Dancing In "The Mystery"...

I can’t help myself. I must write what calls to me.

What I now call “God” is not the God of my childhood: the religious “persona” with a long white beard sitting in the clouds, belonging only to one religion, making judgements about who goes to heaven and who goes to hell (if there are such places).  Now I experience “God” as an open, spacious, fluid, alive energy, or Consciousness, or Awareness – that reveals ItSelf as a *felt* Presence.  It reveals ItSelf to be a vast, expansive, infinite, sometimes intense movement of energy, yet compassionate and delicately intimate.  I am (we are) immersed in THAT.  I experience the Silence of Its Vastness…  I want to *feel* Its Presence continually – until all else falls away – all the egoistic veils and mental constructs that keep me from deeply experiencing and *knowing* this Presence, and *seeing* clearly that this *is* who we ARE – Divine Essence.  I want to dive into this delicious Mystery, and be absorbed in its silent Music.   I am unapollogeticaly a “mad woman” who’s Heart is *finally* dancing! J 

Although I have experienced this “energy” for many years, only recently have I been experiencing a “new” sense of the Intimacy of this “Reality”, after my “Epiphany” in early November; experiencing more clearly that all there is, is this vast, aware Presence whom some name “God”, what others call Emptiness or Nothingness, and what I have also called The Mystery, or The Beloved, or The Divine, or The Infinite, or Silence, or Awareness, or Beingness, or Pure Consciousness (among other names.)  It’s all the same…

One night last December I noticed the Full Moon and realized that the moon *reflects* this Mystery back to us every night.  On the surface it’s just an “orb” making its way around the earth, as earth makes its way around the sun – which can be scientifically explained of course. J  But seen from a larger perspective it is mirroring the Vastness of Infinity in which it is suspended.  I am just now comprehending the immensity of this Mystery!  We reduce Reality down to words, to names like Mother Moon, Father Sun, or Mother Earth, and Father Sky, or “God”, living in the stories we apply to them, rather than the *immensity* of the Ultimate Reality that is actually taking place right before our eyes in Infinitude.

When I allow myself to contemplate it all, there is nothing but awe and wonderment that we even exist here – supposedly an illusion, or someone’s dream, supposedly my own – but I’m not so sure anymore.  Instead, I see “The Mystery” everywhere manifesting ItSelf – continually dancing *within* ItSelf - *as* ItSelf – *as* “just this.”  But we *miss* this Mystery because we focus only on “just this” – the immediate moment, the immediate experience, our little dramas - our eyes only focused on the here and now instead of the “The Mystery” behind the here and now – that which animates the here and now - which is actually the Eternal Now without limits of time and space.  I know some of you will not agree with this J and that’s okay… I am merely pointing to the larger Reality *behind* the present moment – the context for the present moment. Like looking beyond the clouds to the vast sky in which the clouds are suspended, while the clouds come and go…  We are suspended in that vast spaciousness as well – mere clouds that appear and dissipate…

There is only The Infinite – Light years and Light years of Infinity - that we cannot possibly comprehend, and so we create religions, belief systems, philosophies, and mythologies to try to make sense of it.   Our *minds* create finitude, like “here and now”, or “just this”, and “we” become imprisoned in the *belief* that there is only “this” – mis-interpreting the meaning and implications of the word “this.”  What “this” could there ever be besides the Infinity in which we float!?  Aka: the Infinite Dance of Existence that we dwell *within* - not as a separate, individual entity, but as Infinity ItSelf, manifesting as us – as “just this.”  Kind of gives one pause and perspective…

I live in awe and wonderment of THIS – this Mystery.  I want to be ever *aware* of Its Eternal Presence that is dancing here – waiting for us to recognize IT – although IT never was and never can be *separate* from who we are - our Eternal Beingness - or our experience right now… 

I am falling in love with “The Mystery” again and again – like Rumi with Shams of Tabriz; like Hafiz, like Kabir, although I have hardly read these poets  - these ancient Mystics who *knew* “The Mystery” intimately, as Friend, and danced *in* ITs celestial tune – embraced *by* The Rhythm…  Such wonderment is beyond any personal sense of “me…” J

Pardon me while I dance… J

Woman Dancing In The Fire

~

“Enlightenment is not about words and thoughts and concepts.
Enlightenment is always Here.

By ‘Here’ I don’t mean this present space.
Here is somewhere within where mind cannot reach.
Presence is always Here and you are always That.

This here is not the opposite of ‘there.’
This ‘here’ is your Heart.
All the cosmos is but a speck in your Heart.”

Papaji
From: The Truth Is

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“The joy of being human is uncovering the core
we already are…”

Coleman Barks
The Soul of Rumi

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"Fold within fold the beloved
drowns in its own being.
The world is drenched with
that drowning."

Rumi

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“…what is empty turns its face to us
and whispers
’I am not empty. I am open.”

Tomas Transtromer
translation by Robert Bly

~

Top 2 Photos:  This is what I “see” internally when I *say*
 the name “God” now;
not these color specifically, and more “billowy”,
 the energetic sense of fluidity.
I did these with CrayPas oil pastels in 2011

Photo 3: Woman Dancing in the Fire

CrayPas oil pastels – 2012