AM… As the word of God thunders forth, it creates a resounding chorus. God's-breath rending life from the quantum's potential obviously does not happen quietly. Matter Being birthed as darkened vacuum spins into bright consciousness! Our Creator has an echo, it's God's resonance in Us. But we then stumble out from birth as victims of misplaced worth. Awareness trampled by the ‘mind', confused so fast by ‘space' and ‘time'. We learn worldly games and some of us learn how to win. But the ante for that table is a spirit scraped to thin. Awakening though is realizing we ourselves we are God's breath. Word poured into matter; and we blew along as what was left. We are not just our thoughts or the egos never-ending monologue. Yet consciousness is being lost in a meme of ‘self-hood' like a-boiling-pot-of-water-frog. Pure awareness though is free to love Just What Is, not just the preferences of the mind. Consciousness does not breathe and is not bound by ‘space' and ‘time'. Jesus Christ showed the path when the cup He would not pass. I'll try to reverberate that cadence, till in YOU… I AM… at last. Book: "Into The Now", (presale) by Arch Cowan Jones Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: __________

5. The Shape of Life We all know a one-dimensional reality is a myth. And two dimensions..? That doesn't make sense at all. Three dimensions are too often mankind's top floor. But I've heard there's something like 9 dimensions or more described by philosophers and psychedelic explorers. I have come to see that each moment is a point inside of a fractal. A meta-dimensional toroidal fractal. The cosmic umbilical cord to God. And this very moment. This one… is just an energetic node or a pod. You and I, each play a uniquely necessary role. In realizing glory, life to the full, right here and now! To walk the path of Christ. Is to turn the other cheek. Smile into the teeth of the scowls. To seek the kingdom of heaven in this moment's abundance, whether joy or suffering compels. Is to lay aside attachments, distractions, separate ego-consciousness. and conjure up no more of our own hells. So, the shape of life, heaven takes form as we realize and allow the ‘kingdom of heaven' to be made of ‘Just What Is'. In smiles and tears. Joy and sadness. Here and now. Blood sweat across the Christ's brow.* The meta-dimensional fractal reDivinizing of matter we experience it… in forms. In life and in death. But eternity is a fractal, a ladder. In what's given here and now each next breath. *Luke 22:44 Book: "Into The Now", (presale) by Arch Cowan Jones Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: __________

6. Blue Jays Bruce Springsteen once sang “if you've ever seen a one-legged man… you've seen me.”* Well, I once saw a family of blue jays, some bound to the ground. Some flew on the breeze through the trees. And I saw ants too. Ants always seem so destructive. But not nearly as destructive as man. Is earth now treating us humans? The same way I treat an invading ant-clan? To protect my home, I'll get out the TERRO. Is Mother Earth… also getting out Her Raid? Because She's tired of being exploited for ‘likes', tired of this egoic consumerism charade? You see these two blue jays seem to have been born missing tail-feathers. Or maybe all blue jays are born this way? Maybe they all develop sheltered under tables? As they await tail feathers, to then fly away. Do all young blue jays hide away on homeowner's patios? And do all their parents, and all their parent's friends scream into defensive positions from the trees as they descend? Dive bombing the man who lives there. Protecting awkward, fragile, overgrown chicks from this human and all of his cares. To be fair I did once relocate one of these adolescent birds to the lawn using the back of a chair. But that was before… of this whole blue jay fiasco I became aware. I just acted on dumb-instinct like a dare Gotta fix the problem, get the blue jay up and out of there. Our patio doesn't even have stairs. But up in the trees when I sat to meditate about 2:00. I came to learn these two hopping, squawking, no tail-feathered jays had a crew. They came out of the blue. Seemed like nothing they wouldn't do. Blue jays buzzing my ears and then flying away. At that moment, all I could do, was what I set out to do. Pray. Intending to influence the energy of our shared environment. And undo the threat they saw in me. Breathe some peace up into the air and from panic let peace set them free. I prayed “God, help the blue jays with no tail feathers. And those with wings… busy protecting them too.” Who knows what's blowing in on this weather? It's gonna take a miracle for us jays to make it through. And with that the volume did actually dim. The protective jays settled onto their limbs. Breathing In: I relaxed body and mind. Breathing Out: I enjoyed a smile. Breathing In: I am present… no more grind. Breathing Out**: I am in awe of eternity growing wild. Book: "Into The Now", (presale) by Arch Cowan Jones Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: __________

7. Worries of the World I yelled out “I love you!” to my wife while brushing my teeth the other day. She was headed out to pick up our son, down the steps she walked away. I hate that I do this, but I immediately fretted, “how did that land?” This compulsion, to think the worst to worry she's mad – and to start to plan. Internally projecting potential failures has always been my instinct. Spin up a mental worst case then worry out ways to protect against it. Instead of picturing her smiling assuming, she's thinking fondly of me. That my verbal gesture landed softly, that her offer, to cover pickup was a gift. And she gave it for free. Then again the next morning I had a fright stepping out the back door. I thought I locked myself – outside at five-something in the morning. Frantically I reached back for the door in utter panic! I just locked myself – outside, everyone is asleep… Damnit! Just to realize that of course the door was still un-locked. Adrenaline though… had already flooded my chest, Heart, Reeling, Shock. This has always been my torture, presuming I'm stuck outside, for another hour- or that a relationship is sinking. To instantly assume the worst mash the fight-button and start my thinking. There's a problem, and no one else to help everyone-else is soundly sleeping. I wonder, am I alone, or do others face this battle? Or am I being way too honest? Of our neuroses, should we not tattle? At this point in the journey, I'm not into holding back. In hopes next time that I'll remember, and not give in, to the lie… of lack. Could I find a new rhythm? Where I always assume the best. Stay present to Just What Is. And take it easier on my chest. No longer consumed by fears and emotions the lies that ego conditioning constantly hurls. But instead live a life of hope live “in the world, not of the world.”* * Jesus of Nazareth, John 17:14-18 Book: "Into The Now", (presale) by Arch Cowan Jones Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: __________

8. Buffalo Buffalo run headlong into storms. Fear is not conditioned, as a buffalo's norm. And likewise, when learning to ride a bicycle, you can't save your day by turning the wheel away, away from crashing into the painfully physical. But you must steer the front-wheel, toward impending falls. Sorta like Dante and Virgil's epic crawl. Down through the belly of satan, was their way outta hell. Lao-Tzu spoke of water eternally seeking the quantum. Jesus Christ poured out moments as servant of all. He taught to be the guest who sits first at the bottom before being raised up, raised up to the head of the hall. Or take the example of driving through a winter snowstorm, when tires slide, and the back end loses grip. Control returns by steering into the drift. Heaven's construction could require another sixty decimal orders of magnitude. Or it could be swift. But, to run into… that storm. Will require a planetary consciousness shift. Or the competition over separate preferences will be realized as our existential cliff. Unless We now. Each turn-around, unite in love by transcending the egoic mire. But from here and now… that'd all be quite a feat. This game of ‘otherness' is coming down to the wire. A Buddha was once asked; “How may escape this brutal heat?” He said “there is freedom… in the heart of the fire.” *Thanks to the collective teachings of – Rich Froning, Alan Watts, Dante Alighieri, Lao-Tzu, Jesus Christ, Nassim Haramein, Mother Nature, Boyd Varty, James Finley, and the Buddhas. Book: "Into The Now", (presale) by Arch Cowan Jones Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: __________

9. Oak Box Spirit shared with me a picture of an oak box. Not a box that closes, it had no hinges… had no locks. This box it sat wide open. A capacity to be filled. But all that fits within it, is what's been given, not what's been willed. This box once stood a tree. Living, breathing, into the sky. But whether axe, or saw, or age all that breathes will one day die. This box is me. I am this box, as far as purpose goes. In three dimensions I am alive. But this form will not survive, and I already feel the curtains start to close. The box too once lived, and yet now remains a capacity for others. Humanity's purpose is to grow open to all that Just What Is uncovers. What is man? But destined, to one day once have been. And what is God? But all that is. Our fundamental Fabric and our Friend. Therefore, while I breathe, I will make We… the biggest box I can. An open box not grown from oak, but from the consciousness of man. The box was empty of preferences. It existed in openness, great-big, and wide. We are destined… to be filled! And present moments grow taller sides. Book: "Into The Now", (presale) by Arch Cowan Jones Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: __________

10. Allison's Tree I planted a little tree in the front yard for my wife. I won't tell her what kind of tree, no matter what her offering price. Because this tree, was a gift, it was the gift of life. A cooperation with God, to do something sweet. I planted a thoughtful-tree you-see and the dance… is wait and see. Will it fruit? Will it flower? Or will it open up in shade? To know its fate she'll have to wait, for that surprise I will not trade. She'll ask from time to time “What kind of tree is it”? I only say… “It's a magic tree”. It'll turn out to be magic if somehow it survives me. I saw this little tree. The biggest of her sisters still left at Kroger. A limb broke off in the truck. It jammed into the window driving over. Digging out an old stump was… fun. I finally managed. Then tossed in several kinds of dirt. I had to prune off the limb I damaged …and that part it kinda hurt. But amongst the oaks though this tree is tiny! Is it possible? Could it have shrunk? It looks more like a stick, hardly passing for a trunk. It's become just like a playground, for the neighborhood chipmunks. My moments as loving caretaker are as far as I get to go. Will Allison's tree Christ forth with life? Or die this winter, I do not know. Hands dirty, inspecting leaves, holding a watering can. I wonder what God sees, in the limbs and leaves of man? And does both a ‘Divine-will'… and a ‘Cosmic-karma' steer life's unfolding plan? I hope we are given enough time here on Earth so one day we are blessed to see. What will be of Our future? And what will be of Allison's tree? Book: "Into The Now", (presale) by Arch Cowan Jones Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: __________

11. Passing Days We have a cat named Marley. She's made of stardust… just like me. When she talks to me in the morning I think she knows she's truly seen. Sort of like my lime trees, they get stressed And they miss their sun. It all adds up to the same old line. It is all - truly One. If Creation could speak to us, I wonder what it all would say? The trees, the birds, the fish. I bet they'd ask us to change our ways. Because the future we are pursuing Will eventually silence the birds. And trees will become novelties, as mechanical lungs breathe our words. But maybe there's another way. A way of Being that reconnects us with the Earth. When we alchemize that “Let there Be”,* breathed the mountains, the streams, you, and me. No, nature is not “the point”… of life. This ground is our brother, sister, mother. Beyond the veil of foolishness, of treating Her as ‘other'… Human consciousness grew in a field of spin, we know it as Earth… way, way, back to times unknown. But mankind now ravages our soil. We treat Her as victim… not as Home. It all goes back to ‘otherness'. The weapon of evil in these present times. But what do I know…? I'm sitting in a sunroom talking to cats and spitting rhymes. How do I tie this one off? I'm not sure where this poem's going. How can Oneness grow from otherness? Maybe more composting? And less mowing? Ok, that line just didn't cut it, I'll have to think up another. Earth… is pleading with us to treat Her more as brother, less as other. So go outside. Breathe in deep. Let your conscious presence - run and play. Because all you've ever truly owned are present moments, in passing days. Book: "Into The Now", (presale) by Arch Cowan Jones Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: __________

12. Fireworks Imagine with me for a minute if you will a ride you could describe as the epitome of a thrill. Let your memories return to a great fireworks show. Screaming out through open skies fireworks tend to go… just where they go. Red, white, green, and blue they stretch out into the night. their streaks and movements not criticized. Not described as wrong, or right. The Designer fills each shell with hopes for the show but the beauty is when they explode, they tend to go… just where they go. Though it may seem kinda silly, I have an analogy to tell. The Universe as all we know it is just a cosmic mortar shell. As God donates God as our experiences, our communities, our friends and lights the fuse on Life, while we realize Pop. Ride. End. But could it be within the show the sparks could become Conscious? So that we'd stop inventing ‘hells' and piling them upon us? Conscious sparks instead would Become! In accord with diverse Divine design. Fireworks of consciousness would be the literal glory-cloud of the Divine. What if mankind began to see God as the infinite toroidal mortar shell? From the quantum to the cosmic that's the story it all seems to tell. Fireworks… Well, We… We tend to go just where We go… Because We sometimes forget that We… We… co-create the show. Book: "Into The Now", (presale) by Arch Cowan Jones Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: __________

13. We Got to Stay Four Days “We got to stay four days”, said a girl in braids and bathing suit to me. I looked back at her and smiled, we were both on vacation, and in that moment, we were free! We had our portion of the good life, the sun, the sand, the smell of the sea. Perfectly curated shops and markets, stretched as far as our eyes could see. She said - “We got to stay, for four days”. And with some sadness she smiled down at me, from perched atop her Momma's back, like she was climbing on a tree. I didn't know how to respond, my plan - went no further than my smile. But what fumbled out of my mouth I wish I'd thought on for a while. This girl was maybe 7 or 8, with braided pigtails tied up with those marble balls. Her older sister - kept her hair natural. I wish the words I spoke had been more inspired-and-less-factual. Because I clumsily said smiling back, “I think we get to stay four days too”. I'm not even sure on that math, I didn't take time to think it through. She seemed well loved. Within a tribe. Family. Four generations of women headed home in a cramped-up ride. To make room they offered me their extra waters, but I polite-fully declined. As for bottled waters I too was oversupplied. But I wonder… if my eyes reflected the sadness of the vacation ending dismay? How we all longed for more ‘vacation' free from worry, free from suffering. Free! For just another day. There was a sharing in the air as we were untethered from life's cares. The weight of her words they caught me totally unawares. After my ‘four-days' we were all back home in life as we had known it. I wish instead, right there, we'd hatched a plan. Each gone back to a power-system and over-thrown it. Because Life… should be lived free! Freed from fear by Just What Is within each present moment. Freedom is ours! It's our preferences… that make us forget we already own it. We labor all year long for a couple weeks. For homes, for stuff, for our ‘four days'. Human consciousness though exists to manifest love not to chase this year's borrowed clothes and borrowed stays. I helped the grandmother pack up her tent, and wished them blessings on their way. But I can't forget her bittersweet smile and young voice say… “We got to stay for four days”. Book: "Into The Now", (presale) by Arch Cowan Jones Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: __________

14. Work Shoes There was dried grass stuck to the soles of my black work shoes and dust all across the toes. The last time I had them on my feet I remember those toes… they almost froze. I helped carry my Uncle Bruce through the snow to his grave. Uncle Bruce was a man of the snow, and wouldn't you know it, it snowed that day. It was a swirling, dancing, haze it was Bruce's good-bye wave. I pulled them out again today to say good-bye to cousin-Cal. Separated by age and health, but wouldn't you know it, we became pals. Oh, the evolution of life we've witnessed in just two years. What we are now living is the fruit of our collective appetites and fears. Presently, it seems we're evolving through a collective death… but with death, new life, as hope endlessly renews. Today, I slowed down enough to notice. My work shoes had evolved into funeral shoes. -- Arch C. Jones Book: "Into The Now", (presale) by Arch Cowan Jones Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: __________

15. How Will it Look to See Us Eat in the Future? How will it look to see us eat… in the future? Was the thought I had finishing off the last of a protein shake. Food, after we are forced to realize that the separateness of ego-consciousness was the antichrist. Not the goal. We made a collective mistake. A future when meat and vegetables are not plentiful anymore. Because Corporations and Politicians once upon a time held the tap wide open, full pour. Oh, to be truly impoverished. Forsaken. Living in the West, I don't have a clue. And that's coming from a kid whose family needed charity, handouts, kindness, even food-stamps too. We will all know real poverty in the future, unless we now radically change. We like to play pretend that it's not our responsibility but our consumption pours out suffering like rain. There are places on Earth where life is birth, ‘life', and death inside squalor. The consequence of our demand. Lives spent sourcing raw materials for us to chew up and mouth feed to Facebook, to Twitter, and Instagram… To the charge of raping once beautiful planet earth “The Class of 2020” was found guilty with blood on our pants. A windfall verdict of karma is being poured out onto the faces of the children of man. Present and future suffering is our fruit. Look now, sorrow is growing. Growing from inside our hands. In the future I wonder how it will be in the affluent West when we finally see. When we weep at the roots, eating the fruit that only grows on the limbs of barren trees. To actually know the sights, smells, and tastes, to go with the names of earth's fabled fruit. Our descendants will only dream at the chance. Real fruit would be considered the height of rare decadence. So, I guess I should be happy if we end up achieving some astronaut type future. Where we figure out some Matrix*-type-shit. And they chemicalize all our nutrients. And we ‘eat' a man-made-protein-amino-drip. Eventually… (I thought) I guess this is how we'll all eat. As the bottom of my cup made its crest. It looked like an oceanic sunset made out of chocolate-y bliss. A post-workout kiss on the lips. But I was saddened by this view of the future. Of an Earth… with less produce and more whips. *“The Matrix”. Lana and Lilly Wachowski 1999. -- Arch C. Jones Book: "Into The Now", (presale) by Arch Cowan Jones Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: __________

16. Tracking Solo There is a war of consciousness inside my head. Ever chattering fears and desires fall on me like a cartoon piano before I even make it out of bed. I don't know why I do it or why it's done to me. The “knowledge of good and evil”* are my fetters binding moments… from Being free. I try to practice loving presence. And I ask for help along the way. But it always seems as if I'm told instead, I should preference the ideologies that produced these days. Days marked by strife. The competition for comforts, modern life. That's the fruit we are growing as Human-Beings as the ‘Bride of Christ'. Am I so wrong to long for better??? For a future wholeness for the Earth? Are we even giving Her a chance? Or is egoic otherness actively ending life's poetic dance? I saw a path of hope. the justice of Oneness in the math. Yet when I try to share this vision it only seems to elicit orthodoxy's practiced laugh. Men in power retreat to established ways, to positions protected, to the ego's ruse. Our leaders' motives are compromised as pride and position they deign not lose. So, the game of separateness they play, paths of least resistance become their way. Maybe not to idols but to ideologies they pray. Pressing oil from our youth, commoditizing them, from the day they are born. Conditioned… to be used. Wait, did I say use? I meant accuse, misuse, abuse, and then refuse. Like children sold into slaughter. No, don't wake up… just keep the car on cruise. I don't know, what's my point? The difference I thought that I could make? All I know is man's current objective, seems to be to move up the schedule of our wake! I cannot transplant these eyes to see or ears to hear – they are mine until I'm dead. God, my God help me carry the weight of this dystopian future waging a war inside my head. How does this poem land? Is there any insight here to gain? I guess once more I must track You solo. Go back inside for more words… and try to better explain. *Genesis 2:9, 2:16-17 -- Arch C. Jones Book: "Into The Now", (presale) by Arch Cowan Jones Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: __________

17. After Beating COVID After beating COVID Memaw died at 86 of all other causes right before Christmas this year. I typically feel mournful tears rise when a loved one dies. But today at her burial I could not cry. Cathartic tears did not well up in my eyes. I guess because I saw it... As in far-off. She's gone somewhere I soon will follow. But I don't mean this same ground in this same hollow. But follow Memaw to ‘Heaven', the great cosmic Valhalla. So, I just stood there and stared off down the hill. Remembering fried-chicken, “boy-fudge”, and apple-butter. Wishing Memaw's heart was still full of Memaw's flutter. And we were gathered round her table for another famous after-church Sunday-supper. -- Arch C. Jones Book: "Into The Now", (presale) by Arch Cowan Jones Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: __________

18. Vehicular Egoicide Our vehicles are failing us. They all will be recycled. All will go to one place, all are from the dust. And to stardust they will return. Our protests have it wrong, but not in what it is that we believe. But in winning public vindication to now become the enemy. Injustice will not die by abolishing the prisons. Exchanging now oppressors for new oppressors became the goal of our divisions. As long as our oppressors have their human sacrifice, they'll force-feed us tribal allegiance withering our shared Spirit as ignorance's price. Though I'm starting to remember what I had to once have known. That in our Oneness there is something, from Earth's ground was never grown. Something different. Something eternal. Something we've all felt the pull to enter. God exists, as ALL that is. Our Creator is our center. Though “God's center is everywhere, His circumference cannot be measured.”* ALL is ONE. But egos keep us blinded by the distract-fullness of treasures. Fooled by illusions that we… that ‘I' drive the car. As the left became the right we crashed headlong with doors-ajar. It's hard work transcending the otherness delusion from within vehicles made of future scrap. But it's time to give up on our idols, all our preferences are traps. Jesus, the Christ pointed the way to the seed that had to die. Why am I - just now hearing “God stopped counting… and switched sides”?** *Anonymous (various) “The Book of the 24 Philosophers”, etc. **Richard Rohr OFM, “Another Name for Every Thing”. -- Arch C. Jones Book: "Into The Now", (presale) by Arch Cowan Jones Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: __________

19. A Modern Fairy Tale Modern life has become some trippy-ass fairy tale. With treats and treasures dropping from the sky by parachute pails. We're taught to squabble over scraps and envy fame. Like castaway children in the Hunger Games.* Society has conditioned us to feel stranded and alone. Left to make it on our own. But instead of a tropical island or mountain forest we… live at home. And media polls disclose we do jobs we loathe as if we were drones. But I guess as long as the packages continue to be delivered to my home. I'll just obey the Politicians spewing injustice from propped up thrones. Because, since my prosperity is up to me you see, I must go along. I am not free. So, in that case, my energy, shouldn't be, given free, …I should… sell it. Go out into the world dressed just so and dance. Casting spells, cashing checks, wondering if I'll ever advance. It is dizzying. Better yet insane, this separate competing ego's game. While corporations literally pay politicians to keep the game, forever tilted just the same. Beyond dizzying, it aches my brain. Oh, what could mankind do! With a good reframe? Because I believe in Humanity. And the latent unity forming You and Me. I believe We are inter-dependent, utterly, thoroughly. I believe We will one day see. that the ride… to Heaven… was driven by We. *Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins, 2008. Scholastic Press. Book: "Into The Now", (presale) by Arch Cowan Jones Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

20.. “…Ah, so. How can I help?” The combined mantras “…Ah, so.”* And “How can I help?”** this morning fell heavy on my heart. Contemplating stars from a hammock on the patio, time spent with the Cosmos is becoming a lost art. Gravity fools us that we're looking up and not out. But in reality, we are looking off from Earth's side. Is Anyone out there hearing our shouts? Humanity's drowning in all the ways we divide. Meditating outside, just before first light. You realize if we could see every star clear, they would fill up the whole of our sight. Looking off from the side of this sphere, makes me wonder what's the meaning of Our Being here? Stars, fill the sky as pin holes on a backlit canopy, but Infinity is infinite in both directions. And egoic-appetites will remain, our collective fantasy, until we surrender to the present moment's connections. Allow those mantras to become an aura, a belt. And meet moments with “…Ah, so. How can I help?” *Zen Master Hakuin (1686-1769) a paraphrasing. **Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) a paraphrasing. Book: "Into The Now", (presale) by Arch Cowan Jones Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

21. Let's Talk About Oneness ‘Christians' tend to get squirmy when you approach the topic of Oneness. Like it somehow detracts from God when we transcend the false bravado of otherness. What's a higher honor than to follow into God eternally as Spirit leads? The inevitable singularity of Love is our destiny! Whisper the mystics and the trees. Let's talk this through a little. None of your beliefs have to change. Let the grip on ideologies just wiggle. Let Spirit tell of a faith with some range. It's hard to argue that ‘in Heaven' we won't be closer. We will see God… without the veil! But where does the Almighty's increased proximity falter where does God's eternal magnetism fail? They say we will live in His city. And I can't imagine, just what that means? What is described by “many mansions”*? Will it be all gold? Or will it be more green? But what I really want to know is where I will live? How close will be my view? How close will my street be to God's street? Will we be neighbors? Or will I have to look for God over eons of pews? Will it be just rejoicing souls lined up the length of galaxies? Seas of separate Beings all made new? I believe God's pull is too mighty and Christ's outpouring love will one day undo all the separateness life builds up. In ‘Heaven' there is no view. Emersed in a “Christ-soaked existence”**, without all this illusory game. No more mobile phones serving as our prison guards. Or competitions, over preferences that've become our chains. What if we pushed back from the concept of ‘otherness'? Killed off the ego's pride and joy, the separate-self. Just allow for the potential of Oneness. Leave the bailout of individual ‘rapture'… leave it up on the shelf. And instead receive the call to-together find solutions to these problems we collectively caused. But it becomes increasingly less likely we'll do it as long as an eternally separate self remains involved. If instead we again see each tree and person as an extension of a unified-true-self. Suffering and bitterness will wither as Christ's-Consciousness grows bigger. Oh wait, wait… I better slow down. Tamp down my hope, it's easy to trigger. That I've wasted too much time without even a point, I'm starting to fear. And about these disjointed rambles people will start to talk. So, I'll conclude by saying; We need new eyes to see, new ears to hear that in Oneness… God and man do share life's walk. *Jesus of Nazareth, John 14:2 **Richard Rohr OFM, “The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe.” 2019. Book: "Into The Now", (presale) by Arch Cowan Jones Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

22. Mirror-Energy Enmity, strife, and turmoil became the currency of this age. Modern lives resemble rockets who refuse to switch their stage. Back-biting, growling, barking are how packs of dogs relate. We must now jettison That tired energy. And allow Love to radiate. Book: "Into The Now", (presale) by Arch Cowan Jones Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now

23. Our Ancestors' Hell Some things are formed of harder stuff. Take how storms expose stone to form bluffs. Tough stuff is not eroded it endures sheer presence endlessly giving. As this spec of space dust keeps on spinning. Strength, unity, community is and always has been a prerequisite for earthly living. Consider even our recent ancestors. You had to be determined just to be back then. A few generations ago – they didn't even have fans. It would've been scary hot back then without a breeze. And people you knew… had probably died in a winter's freeze. Survival required unified ancestral grit like steel. For us to have made it to this point on life's wheel. Over-consumption back then was rare. Our ancestors often ate what was shared. Now our species staggers consumed by separate cares. While media machines tell Us unity lies broken beyond all repairs. Or take a sober look at the state of our youth. A view not of projections but see the truth. We must be honest, about the future that now is making. And the humans we are collectively generating. Seems to me like fearful egos… separated, into factions of hating. It sometimes feels like I can hear our elders' wail. …What would, our gangster-ass, tough as nails ancestors yell? I bet it'd go something like; “Be still!” “Get back to nature!” “Quit building!” “What y'all are becoming, was what we called hell.” Book: "Into The Now", (presale) by Arch Cowan Jones Website: Intothenow.org Instagram: IntoTheNowOfficial Youtube: Into The Now