The Weaving of New Cloth - Matt Licata

At times, the wisest, most skillful, and most compassionate
action is to establish a boundary with another person.  To
stand up and assertively say No.  To move in an empowered
and swift way to protect our own integrity.  To privilege our
own autonomy and interiority. To meet narcissism, abuse, and
neglect with a fiery, fierce, and direct response.

This is not only the case with "external" others - other people
in our lives - but also with the multitude of "internal" others -
from the interior landscape.

You might recognize them by their predictable refrain: "There is
something wrong with you.  You have failed. No one will ever
love you unless you change and become someone different.  You
are not okay.  You have fallen short.  You have done life wrong.
You are no good. You do not belong.  Your sensitivities and
eccentricities are not welcome here."

These are the voices of the past, the shadow of a culture of
materialism and greed, of the lineages of transgenerational
trauma and trance.  The voices of disembodiment, insensitivity,
of a societal and global ego that has fallen out of communion
with the natural world, the body, and the imaginal [mystical] realms.

These internal visitors, to an open and sensitive nervous system,
must also be met with the boundaries of discernment.  To 
realize those moments when we fall out of wisdom-presence of
the here and now, into the time machine of the "there and then."

[We need to] reclaim our own basic goodness, and not merely
accept their conclusions, reality tunnels, and the lenses through
which they have come to see things.  But cleanse our perception
with clear-seeing and the wildness of love.

To take the risk of telling a new story, dreaming a new dream,
spinning out a new tale, weaving a new cloth.  And to allow
ourselves to be turned by the great Weaver Herself...as new
vision is revealed, as we become that vessel in which She
can come alive here again.

Matt Licata

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Destiny - Markham & Maharshi

There's a destiny which makes us brothers;
none goes his way alone.
All that we send into the lives of others
comes back into our own.

Edwin Markham
1852-1940

My mother wrote this on the first page of my little
autograph book when I was 7 or 8 years old... :)

~

Whatever is destined
not to happen
will not happen;
try as you may.

Whatever is destined to happen
will happen; do what you may
to prevent it.

This is certain.

The best course of action, therefore,
is to remain silent.

Ramana Maharshi

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo from the Internet

 

Peace...

Come into Peace...

Even in the midst of chaos there is Peace...
Even in the midst of complexity there is Peace...

Even in the midst of confusion there is Peace...

In everything there is a Peaceful Silent Presence...

In life and death we are held deep within the
Great Heart of Silent Peace...

Mystic Meandering

~

Photo from Pinterest

 

The Beginning of Love - Thomas Merton

The beginning of love
is to let those we love be perfectly themselves,
and not to twist them to fit our own image.

Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves

we find in them.

Thomas Merton

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo from pixabay.com

 

Blessed Solstice

Photo- Dancing Sky - Ryan Bliss

 Have an Inspired Solstice!

Darkness is not the absence of light,
darkness is the womb of light...

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

Dancing In The Fire - Jennifer Welwood

There will always be voices that promise you greatness and glory;
They call out from the worldly marketplace;
They call out from the spiritual marketplace;
They call out from the bigger-better-more marketplace.

Do not buy their false promises, or purchase their ephemeral wares;
What fulfills for a moment is not worth the price of your soul.
There are heights that will lift you,
but not when you try to ascend them;
There are powers that will fill you,
but not when you make them your own.
There are treasures, and there are imitations of treasures.
If you have lost your true gold, at least turn away from the glitter.

Want only what is true.
This will lead you to the well of your deepest sorrows.
Follow the passageway, all the way down;
Become the dark emptiness of your core.
Be still.  Don't measure the waiting.
Be still.  Let the fire show you its secret heart;
A strand of clear light running through you.
Gather yourself there, and the luminous universe opens.

In the vast expanse, fathomless, infinite ocean of light,
lose yourself, and find yourself, and become what you already are.

Jennifer Welwood
Original title "Renunciation"

~

We can descend into the fire of direct experience of our feelings.
It is within the very core of this holy fire, in the alchemical crucible
of the body where the naked, groundless somatic territory of
illumination occurs, where healing emerges, and a new pathway
of love, care and compassion unfolds and illuminates within you.

Matt Licata

~

Art - Mystic Meandering
Woman Whirling in the Fire
(looking from overhead)

Craypas Oils
2012

 

The Thin Door - Lisa Marguerite Mora

Tell me about the passing of life,
its thin door which is as fragile as life itself.
I can hear the music on the other side,

and the shadows of bird flight
move under the door frame
with the tinkle of wind chimes.

Tell me about how life passes into life,
hope into beginnings.
There is no reward for having lived...

There is only continuity and re-emerging
from room to room and the love
that perfumes this place and the next.

Lisa Marguerite Mora

Originally published here

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Now We Are Free - Gladiator

 

The Swan - Rainer Maria Rilke

This laboring of ours with all that remains undone,
as if still bound to it,
is like the lumbering gait of the swan.

And then our dying - releasing ourselves
from the very ground on which we stood -
is like the way he hesitantly lowers himself

into the water.  It gently receives him,
and, gladly yielding, flows back beneath him,
as wave follows wave,
while he, now wholly serene and sure,
with regal composure,
allows himself to glide.

Rainer Maria Rilke

with thanks to Death Deconstructed
and photo too...

 

Remembering What You Love - Chuck Surface

What is there to do,
But Remember what you Love,
And ache with all your Heart,
However distant Heaven may seem,
However much a fairytale and a Dream

What is there to do,
But rest, with each breath and heartbeat,
In that U n b e a r a b l e Longing,
Which will not be consumed,
By the fires of doubt and despair.

For you did not choose to be stricken,
But simply found yourself afflicted,
With a Remembering beyond memory,
A Feeling beyond emotion.
A knowing beyond knowledge...

As yet unKnown.

What else...

For when faith fails, Longing endures,
When belief crumbles, Longing endures.
When other's paths prove not our own,
Longing endures.

Longing... endures.

What...
But to Remember what you Love,
However She presents Herself,
Within the Secret Heart,
Of your own unique Longing.

You are not cursed, weary Friend!
For this Longing, Unbearable,
Is both Path and Guru,
For those of us so Blessed.

And Love...

Chuck Surface

Facebook

Website

 

Spiritual Anarchy - Shiv Sengupta

Anarchy and chaos seem to go together like peanut butter and
jelly,  like macaroni and cheese, or Thelma and Louise.  The
two seem inseparable in our minds because we have no idea
what this word "anarchy" really means.  It conjures images of
rioting in the streets, burning cars, broken shop windows, 
rampant looting, bands of armed militia terrorizing innocent
civilians, bodies on the street, starvation... but that's just the
Hollywood version.

Anarchy is first and foremost about self-governance.  Yet, self-
governance is not something most people are capable of.  Most
need to be led, guided, instructed, advised, rewarded and punished
for them to feel as if they are on the right path in their lives.  They
need this structure put in place for them so that they may feel a
sense of value, contribution, progress and meaning.  Without it
they feel lost - cast adrift upon a vast ocean of experience with
no real markers by which to chart their progress.

If you were to take a person like that and suddenly strip them
of the scaffolding that society has built around them, they would
most likely react by either going berserk or falling apart.  Most
people are simply not ready to have the dual training wheels of
meaning and identity taken off their bicycles.

They are better off doing as they are told.  They are better off
maintaining an illusion of freedom and choice.  They are better
off believing that their opinions and beliefs are proof of a uniquely
forged identity.  They are better off believing that the more they
protect and craft that identity the more secure they are going to be.
They are better off believing that the more people they can get
to agree with them, the more proof they will have of the rightness
of their perspectives.

Without others to provide them with a context for their experiences,
such people are totally lost.  Without someone to agree with and
someone to oppose, it is hard for them to know where they stand.

Those who have spent their lives living in castles in the sky will
have no idea what to do when they see that the sky is just a great
blue void that they are endlessly falling through.  They will simply
flail in desperation.  And flailing people certainly look chaotic.
But flailing is not anarchy.  It is just chaos.

When the Buddha spoke of enlightenment, he was speaking about
spiritual anarchy.  When L Krishnamurti talked about a "total 
revolution", he was talking about spiritual anarchy.

Anarchy is a process that begins with the stripping away of all
the narratives we have invented as a civilization - until there is
nothing left of a person but Spirit encased in flesh.  The experience
 of living is whittled down to the very core until we are brought
to the heart of it - the self in its rawest and most unadulterated form.
The book of life is torn apart - one page at a time, chapter by
chapter - history, race, religion, nationality, gender, spirituality,
ethnicity, politics - all the accumulated knowledge of the world
expunged.

We stand face to face with the universe just as we once did on
the day we were born.  We recognize that the essence we call a
"self" and the essence we call a "universe" are one and the same
even if their forms may differ.  Finally, we choose to take
responsibility for this essence in all its forms - including that of
our self.  This is spiritual anarchy.;

It is governance not just of a separate individual self.  It is
governance of the whole as our self.  Such governance doesn't
happen by force.  It is not an assertion of our own will upon the
universe, nor is it the submission or surrender of our will to the
universe.  It is a governance that happens by listening, adapting
and responding to the flow of life itself.  Then at times when this
flow aligns with that of society, we may appear to "conform."  And
when this flow appears to misalign with that of society, one may
appear to "oppose."  Yet, this aligning and opposing has nothing to
do with being "for or against."  The direction in which we move
has not been primarily set within a social context.

When I gaze up at a starry night sky, my eyes can see stars that
exist hundreds of light years away.  And if I close my eyes, I can
still feel the aftershocks of the Big Bang resonating within my body.
This moment encompasses all of space and time.  This whole
universe has been gifted to me as a canvas.  And I going to listen
to someone telling me what to draw on it?

Spiritual anarchy is the process by which the control of the social
self-construct is relinquished and restored to Spirit.  The only law
that applies henceforth is spiritual law.  Yet, this is not something

cast in stone like commandments on a tablet.

It is a truth that reveals and rewrites itself afresh moment after 
moment...

Shiv Sengupta

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo- Mystic Meandering

 

Fantasies We Live By - Terry Pratchett

"You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

Really?  As if it was some kind of pink pill?  No. Humans
need fantasy to be human.  To be the place where falling
angel meets the rising ape.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little - ?"

Yes. As practice.  You have to start out learning to believe
the little lies.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

Yes. Justice. Mercy. Duty.  That sort of thing.

"They're not all the same at all!"

You think so?  Then take the Universe and grind it down to
the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and
then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy.
And yet (Death waved a hand).  And yet you act as if there
is some ideal order in the world, as if there is some...
some rightness in the Universe by which it may be judged.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point -"

My point exactly...

Terry Pratchett
From Hogfather

With thanks to Whiskey River

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Stories We Carry...

I wish to pack my stories away,
to leave them in an attic or basement
and continue on with life - unencumbered.
But the stories haunt me,
and the mind won't let go;
imprisoning me in the stories,
which are also other people's stories,
who have helped to create mine...

Such torture, these stories that we
create together - of pain, and fear and
betrayal - trying to navigate the narrow
road that led us here - and unwind it;
trying to untangle from each other's stories,
that have become such a burden to carry,
and let the other free to travel their
story alone...

Dec. 2, 2021

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Hey God - John Roedel

John: Hey God.

God: Hey John

John: Grief keeps sneaking up on me.

God: That's because grief is like a ninja.

John: When will it leave me alone?

God: Hopefully never.

John: Um. What?!

God: To grieve means that you have loved.
Grieving is one of the truest human experiences
that you will ever participate in.  It often arrives
without warning - like a late day summer storm -
obscuring the sun and drenching you in a downpour.
It is a gift, isn't it?

John: Uh, no.

God: Grab a pen and write the following four things down.

1) Grief can come and go as it pleases.
You gave it a key to your house at the exact moment you
gave your heart to somebody else.

2) Bereavement is the debt you must pay for having loved.
There is no getting over the loss of a beloved who is now
resting in the arms of endless love.  Grief has no expectation
date.  Despite the passing time, the phantom pain of mourning
is always one memory away from returning.

3) Of all the emotions you face, grief is the by-far stickiest.
It gets all over everything.  Like peanut butter, grief sticks
to the roof of your soul.

4) Grief is like an
afternoon thunderstorm
in late July.

It's the storm
that's always waiting
on the edges
of your most sunny
days to roll
across the horizon
and right over you.

The ghosts of your loved
ones who have died
are the clouds.

The webbed lighting

illuminating the
dark canvas sky is
their reminder to you
that life is just a
brilliant temporary flash
of time.

It's a reminder
to live now.
to be bold.
to be electric.

The pounding rain isn't your tears.
It's the hope of eternal life that
falls on you.

It's that downpour of hope that will
help you grow deep roots in love...

The gale winds
of these storms are
the messages from
those you have
lost to death that
are whispering
to you through the pines
the following psalm:

"It's okay, my love.  Eternity is holding  me.
Death isn't an end.  Death is a threshold.
I'm still here.  I never left.  Love doesn't die.
I remain.  There is no afterlife.  There is only life.
I'm here with you.  Love doesn't die."

It's all such an adventure!

John Roedel
from: Hey God, Hey John
a book about John's simple conversations with God...

with thanks to Death Deconstructed

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering