Ego Trippin’

A million opportunities
For me to be
A million different people
Who were never me
Negative one
Plus infinity
Makes me less than the man
I’m supposed to be
Made like the Creator
Supposedly
But show up in my power
They’re opposed to me
The essence of the One
Is meant to flow in me
And flow inside of you
Hopefully
But we’re taught not to try
To live in a lie
See ourselves as less
The higher us we deny
On earth as in Heaven
I see it so clearly
While the Logos Way
Is disappearing
We’re called to show love
But we’re steady fearing
Wanting to escape
We hope the end is nearing
But we’re back in the beginning
There’s no loss and no winning
Reality is virtual
So we’re virtually sinning
Missing every mark
Too fast and no aiming
Preaching to the choir
Is so spiritually draining
But here is my thesis
We’re stuck in mimesis
Copying the bound
So we don’t know what free is
It’s not supposed to be this
Leaders who just hinder
Taking advantage
Because your souls are so tender
Don’t knock, but still enter
Hypocritical mind splinters
So consistently cold
It’s like perpetual winter
Frozen in place
Condemning with no Grace
Filled with emptiness
Like a room with no space
So come face to face
Breathe the Breath of the Living
Surrender everything
To be eternally giving
Take part in the Whole
Out of the many become One
A million choices become choiceless
Now the ego trip’s done

©️ Copyright 2024 Pedro Senhorinha Silva

Trusting the Process

I pour my self into You
Trusting You will never spill me
Never fearing emptiness
Because I know You’re here to fill me
The terror known by many folks
Who can’t contemplate Your Promise
Is dissolved the moment I witness You
So I give it all to keep me honest
I don’t want to pretend to Trust in You
Only when for me it is convenient
Then as soon as I don’t get what I want
Realize that I don’t mean it
To me Trusting You is its own reward
In fact it’s my only Treasure
Because anything that does not have You there
Will never stay together
From the beginning and to the end
From the first and to the last
Without You nothing that seems to matter
Ever truly has
Nations continue to come and go
Things that were enter non-existence
While people pretend to get it all
Through selfish one sided resistance
A horrible error in calculation
No one can hold their breath forever
Whether you last exhaled or last inhaled
The project of breathing is both together
And that’s what this world’s forgetting
Perhaps some of us never knew it
Oneness isn’t the strongest wins
It’s polarities congruent

©️ Copyright 2024 Pedro Senhorinha Silva

Whenever I write a poem, it is the fruit of weeks if not months or even years of spiritual labor. I don’t write to influence. I write to express. What emerges contains every part of the process that you would witness in the natural process of growing an actual fruit tree. And I never give way to the temptation to pick the fruit early. When it’s ripe, it falls on its own.

As the video explains, this poem was born out of two months of struggling to write about trust and a bout with a short term unwellness that rendered me extremely contemplative. What the video doesn’t say was that for most of the three days that my body was fevered and in pain, I was repeating “Thank you God. I love you.” as if it was my breath. I did this in part because of a practice I developed a long time ago based on James 1:2-8 where adherents are advised to count all of our trials as joy. And the other part is that I imagine that most people’s conversations with God are about asking for things they want to come in and things we don’t want to go away. So, I just decided that I would not ask God for anything and just be thankful. Besides there were a number of times when I was a pastor that I would suggest to people that they say “thank you” as a part of their process. So, I had to take my own advice.

Now, before you get into this video, let me me warn you that it may come off as a little irreverent. It isn’t meant to be. But, it is meant to make folks think. It is meant to challenge you and to basically call out where I think our lack of trust is leading us. I put this out here in trust. I guess that is where I will leave it.

Higher Dimensions

Imagine a secret so powerful
To speak it would kill you
But if it’s kept to yourself
You will never know the real you
A boundless expression
That breaks right through your barrier
Exposing darkness to Light
There’s just nothing scarier
Total dissolution
Collapsing infinity
We’ve never known the half
Of all we were meant to be
Have you heard of Revelation?
Do you know what it’s revealing?
There’s no actual substance
To what we think we’re concealing
Entering Higher Dimensions
You accept what you’ve known
The rulers are the captives
Thus our choice to dethrone
At the right and the left hand
Is reflected half of the Center
Too far in either direction
And no one can enter
So we open the door
After shutting the others
Which causes a tension
For those under the covers
They ask for more sleep
So they think we’re alarming
By inviting awakening
To those they’re actively harming
But we do what we do
Because we can do nothing less
Than surrender to the Reality
We can’t help but confess

©️ Copyright 2023 Pedro Silva

I wrote this piece in honor of my friend Bishop Carlton Pearson who is holding a lot right now physically. If you are a praying person, I ask that you pray for his physical healing. If you are a person who finds joy in other people’s suffering because you feel that it somehow justifies your existence, please ignore us.

Surviving Heartbreak

Day 104 of 365

You finally gave your heart away
The recipient returned to sender
Now you don’t want to ever hurt again
So you’re incapable of surrender
You barely survived the heartbreak
You say you can’t do it again
But if you don’t keep putting your heart at risk
Love will never win
I know it’s a dilemma
I’ve known that pain myself
If the first person thought I was not enough
How can I ever trust someone else?
There’s some validity to that logic
No one wants to suffer
But putting ourselves out there despite the risk
Is how we find each other
Besides holding back doesn’t hurt the one
Who caused you so much pain
In the end you only hurt yourself
By not giving your heart to gain
You see every time you survive a heartbreak
Then get back in the saddle
You’re secretly becoming more like God
Whose Love will never lose a battle
Didn’t you know that while God’s watching us
God’s heart is always breaking
But Love always comes in and fills the gaps
In the midst of our forsaking
Imagine if most of your children
Lie and say they love you
But take the gifts you have to them
And put those very things above you
You try to teach them to use them wisely
They push you away and will not listen
Only thinking of themselves as usual
They take what’s One and cause division
So you send them Love’s instructors
But they won’t listen to them either
Instead they ignore or murder them
Then label them deceiver
Or worse they pretend to worship them
In order to make them something special
And when they fail to live like them
They blame it on the Devil
Any excuse that they can think of
To do what they want to do
Their only goal is simply to feel they’re right
To justify ignoring you
Meanwhile your heart is breaking
You feel like you’ll die inside
But you surrender because you know the Truth
And instantly you’re more alive
It’s the Mystery of the Heartbreak
By giving your Love you will get more
For Love is the gift that you received
That by faith is always restored

Image by Jakob Rosen on Unsplash

Somehow We’ve All Been Deceived By the Impossible Illusion That Oneness Can Be Two

I am not your enemy
Even though you were taught that decision
I see the Universe as it can only be
Absent of division
Whether I choose to agree or not
Everything is connected
But in the illusion of the divided mind
Anything can be dissected
We split atoms and we split up families
Draw invisible lines called borders
But can’t admit we invented it
In a war against natural order
Somehow we believe the lies we tell
More than the truth that’s in our faces
Competing for what is infinite
Just for the thrill of “winning races”
But there is no competition
Once you take away the lies
And wake up to the disturbing fact
That we’re all collectively hypnotized

Photo ironically by CottonBro Studios 😮

Being Me

In an ocean of sound I lose myself
In the cacophony of my Silence
My mind is lost among the many more
And it feels like I’ll never find it
I’ve been me so long that I was convinced
That my reality can’t be threatened
But all this noise has choked my joys
Making the Voice inside seem deafened
I forgot what it was I was thinking
When your words invaded my space
Now whatever it was has slipped my mind
And I have completely lost my place
I know many people are fine with this
They accept the status quo
“Don’t question the narrative written for you
Because that’s the way it goes”
But for as long as I can remember
I’ve just been the way that I’m created
Seeing only the good in all I can
So that my soul is elevated
Of course at times I do get tempted
These illusions can be convincing
People weaving temporal spells
With the words that they are mincing
I start wondering if I’m too stubborn
Maybe I should play the role
Let the conformers off the hook
And do what I am told
Then suddenly it hits me
I have no right to disappear
Being me is all I can be
It’s the very reason why I’m here

Reactive or Creative

I noticed something the other day
That I can’t get out of my head
If you move the “c” up to the front
Reactive spells creative instead
I wondered if it was intentional
Did the makers of the language know
Was it a clue for those who seek the Way
To maintain a Life in Flow?
They say, “Be creative, not reactive
Or at least reactively creative
This is the Way of wondering ones
For whom the Way of Flow is Native
Embrace the Mystery
Be present with The Presence
Instead of being pushed and pulled
Make movements from your Essence”
Or perhaps it’s just a coincidence
Onto which I’m projecting meaning
Maybe reaction is creation too
Even when it isn’t seeming
I’ll possibly never know for certain
But still I have the choice
To choose Reaction or Creation
In how I use my voice

Photo by Kiana Bosman on Unsplash
Instagram @kiana.bosman

Trance Union

You can call me a Galaxy
For I’m composed of worlds
With as many thoughts as stars in the sky
Meanwhile consciousness comets hurl
Every moment is filled with wonder
There’s no such thing as norm
My changing mind is supernova
I concentrate and planets form
From my dreams I project species
More strange than what’s imagined
Unconsciously combining elements
From the stuff which All is fashioned
But at some point I got distracted
I lost track of my creations
I gave them a mind just like my own
And they divided into Nations
Instead of seeing with eyes of awe
As I imagined them to be
They sought to control their neighbor’s lives
Before turning their sights on me
They wanted my approval
They wanted my command
But when I refused to play their game
They then let go of my hand
It was as if I never existed
As they projected onto me
Illusions of a divided state
The very opposite of what is free
I wondered how this happened
Them thinking thoughts I cannot think
Casting shadows where there is only light
Descending where love could never sink
But instead of anger I felt compassion
Because I knew I was their cause
So in an effort to guide them back to love
I gifted them with Laws
But because they came from freedom
Laws felt like a type of prison
They failed at loving and living law
And got trapped in indecision
Incapable of escaping
The prison that they made
I decided to be a prisoner too
For surrender’s key unlocks the cage
So when they saw I was escaping
From what was never meant to be
The Galaxy folded in upon itself
And all that ever was is me

Image by Jeremy Thomas

Am I Confessing?

If I worry when I don’t have to,
What does it really say
About how much it is I trust in You?
Are my words empty when I pray?

If I’m jealous of another
Is it a denial of Your Creation?
If I want what was never meant for me,
Have I led me into temptation?

If I refuse to forgive my neighbor
Who slapped me on my cheek
Have I forgotten I’m eternally safe in You
Whose strength’s revealed when I am weak?

If I try to get attention
That was really meant for You
By pretending I know the answers
Do I make a lie of what is true?

If I worship at the altar
Of things that are bought and sold
Have a made a sham of what Freedom truly is
For a little piece of false control?

If I don’t see me as You see me
Do I make the whole world blind
By denying what’s in all of us
And impressing limits on Your Mind?

If I refuse to receive redemption
Without the words to understand
Simply because I can’t explain it to other folks
Do I let go of Your Hand?

If I’m attached to what will never last
Am I missing Your biggest lessons?
If these thoughts are really on my mind
Are my questions my confessions?

Image by I.am_nah

How to See in the Dark

I’m weak
And I’m not afraid to admit it
And in this I find my strength
Though many will not get it
I’m broken
In all the right places
Accepting what is
Gives me the power to truly face this
I’m ignorant
I don’t know what the deal is
Which gives me the eyes to see
The reality of what real is
I’m helpless
I can do nothing on my own
Which is why I ask for help
From the One who is my Home
So, I’m hopeful
That I will wake while we are dreaming
Seeing in the dark
To the essence of our being

Photo by Amin tn