Graced With Gratitude...

Gratitude arises
like a warm flame
in the Heart;
a flame that
comes alive
on its own
from within

Overtaking me by surprise…

It’s a gratitude of
unknown origin -
not contrived,
or cultivated,
but
deeply felt in the
core of my Being;
only awareness is
needed….

A gratitude
not for being alive,
but for Aliveness ItSelf,
for the Aliveness that
is Life;
that dances and sings
the Cosmos
into being;
that imbues existence
with LIFE!

For the color and movement
of life being lived
in every minute detail;
for the opening and
unfoldment of life
that has its own
course,
its own
way,
unfolding Itself in
total freedom of Being

I am truly graced with Gratitude -
beyond words…


Mystic Meandering
Meditative writings
October 2015

~

Photo: street light through ice on window
2011

Room For Sadness - Jeff Foster

Your sadness doesn't say,

 "Please fix me,

heal me, or release me".

It doesn't say, "Please get rid of me,

 numb yourself to me, pretend I'm not here".

Sadness does not come to punish you,

 or reveal to you what a 'spiritual failure' you are.

 Sadness is not a sign that you are unevolved

 or far from healing, awakening, enlightenment, peace.

The presence of sadness is not an indication

 that you've done something wrong.

True healing is not the fixing of the broken,

But the rediscovering of the Unbroken.

…we bow to sadness then,

 we recognise how it's already allowed in,

 how there's enough room in us for sadness,

 how we are not 'the sad one',

 not contained within sadness,

 but the room for sadness,

 its space, its home,

 its salvation,
 its loving embrace;

 not as a goal,

 but as our nature - consciousness itself,

 already free.

Don't heal yourself from sadness; let sadness heal you.

 Let it show you the way when you have forgotten.

 Let it reveal to you the mysteries of love.

 Let it remind you of your vast heart,

 your refusal to split off from any part of your ancient Self.

Let sadness help you remember that

 bigger Happiness you danced when you were young.

Jeff Foster

Jeff Foster on Facebook

Life Without a Center
website

I have put Jeff's words
into prose poetry form.

~*~

Also see my poem:
The Rhythm of Sadness

Awareness Simply Is - Leo Hartong

If you want the truth, you have to look beyond the concepts of the individual ego and self-improvement, and beyond the states of mind that you’d like to acquire, and the belief that you are a separate entity.  You are the sourceless source from which all arises. Know yourself as the limitless field of Pure Awareness in which the drama of life merely arises.  Once this is recognized and it is clear what you truly are, you’ll see that everything is exactly as it should be.   Everything emanates from the same Source beyond space and time, which escapes all attempts at labeling and yet has been given many names, such as God, the Ultimate, the ground of Being, The Tao, your original face, or the deep Self. 

Awareness is the consistent characteristic in and behind ALL experience, yet it is also what which most easily escapes our attention.  We see the stars and ignore the space; we read this text and ignore the page; we see the movie and ignore the screen; yet it is obvious that the ignored space, page, and screen are as fundamental to our observations as the stars, the text, and the movie, which hold our attention.  Awareness is the space that sustains both the noticed and the ignored.  Awareness simply is.  Everything that comes up/happens is contained in and embraced by this Awareness, including objects perceived as “out there” (rocks, cars and other sentient beings, events) and emotions, thoughts and feelings experienced as “in here.”  In this sense, Awareness is as much in the body-mind as the body-mind is in Awareness.

Pure Awareness is what you truly are.  Know yourself as the limitless field of Pure Awareness in which the drama of life merely arises.  This Awareness is That Being which we all have in common, the luminous, self-aware center of our collective Being. In knowing this we are released from the burden of trying to control life, and constantly improve one’s self.  The ego has the same level of reality as an echo… The sense of a separate ego can only be an activity of the true Self…  The Self loses itself in the dream of existence…..and creates an illusory ego.  You are the living Awareness, which is the clear and open space in and from which everything arises, including your sense of individuality.  Pure awareness is simply present with no beginning or end.

So just sit down and relax…

Leo Hartong
Awakening to the Dream

The World's Insanity - Ivan Granger

Islamic extremists have certainly grabbed headlines in recent years, but the world also has its Christian extremists, Jewish extremists, Hindu extremists… as well as plenty of atheist and non-religious extremist groups. Extremism is not a problem of a particular religion; it is a disruption in the human psyche in general.

Religious extremism has very little to do with religion, if you think about it. It is partly a reflexive response to the intensely fragmenting nature of the modern world. And it is partly a reaction against unavoidable, sometimes unsettling encounters with different peoples and cultures and beliefs in our ever more integrated and multi-layered world. But mostly—mostly it is an act of desperation when the heart of true religion has been lost. People become violently obsessed with rules and traditions and texts only when they have lost the sense of what they really point to.

If you know where the Beloved lives, you are content, no need to argue with others over street names. Conflict only arises when you aren’t so certain you know the way; that’s when another person’s map threatens your certainty. Fundamentalism and extremism are an admission of that spiritual uncertainty. Absolutism is not an expression of faith; it is a symptom of the lack of faith. It is a symptom of the lack of true spiritual experience and knowledge.

The real long-term solution to the problem of violent religious extremism in the world is to reawaken that sweet, secret, sacred bliss within ourselves, to gently and generously share it with others, and to create environments nurturing to that continuing quest. The more we fill the world’s dry troughs with fresh water, the less likely it is that people will go insane with blind thirst.

Ivan Granger
Poetry Chaikhana

Written in 2010

Hokusai Says: Let Life Live Through You

 Hokusai says –

Look carefully.

He says pay attention, notice.
He says keep looking, stay curious.
He says there is no end to seeing.

He says Look Forward to getting old.
He says keep changing,
you just get more who you really are.
He says get stuck, accept it, repeat yourself
as long as its interesting.

He says keep doing what you love.
He says keep praying.
He says everyone of us is a child.

Every one of us is ancient,
every one of us has a body.
He says every one of us is frightened.
He says every one of us has to find a way to live with fear.

He says everything is alive -
shells, buildings, people, fish, mountains, trees.
Wood is alive.
Water is alive.
Everything has its own life.
Everything lives inside us.
He says live with the world inside you.

He says it doesn’t matter if you draw, or write books.
It doesn’t matter if you saw wood, or catch fish.
It doesn’t matter if you sit at home
and stare at the ants on your verandah or the shadows
of the trees and grasses in your garden.

It matters that you care.
It matters that you feel.
It matters that you notice.
It matters that life lives through you.

Contentment is life living through you.
Joy is life living through you.
Satisfaction and strength
are life living through you.
Peace is life living through you.

He says don’t be afraid.
Don’t be afraid.
Look, feel, let life take you by the hand.
Let life live through you.

Roger Keyes

Hokusai (1760-1849) was a master Japanese artist, painter and printmaker.  He was best known for his woodblock print, the famous Great Wave off Kanagawa. 

Roger Keyes – is/was an art historian and writer who traced Hokusai’s works and wrote about them.  How he came to write this poem is unknown.

~

Photo - Sunlight through glass

Mystic Meandering

On the Threshold of Winter...

Well actually I think we’ve crossed it.

Winter arrived this morning in all its beauty...

At least 6-8 inches of snow covered everything.

The leaves still on the trees twittered in the wind.

Evidences of an invisible hand leaving its signature behind…

~

Excerpt from: Eternal Echoes
by John O’Donohue

“Within and around us there is an invisible [Formless] world; this is where each of us comes from.  Your relationship to the invisible influences so much of your life.  When you cross over from the invisible into the physical world, you bring with you a sense of belonging to the invisible that you can never lose or cancel.  Under the guise of emptiness, the invisible keeps its secrets to itself.  Yet the invisible remains the great background.  There is always some magnet that draws your eyes to [It] or invites you to explore behind things and seek out the concealed depths.  Your longing for the invisible is never stilled.  You know that the real nature of things is hidden deep within them.  When you enter the world, you come to live on the threshold between the visible and the invisible.  You are both artist and pilgrim of the threshold…”

A Deeper Rhythm...

I’ve been hearing a deeper rhythm lately…
Composed of cello, viola and oboe.
I heard it when I was in the kitchen
cooking dinner one night,
a few weeks back,
and every other night after that
until recently
when the noise of my life
became too loud.

There was no music 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,
but I just listened, with wonder…
Where is this coming from -
this music -
this slow, deep, melodious rhythm,
drawing me in…

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…

I knew somehow that my own life rhythm
 is hidden in this deeper Rhythm…
But I keep losing it,
drowned out by the
*noise* of living
other people’s
rhythms -
and
the external
rhythms
of
life

But now I know it is there -
somewhere,
in an experiential way,
and I listen for it -
this deeper Rhythm,
that underlies
all rhythms..

The Rhythm behind the rhythm…

Mysteriously playing…

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 5, 2015

~*~

“The real music happens between the notes…”
Louis Armstrong

~*~

Photo: Mandala Art
Original: Winter’s Jewel Mandala
radially blurred

The Return Journey - In Memoriam...

My Dad
birthed into form - April 23, 1924
returned to formlessness - Nov. 4, 1985

My Beloved Maternal Grandmother
birthed into form - April 30, 1905
returned to formlessness - Nov. 2, 1998

The Journey of Return

By Dorothy Hunt

When The Beloved wants to take you Home,
extend  your hand to the welcoming
even though your body may be trembling
and your mind may want to flee;
even though those around you grieve,
and you yourself have mourned, even before they,
the changing form of your body.
Tears are not the final truth
though they will come and go
like stars that need a dark sky to be seen.

Death is not a failure of a mind
that is not strong enough,
or positive enough, or pure enough.
Those who hold such views are simply
masking fear with ideas of being in control.
We are being lived by the Creator of this life.
Do you really think a finite mind can change
the mind of God?  Jesus tried and failed.
”Please take this cup from me!” He begged,
as we all do in the midst of anguish.

But anguish, fear, or deepest grief
cannot alter Who you really are.
The beautiful Spirit that extended Itself
in space and time, and called Itself by your name,
is simply ready to return, unencumbered by a body,
to Its vast and spacious Unborn Self,
that kisses you at birth,
and holds your hand in death,
and never for a moment
forgets you are Itself.

The mind imagines you are leaving,
but where could you truly go?
You are Life Itself!  Unceasingly flowing,
moment to moment unfolding Yourself.
A body is born; a body dies; but you do not.
Deep within your heart, you know this Truth.
Rest there…
Rest in the knowing that opens your Heart
to all that IS,
that loves Itself in all that comes
and returns Itself in all that goes.

Dorothy Hunt

Zen Buddhist

For Samhain - "A Morning Blessing"

“I bless the night that nourished my heart
to set the ghosts of longing free
into the flow and figure of dream
that went to harvest from the dark,
bread for the hunger that no one sees.

All that is eternal in me
welcome the wonder of this day,
the field of brightness it creates
offering time for each thing
to arise and illuminate.

I place on the altar of dawn:
The quiet loyalty of breath,
the tent of thought where I shelter,
wave of desire I am shore to,
and all beauty drawn to the eye.

May my mind come alive today
to the invisible geography
that invites me to new frontiers,
to break the dead shell of yesterdays,
to risk being disturbed and changed.

May I have the courage today
to live the life that I would love,
to postpone my dream no longer
but do at last what I came here for
and waste my time on fear no more…”

John O’Donohue
”A Morning Offering”
From: To Bless the Space Between Us

~

For those of the ancient Celtic and Druid traditions Samhain
 (Nov. 1) is the beginning of a new cycle in
 the Great Round of Time - recognizing the cyclical nature
 of manifest existence.

Warm Blessings to all no matter what your tradition…