Facing Into the Light...

Facing into the Sun for my daily
dose of warmth and light,
weeks of information overload
and overwhelm regarding
"the pandemic" has taken its toll
on my psyche...

Waking each morning
wondering - am I going to "catch it"?
watching for the signs;
wondering - will there be enough food
in the stores to last the *months* they
say it will take for the virus to dissipate?
What would be the "best" day to go
foraging for food in our big box
grocery stores, where food once
filled the shelves and cases, but
which has become sparse in the
panic of the pandemic?
What day would the shelves be
stocked the most - with the least
people to navigate?
One doesn't know these things now...

Who would have thought we would
become hunters and gatherers again,
searching for our daily bread...

Ominous...

But...

Today is not a day for mental discursions
of what I cannot control;
nor for fear of the unknown.
I must turn, instead, within
to the Sanity of my Inner Being,
and *stay* there, shelter there;
"stay home" in the Core of my Being,
if I can find "Her" again;
feel "Her" Presence, "Her" Light.

But it was not "She" who wandered off,
or was deluged with the collective fear
of the pandemic.
It was only my mind that fell into
the scare...

The Beauty of the World still exists.
The Earth is still suspended - stable - in space;
rotating around the warmth of the Sun
that lights us daily.
The Universe still sings its song
- uncalamitous -

ever-present in its
*essential* movement.

So I thank the Luminous Universe for being
- for perspective.

For I am not "earthbound" in this madness,
but am part of a celestial movement of stars and
planets dancing together, where the Hush of The
Mystery was once experienced viscerally in a moment
of Pure Silence...

I remember...

It fills my being and warms me to the core,
quelling the fear all the way to the heart,
piercing the veils of ignorance that covered
my mind.

Facing into the Sun, absorbing its warmth,
begins to ignite the Light within.

Facing into the Light within, I am prepared to
move through the day - unfettered by the
unessentials of the madness around me.

At peace in the Celestial Movement of Life...

Mystic Meandering
March 29, 2020

10:10 am

~

Thank you to Alain Joly at The Dawn Within
for the spark of inspiration that ignited this poem...

~

Photo - the Flammarion Engraving
from the Internet

A Zen Moment

Each of us needs to withdraw
from the cares which will not
withdraw from us...

Maya Angelou

~

Our State of Colorado is now under "lock down" for the
next 4 weeks, due to the coronavirus, as many others
are as well...  During this period of sequester I hope to
stay as healthy as I can, and use this time of "sheltering"
to nurture myself, to turn inward and experience Peace and
 a sense of inner Presence, and the deep inner Silence once
again; to de-stress and disentangle from the collective energy
 of fear and panic...
May you all stay well during this stressful time...

I'll still be posting along the way :)

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Waiting for the Words - Etty Hillesum

The only words I want to write are those normally woven
into great silence, not those merely that serve to drown out
silence and to pull it apart.  They should simply emphasize
the silence..... and around it space, not empty but inspired.
The few great things that matter in life can be said in a
few words.  I hate the accumulation of words.  I would like
to brush in a few words against a wordless background.  To
describe the silence and the stillness and to inspire them.

What matters is the right relationship between words and
wordlessness, the wordlessness in which much happens
than all the words one can string together...

We must speak about the Ultimate only when the words
well up inside us as simply and as naturally as water
from a spring...  Say only what is absolutely essential...
and become more concentrated in yourself...

I cannot stop searching for.....the one word that sums
up everything within me...  So I shall wait patiently
until the words have grown inside me...

Etty Hillesum

from: Etty Hillesum - Essential Writings
by Annemarie S. Kidder

Etty was a 28 or 29 year old Dutch Jewish girl
when she died at the Nazi camp in Auschwitz...

~

I wish I could find some inspiring words to offer

during this stressful time...  Like Etty I wait for
the words, and if they arise, or if I find inspiration
from others, I will post them...

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Fear - The Drug of Despair...

I keep trying to change the all-consuming music
running in my head ~ coronavirus ~
and listen for the soothing tones of
the deeper Inner Rhythm that will subdue
the fear of the body-mind in theses
stressful times...

But now the sun is almost past the eve,
and the collective shadow has overtaken me,
with thoughts of the state the world is in now...
Sometimes losing perspective, the bigger picture...
Unable to see beyond the maze mentality...
Losing touch with the deeper Music within...

Fearing my own vulnerability,
as well as that of humankind.
Startled by scarcity of necessities.
Shocked by man's unkindness to man -
hoarding...

Triggered by a virus...

Exposing man's darker side:

its selfishness, arrogance and greed;
its fear of the unknown,
and death;

Not Buddha Nature...
Not Compassion,

nor Christ Consciousness -
but the primal brain of fear and
survivalist consumption...

Fear - the drug of despair...

The new "normal"...

We have to change the music...

Mystic Meandering
March 15, 2020

Photo via The Beauty We Love

Embrace the Losses - John O'Donohue

May you know that absence is alive with hidden presence,
that nothing is ever lost or forgotten.
May the absences in your life grow full of eternal echo.

May you sense around you the secret Elsewhere,
where the presences that have left you dwell..
May you be generous in your embrace of loss.
May the sore well of grief turn into a seamless flow
of presence.

May you be embraced by God in whom dawn and
twilight are one - within the Great Belonging.

John O'Donohue
from: To Bless the Space Between Us

Original title: A Blessing for Absence

~

In memory of my mother
who passed from this life into
the "secret Elsewhere"
one year ago today...

~

And this goes out to all
who have experienced loss
around the world in our ongoing
coronavirus crisis...

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
"Mom's last wave"

For Those Who Grieve - Fred LaMotte

"The world is burning.....and I cannot hold it all.  I need some
soothing nectar for my grief!"

Dear one, I mean this from the groundless bottom of my heart:
the grief IS the nectar.  You must drink it all, drown in it,
feel it, not through the insulating concepts of the mind -
which only creates stories about the past and future - but feel
it in every cell of your body as the force of Presence.

Merge with the grief and it will ferment into something that
cannot be described, only tasted as life-giving strength, pouring
out of an infinite well of Unknowing.  That is the true meaning
of Faith. You are not alone.  There is one problem at the root of
many problems.  And when we solve this one Deep Problem, our
life orientation will change so much...  What is the Deep Problem
at the root of all others?

We need more inner Silence.   Living Silence is not passivity,
dullness, or suppression.  It is an ocean of energy and compassion
that flows from the fountain of Unknowing.

The Ordinary is the door.  Grace is the present moment.
The Path is Wonder...

Fred LaMotte

excerpt from his blog post:
For One Who Grieves the Burning World.

on
Uradiance

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

What Remains - Danna Faulds

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

Let nothing separate you from the Truth.
The soul, illumined from within,
longs to be known...

Undying, untouched by fire, or
the 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, embraces,
fills you from the inside out.

Release everything
that isn't your true nature.
What's left?

the fullness of light...

Danna Faulds
Yoga Practitioner
From the poem" "Birthright"

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Impermanence - Pema Chodron

Regard everything as transparent.
See through everything.

See that everything is in transition.

Liberate concepts and beliefs.

Let go of the need for an "answer"/solution.

Rest in the nature of your true Essence ~
the Primordial State of everything...

Be a child of fantasy.
Be curious instead of afraid.

Pema Chodron
Buddhist Teacher

~

Photo - by my husband :)

This is the frozen inside of a bucket
that was full of water that we had left outside
and froze overnight.

The ice had taken the form of the bucket.
A beautiful metaphor for
our "Spirit" that takes  human form, and then
"dissolves", or goes back to its natural state,
 when the body dies... like ice that melts
back to its natural state...

Moment to Moment - Etty Hillesum

...every moment gives birth to a new moment...

Life courses through one as a constant current in a great
series of moments, each having its own place in the day.

...whenever suffering thrusts itself upon us we must not
avoid it - but accept it.
Does that mean I am never sad, that I never rebel, always
acquiesce, and love life no matter what the circumstances?
No, far from it.  I believe that I know and share the many
sorrows and sad circumstances that a human being
experiences, but.....they pass through me, like life itself;
as a broad, eternal stream, they become part of that stream,
and life continues...

...ought we not, from time to time, open ourselves up to
cosmic sadness?

Your sorrow must become an integral part of yourself.
You mustn't run away from it, but bear it like an adult.
Do not relieve your feelings through hatred, do not seek
to be avenged on all German mothers, for they, too,
sorrow at this very moment for their slain and murdered
sons.  Give your sorrow all the space and shelter in yourself
that is its due, for if everyone bears his grief honestly and
courageously, the sorrow that now fills the world will abate.
But if you do not clear a decent shelter for your sorrow,
and instead reserve most of the space inside you for hatred
and thoughts of revenge - then sorrow will never cease in
this world and will multiply...

Etty Hillesum

From: Etty Hillesum - Essential Writings

by Annemarie S. Kidder

Etty was living in Nazi occupied Netherlands during
the Holocaust, and died in Aushwitz at the age of
28 or 29.  Her writings were taken from her journals.

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
"walking in another's shoes"

Life is a Stream of Events...

While lying in bed late one night recently, talking to my
husband about "life events", groping for perspective,
recognizing how I continue to live from habituated
patterns, reacting to life events, swimming up stream,
trying to keep my head above water, feeling drowned
by the stream of life - he made this statement:

"Life is a stream of events.  Events will always happen.
Events come and go."  The context of his statement was
to say - if we see that life is always a stream of events,
then we won't feel so overwhelmed by them, they won't
trip us up as much because we can adapt and adjust and
manage them.  Sounds a little like the Tao to me - to see
that no matter what happens Life is a Flow, and we are in
that Flow as well.  It was helpful to begin to see a way to
re-orient my way of going down stream...

In essence, he told me, what this is about is meeting life
as it comes by plugging in to the Cosmic Flow of the
Universe - meeting the "events" of life through seeing
the Cosmic Flow of all things, and through all things;
flowing with life as it happens, not getting focused on
the obstacles/events, or seeing the events as obstacles.
  He said by seeing that everything is the Cosmic Flow,
we can be assured that it is flowing the way it is supposed
 to - no matter what happens... When you don't fight it, you
 can begin to experience the harmony of Flow.

B knows nothing of Taoism, but he intuitively "tapped in"
to "the Tao" - The Flow...

Empty yourself of everything.
Let the mind rest at peace.
The ten thousand things rise and fall
while the Self watches their return.
They grow and flourish
and then return to the Source.
Returning to the Source is stillness,
which is the way of nature.

If you are willing to be lived by it,
you will see [the Tao] everywhere,
even in the most ordinary things.

Lao Tzu

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Radical Honesty - Jeff Foster

You don't have to be okay with anything.  It's not about the
me-person being okay.  It's that everything is already embraced
by Life ItSelf.  It is a cosmic okayness that goes beyond "I'm okay"
and "I'm not okay."  We are totally free to respond to life experiences
in authentic, honest, human ways.  We are free not to like our
experiences, and on a deeper level to experience a total, all-
encompassing okayness with the entire situation.  Underneath
everything is a cosmic okayness.  It's not about telling yourself
that you're okay when you are not.  It's not about pretending to be
okay, trying to be spiritual, trying to be peaceful.
You don't have to be anything other than you are in the moment.
It's about radical honesty. It's about seeing reality as it is,
acknowledging it, and discovering that the situation is fully
admitted into life - already.  There is simply life, in all its
mystery, wonder, and timeless simplicity.  And in this
recognition the illusion of separation between us and life
falls away, and we are no longer at odds with life
as it is...

Jeff Foster

From - The Deepest Acceptance

~

This moment in time and space is an eggshell,
personal identity is a sheath.
The breath of God is breathing through it...

Remember the deep root of your being.
Give yourself to the one who already owns
your breath and your moments.

Rumi

~

Photo from the Internet

To Meditate or not to Meditate - Amoda Maa

To meditate... or not to meditate?

Is a dedicated mediation practice the only road to
"enlightenment"... or is the direct rout of recognizing
"what is already free" a better way?  Should all effort be
put into achieving a "higher state of consciousness?... or is
it best to simply let go of any effort to do anything at all?

If I discipline myself to meditate, should I sit (preferably
cross-legged) once a day... or is it twice or maybe three times?
And should I watch my breath... or is it my thoughts, or my
sensations?  Maybe I should chant in Sanskrit... or Hindi or
Japanese?  Maybe I should repeat the sacred OM from my heart...
or is my belly a better place?  Maybe I should send loving
thoughts in every out-breath... or visualize golden light from
my third eye?  Maybe I should try to focus on the gaps between
thoughts... or maybe I should just try to stop thinking all together?

And if I make no effort, how do I "awaken"?  Isn't there something
I need to do?  How do I transcend thinking?  How do I shift into an
"awakened state?"  Maybe if I read enough books or listen to enough
spiritual teachers, I will "get it"?

To meditate... or not to meditate?  The question is a conundrum
to the mind that seeks satisfaction.  The mind seeks a definitive
answer, as if this would bring an end to mind's unease.  The
personhood seeks certainty, as if the certainty of "spiritual
progress" would bestow a badge of worthiness or specialness.

But the question of meditation cannot be answered by the mind.
It can only be realized when Silence has become the bedrock of
your life.  This Silence is not about closing the doors, turning off
the phone and lighting candles.  Nor is it to do with trying to get
rid of your thoughts [or your ego, or the notion of I/me]...
or imagining the perfect sanctuary of peace.

This Silence happens when you stop giving attention to the
narratives that wrap themselves around your experience of reality.

This Silence happens when you turn towards tenderness every time
an unwanted feeling enters your inner landscape.  This Silence
happens when you have surrendered all resistance to what is.
This Silence happens when you are no longer the center of your
universe, when you have become without a center and [you realize
that] the whole universe is in you.  Without resistance, there is
no inner conflict, no inner division, no outside and no inside, no
barrier and no boundary.

When you know your true nature as Silence, there is no need to
do meditation... [because] you ARE meditation.  True meditation
is a state of Being.  It is your natural open state, there is nothing to
move away from and nothing to move towards.  You are simply
and irrevocably here.  There is no longer a question... because
in Silence all questions fall away.

So, it is not about whether you meditate or not.  It's about whether
you can fall into the Silence that is always here prior to your
ideas of what meditation is, or what it can give you, or where
it can take you.  Whether you sit in deep stillness or whether you
are doing something in this world, [the requirements of daily living]
 this Silence is always here... it is in you as Being-ness [your inner
Beingness]. Beingness does not need to do meditation... 
It IS meditation...

I am often asked whether I meditate or not... and I sort of shake my
head, unable to give a definitive answer.  Did I used to do meditation?
Yes.  Until meditation swallowed me up and all that was left was
Silence.  Now the whole of life is meditation, without doing a practice,
without trying to get anywhere, without trying to change anything.
Now... I AM meditation.

So perhaps it is wise to ask a different question...  how can I meet
the world [live my daily life] as Silence?  Perhaps the question
will turn the mind around from its horizontal searching into the
verticality of Being that is always here.  And then you discover
what true meditation is...

Amoda Maa

with gratitude to Michel at No Mind's Land

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Holy Rhythm - Stephen Jenkinson

People in our culture play the polyrhythms of their life,
but don't play or tell the Rhythm inside those rhythms.
They know it - but they don't play it, and they don't
tell it; that is the work of "the Gods", they say, to play
that simpler, steadier Rhythm...  That Holy Rhythm that
 is the signature of life itself.

As you get into the sway of that Rhythm, you realize
you've been playing everything around the Rhythm,
everything but the Rhythm itself, trying all the
possibilities you found until all that's left is to be
told and played by the simple, ragged syncopation of
your days.

That's when the Rhythm finally is able to have its way
with you.  It's like answering at last somebody who's
been calling your name for years.  You play the rhythms
and you learn the Rhythm, and you move accordingly...

Stephen Jenkinson
from: Die Wise

~

Vortex Art - Mystic Meandering
2012

At the Core of Being...

At the very core of our Being
there is complete stillness,
a dynamic Stillness
of Being

~

Just Being

~

There is utter awareness
of all life, all existence;

the felt sense of
the ISness of Being,
of Life...

~

Living
~

In the Silence of this
dynamic Stillness
one is aware of
the cocooning hush
of "The Mystery",
of Primordial Existence
that holds the unmanifest
in the comfort of
Its Womb
before its birth
into form...

~
Resting

~

In this Stillness of Being
the rhythmic breath
of the Cosmos
pulses
like waves....

~
Calming

~

The originating cosmic energies
of an Alive Cosmos
generate themselves into time and space
spiraling outward from the Core;
like a stellar rose that gives birth
to itself through spiraling open
its petals...

~

 Blooming
~

All Existence is at
the Core of our Being,
IS our  very being.
In every atom, every cell...
We are the living Cosmos

~
Breathing
~

Existence lives itself
in a perpetual unfolding of Life.
The Core of Being birthing ItSelf

in and as us ~

The unmanifest manifesting
the formless into form

~
Replicating
~

At the Core of Being
there is only

Aliveness
Stillness
Silence
Peace
Love
Life

It is who we are...

~*~

Namaste

_/\_

Mystic Meandering
2015

~

Photo - Vortex Art
Mystic Meandering
2012