Go in the Dark - Mary Oliver and Wendell Berry

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand
that this too, was a gift...

Mary Oliver

(I still don't understand it :)

with thanks to Under My Umbrella and Beyond

~

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark.  Go without sight, and
find that the dark, too, blooms and sings and is
traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

Wendell Berry

~

Art - Mystic Meandering
Nordic Forest
(drip painting)

 

Ghosts? - Paul F. Eno

I don't believe that ghosts are "spirits of the dead" because I 
don't believe in death.  In the multiverse, once you're possible,
you exist.  And once you exist, you exist forever one way or
another.  Besides, death is the absence of life, and the ghosts
I've met are very much alive.  What we call ghosts are lifeforms
just as you and I are.

Paul F. Eno
Footsteps in the Attic

with thanks to Whiskey River

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

"Spirit Light"

~

My favorite grandmother passed 26 years ago yesterday.
My father passed 39 years ago tomorrow.
Although their bodies are gone something of them lives on
 somewhere, maybe not as the personas we remember,
although my brother insists that my father joins him on his
 motorcycle  rides quite frequently :) - not as a ghost that he sees,
 but a felt presence...  My husband's mother passed in Nov 2017. 
Two weeks after her death my husband and I both felt a strong
loving presence, and we both *knew* it was *her* presence -
how I don't know...  Not as a ghost or apparition, but as
 living presence.

A Mystery...

MM

 

Simply Silence...

In the midst of chaos there is always Silence...
In the midst of complexity there is simplicity...
Being in the Rhythm of Silence unwinds the mind -
unwinds the fears.
It unwinds the contracted body, thoughts, emotions, and feelings
that have become an habituated response to life.

Silence is the medicine that brings us back to the current of Life
again; into the Infinite Presence that lives us...

It is not "mother earth" pulsing through us,
but That which also pulses through "mother earth" -
the Cosmic pulse of Life that infuses all things...

Reach deeply into the Stillness of Silence
within you - the Primordial Space of Silence
and thrive there...

In this stillness is the congruancy of Life...

Feel the Stillness,
the Sacred Silence...
Awaken to its Rhythm...

It is not thought...
Go behind the mind,
to the Essence of Existence -
Silence...

Sweet, Sweet, Silence...

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings from the Silence
2006

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Leaves on a branch
color inverted digitally giving
this wonderful oriental, zen-like affect
of simplicity...

 

Fall Flourish

HAPPY HALLOWEEN 

 

Mysterious Interchanges - Victor Hugo

He was there alone with himself, collected, tranquil, adoring,
comparing the serenity of his heart with the serenity of the
skies, moved in the darkness by the visible splendors of
the constellations, and the invisible splendour of God,
opening his soul to the thoughts which fall from the 
Unknown.

In such moments, offering up his heart at the hour when flowers
of night inhale their perfume, lighted like a lamp in the center
of the starry night, expanding his soul in ecstasy in the midst of
the universal radiance of creation, he could not himself perhaps
have told what was passing in his own mind; he felt something
depart from him, and something descend upon him, mysterious
interchanges of the depths of the soul with the depths of the
Universe.

Victor Hugo
Les Miserables

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Photo from the Internet

 

Primordial Silence - a meandering...

"The key", for me anyway, one of the many "keys"
actually, is constantly "returning" my awareness or attention
to the awareness of Primordial Silence within.  I am constantly
challenged to "wake up" and remember this deep Silence at core of
 my Being...

This came out of a conversation with my husband in the face
of life's challenges that are currently occurring here personally
on an ongoing basis - for years actually - but especially 
these last 2+ years - that I feel pulling me away from the deeper
sense of intimacy with "The Silence" within - which is why I
have been posting about Silence recently - as a way to remind myself.
The Primordial Silence calls to me, like an old Friend, 
inviting me, waiting for me to respond, to come and be still -
thus the late night "window sitting" that I practiced years ago,
 where I can rendezvous with the Great Silence by being
 in the stillness and quiet of the night...

Intimacy with the Primordial Silence is what nourishes me, my
Soul - when I can be in that space.  It is the elixir of Life -
dissolving all resistance, and anxiety about what is, the way life
 is right now, what it should be, and allows the veils that keep
 me from this Divine Communion of Silence to drop away... 
But, I'm not there... 
I am riding the "Mind Bus" with its stories and fears.

It is a conscious endeavor to remember that no matter what is
going on, there is always this intimacy with Primordial Silence
within, even if not felt.  I just need to constantly return to the felt
sense of It:
The awareness of Primordial Silence within myself...

Mystic Meandering

_/\_

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Moment of Joy - Mary Oliver

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don't hesitate...

 ....sometimes something happens better than all the
riches or power in the world.  It could be anything, but
very likely you notice it in an instant...

 Anyway, whatever it is, don' be afraid of its plenty...

Mary Oliver
from: Swan

Original Title - Don't Hesitate

With thanks to Whiskey River

~

Personal Note:  This happened to me a couple of days ago
Suddenly the shroud of darkness lifted, and there was causeless joy,
and LIFE, and gratitude, peace and contentment
just waiting underneath...
It was joyous :)
And then it disappeared after a day just as it had arisen...

A moment of Joy...

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Mistakes - John O'Donohue

One of the qualities that you can develop, particularly
in your older years, is a sense of great compassion for
yourself.  When you visit the wounds within the temple
of memory, you should not blame yourself for making
bad mistakes that you greatly regret.  Sometimes you
have grown unexpectedly through these mistakes.
Frequently, in a journey of the soul, the most precious
moments are the mistakes.  They have brought you to
a place that you would otherwise have always avoided.
You should bring a compassionate mindfulness to your
mistakes and wounds.  Endeavor to inhabit the
rhythm you were in at that time. If you visit this
configuration of your soul with forgiveness in your heart,
it will fall into place itself.  When you forgive yourself,
the inner wounds begin to heal. You come in out of the
exile of hurt into the joy of inner belonging.

John O'Donohue
from Anam Cara

with thanks to Whiskey River

~

Photo - mistake :)

 

The Comet :)

Photo - Comet C/2023A3
Taken by my brother off the coast of Gloucester, Mass
Friday evening, Oct.18, 2024

~

That's how you came here,
like a star without a name.
Move across the night sky
with those anonymous lights.

Rumi

 

In Harmony with The Cosmos - Sardello

Silence is not a path...
The most basic experience of Silence is intimacy...
Silence keeps us intimately bound with the truth of
our Being...

We feel how we, in our individuality, are part of a
vast and mysterious world process...
Illusion and ego-fantasy begin with forgetting this
intimacy with Silence...

In "practicing" [being aware of] the Silence we are not
trying to merge with the Cosmos, or to leave this world
for timeless regions... but to come into harmony with the
Rhythm of Silence and the great [natural] rhythms governing
the world [planet].  We start by sensing the presence of
extremely subtle currents of The Silence that have a unique
quality.  These currents are neither "energy" nor the electro-
magnetic currents of the body.  We experience the currents
of Silence, as being touched by a "spiritual" presence.  The
nature of the currents of Silence is that of the presence
of an interiority, like knowing someone in a way that reveals
the essence of their Being.  We experience an immediacy
of the quality of interiority.  There is nothing behind Silence...
There is just Silence...  When we are in The Silence we
experience something very bodily and we also experience
 it as a subtle touch at the level or our Soul, at
the level of our own interiority.

[Accessing] The Silence through directly sensing is the key
to living both our Soul life, and our spiritual life *in* the world...

The work is to be with The Silence itself...

Robert Sardello
Excerpts From - Silence: The Key to Wholeness

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

~

Personal Note:  I have experienced some of what Mr.
Sardello describes as his own experience.
Everyone experiences this Silence differently...

 

Attune to The Rhythm - Henry Miller

When you surrender, the problem ceases to exist.  Try to solve
it, and you only set up more resistance.  I am very certain now
that...if I truly become what I wish to be, the burden will fall
away.  The most difficult thing to admit, and to realize with
one's whole being, is that you alone control nothing.

To be able to put yourself in tune or rhythm with the forces
beyond, which are truly operative ones, that is the task...

Henry Miller

~

Photo - The October 2024 Aurora Borealis
taken by my brother in Mass.

~

"Touch Eternity/a deeper Reality on a daily basis"

MM

 

Night's Solace - Cheryl Sanders Sardello

We are fortunate to have night's solace in the silence that is
created by the dark.  Here we can lean into the unknown,
setting aside the oppressive weight of our carefully
constructed version of who we think we are.  We can
remember how to see in the dark with our ears,
perceiving the Silence in the holy echoing and resonance,
its calling forth a knowing that is from the Soul. 
The Silence sends us on a different pilgrimage.

Cheryl Sanders Sardello
from - Silence: The Mystery of Wholeness

~

Photo from the Internet

 

Living Silence - Robert Sardello

There is a Living Silence that hears the cry of the Soul.

Each of us has a companion-presence.  Something that is
always with us.  The companion-presence is Silence.
We need to nurture companionship with it [commune with it].

Silence was here before everything else, and it envelopes
everything else.  Silence is prior to sound, not the cessation
of sound.  If we drop into the quietness [within] for just a moment,
we feel the presence of Silence as an invitation.

As we accept the invitation and enter the mystery of Silence,
its presence resonates through the fibers of our flesh while
extending beyond the flesh to the deepest depths of the Soul
inwardly, and to the outermost reaches of the Cosmos
outwardly.  The inward silence of Solitude meets up with the

Great Silence of Cosmic Wisdom.  When we don't cultivate
the meeting point, we lose access to the presence
of the Silence.  Without Silence we are lost and cannot get still
enough to find our way back.

Silence bears the wholeness we are looking for...
Silence goes to the deepest depths of the Soul...

[In communion with the Silence] we feel a new attunement to
Spirit as a directly felt reality.  We have a bodily perception of
being welcomed into the vastness and fecundity of Silence. 
When we find the entry into the large stillness our lives are
irrevocably changed, a transition takes place.  The experience
comes with astonishing intimacy, that feels like the finding of
a long lost beloved.

Silence is palpable.  It's a living presence. It has a rhythm all
its own.  The currents of Silence weave polarities and opposites
and contradictions together.  Within Silence everything resonates
in true intimacy and mystery.

Our Soul connection with Silence is a form of sympathetic
resonance with the currents of Silence [the rhythm and pulsing
of Silence].  We enter into the deepest feeling of communing...

We, along with everything else, are within Silence.
We are held within a tender, loving invisible presence...
A vivid Presence of Silence...

This realm of Silence is pregnant with the ever-living Mystery.
It is the deepest feeling of communing, touched by the 
Ineffable, that keeps us intimately bound with the truth of our
Core Being, the very Essence of our Being; an interiority that
has been waiting for us.

Robert Sardello

Excerpts from: Silence: The Mystery of Wholeness

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Listen to the Inner Friend - Matt Licata

In times of liminality and transition, there is a unique invitation
delivered to each of us, form the inner Friend, to slow down and
open to what it might truly feel like to play and imagine once again.

To explore from that place of beginner's mind, re-opening to those
natural states of awe, wonder and the simple joy inherent in a few
moments of just Being, Being who and what we already are,
without having to turn our lives into some unending self-improvement
project.

While we can hold an intention to improve our lives, relationships,
and sense of self, which is intelligent, and kind, simultaneously to
spend some time each day in these less-structured experiences, ones
that aren't oriented in improvement, in getting a different experience.

Maybe for us that's being out in nature (perhaps without our electronic
devices) or writing down our dreams, or doing some type of yoga or
meditation or prayer or whatever that might be: Writing, dancing,
putting our hands in some sand...

Tending to the wild undomesticated aliveness of the sensual world.
An invitation of being emptied-out of the known, the frozen, and
the crystalized within us...

Taking time each day to interrupt the trance of the collective, the
pull into a survival-level restlessness, and return into our bodies,
and provide an inner temple in which we can feel, where that
which has remained unlived can come into embodied reality and
disclose its wisdom.

To attune to that emerging right-brain flow of image, feeling, 
sensation, and those states of communion, Union and Unity
[within]...

Matt Licata

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Notice the reflection of the statue in the round sand frame,
The "Inner Friend"? ... :)

 

Silence, the Immortal Food - Christian Bobin

For a long time I let this slow movement towards the Unknown,
this highest form of knowledge, be fulfilled in me:
the adoration of Silence.
It is never in vain that we give way
to this elementary beauty which seizes the Soul
in the spiral of a star or anything in the world...

It [The Silence] illuminates the night and its angelic sister,
solitude.  And it is by developing in us this silent attention
mute to the day, that we will find our place in the Absolute
that surrounds us.

It is ours when all is lacking and all is far from being,
to give our life the patience of a work of art,
the flexibility of reeds that the hand of
the wind wrinkles, in homage to winter.
A little Silence is enough.
A little of this immaterial food that The Mother dispensed
and burned it into infinity...

Christian Bobin
the Simple Enchantment

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Beyond a Timeline...

I rest in the Silent spaces of the Soul -
in and out of time,
beyond a timeline,
where existence transcends
time, flowing in the stream
of the eternal Cosmos,
just outside the noise
of troubled waters...

Quietude that nourishes
body and Soul.

Mystic Meandering
Oct. 2, 2024

~*~

In this spiritual world there are no time divisions
such as past, present and future; for they have
contracted themselves into a single moment of
the present where life quivers in its true sense.

The past and the future are both rolled up in this
present moment of illumination, and this present
moment is not something standing still with all
its contents, for it ceaselessly moves on.

D.T. Suzuki, 1870 - 1966
On Indian Mahayana Buddhism

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Light shadows on a wall...

 

The Melody of Silence - from the Quran

In the depths of the soul, where words dissolve,
Sounds a secret melody,
A music that no ear can hear,
For it is woven from the very silence,
This sacred silence, where the world ceases to whisper,
And where the eternal song of the Divine begins.

This melody has neither beginning nor end,
She is the echo of an ancient Love,
A Love that exists before time,
Before the stars are lit,
Before the universe was woven,
She is the first breath,
He who gave life to clay,
And which continues to resonate in the hearts
of those who listen,
With the ears of the soul.

In the melody of Silence,
Each note is a prayer,
Each break, a return to the Source.
Those who have passed through the tempest of the ego,
And the torments of the spirit,
Know that this music is not found in the noise of the world,
But in the inner quietude,
Where heaven and earth meet,
In the sacred union of being and non-being.

The melody of Silence is the voice of Love,
Who speaks without words,
Who touches without touching,
Who kisses without hugging,
It is the melody that the prophets heard
in their hears,
When they were alone with the Beloved,
When the night enveloped the world,
And the whole cosmos seemed to hold its breath,
Waiting for the Light to reveal itself.

from the Quran

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

The Silence of the Soul is my Home, my Friend...

 

Notes From The Window - 9-27-24

Sitting at the window in The Silence of just Being
soothes my Soul - it *feeds* the Soul.
The Stillness is powerful tonight...

The Silence within and the night hold me
in Quietude...

I feel emotionally "safe" here in The Silence 
and know that this Silence is my Core,
it is The Silence of the Soul.
I just bask in its Peace...

~

The Silence of the Soul at the window is what
I need.  I've been using bandaids again:
techniques and strategies, though helpful,
they are not what nourishes the Soul...

When I'm at the window at night,
I feel a sense of well-being inside.

I relax and breathe - even when I still
get caught in the negative meanderings of
the mind - I return to The Silence within,
and am at peace...

Mystic Meandering
Sept. 27, 2024

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Caregiver to the Soul - a meandering

I am on a different journey now,
have been for the last several months...

It's a journey of Divine Descent,
into the inner caverns,
the deepest interiors of Myself,
into the interiority of the Soul...

Along the way I have encountered
the Shadow-lands of old traumas,
old emotional wounds, etc., and what are
considered the "dark" emotions;
engaging in negative meanderings of the mind.
It's been a challenging passage.

And in that descent to the core of my Being,
I have learned that the portals to the Soul
are not necessarily illumined;
sometimes they are through the dark places;
passageways through the catacombs of the Soul.

Standing in the kitchen this morning
I unexpectedly heard this phrase,
from the Inner Voice -
"Caregiver to the Soul."

I felt uplifted, inspired - relieved, released
from the darkness that has shrouded me -
if only for that moment...

And now I must explore how to be the
Caregiver to my Soul
listening deeply to the deeper needs
of the Soul - to what nourishes and feeds
the Soul life...

Mystic Meandering
Sept. 27, 2024

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Perspectives on perspective - a meandering...

My father had a saying on a small plaque over
 his desk that said:

"Don't judge another man till you've walked a mile in
his shoes."

I Googled it to see if I could find the quote, and it came
up with several variations.

I liked this one:

"You can't really understand another person's experience
until you've walked a mile in their shoes."

Cherokee Indian saying

~

Then it gave someone's interpretation on the meaning:

"to experience life as someone else lives it and see the
world from their perspective, instead of trying to
change their perspective; it's known as empathy and
compassion..."

author unknown

~

And then there was this one...

You never really know someone until you understand 
their point of view, until you climb around in their skin
and walk around in it.

Harper Lee
To Kill a Mockingbird

~

How often in the "spiritual culture" do the spiritual elite
try to convince you that their perspective is the "right"
perspective, the non-dual, spiritual perspective,
under the guise of "Truth."

But maybe we all just "see" the "Truth" differently,
through different "windows", through different
 lenses of perception...
It's all a play of perspectives...

Namaste 

_/\_

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Different Perspectives out the same window

 

Portals to the Soul - Matt Licata

The heart breaks and breaks and lives by breaking.
It is necessary to go through the dark and deeper dark
and not to turn.

Stanley Kunitz
The Testing Tree

~

As we move through the second half of life, a new voice will
often emerge, pouring out through our longing, our grief, our
anger, and our disappointment.  A figure from deep in the soul.

To hear and respond to the call, we have to slow down and 
listen through the veil, beyond the noise and density of the
collective...

It takes courage to listen to the soul and to take it seriously.
To cultivate a real devotion to the messages it is sending us.
We are called into this devotional place by way of our
dreams, our study and practices, and through prayer, ritual,
dance, art, creativity, and being a parent, a teacher, a lover,
and a friend (and Caregiver).

It can be a lonely journey at times, if there is no one who can
truly understand us.  We turn to look for the Friend though they
are not there.

But the Friend is near, even if unable to be seen.

Holding and tending this aloneness, and the grief that
accompanies it, lies at the very heart of the process of
 death and rebirth, and the truth that all healing is
relational in its essence.

There can be no unity or oneness without there first being
an experience of separation.  Otherwise, union would have no
meaning.  They co-arise together, where a subsequent union
lays the seeds for a more subtle separation, and then a more
subtle union, and on and on.

Separation and multiplicity are just as holy as oneness and
union; they are equally valid emanations of the Beloved.

There is no end to the depths of the human heart.  We don't
wiggle into some sustained transcendent state where we're
"permanently" awakened, gone beyond the reality that the
Beloved will pull the rug out from underneath us, in order
to draw us nearer, and to reveal more of its essence.

In the end, [The Beloved] seems quite uninterested in our
fantasies of permanent transcendence.

Even as we may yearn to rise above our embodied
sensitivities, emotional wounding, and relational trauma,
on the alchemical path they are the prima materia, the
required matter, and portals into the depths of the Soul.

Matt Licata

~

Vortex Art - Mystic Meandering
2011

 

Soul Friend - John O'Donohue

In the Celtic tradition, there is a beautiful understanding
of love and friendship.  One of the fascinating ideas here
is the idea of soul-love; the old Gaelic term for this is
anam cara.  Anam is the Gaelic word for Soul and cara
is the word for friend.  So anam cara in the Celtic world
was "soul friend."

In everyone's life, there is a great need for an anam cara,
a soul friend.  In this love, you are understood as you are
without mask or pretension.  The superficial and functional
lies and half-truths of social acquaintance fall away, you
can be as you really are.  Love allows understanding to
dawn, and understanding is precious.  Where you are
understood, you are at home.

The anam cara experience opens a friendship that is not
wounded or limited by separation or distance.  Such
friendship can remain alive even when the friends live
far away from each other.  Because they have broken
through the barriers of persona and egoism to the soul
level, the unity of their souls is not easily severed.  When
the soul is awakened, physical space is transfigured.

Even across the distance, two friends can stay attuned to
each other and continue to sense the flow of each other's
lives.  With your anam cara you awaken the eternal.

John O'Donohue

~

Photo from the Internet

 

Balance: Noticing the Opposites - iRest

Artist- Puisi

Our experience always changes.  We have idealized
expectations of what we think life is supposed to be.
Life will do what life does, despite trying to
control our experience.

Balance is born out of transformative embrace of the
fullness of life in its ups and downs, not dependent
upon on external life circumstances.

Flow with the waves of life, noticing the *sensations*
in the body, exploring the opposites in the body,
the heaviness and lightness; feeling both sensations
in the body at the same time; as well as opposite
emotions and beliefs.

Every experience has an opposite.
Once explored and underlying sense of well-being
and ease can shine through, a true balance emerges.

Trying to control our experience [causes stress],
instead set life free to be what it is through allowing
life to be as it is, in balance and harmony with the
opposites, through the simplicity of noticing.

From an iRest meditation
from a free meditation series
through the iRest Institute

~

Photo - Art by Puisi