The Universe is a Story - Swimme & Tucker

The Universe is not simply a place, but a story -
a story in which we are immersed, to which we
belong, and out of which we arose...

The story has the power to awaken us more deeply to
who we are - we are the universe in the form of a human

And every time we are drawn to look up into the
night sky and reflect on the awesome beauty of the
universe, we are actually the universe reflecting on
itself.

And this changes everything...

A new integrating story has emerged.
It is a story of transformation through time.
It is challenging our understanding of who we are
in the universe.

Are we here by chance, by necessity, by serendipity,
or on purpose?

Swimme and Tucker
From: Journey of the Universe

~

Everything is ultimately a story.

My life is a story,
your life is a story,
all occurring within the vast
Cosmic Ocean...

The Story of the Eternal is being lived

here...

The Ineffable Mystery of the Universe
takes a journey through
the story of life - as us...
The "Divine Drama" is our story -
and our "story" is the "Divine Drama" ...

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
2013

~

Photo from the Internet

 

The Cosmic Mystery - a meandering...

Webb Telescope Photo

Spiritually I've gone rogue - LOLOLOL

No, not a mystic gone mad,
just following my "spiritual evolution",
if you will...

No more notions of "Enlightenment", or
"Self-Realization",
or following the "old institutionalized systems"
with their dogmas and doctrines...

The Cosmos calls to me now...

I'm drawn to the incredibly, amazing Vastness
and Mystery of the Universe...

The Cosmos ignites something in me -
an intense energy pervades my body,
unexpectedly.

I am compelled to step into this "new" Reality;
which isn't really "new" to me...
The Cosmos has been calling to me for a long time,
trying to get my attention, but something is
different now - more intense.
Earthling phone Home! :)

I have been weighed down by the "gravity" of 
earth-life:

conflagration, inauguration,
genocide, homicide...

overwhelm...

But there is a Symphony of Energy in the Universe
that I must follow...

And deeply look into Infinity -
and the gate of Eternity...

The Cosmic Mystery...

Blows "me" away...

Mystic Meandering
Jan 11, 2025

~

The goal of life is to match your heartbeat to the beat
of the universe...

Joseph Campbell

 

Deep Looking - Thich Nhat Hanh

Art: Barbara Stone

In spite of the lessons of the collective wisdom of
the world, we rarely satisfy our yearning to know
the Truth of our Existence.

The Mystical approach to the essential questions
about the meaning of life is quite different from
the normal way of learning things through written
teachings, rather, the mystical transmission of the
purpose of life comes through living life with
ever expanding awareness...

author unknown

~

When we practice deep looking, we receive help,
we receive understanding, we receive the
wisdom that makes us free.

Thich Nhat Hanh
Buddhist Teacher

 

"Truth" - LaMotte & Goethe

With general truth our minds swell up,
assuming the abstraction to expand us and
make us smarter.  But a mind turgid with beliefs
is neither clear nor useful.  It is a gray intellectual
thicket that prevents real empathy, real presence.
The general truth, in fact, makes us smaller, because
it confines awareness to a conceptual box
which our ego must argue and defend.

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

~

We can never directly see what is true, that is, identical with
 what is divine: we look at it only in reflection, in example,
in the symbol, in the individual and related phenomena.  We
perceive it as a life beyond our grasp, yet we cannot deny
our need to grasp it.

[.....] the highest achievement of the human being as a thinking
being is to have probed what is knowable and quietly to revere
what is unknowable.

Johann Wolfgang von Goeth

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Why We "Quest"? - Misc.

A quest ignites you to walk the path you have been chosen for...

It's the undertaking of, or commitment to something deeper
or larger than what we ever thought was possible - the meaning
you give your life to.

[like a quest for the Truth of Existence, or the Mystery of the
Cosmos, etc.]

Google Search :)

~

A quest is not, as most have believed, a rare mystical experience,
but an expression of our most basic human impulses that are
rooted in our nature; man's innate quest for the transcendent:
the "questing impulse."

Robert M Torrance
from- "The Spiritual Quest"

~

A Quest is following a vision, your own vision, that
transcends current reality...

from a conversation with my husband... :)

~

It's following the longing of your Heart...

My favorite song when I was a kid was "The Impossible Dream."
I was a bit of an idealist back then, but still...

:)

Photo by my husband...

 

The Portal of Discovery...

If there is "Enlightenment" perhaps it is when we can
accept that we are ever on the portal of discovery -
recognizing that we only have a glimpse of a larger
Reality...

"The Quest" then, is never really over.
There is no finish line, just an ever expanding
awareness of and deepening into our
True Beingness within the context of
a vaster Reality we have yet to discover.

from a conversation with my husband
12-30-24

~

Photo from the internet

 

Questions for the Quest - Misc.

 

From the Web Telescope

[spiritually speaking:]

What is the deepest longing of your Heart -
that which is more important than anything else?

What in you is being called forward, seeking attentions?

What is the pull, what calls to you?

What is your own inner resource,
sanctuary, refuge?

What is it that you call upon
that helps you connect
with [the inner feeling of stillness]
and being at ease?

What wants to be felt,
acknowledged?

Be open to what reveals itself...

Kathleen Knipp
excerpts from a Yoga Nidra meditation

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As we embark on a "new" year -
I'm questioning again,
things like these...

why are you questing?
Or - why did you start questing so long ago?

What drew you to the Quest?
What are you trying to pursue?
What calls to you still and
compels you to keep questing?
What speaks to your Soul?

~

I know from my own experience

not to let others determine my "path"
out of obligation or obedience,
no matter what others may tell me the truth is -
or isn't.

I must follow my own "invisible" path
that only I know; the one that is true for me...

That will intuitively lead me Home...

Blessings to us all for a safe passage in the year ahead...

_/\_

MM

~~~~~~~

 The pilgrimage is one that each must make alone...

to that boundary of space and time where
the mind and heart encounter the
"ultimate  mystery",
the known unknowable...

The quest will perhaps require more courage
than you or I can bear...

Chet Raymo
from: The Soul of the Night

Time Turns...

Something keeps me wakeful.
Something compels me to keep writing -
to tinker with the words I am given
from within...

~

Captives to time -
Time turns into another year -
a difficult passage in view -
with its increasing chaos and intensity.

...no one's immune to the
ongoing energetic chaos that pervades
the planet...

The world changes quickly...
life goes by in a blink...

Mystic Meandering
Dec. 30, 2024

Welcome to a "new" year...

~

Photo - Reflection in Clock face
Mystic Meandering
 

 

The Soul of the Night - Chet Raymo

Photo - The Milky Way - David Peters

It is a thin membrane that separates us from chaos...

The space between the stars is silence. How are we to
understand the silence of the Universe? Beyond the earth's
skin of our thin sky is silent.  Stars blow themselves to
smithereens, we hear nothing...

The fireball of Creation exploded from a pinprick of infinite
energy - there is no soundtrack - the Universe is silent.

If we converted the radiant energy of stars into sound what 
would we hear?  The static of electrons fidgeting between
energy levels in the atoms of stellar atmosphere;
statistical, indifferent noise...

In the almost perfect vacuum of interstellar space, stars
detonate, meteors blast craters on moons, and planets split
at their seams without sound.

What's up there is just one galaxy after another, magnificent
in their silent turning.....a primeval silence...  The Silence of
that which cannot be named...

Chet Raymo
From:  The Soul of the Night

~

"In a dark time the eye begins to see"
Theodore Roethke

~

Medieval Mystics embraced the darkness...
The Night is our window into the Infinite...
Few people willingly choose to walk the dark path,
to enter the dark woods...

Chet Raymo
From: Soul of the Night

~

Photo - The Milky Way
David Peters

 

A Cosmic Cosmology...

 

Spirituality and religion are not self-improvement programs
to measure up to;
nor "spiritual" standards to compare our progress with;
achieving lofty goals of "enlightenment" or "non-duality."
Everything is open-ended, boundaryless, freely fluid,
forever fluctuating, uncontained and unconstrained
without dogma or doctrine -
"in-lightened" from within.

This Cosmic Vibration, this Nameless "Divine Energy"
 is an unborn, inexplicable,
undulating universal energy that just IS -
that has always existed -
that is the gateway to
knowing our true Being...

...to experiencing
a truer Vibration that lies at
the Core of our Being;
the "Originating Energy" of
our Cosmology;
the place of no beginning, or ending,
only the infinity of the ongoing moment.

Experience your Cosmic Origins...
Return to your "roots"; a naked
Luminous, ever-present vibration
of Loving Aliveness...

Entrain with this Divine Vibration,
where the ripples of Love's energy
form and expand,
pulsating the Rhythm within and through you...

Our Cosmic Origin...

Mystic Meandering
2018

_/\_

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Cosmic Paperweight

Silence is a Gate - Dada Gavand

 

In the present competitive commercial society there seems
to be no room for Silence.

Quietude and Silence are not the negation of life, but the
regeneration of it.  Silence is the means to elevate life energy
to a timeless dimension.

We have got to find this unknown dimension of life.  The
whole world is in desperate need of a new-dimensional
consciousness, so that human being can live intelligently,
creatively, spontaneously and lovingly, and not just follow
the ego pursuits mechanically.

Silence is the means and Silence is the end.
Creative Silence is the ultimate challenge.

Silence is the sap that rejuvenates life.
Silence is the source of eternal life.

Dada Gavand
East Indian Mystic

~

Find the Silence and you'll find "God."

Ramakrishna

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Full Moon 2022

Silence is the Portal of "The Mystery"...

Rendezvous with the Great Silence
through the Inner Window
of your Heart -
the portal of "The Holy Mystery"...

Sit quietly and listen deeply,
with no agenda or expectation,
leaving the Window of your Heart open -
waiting for the Song of "The Sacred"...

Feel the caress of Silence begin,
like a breeze,
inviting you in
with Its gentle breath,
breathing in your Heart...

The Silence is always there
opening Itself to you  - always -
blessing...

Turn inward to the Inner Sanctuary,
bow to The Sacred Silence within and
enter the Cosmic Mystery,
the Ineffable Vastness...

Settle into the Rhythm of the Primordial Silence.
Feel the soft dance of intimacy absorb you,
in this silent rendezvous...

All life, all breath, all death, all movement of life
occurs within the Holy Silence
that enfolds us...

In this intimate embrace of the presence of "The Mystery"
know that everything is living according to its
Natural Order, is following its
Natural Rhythm - the Light and the Dark;
the Rhythm of Life living Itself...
Including the life you think you have created...

All life is being lived by "The Holy Mystery"...

All is the pulse of Silence...

All is the pulse of the Cosmos...

Mystic Meandering
Dec. 24, 2024

_/\_

~

"The Holy"
dwells among us
in us
and through us...

Holy-Holy

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Inner Sanctuary - St. Teresa of Avila

There is a secret place.
A radiant sanctuary...

This magnificent refuge is inside you.

Enter

Shatter the darkness that shrouds the doorway.

Be bold.  Be humble.

Put away the incense and forget the incantation
they taught you.  Ask no permission from the
authorities.

Slip away...

Close your eyes and follow your breath
to the still place that leads to the invisible path
that leads you home.

Listen...

Softly, the One you love is calling...

Listen...

At first you will only hear traces of his [her] Voice.
Love letters he [she] drops for you in hiding places -
in the sun dipping down below the horizon,
in the nameless sorrow that fills your heart when you
wake in the night and remember that the world has gone
to war and you are powerless to break up the fight.

Let the idle chatter between friends drop down to
what matters.

Listen...

his [her] Voice will come closer.
A whisper you're almost sure is meant for you
fading in and out of the cacophony of thoughts
clearer in the silent space between them.

Listen...

Be brave and walk through the country of your own
wild heart.

Be gentle and know that you know nothing.

Be still...

Listen...

Keep walking...

Crossing the moat [threshold] between this world and that...

This is The Beloved reclining in the innermost chamber,
waiting for you...

The Beloved has chosen for his [her] dwelling place
the core of your own being because that is the single
most beautiful place in all creation.

Enter the center of your Soul...

Excerpts from the Introduction to:
The Interior Castle
by St. Teresa of Avila

translation by Mirabai Starr

[brackets mine]

~

Vortex Art - Mystic Meandering

2024

 

Crossing the Threshold - John O'Donohue - for Solstice...

The following piece is an excerpt from a book called 
To Bless the Space Between Us, by Irish poet, philosopher,
author and priest, John O'Donohue

Sara Smeaten shares his words about what it means to move
from one experience to another, to cross into new ways of being,
what it means to end one thing and begin another, and 
ultimately, what it means to trust in the possibility that each
new threshold offers.

He reminds us that change has its own rhythm, its own course...
That it is happening even when we can't see it, and that it
can also be sudden and absolute.  His words are magical
and yet deeply practical

Sara Smeaton

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Change arrives in nature when time has ripened.  There are no
jagged transitions or crude discontinuities.  This accounts for the
sureness with which one season succeeds another.  It is as though
they were moving forward in a rhythm set from within a continuum.

So often we opt to continue the old pattern, rather than risking the
danger of difference.  We are also often surprised by change that
seems to arrive out of nowhere.

We find ourselves crossing some new threshold we had never
anticipated.  Like Spring secretly at work within the heart of winter,
below the surface of our lives huge changes are in fermentation.
We never suspect a thing.  Then when the grip of some long-
enduring winter mentality begins to loosen, we find ourselves
vulnerable to a flourish of possibility and we are suddenly
negotiating the challenge of a threshold.

To acknowledge and cross a new threshold is always a challenge.
It demands courage and also a sense of trust in whatever is
emerging.  This becomes essential when a threshold opens suddenly
in front of you, one for which you had no preparation [or choice].
This could be illness, suffering or loss.  Because we are so engaged
with the world, we usually forget how fragile life can be and how
vulnerable we always are.  It takes only a couple of seconds for
a life to change irreversibly.  Suddenly you stand on completely
strange ground and a new course of life has to be embraced.

Especially at such times we desperately need blessing and
protection.  You look back at the life you have lived up to a few
hours before, and it suddenly seems to far away.  Think for a 
moment how, across the world, someone's life has just changed -
irrevocably, permanently, and not necessarily for the better -
and everything that was once so steady, so reliable, must now
find a new way of unfolding...

.....we never know what destiny shapes each life.  The script of
individual destiny is secret; it is hidden behind and beneath the
sequence of happenings that is continually unfolding for us.
Each life is a mystery that is never finally available to the
mind's light or questions. Acceptance of this can free us into
natural courage that casts out fear and opens up our lives to
become voyages of discovery, creativity, and compassion.
No threshold need be a threat, but rather an invitation and a
promise.

.....listen inward with complete attention until you hear the
inner voice calling your forward.  The time has come to cross.

John O'Donohue
via Sara Smeaten

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the Universe there are things that are
known and things that are unknown and
in between there are doors.

William Blake

~

Solstice Blessings
as we cross the threshold today

~

Photo - A panoramic view of the Gloucester coast in Mass
Taken by my brother.

It reminded me of a threshold, or an opening/door to 
something beyond...

 

A Sacred Process - Matt Licata - for Solstice

In each moment the sacred process of death and rebirth is
playing out within us.  With each breath something in us is
dying: some aspect of who we think we are or what we're
doing here, and idea about how life was going to turn out.
[the loss of your faculties :)]

In the face of this dissolution, the question isn't so much how
can we be reborn, but will we participate in death,  fully, and
with an open heart, paving the way for new forms to emerge,
trusting that rebirth will take place according to a timeline
originating far away in the stars.

In times of transition, our tendency is to rush to rebirth,
 quickly back into the known, in an urgent attempt to cure,
maintain, or heal that which is dying (in us), that which longs
to transform.  It is so natural to resist falling apart in our need
to put it all back together.[the way it was].

But it is only from the core of the womb of death - a death 
tended to consciously - that re-birth can come into being.

The invitation, then, which we can at times hear clearly,
during the dark of night.....is to not abandon "death" in our
rush to be re-born [into the light].

To not short circuit the intelligence and creativity that death is,
and to remember that rebirth is not possible without the
creativity of dissolution, without the alchemical disintegration.

Allow the death some time to unfold, to share its poetry and
its fragrances, which are not partial, but of a light that is whole.
In those times in our lives when things are being rearranged
and reorganized inside and around us we can attune to what
is truly being asked, whether is is to cure death and reassemble
the known, or to allow the forms of love safe passage to 
continue their journey...

To give them permission to dance and play and participate
fully in the sacred return...

Matt Licata

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Moon thru skylight

 

Hold Onto The Thread - William Stafford

 

There's a thread you follow.  It goes among

things that change.  But it doesn't change.

People wonder about what you are pursuing.

You have to explain about the thread.

But it is hard for others to see..

While you hold it you can't get lost.

Tragedies happen; people get hurt

or die; and you suffer and get old.

Nothing you do can do stop time's unfolding.

You don't ever let go of the thread.

William Stafford
From: The Way It Is 1998

William Stafford's journey with words
began most mornings before sunrise.
This simple poem was written 26 days
before he passed.

~

Photo from the Internet

This is an actual bridge (thread) in
Vietnam - held by huge hands...

Real Acceptance - Henry Rollins

If the world gives you the blues, if you wake up in the
middle of the night with waves of fear and senseless
panic washing over you, I am your friend.  If you're
overcome by a desperation that makes your mouth
open for a scream that never comes out but just freezes
your face in mute despair, then you and I have something
in common.  If you can't understand them for the life of
you, even though you've tried so hard, when that
dislocation makes you feel like you're the only one of
your species on the planet, I know I can confide in you.
If this endless ghetto of lies and heart break, this life-
long run of fences and flickering neon signs and night
sweats makes you feel like stopping, just stopping,
wait.  Wait...

You don't have to tell me your name.
You don't have to prove yourself to me.
I accept you...

Henry Rollins

with thanks to Whiskey River

~

Love and Blessings to all who are struggling
in body, mind and spirit...

_/\_

MM

~

Polar Bears Hugging Photo from the Internet

 

Hold to "The Silence..."

Late at night,
holding my hands over my Heart,
I hold close to The Silence
when all is quiet;
my comfort, companion & Friend.

It's been a couple of years since we've
held each other intimately;
the intimacy of the deep
Silence of Being within...

The abstractions of "non-duality"
do not help me now,
they leave me - untouched, cold.

I'm on a different path now,
that is not yet clear to me...

I want to be deeply touched - by
the Ineffable Mystery - The Silence - at
the core of my Being; to be moved again
by the intimacy of Sacred Silence -
that I once closely knew...

It takes an environment of quietness to quiet the mind -
from the "noise", distractions, and stress of daily living;
accessing a sanctuary of Divine Silence within
so that I may be gently touched by The Mystery
and directly experience Its Fullness....

Not a conceptual Silence - but tangible;
Not an abstraction, but a Living Presence,
that can be touched - that wants to be found...

It waits for you...

Mystic Meandering
Dec. 11, 2024

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

The Pulse of Life...

\

Perfect Pulsing Silence...
Utter Stillness...
Breath-giving Life...

This is what I come to sit for;
to sit in utter and complete Silence of Being -
the pulse of Life;
to feel and sense "The Silence",
to feel its Aliveness,
to hear its Song...

Sitting in the silence of not-knowing
puts one in a place of really listening,
with no agenda or expectation,
leaving the space open for "The Silence" to speak,
to calm the mind and soul
and sing Its Song to the Heart...

I listen deeply for the Song of Silence...

A breeze touches my arm gently from the window
inviting me to stop and listen more deeply...

I gaze inward
to "The Song of Silence" within,
that is mirrored
in the sounds of silence in the night,
just outside my window...

It's all the same Silence, infusing everything...

I feel "The Rhythm" of Silence begin -

I bask in my chair
listening to the pulsing Silence
within and without,
feeling Its familiar Rhythm
through my body,
feeling the dance of intimacy begin again...

Nothing disturbs The Silence...
Nothing disturbs the depth of It...
Nothing prevents Its Song
from being sung ~

In this intimate Silence I am reminded that
everything occurs within this Divine Silence.
All life, all breath, all death...
 All movement occurs within this vast space of Silence
that WE  ARE...

In "The Sacred Silence"
I know everything is living according to Its
natural order - is following Its natural order,
including this life I call mine...

All life is being lived
by the hush of this Ineffable Mystery...
that birthed the Cosmos...

All is the pulse of the Great Silence ~

the Pulse of Life ~

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
May 2011
updated Dec 12, 2024

~

I know I've posted this one many times,
under a different title,
but *I* needed to hear it again :)
to type it out...

And actually made some changes...
May it soothe your Soul...

_/\_