The Kiss of The Mystery...

There is an intimacy in deep Silence
that is indefinable, inexplicable, inexpressible
and hauntingly sublime...

A fluidity of

~ s p a c i o u s n e s s ~

A movement of Awareness,

a w a r e ~ i n g...

Everything is open

Pure 

BE ~ ing ~ ness

There is depth and breadth,
yet no boundary.

There is substance and fullness
yet - Emptiness...

It is a subtle, rhythmic

intimacy
of
the Unheard

embracing,
surrounding, and filling
every crack and crevice of existence...
Unwinding the contractions
of
body and mind.

There is a "sanity" in this Silence
that bestows a soundness of heart through Grace
that is beyond mere mental comprehension ~
beyond cognition...

Finding the deeper Rhythm within
one loses a sense of "self"
and becomes
The Silence ~

Breathing ItSelf...

"knowing" it is

The Breath of the Infinite

The Whisper of Love

The Kiss of The Mystery

*

Mystic Meandering
June 2016

~

Photo - Aurora Borealis
from the South Pole

The Aurora seems to take the shape of a round face
looking down, kissing the earth ~
The Kiss of The Mystery :) 

The Temple of the Prairie...

Wanted to share this beautiful scenery from the prairie we visited yesterday, just after a storm passed through.  There was nothing but Pure Quiet, as if one had entered a sacred temple...  The air was pungent with sage and sweet grass - Nature's Incense! :) - delighting the senses, igniting the spirit of Life within.  The words under the photos are the words of Kabir.  Many of us know the "secret sound" that he refers to as the Primordial Silence within...  At the end I have added a quote from a person named Christina Harris that I found years ago...

If you want the truth...

Listen to the secret sound,

the real sound,

which is inside you...

The music from the strings
no one touches...

~ ~ ~

What remains is the child I was...
All other images once living here
have stepped away.
With each leave taking
the view is simplified.

Christina Harris

The Infinite is Everywhere - Danna Faulds

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 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.

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

Choose to be in communion with me
and see the whole of this
creation infused with one energy...

Danna Faulds
Yoga Practitioner and Poet

Excerpt From:One and Two are Both True
From: Prayers to the Infinite

Simply - Silence...

In the midst of chaos there is always Silence...
In the midst of complexity there is the simplicity of Awareness...
Being in the Rhythm of Silence unwinds the mind - unwinds the fears.
It unwinds the contracted body, thoughts, emotions, and feelings
that have become an habituated response to life.

Silence is the medicine that brings us back into the current of Life
again; into the Infinite Presence that lives us...

It is not "mother earth" pulsing through us,
but That which also pulses through "mother earth" -
the cosmic pulse of Life that infuses all things...

Reach deeply into the Stillness of Silence
within you - the Primordial Space of Silence
and thrive there...

In this Stillness is the congruency of Life...

Feel the Stillness,
the Sacred Silence...
Awaken to its Rhythm...

Go behind the mind,
to the Essence of Existence -
Silence...

Sweet, Sweet, Silence...


Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
2006

*

Photo - Fall leaves remaining on a branch
color inverted digitally giving this wonderful
oriental, zen-like affect of simplicity...

Fear Not the Pain - Rilke

You who let yourselves feel;
enter the breathing
that is more than your own.
Let it brush your cheeks
as it divides and rejoins behind you.

Blessed ones, whole ones,
you where the heart begins;
Fear not the pain, the suffering.
Let its weight fall back
into the earth...

The trees you planted in childhood
have grown too heavy.
You cannot bring them along.
Give yourselves to the air,
to what you cannot hold.

Rainer Maria Rilke

~*~

...recognize that life is not in our control.
We are a small part of a great dance.

Jack Kornfield
Buddhist Teacher

~*~

Both light and shadow
are the dance of Love.

Rumi

~*~

Photo - reflection of Light on the floor

Simply - Love...

Come into Peace...

Even in the midst of chaos there is Love...
Even in the midst of complexity there is Love...
Even in the midst of confusion there is Love...

In everything there is Love...

In life and in death
we are held deep within the Great Heart.
All that matters is that we know
we are loved...


Mystic Meandering
2006

~*~

It is not the work of love to change people,
or force their growth in our direction.
The work of love depends on giving
others a sense safety, nurturing their
confidence to lean into life
and into the unknown...

Mark Nepo
From: A Thousand Ways to Listen

What Remains - Danna Faulds and Rashani

Despite illness of body or mind,
in spite of blinding despair or
habitual belief, who you are
is whole...

Let nothing keep you separate from that truth.

The soul, illuminated from within
longs to be known for what it is.
Undying, untouched by fire or storms of life,
there is a place inside where stillness
and abiding peace reside.

You can ride the breath to go there.

Despite doubt or hopeless turns of mind,
you are not broken.
Spirit surrounds you, embraces, fills you
from the inside out.

Release everything that isn't your true nature.

What's left...

the fullness -
light, and shadow,
claim all that as your
birthright.

Danna Faulds
Yoga Practitioner and Poet
the Poem: "Birthright"
From: Go In and In

~*~

There is a brokenness
out of which comes the unbroken,
a shatteredness
out of which blooms the unshatterable.
There is a sorrow
beyond all grief which leads to joy
and a fragility
out of whose depths emerges strength.

There is a hollow space
too vast for words
through which we pass with each loss,
out of whose darkness
we are sanctioned into being.

There is a cry deeper than all sound
whose serrated edges cut the heart
as we break open to the place inside
which is unbreakable and whole,
while learning to sing.

Rashani Rea

The Other Window - Mark Nepo

[.....]

At the edge of winter, open the window
of your heart, see your breath,
how what you bring up becomes
the air.

When you're ready or pushed,
close your eyes and the other window
will appear,
the one that faces all of time.
What flies there never lands,
but hovers, dropping the seeds of
infinity in the breaks we can't heal.
So open the window of your pain,
though the whispers tell you
to nail it shut, and let in everything
that's ever lived.

What flies and never lands
has been waiting.
Be brave.
Don't run.
Let the fire
around your window
burn until you become
the opening.

Mark Nepo
Excerpt from the poem: "Love Your Window"
From the book: Inside the Miracle

The Forest Knows - Wagoner and Berry

Stand still.  The trees ahead and 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 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 it find you.

David Wagoner
From "Lost"

~*~

I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirrings become quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.
Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.
Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear leaves it,
and the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.
After days of labor,
mute in my consternations,
I hear my song at last,
and I sing it.  As we sing,
the day turns, the trees move.

Wendell Berry
"I Go Among Trees"

Adrift - Chuck Surface

All the words I have written...
May have given you the illusion that I
have my bearings, and an understanding
of all that is unfolding...
When I am simply adrift
Without a compass...

Rudderless

Here...

In this Great Mystery

Excerpted from "Adrift"
by Chuck Surface
In the Garden of the Beloved

~*~

I woke up recently with this realization:
It is only this sense of me that feels adrift, lost, floundering -
not the Eternal Being that I am...
And, it is all happening within
the vast Ocean of the Great Mystery...
Everything happens within the Great Mystery...

And so it is all really okay, this floundering...
I accept it... Embrace it... Trust it...
It is simply where "I" am in time...

When I meet and embrace the feeling with acceptance
the grip of fear and lostness inside me lets go...
I then am able to float in the soft embrace of The Great Mystery,
and wait for the Inner Movement of
The Ineffable again...

Photo - taken by my brother...

~*~

Roam aimlessly
and find
What-Is

Wu Hsin