Remembering...

“The greatest illness is forgetting what we are.
Life is about remembering who we are
through the space of our innermost Being.
Turn toward the essential stillness within…”

Michael Harrington
From Illness to Stillness
(read an excerpt here)

“At the edge of restful darkness
the sacred life force calls to us,
asking us to remember…

We feel the longing to go home
to what we are…

It is the impulse of the life force
within us…

Surrender…

You will see this inner essence,
this innocence,
like a bright thread woven throughout
the center of your life…

Living it consciously is why we are here…

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

“Experience directly the invisible,
ever-present current of Being
that underlies and gives rise
to the world.”

Joan Ruvinsky

“We must let ourselves be led
by the inner thread of Silence
and intuitive Awareness,
beyond where all paths end,

to that place of sacredness
where we go innocently -
not once but continually…”

and discover

“There is only Being ItSelf
through you,
as you,
and as all that exists…

echoing through eternity…”

Adyashanti

“A mystic is content with nothing less
than to touch the Truth [of who we are] in its most
universal purity.”

Ivan Granger
Poetry Chaikhana

~*~

May we all “touch the Truth”
and remember…

Blessings of Love and Light
in the eternal Now…

Step Off the Edge...

There’s an “edge” when twilight comes…

A twinge of longing when the
light wanes into twilight,
the edge of the veil;
that opening between
light and dark,
into Reality…

and remembrance
of the Light beyond…

A knowing that this life
is waning into twilight too,
from one state into another,
forever reforming Itself…

Tree branches wave in the wind
in hommage to the light
dimming in the West…

Owls hoo – calling the night
into existence
from the East;
prophets of the twilight
standing at the edge
where ending meets beginning
and beginning ending…

Twilight,
the inbetween,
as Life cycles through time,
through light and dark,
through living
and dying.

This night we stand at the edge of time
and timelesseness beyond time…
peering through
for a glimpse
of the
Beyond -
The Infinite Light
that knows no dimming
and no night;
only its own eternal radiance
of
Being

This Light we are…

Surrender…

Step off the edge…

Written

Dec. 21, 2012

Winter Solstice

©Mystic Meandering

Solstice Love...

~*~

“Be

a

light

unto

yourself”

The eternal Light that has always been…

Light beyond light,

illuminating

from

within

“Be

a

light

unto

yourself”

The unfathomable Light,

with the Luminosity

of innumerable suns,

and the Glow

of countless stars

coursing through you.

“Be

a

light

unto

yourself”

Incandescent

Luminescent

Living Light

Unlit…

“Be

a

light

unto

yourself”

The

Light

that

lives

in the

sanctuary of your

Heart

“Be

a

light

unto

yourself”

~*~

May we remember
 the pure Heart-Light
that lives

within
even
in
darkness

Winter Solstice 2011

© Mystic Meandering

“Be a light unto yourself”
was reportedly the last words spoken
by the Buddha before he died…

It is said that his meaning
was to discover/remember
the Light that is within;
our True Nature of Light
and Love…

Namaste

Comfort in Simple Pleasures...

The simplicity of this piece comforts me,

...as does this contrast here of light, shadow and time...

The next door neighbor's dog came for an unexpected visit yesterday...
She brought unexpected comfort with her inquisitive loving eyes,
asking - are you going to let me in or what...

Reading... Peacefully abiding...

on snowy days like today...

Meditating on keeping the heart open...

and Love...

Simply Being...

with a snowy view today...

and my meditating monk... :)
Reminding me to Abide in and as Silence...
The script in the background says
The Path of the Heart...
(done by a fellow blogger)

Brokenhearted, yet peace abides...

Peace to all...

Love is Here too...

“Last night I lost my grip on reality
and welcomed insanity.

Love saw me
and said,

wipe your tears
and be silent…

I said, O Love

I am frightened…

Love said to me.

There is nothing that is not me,
be silent…”

Rumi

~

Also see this wonderful poem tribute
Uncommon Grace

by fellow blogger Andrea
at A Woodland Rose

Posted in remembrance of the Sandy Hook School massacre…

Grace...

"There is a secret medicine
given only to those who
hurt so hard
they can’t hope…

Give up to Grace.

The Ocean takes care
of each wave
till it gets to shore…"

Rumi

May Love and Grace
hold us all
in the cradle of
the Heart…

Also see this beautiful post Light in the Darkness

by fellow blogger Uma at
Secret Notebooks and Wild Pages

Posted in remembrance of the Sandy Hook School massacre...

An Expotition...

Pooh Bear and I went on an Expotition in the surrounding neighborhood last Thursday – our version of the 100 Acre Wood.  At my suggestion we went down a side street we had never been down before.  I was sure that there was a path that cut across a “power line right of way” back to our street, as I had seen the other end of the path from our street several times.  We kept walking down a long hill, following the curves in what seemed like a much longer way than the length of our own street just a block away.  We eventually found the path that cut through (yellow dotted line on map below), but it seemed to be a part of someone’s property that had a gate that was closed.  Neither one of us being the risk-taker type, Pooh and I decided to just keep going –  even though we had no idea where it would take us.

It was getting dark. Dogs were barking at us - strangers in this neck of the woods.  And we kept running into dead ends and cul-de-sacs.  We could see where we needed to be, but we couldn’t get there from where we were.  There was no path, no way through.  So we kept going and going and going, like an Expotition to nowhere.  Eventually we sighted a familiar main road.  We walked along the shoulder in rush hour traffic after dark – until we got to a large open field that we knew was just down the street from our house.  Once again I had seen that there was a path from our side of the field – that *appeared* to cut across the field.  But now that we were on the other side of the field we couldn’t find the path…  Okay, so this is becoming a theme here, don’t you think!

By this time I’m running on empty, stepping in gopher holes, and Pooh Bear is way ahead trying to find the way in the dark with only the remnants of light from the sunset.  We came to a deep ravine right in the middle of the field that spanned the entire width of the field.  There was no way across.  Ooops.  Very strange, I could have sworn I saw a path that went all the way the length of the field out to the main street.  I had not seen a deep ravine.  So we followed along the edge at the top of the ravine, hoping to find its end so we could get around it.  But the gaping hole didn’t end, until we got to a parking lot at the edge of the field.  We had to go through the parking lot and re-enter the field on the other side of the ravine where we *finally* found a way that would lead us home, which was not necessarily "the path" that we *thought* would take us there.  Phew.  Now *that* was an expotition.  It was probably about 2 miles, and about an hour’s brisk walk.

Upon reflection I found the whole journey an interesting life metaphor that we kept running into dead ends and cul-de-sacs, unable to get where we needed to go; not really knowing where we were going, unable to find a path that would take us home.  Everyday life reflecting an internal perception of “reality…”

 Just two days before I had awoken with the sense of needing to “leave the spiritual path behind” (also a recurring theme), although it was not clear to me what that meant exactly, and still isn’t, but change is in the air - again. J  It is the sense of “endings,” the sense of giving up the *trying*, the*striving* to find the right way, to stop *pursuing* the path; to just stop - to just *live* and not always try to *get* somewhere.  Pooh Bear has even commented that he felt I was trying too hard to find my way, efforting. And when I asked him why I was not getting the clarity and insight that seem to come to him so easily, he said – “because I’m not *trying*.”  Oooo – wise bear.  They just come to him because he stays open to life, without agenda, without the expectation of finding anything.  But as a consequence of my *trying* so hard to find the right path, the path has become illusive, and almost emotionally torturous to travel.  So I was not totally surprised when our little expotition ended up feeling a lot like my “spiritual path.”

 Recently I mentioned to a fellow blogger that I felt like I have been running on a “spiritual treadmill” going nowhere; still running on the surface of life.  That even after 30 years of being on a “spiritual path” I was still living on the surface of life, aware of a deeper Reality – a vast spacious background Presence in which all of life exists – but still focused mainly on the surface; lamenting that even “spirituality,” like religion, had become just another construct in the matrix. 

So it seems it’s time to get off the treadmill and leave the surface path behind, head deeper Into The Forest and Plumbthe Depths, tasting the sweet honey in the adventure of Being, and experience the current of Being that runs deeply through the internal pathways.

“Why search for anything when the very fabric of experience is
the path,
the unfolding of everyday experience.

Stop trying to awaken,
stop meddling with your experience
long enough to notice what is.

The key is within.”

Rob Matthews
”The Ineffable Mystery of Being”
(scroll down to read full article)

Winter Sky, Duality, and Danna Faulds...

This morning I woke up thinking – as usual - feeling discouraged that it is not the Vastness of the Infinite that I experience first thing, but the mind with its thoughts.  And then it occurred to me that thinking was not really the problem.  It was my perception.  Thinking arises in the Infinite.  It is a function of the Infinite Mind.  There is no separate “thinker.”   You can’t *stop* thinking.  If we attempt to get rid of “thinking” we create duality – the mind vs the Infinite.  But the mind and thought are not separate from the Infinite, as if one is better than the other.  It is all the Infinite living Itself – even through the mind…  Thinking is not a problem.  It’s just a matter of bringing our awareness to the Presence of the Infinite Vastness within that is aware of thinking happening…

 “I am everywhere present’”

said the Infinite.
Seek me in the stately trees
or the melodies of sparrows
and you will surely find me.

Look for me in the Buddha’s smile,
the countenance of Christ,
the words of the Koran and Sanskrit prayers.
I am always there.

Turn your attention to the sky
where the movements of moon and stars
trace my beauty…

Experience true emptiness
and my presence permeates the void.
Now bring your focus closer
to your heart.
Grow still and find me within you.

Separation dissolves like salt water
when you experience your true identity as me.

From knower and perceived,
seer and seen,
from two comes One.

Practice devotion and let go into the ocean
of my love,
or be the open space from which all things arise.

One and two,
duality and union,
are both true.

So I say to you be jubilant,
and be at peace,
for inside you is the seed and fruit,
the tree and root.

Choose to be in communion with me
and see the whole of this
creation unfused with one energy…”

Danna Faulds
From: Prayer to the Infinite

 “The ordinary and the unified field

don’t just co-exist,
they coincide in the same place,
at the same time.
Divine and human
can’t be teased apart -
there is no separate thread
to pull heart from mind and soul.

There is only the unbroken chain of wholeness
forged link by link in a continuum.
What is sacred and awake is
inextricably braided into the everyday,
but we forget that we can’t dissect
the mundane from the radiant.

We lose ourselves in the rush to get
things done.

Our memory grows dim
and there is such longing.
We desperately seek something,
anything,
to plug us back into what we’ve always been,
forgetting that the disconnect is only an illusion,
easily erased in the choice to see the truth…”

Danna Faulds
From: Prayer to the Infinite

 “I was born to bridge

the pairs of opposites
to span the apparent
distance between light
and dark,
joy
and sorrow.

I exist to see past differences,
to open my arms
so wide that all
I can see and know
and be
is inside my reach.

I am here to give and receive love;
so closely attuned to All That Is
that breathing is an act
of passionate attraction.

I am not caught,
but freed by the seeming
contradictions between
seer and seen,
knower
and
unknown…

In the tidal ebb and flow
between lover and beloved
I explore the rugged
coastline of surrender…”

Danna Faulds
From: Prayers to the Infinite

Danna Faulds is a poet, writer,
practitioner and teacher
of Kripalu Yoga

~

The other morning I imagined that “i”, this ‘me”, this “self”, that I have been conditioned to *believe* is separate from the Infinite, dissolved into the vast Ocean of the Infinite, like an ice cube melting into the vast expanse of the Ocean of Existence. They are the same Essence. And  I remembered, once again, that there is really no separateness between "me" and the Infinite, even though I often live that way…  “i” is a wave of the Ocean, moving with the Ocean, as the Ocean…  Everything dissolves back into the Infinite Ocean, into one continuous movement of Infinite Consciousness from where thinking and “i” arise…  

”Become the sky…
Take an axe to the prison wall…
Walk out like someone born into color.

You’re covered with a thick cloud.
Slide out the side…”

Rumi

~

You might also like to read my own meditative writings

on the subject:

Primordial Presence

Emergent...

This is actually the very first painting I did for the Bloom True art class I did back in September. I just love this painting for some reason; its rawness and its warmth.  It literally emerged on its own – coming unexpectedly into existence. There was no crafting of it – just an allowing.  It formed itself through the movement of my hands and the free flow of paint and glazing medium over canvas.  Paint was also dropped onto the canvas in droplets, and a surprising oozing, melding, merging affect occurred as the background colors unexpectedly slid down the canvas when I sprayed the droplets of paint with water that also formed these pedestal-looking prongs that actually have little fingers reaching....  Unfortunately the photo doesn’t capture the accurate color, or the detail.  I adjusted the color to come as close as possible, but overall it is a deeper, richer orange, earth tone, and the color seems to change depending on the light.

I love to contemplate this piece.  It speaks to me. It soothes my spirit.  So I have been sitting with it all these months allowing it to speak.   I think it is the primordial look that draws me in to it – into its unknown worlds…  Reminding me of those hidden, inner spaces within myself that have yet to emerge…

It speaks to me of a primal landscape of life, life rising/emerging from the primal womb of Life; the formless taking form;  maybe even parallel realities - life hidden within Life…  And distant moons beckoning…

The unseen emerging out of the mud, little fingers extending –

 reaching for the Unknown…

I noticed a tree that emerged out of the background as well,

and I put Fall leaves on it. J

And I added just one little jewel – a Citrine – like the Jewel in the Lotus,
calling us Home…

Om Mani Padme Hum…

~*~

The Primordial Womb of Stillness
is the spacious Womb of Silence
in which everything exists
and has being…

It is the felt experience of Home
~ our Beingness ~
the ever-present Awareness,
our Natural State…

The Source
of all life…

It *is* Life ItSelf…

from which there is
no separation…

Everything is suspended in
this Womb of Awareness

Fall back into Its Embrace…

You are Home…

Just Trust
Just Love
Just Be

Primordial Womb of Stillness Poem
Mystic Meandering

© March 21, 2011

Keeping Perspective...

My husband and I had an interesting conversation last weekend that I thought I’d share, as it gives perspective to the craziness that I wrote about in my previous post on “The Crazy Season” that I wished I had remembered this week.

This is the part that I remember he said: We have to recognize that life is all a game of personalities, and not get ensnarled in it.  We are just players in “the game” and everyone has their role to play.   And sometimes we feel we are constrained by “the game”, by life circumstances in the moment, even though we know on some level that we are not “the game” – we are not “the story” that is occurring, or the role we are playing at any given moment.  But we must always use our awareness to remember this – and see that it’s just a game – a story; to see that Beingness (Consciousness) takes a journey through the game of life (as us, as personalities.)  It’s all about the awareness of that…  Keeping perspective depends on how you *see* things. 

Also see these related posts - Divine Drama and, Life is a Sand Fantasy

Photo: Shadow on the wall,
but if you look at it with soft eyes
you can see an elongated face
with a feather on its head,
or a candle with a flame...
Perspective is always changing...

The Crazy Season...

We have officially entered the crazy season…  You know – that time of year when human kind reverts to its animal nature and competes against each other for the best deals, the best gift, who gives the most - even though they say it’s the thought that counts – and when evidently we love the sport of fighting each other over ipads, and iphones, and toaster ovens – camping out overnight in front of retail big box stores to catch the “best buy.”  Really!?  Seems we are regressing…  I could not in good conscience give a gift that I had to fight someone else for. 

It’s not my favorite time of year, as you may have gathered.  Being a sensitive soul I find the “Holiday Spirit” a bit taxing – over taxing.   Just call me Mrs. Scrooge.  I expect to be visited at any moment by the spirit of Christmas showing me the error of my attitude.  But – this year DH has been working steadily for the last 9+ months so I am not re-gifting but actually *buying.*

I ventured out on my first shopping excursion this week to buy for my nearly 90 year old mother-in-law, whom we have not seen in several years, as she lives with her daughter and son-in-law out of state – with whom we are hardly speaking.  Long story – never mind.  Ho-Ho-Ho… Tis the season. J  I took off in the sleigh – uh, car – and arrived at “mecca” - aka – “the mall” and entered with trepidation expecting to see wall to wall elves shopping.  Thankfully most people had already shopped Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday on line, so I was delightfully surprised to find that I – and my pet reindeer - could maneuver through the store with ease.  I wandered down the main isle of the store I had chosen, followed it around and ended up in the Women’s Dept.  I had my “order” from my sister-in-law about what gift to get.  Right before my eyes was a beautifully soft, cuddly floral printed jacket-like zipper top.  I mean it couldn’t have been more perfect – and in her size too!  Wow – how did that happen!  But I was supposed to buy a “sweater.”  So I continued to look around and found a very soft cardigan *sweater.*  Bingo!  I had another OMG moment.  I bought both J and was in and out of the store in less 45 minutes – and no waiting at the cashier!  Unheard of.

I then decided to be brave and try another store, at another mall.  It was nearly empty!  How is that possible…  My kind of shopping. J I don’t buy on-line as I like to actually *see* the product I am buying.

Next week I take the sleigh out again and venture out with my sister to buy – yes – a Toaster Oven for my mother. J  Since my sister does most of the cooking I needed her to pick it out.  It was supposed to be a gift for her too, but she is very particular about what she wants, and I didn’t want to get the “wrong” one.  Who knew that buying for some could be such an ordeal!  But we don’t want any pouty faces on Christmas morning do we now…  No we want those faces to light up with joy and pleasure getting just exactly what they *wanted*!  Yeay – the true spirit of giving – right?

Oh, but there could still be a problem because we’ll be able to give more this year because we can for the first time in a long while, and that will upset them.   My mother will feel guilty that *she* didn’t give more… And I will hear:  “This is too much.”  “You shouldn’t have.”   “I feel badly that I couldn’t give more this year.”  Comparison - the other true spirit of giving...  What happened to a simple thank you...

Is there something wrong with this picture, or is it just me… 

I know – I know - it’s all a matter of perspective J - and remembering to keep coming back to the *awareness* of the True Spirit of giving behind the façade of the Holidays; giving what is *needed*, from the Heart, all year long, that which is not attached to dollar signs: OurSelves…