The Soul Hears - Rumi

The soul has been given its own ears to hear things the mind
does not understand.

If you want to know who someone is, what is flowing through
or not flowing, stay in a listening posture.

Close your eyes inside your companion's shadow.

Rumi

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Plumb The Depths...

Do not be afraid to
plumb
the
depths
of 
your 
Being,
of

Truth;
to question
everything
you
have
learned

Take the journey deeply inward
to your beginnings - and endings;
to the Silent hum
in the Heart
of all Life
that sings,
and
see
for
your
self.

There are many caravans to follow,
those aspiring to "enlighten" or "awaken" you
with their words,
left like burning firewood to light your way,
along the road...

But only in Sacred Silence can the journey be made
to the Heart of Being;
to discover the depths of Being ~
of That which you are;
That which wants to 
*live*
within you...

Do not let fear stop your descent
into the Inner Vastness:
the deep Ocean within...

Be still,
and open...
Listening...

Follow the plumb line
of your breath,
past the Furies and the Sirens
into the soft ebullience
of Love
and quiet Joy
waiting for you,
like ethereal
liquid pools
of Light
drawing
you
in

Rest Here

In
the
depths
of
this
Alive
Silent
Spacious
Awareness

Listen to the endless
Rhythm already
holding
you
in the cradle
of
Peace

Feel
the
pervasive
contentment
of Life
Here
in
the
depths of
Sacred
Silence,
that animates
every cell,
every atom,
every sound,
every thought,

every feeling ~

until you *know*
THIS

*as*

yourself.

Simply Living...

Mystic Meandering
April 17, 2012

Vortex Art - Mystic Meandering
2010

 

When Things Fall Apart - Pema Khandro Rinpoche

There are times like these in our lives - such as facing death
or even giving birth - when we are no longer able to manage
our outer image, no longer able to suspend ourselves in
pursuit of the ideal self.  It's just how it is....  and in these
times of crisis we just don't have the energy to hold it all
together.  When things fall apart, we can only be as we are.
Pretense and striving fall away, and life becomes starkly
simple.

The value of such moments is this:  we are shown that the
game can be given up and that when it is, the emptiness
that we feared, emptiness of the void, is not what is there.
What is there is the bare fact of being.  Simple presence 
remains - breathing in and out, waking up and going to 
sleep.  The inevitability of the circumstances at hand is
compelling enough that for the moment, our complexity
ceases.  Our compulsive manufacturing of contrived 
existence stops.  Perhaps in that ungrounded space, we
are not even comforting ourselves, not even telling
ourselves everything is okay; we may be too tired to
do even that.

It's just capitulation - we're forced into non-grasping of
inherent reality.  The contrived self has been emptied
out along with contrived existence and the tiring
treadmill of image maintenance that goes along with it.
What remains is a new moment spontaneously meeting us,
again and again.

There is an incredible reality that opens up to us in 
those gaps...

Pema Khandro Rinpoche

excerpts from Breaking Open in the Bardo

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

"Prepare for Death" - a meandering...

"Prepare for death" were the words I heard
whispered recently, unexpectedly.
I tried to ignore them,
not wanting to acknowledge them,
but wanting to keep them at bay - like
they hadn't been heard -
but they had...

This meandering is not meant to be morbid, just realistic,
even sobering - it is for me anyway...

Maybe the "reason" our bodies decline,
I thought, is because it is, in a sense, preparing
us for death... so that we recognize what's coming,
because we feel the body's fading, so we can start
detaching from the attachments we made in this world...

Most people I've encountered recently
don't like the mention of the word "death",
they react, as if it was a dangerous word;
like it's not supposed to happen, at least not now,
because our lives, for the most part, are still
oriented toward achievement and accomplishment,
materializing what we want, acquiring - and legacy.

Most are not ready to "let go" yet.

Evidently the word "death" - makes some people
very uncomfortable - let alone its actuality.

In pondering death,
the reality of impermanence,
I never thought I would back away,
but would welcome the
release...  I still do really...
But I wasn't expecting the words to waft
through me either...

And do they mean - literally?
Or metaphorically - like - *some*thing is
going to die in me?  Or a message that some*one*
will pass?  Or symbolically - like some aspect of
myself is going to fall away?

It is not clear...

As I continued to ponder its meaning
memories of those who have passed and their lives
floated through.  But those memories seemed like
another world - like looking through a window
into another time - which it is actually
- it *was* another time
that now seems unreal.

I want to be able to look through the window
into the past-death portal and what that's going to 
be like.  It seems we really can't know until we get
there, unless we are given glimpses, through meditation,
or mystical moments, or belief...
And I "believe" that *some*thing departs -
but what?

Spirit, Soul, Consciousness?
Returning to the "energy"
from which "we" arose?

a Mystery...

I have no clue really - just meandering here...

But I do think we feel death coming
in the waning of our body and energy; and the mind
unable to maintain its acuity, its cognition, its
memory of words...

We *are* given signs, but we try to fool ourselves
into thinking that if we just "live right",
pray/meditate enough,
exercise and eat "right";
believe the "right" religion,
we can put off the inevitable.

When it's time for me to "let go" of this world -
I hope I can relax and willingly walk over the bridge,
 through the portal into the Unknown...

Namaste

_/\_

Mystic Meandering
July 13, 2024

12:30am

~

Photo - Mystic Meanderng

 

The Silence Called...

She called me to the window again last night.
She beckoned me to come and be still,
to listen...

She waited for me to settle,
to be quiet...

Waited as I deepened
into Her Stillness...

No agenda, she whispered...

I listened...

Put everything aside and just breathe, She said.

Be aware of My Breath, breathing you...

Experience My Presence,
Sense the Intimacy
in every cell...

From the depths of Stillness
I heard Her call again,
calling me back to HerSelf.
Like a Great Ocean pulling back
the waves on shore,
back to ItSelf...

The wave giving in to the pull...

The Great Silence called
again and again;
the silent rhythmic intimacy of wave and Ocean,
one and the same...

The Silence embracing ItSelf,
knowing only
ItSelf...

The Eternal Embrace...

Come - She whispered...
Follow the pull...
Give in...

Come Home...

Mystic Meandering
Aug/Sept 2010

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Dance in the Depths...

In these turbulent times with its upheaval
on the surface of life,
dive deep...
into the stillness of Being within,
where nothing is disturbed, nothing is harmed...
Dance in the Depths...

externally it's all "The Mystery" playing
in the construct of time - the Unmanifest in form.

In the Greater Context in which life takes place,
everything is allowed...
The world will go the way it goes -
life will continue to unfold the way it unfolds -
the light and the dark will continue to dance together
in time-bound reality.

But do not focus only on the chaos;
the mind-created contractions of fear...

Instead...  Turn Within...

Experience the depths of Inner Stillness,
the Stillness of the Everlasting Deep within.
Discover what's beyond the chaos and fear
- what holds the Cosmos together;
the enduring hum of Aliveness within all form...
We are held in that Rhythm of Stillness that
sustains Existence, that IS Existence.

Rest...

In the Embrace of that which animates Life...

_/\_

Namaste

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings whispered to me
 Nov. 2016

~

I need to practice this again and again...

 

It Floats Us - Ivan Granger

The vast flood
Rolls onward
But yield yourself,
And it floats you upon it.

Ikkyu

Day after day, experience after experience, terrors and tragedies,
joys and victories, everything  - life.  It can feel like an onslaught.

Most of us learn to dampen down the awareness in order to cope
and mimic those around us.

Yet even with dimmed senses we feel overwhelmed.

But yield yourself,
And it floats you upon it.

This is the liberating wisdom of surrender.

Most of our intense efforts in life, whether directed toward work,
family, even spirituality, are about trying to control the flow
of life.  We want to master the flood, bring it under our will.
We want to tame it so we can be safe.

But it never really works.

The lifelong effort is like a duck on a great river who imagines
he controls the current by the action of his paddling feet.

When he happens to face downstream - Amazing!  The river goes
just where he commanded!  When he turns left or right, he imagines
that he needs to increase his effort and improve his technique to get
the river flowing where he wants.  And when he turns downstream -
Calamity!  He has lost control of the river.

Or...  he can just sit on top of the river and let its current carry him.

Yielding ourselves to this great river, no longer imagining that we
can control it, we can finally begin to discover its true nature and
direction - and beauty.  We come to see its flow as a unifying harmony
and not a threat. Importantly, we notice our natural buoyancy.  
We are built to float upon it.

Commentary by Ivan Granger
at Poetry Chaikhana

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
(didn't have a picture of a duck :)

 

The Loom of Weaving...

Withdraw from the Loom of Weaving;
the mind-made threads, the mind-made
rhythms on the surface of life, and find
the Silent Thread
that weaves through all other threads.

The True Rhythm of Life

Stay with this silent, organic Rhythm
that flows through you.
Put all other synthetic threads aside and
follow the Silent Thread...

Follow the Deeper Rhythm...

Wait in Silence
until you feel the True Rhythm within...
The Rhythm of Silence.

Follow this Rhythm to the Source,
like a stream that Flows to the River,
that flows to the Ocean.
Find the Source in The Rhythm...

Where does it take you?

Into the depths of your self -
the depths of your Being,
the depths of Silence...

Attune to that Rhythm...

Mystic Meandering
Aug 27, 2020

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Weaving Ill-matched Threads of Life - Rainer Rilke

She who reconciles the ill-matched threads
of her life, and weaves them gratefully
into a single cloth -
it's she who drives the loudmouths from the hall
and clears it for a different celebration

where the one guest is you.
In the softness of evening
it's you she receives.

You are the partner of her loneliness,
the unspeaking center of her monologues.
With each disclosure you encompass more
and she stretches beyond what limits her,

to hold you.

Rilke

from Rilke's Book of Hours
Love Poems to God

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Rediscovering Sacred Silence - Jean Klein

Silence is our real nature.
What we are fundamentally,

is only Silence...

It was before the beginning of all things.
It is causeless.
Its greatness lies in the fact that it simply is.

Silence has no opposite in noise.
It is beyond positive and negative.
Silence dissolves all objects.
It is not related to any counterpart
which belongs to the mind.
Silence has nothing to do with mind.
It cannot be defined but it can be felt directly...

Silence is freedom without restriction or center.
It is our wholeness,

neither inside or outside the body.

Silence is joyful, no pleasurable.

It is not psychological...

Silence is holy.
Silence needs no intermediary.
It is healing.
There is no fear in Silence.
Silence is autonomous like love and beauty.
It is untouched by time.
Silence is meditation, free from any intention...

Silence is the absence of one's self...

Sound, which comes from Silence, is music.
All activity is creative when it comes from Silence.
It is constantly a new beginning.
Silence precedes speech and poetry
and music and all art.

Silence is the home ground of all creative activity.
What is truly creative is the word, is Truth.

Silence is the word.
Silence is Truth

Jean Klein

with thanks to Being Silently Drawn

(Jean Klein's words, my format)

~

Photo - Vortex Art
2011

 

Endless Mystery - Rod MacIver

The deep, important journeys of life involve endless mystery.
The source of the cohesive disequilibrium of the universe  -
the disharmonies that combine to create harmony, the depths
of our inner worlds and the hidden belief systems and
mythologies, unique to each of us, that guide our lives
without us knowing it, the beauty of the natural world and the
search, individual to each of us, for the courage to manifest
the beauty within, to evolve, to change.  And the somewhat
contradictory search for inner peace.  We search for harmony
with our inner world, and sometimes find it, then, once again,
lose it.  And then of course the ultimate mystery of death and
the implications of that mystery on the true nature of life.
On living that life...

Rod MacIver

Heron Dance

 

DUST - Dorianne Laux

Someone spoke to me last night,
told me the truth.  Just a few words,
but I recognized it.
I knew I should make myself get up,
write it down, but it was late,
and I was exhausted from working
all day in the garden, moving rocks.
Now, I remember only the flavor -
not like food, sweet or sharp.
More like a fine powder, like dust.
And I wasn't elated or frightened,
but simply rapt, aware.
That's how it is sometimes -
God comes to your window
all bright light and black wings,
and you're just too tired to open it.

Dorianne Laux

What We Carry

with thanks to Whiskey River

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Do you notice the eyes looking back at you? :)

 

"Downtime" - Rod MacIver

A crucial consideration in creating a [creative and authentic] life,
 is downtime.  By downtime I don't mean just time away from
the work.  I don't mean time to run errands or time to watch TV,
but time for reflection and solitude.  Time to let your mind
just wander to wherever it wants to go.  Time to absorb whatever
messages the larger universe might want to send.  Time to give
the messages deep inside your inner world an opportunity
to bubble up.

Without downtime [solitude], and it does require discipline and
planning, you lose touch with yourself.  You lose perspective on
the challenges of your life, and they start to take over.  You lose
access to your creative juice.  You may think that what you are
doing is dealing with pressing issues, and that those issues are so
important that you can't afford time away, but the message your
inner world will receive is that it is not valued.  It will then
retreat, and your [creative] work, your life, will lose power.

All the major setbacks in my life have come after a protracted
period of addressing pressing issues and not taking time off to
relax my mind and gain perspective.

Rod MacIver
Artist 
Heron Dance

~

Photo from the Internet

Happy July :)

Has anyone got an igloo I can use ?

LOLOLOLOL

 

The Fabric of Fate - Rainer Maria Rilke

No experience has been too unimportant,
and the smallest event unfolds like fate,

and fate itself is like a wonderful, wide fabric in which
every thread is guided by an infinitely tender hand

and is laid alongside another thread
and is held and supported by a hundred others.

Rainer Maria Rilke

~

Perhaps each human life is fed by the underground spring
of a few experiences.  When we are there, we touch
something beyond words.  "They" make me who I am
to me, who I am under the personas I assume to negotiate 
my way in the world.

Rod MacIver

Heron Dance

 

Becoming the Ocean - Kahlil Gibran

It is said that before entering the sea
A river trembles with fear.

She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.

And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.

But there is no other way.
The river can not go back.

Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.

The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear
because that's where the river will know
it's not about disappearing
into the ocean, but of becoming the ocean.

Kahlil Gibran

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo from the Internet

 

Hold Steady - HAEVN

Sunrays touch the coastline
On the cutter shows the dust
Long nights are gone with the river
The water has been waiting long enough

We float on the river of time
Hold steady, hold steady
The sea comes 'cause the summer forced out the cold
The boat fought the change of tides
Hold steady, hold steady
Storm for hours, and rainy days

And all our lives we"re told
the stream will take us home

Sunrays touch the coastline
Warm our feet, show the glare
We walk through the sand in the warm night
The water will take the weight from us

And all our lives we're told
the stream will take us home
And all our lives we're told
the stream will take us home

[.....]

HAEVN

Symphonic Tales

To listen to this song beautifully sung
with symphony
click on this You Tube link

https://youtu.be/KpxFLMKXzBk?si=syofoFB377o-idxe

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Photo from the Internet

 

Stand Still - David Wagoner

Stand still.
The trees ahead and the bushes beside you Are not lost.
Wherever you are is called Here.

And you must treat it as a powerful stranger.
Must ask permission to to know it and be known.
The forest breathes.  Listen.  It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost.  Stand still.
The forest knows Where you are.
You must let if find you.

David Wagoner
original title: "Lost"

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Way to The Woods - Wendell Berry

Sabbath 1985. V

[.....]

What is the way to the woods, how do you get there?
By climbing through the 6 day's field,
kept in all the body's years, the body's
sorrow, weariness, and joy.
By passing through the narrow gate
on the far side of that field
where the pasture grass
of the body's life
gives way
to
the high, original
standing of the trees.
By coming into the shadow,
the shadow of the grace of the strait
way's ending, the shadow of the mercy
of light...

Why must the gate be narrow?
Because you cannot pass beyond it burdened.
To come in among these trees you must leave behind
the six day's world,
all of it,
all of its plans
and hopes.
You must come without weapon or tool,
alone,
expecting nothing,
remembering nothing...

Wendell Berry
Excerpt from: A Timbered Choir

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

There is Music in Us - Jack Gilbert

Our heart wanders lost in the dark woods.
Our dream wrestles in the castle of doubt.
But there's music in us.  Hope is pushed down
but the angel flies up again taking us with her.

The summer mornings begin inch by inch
while we sleep, and walk with us later
as long-legged beauty through
the dirty streets.  It is no surprise
that danger and suffering surround us.

What astonishes is the singing.
We know the horses are there in the dark
meadow because we can smell them,

can hear them breathing.

Our spirit persists like a man struggling
through the frozen valley
who suddenly smells the flowers
and realizes the snow is melting
out of sight on top of the mountain,
knows that spring has begun.

Jack Gilbert, 1925-2012
Horses at Midnight Without a Moon

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Photo - Me on path into the woods

 

Perfect Pulsing Silence...

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
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 be more acutely aware...

I gaze inward
to "The Song of Silence" within,
that is mirrored
in the sounds of silence,
just outside my window..
It's all the same Silence, infusing everything...

I feel "The Rhythm" of Silence begin ~

I sit back in my chair
listening to the pulsing Silence
within and without,

feeling Its familiar Rhythm,
feeling the dance of intimacy begin again...

Nothing disturbs It,
Nothing  disturbs the depth of It,
Nothing prevents Its Song
from being sung ~

In this intimate Silence I am reminded that
everything occurs within "The Great Silence."
All life, all breath, all death, all movement
occurs within this vast space of Silence
that we are...

In "The 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 "Mystery"...

All is the pulse of the Great Silence ~
the pulse of Life ~

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
May 2011

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

A Deeper Rhythm...

I've heard a deeper Rhythm....
Composed of cello, viola and oboe, I think.
I heard it when I was in the kitchen
cooking dinner one night,
many years ago,
and every other night after that,

for several weeks,
until it stopped...
when the noise of my life
became too loud - again,
and the weight of my weary heart
drowned it out -
like now...

There was no music playing on the stereo,
just the sound of the meal cooking,
and the sounds of daily living
outside the window:
children playing,
dogs barking,
lawn mowers,
power saws,
and birds -

chirping...

Underneath it all was a Rhythm
so melodious I could even hum it;
forgotten now...

I just listened, and hummed, with wonder...
Where was this coming from -
this music -
this slow, deep melodic rhythm,
drawing me into itself...

I didn't even have to try to listen,
it was just there
soft - in the distance,
barely audible,
as if in another room,
through another door,
maybe even in another realm;
a cosmic rhythm

I knew then, somehow, that my own life rhythm
was hidden in this Deeper Rhythm...

But I no longer hear it now;
drowned out by the
noise of living
other people's
rhythms -
and the endless
cacophony
of daily
existence.

But I know it is there -
playing somewhere.
I listen for it -
this Deeper Rhythm,
that underlies
all other rhythms...
mysteriously playing
within...

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 5, 2015

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Mysterious Virtue - Tao Te Ching

Nurture the darkness of your soul
until you become whole.
Can you do this and not fail?

Can you focus your life-breath until you become
supple as a newborn child?

While you cleanse your inner vision
will you be found without fault?

Can you love people and lead them
without forcing your will on them?

When Heaven gives and takes away
can you be content with the outcome?

When you understand all things
can you step back from your own understanding?

~

Giving birth and nourishing,
making without possessing,
expecting nothing in return.

To grow, yet not to control:

This is the mysterious virtue.

Tao Te Ching
translation by j.h. mcdonald

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Feel. Sense. Listen. - Matt Licata

The capacity to mourn and to grieve the death of an old
[perspective/view of life] is the portal to a new life, and one
that so many of us in our contemporary world have lost
contact with.  To go into the broken and to feel, to honor the
shards and shattered pieces of soul, to not pathologize them
and to not  urgently scramble to put it all back together.
For they are holy and complete in their brokenness...

Perhaps they need not to be "put back together," but held
in presence and in love.

In a more subtle way, we may discover a moment which is
"in between" the light and the dark, the known and the unknown,
lunar and solar - an opening into liminal space, where we come
into direct contact with something mysterious and vast...

[We can] train ourselves to recognize this inner space and its
qualities, to trust and listen to its non-ordinary, non-rational
wisdom and allow it to cleanse our perception...

...in this way, as the veil parts just a bit and we begin to lift
out of the collective matrix, we may start to see, in an
embodied, experiential way, that the soul is always speaking 
to us...

This communication will at times come by way of experiences
of beauty, joy, connection, and peace.  Through states of flow,
awe, wonder and pure Being.

But this dispatch from The Beloved from the Soul, will at times
emerge as an eruption of the dark, of the lunar, out of the
underworld and the somatic unconscious, and can be fierce
and untamed.  It doesn't conform to who and what we think we are,
what this world is, what "God", or the Divine is.

[It can express as] a surge of activation in one of our relationships,
out-of-the-blue experiences of depression or anxiety, an
unexplainable symptom in our body, the collapse of the known.

To perceive this also as grace is not easy and will ask everything
of us.  Stay in your body.  Feel. Sense. Listen.
Something important may be emerging, to be illuminated and held,
just underneath the threshold of consciousness.

Step into the unknown, and listen...

Matt Licata

~

Photo by my husband :)