For The Traveler - John O'Donohue...

Thought I’d share some photos of a little trip down the road we took today to open country to get away from the hectic life stream that surrounds us here in the burbs - to be in the unattached quietness of Nature…   Smelling the fragrances of earth blowing on the prairie wind across the prairie grasses, sitting in the utter silence of life under the expansiveness of the open sky opened me to inspiration again… In our travels we even found a little pond with croaking frogs hidden among the marshy grass.  Under each photo is an excerpt of a poem by John O’Donohue, called “For The Traveler”…

"Every time you leave home,
another road takes you
into a world you were never in."

"When you travel, you find yourself
alone in a different way,
more attentive now
to the self you bring along;
and how what meets you
touches that part of the heart
that lies low at home."

"A journey can become a sacred thing.
…free your heart of ballast
so that the compass of your soul
might direct you toward
the territories of spirit
where you will discover
more of your hidden life
and the urgencies
that deserve to claim you."

"When you travel,
a new silence
goes with you,
and if you listen,
you will hear
what your heart would
Love to say."

Excerpts from the poem: “For The Traveler”
by John O’Donohue

From the book: To Bless The Space Between Us

Grace and Blessings - Chuck Surface...

Grace does not hold an abacus in one hand,
Tallying karma,
Or a Rubik’s cube in the other,
Challenging you to “Figure it out.”

Grace knows nothing of such cruelties.

Grace is the power that comes alive
When Attention, wandering in the world,
Turns inward,
In quest for The Heart’s Desire.

From the first awakening of Longing,
To the first turning inward,
through the long, wandering trek,
And the vanishing into Pure Being…

Is not everything the functioning of Grace?

Grace is the power of “Fruitioning”,
Of seed to Blossom,
Of ember to Flame,
Of Longing to Fulfillment.

Grace is the gravity of our own Pure Being,
Pulling “i”,
To its Ultimate Oblivion…
And Benediction.

The Heart’s Longing
And the mind’s Wonder
Arise from Grace,
As Grace.

Is not everything the functioning of Grace?

Grace, as my Heart speaks it,
Is not a “consequence”
Of conditionality,
Of causality.

Do we choose to have a Heart
Drunk with Longing?
Do we choose to have a mind
Moved by Wonder?

It is Grace that calls us,
Grace that moves us,
And Grace that sustains us,
Until we Vanish…

In its welcoming arms.

Chuck Surface

In the Garden of the Beloved

Chuck Surface Facebook

~~~~

Photo:  “The Hand of God” Nebula
by David Malin
From: The Invisible Universe

COPYRIGHT 1999

Malin named it “The Hand of God.”
In it he saw curled fingers formed by the stars
 reaching upward towards the blue.

To me the little magenta figure at the bottom
looks like a man in robes holding out his arms in blessing.
I call it the Cosmic Buddha J
How does the Universe do this -
creating such wonderment in the stars?!
Is it some unseen hand, or a trick of the eye ?
Or Grace…

A wonderful Mystery…

Love's Invitation - Naomi Stone...

Truth has a way of meeting us
in the bracing winds
of freedom

we let loose and cry out
shattering the air
with a pierceing
sound
that arises from
the unspoken
and unknown spaces
within ourselves

the call is felt around the world
and beyond
words may not reach
another
and the tears may not
be shared
by a friend

but the salty flood
from our eyes
helps us find the lightness
of being
as we rise
toward the sun
of silence
where we
can breathe

the wilderness is fresh
and so real
it will not welcome
pretenders
but rips the veil
from our
disguises
and helps us face
the fears
we hide from
ourselves

the games are over
and we face
a beauty
that forces us to
choose
to be real
or die
to who we might
have been
if we had escaped
whatever it is that confines
and holds us
captive

love invites
us to fly without wings
to soar
to dance and find
our joy
daring to
embrace
truth as a friend
a light
that awakens
and touches us with
a beauty that
humbles
and exalts us
that we might behold
the radiance
of our being

the surprise awaits us
unfolding
moment to moment
when we
surrender
to
the truth
hidden in the light
of love

Naomi Stone

Photo: This is either a double exposure
or a picture of a sunset and the flash
went off by mistake :)

Love Floats...

~ Love ~
wafted through my being one night;
a simple, unassuming,
gentle, tender, openness of love
that just...
floated
t h r o u g h ~ ~ ~

Don’t know where it came from – or why…

It’s Imponderable…


It moved through
like a feather of light;
a moment of in-spiration
here and gone,
awakening the
Heart.

It came without reason…

Just ~ Love ~ loving.

Somehow I knew
that our deepest purpose,
our deepest Truth
is this “Love”
that softly glided through,
unannounced…

We cannot contrive this
love, this purpose…
grasp it, or hold onto it.

It is not a goal, or concept.
It is not “we” who love
but simply Love loving,
on its own,
without effort.

Love happening…

Unbidden
Unexpected

“We” merely remain open
and allow
Love
to come,
to move in us,
and through us.

Like a fragrant breeze
that drifts
through an open window,

softly kissing the air,
startling the senses
awake…

and before dissipating,
 silently whispers…

All there is,
is
~ Love ~

~

And so it is…

Mystic Meandering
May 17, 2015


Photo: Light reflected on a wall...

May Winter & Danna Faulds...

“I am everywhere present.
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 the 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
infused with one energy…”

From: Prayer to the Infinite
Danna Faulds

~*~*~*~

Yes, we had snow in MAY! J

It’s Spring in Colorado…

We’ve been having buckets of rain all week,

which has been delightful! – and very unusual.

Then Saturday night rain turned to snow!

Although not the best photos,
taken at night through the windows, but

I thought I’d share them anyway…

Our lovely River Birch was nearly flattened…

And the long tendrils of the Silver Maple bowed in respect….

Winter’s Magic just kept hanging on…

What once looked like this just a day before… 

Turned to this – bending under the burden she bore…

She has since bounced back up J

Mother Nature’s Beauty

 reminding us that we’re not in control here J
except digitally maybe… LOL

May your life be filled with Love and Magical Moments...

Threshold - Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee...

In silence we become and then unbecome,
 know and are unknown.

For so long we have searched…..hoping,
 expecting to find something.

Always you thought there was something to seek,
 a journey to make. Now you stand on the precipice,
 looking out over the horizon of your self,

and you know it is otherwise.

Here there is no seeking, no lover lost and found.

There is no looking, nothing to reach for, no path to follow.

But within there is an answer, not in form but in substance.

The source brings something beyond the passions
 of day-to-day life to the surface,
 something we need to nourish rather than define.

There is a bigger wholeness hidden,

waiting at the corner of the moments,

watching from behind the thoughts.

You wait for something to happen,
 and there is nothing to happen,
 yet the happening comes closer,
 like a map that reveals your own garden
 as an undiscovered place,

that comes from across time and beyond space.

There is another presence, another pattern,
 not hidden but unrevealed.

There is a tender sense of silence…..

In the moments of our own silence we are welcomed,

as both stranger and friend.

We need to allow the presence to become present,

not defined in moments, but as a flow.

The river is here.

The silence, unbidden, is always present.

In the tranquility of the moment nothing is defined or captured.

This world is infused with the other,
 steeped in the dew of timelessness.

Just Isness.

In that Isness everything is included –

you, the Beloved, the will to unfold the eternal into the present,

to cross the borders of time and space,
 and saturate the now with eternity.

Yet, there is no other…

You were always alone but you thought it was
 a state of incompleteness.

You waited for someone to come,
always waiting at the bus stop for the bus
that never comes,

because there is nowhere to go…

You wait at the threshold of the other world,

struggling with your self…

when the other world is already present.

The real mystery is how IT unveils itself
within us;
how the Beloved makes ItSelf known
to ItSelf
in the fragile container
of the human being.

In the midst of
The Divine Drama
there is a human story…
But it’s all God’s story
being lived in form.

Excerpts from: Fragments of a Love Story

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Sufi Mystic

Please note: I have taken excerpts from various pages
of the book, put them together and created this prose poem.

Buddha Light...

I am not a Buddhist, but I LOVE sitting with the Cosmic Buddha in meditation; experiencing the Buddha energy, which for me is a tangible, felt sense of the Loving Joy of the Buddha Heart that makes my Heart smile with Bliss. Some might call me a “Buddha Mystic. ”J  I feel the energy as I write here after spending time in meditation this morning.   It is an energy that is deeply abiding, that knows your Heart, and is recognized as Pure Love and Joy – even making your Heart laugh.

Today is Wesak – the celebration of the historical Buddha’s birth and “enlightenment” (and some say his death as well) when The Buddha’s Presence is more tangibly felt, according to legend.  I feel it…

May you bask in the Presence of the ‘Buddha’s Heart” today – feeling the Joy and Love in your Heart of Hearts that makes your Heart a little Lighter…   _/\_

Joie de Vivre!

Keep knocking,
and the Joy inside
will eventually open
a window and look out
to see who is there.

Rumi

If Joy could talk.
this is what She would say:
It was Love who gave birth to me…

Rumi

Photos from out my windows
Color Inverted