The Broken Can Blossom - Sarah Carlson

My gaze drifts out
the kitchen window
as I ponder an issue
I have been grappling with
for quite some time.
My body is a bit tense,
but my eyes are soft
as my focus is actually within.
Slowly, ever so slowly,
my attention is captured
by a plant on the windowsill.
Not just any plant, though.
An orchid that had been cherished
by my mother
and hasn't bloomed since
her death almost two years ago.
There's a stem with several buds
and a branch, almost fully separated,
that bends around the back of the pot.
I turn it slowly,
breathe in deeply
as my eyes focus
on a blossom that had been
quietly seeking the sun
without my knowing.
A slow smile extends
throughout my being.
Ah yes,
the broken can blossom.
And when they do,
there is beauty that is
intricate and profound
and deeply genuine.
What a gift for all
who choose to see.

Sarah Carlson
Meanderings of the Heart

Posted with permission from the author

Photo by Sarah Carlson

 

Life Blooms Through You - Ilchi Lee

 Observe your body.  It breathes.  You breathe
when you are asleep, when you are no longer
conscious of your own ideas of self-identity.
Who, then, is breathing?  The collection of
information that you mistakenly think is you is
not the protagonist in this drama called the
breath.  In fact, you are not breathing; breath
is naturally happening...  You can purposely
end your own life, but you cannot purposely
keep your own life going.  The expression,
'my life' is actually an oxymoron, a result of
mistaken assumption.  You don't posses life;
Life expresses itself through you.  Your body
is a flower that Life let bloom, a phenomenon
created by Life.

Ilchi Lee

with thanks to Whiskey River

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
The Many Faces in the Blossoms

Can you see some of the little faces?! :)))

The Face of The Sacred...

 All life is a Cosmic Dance
and a play of perspectives from which
you see it...

Everything is temporary -
breath, thoughts - life;
existence itself, even the planet.
All experience is energy;
pain, depression, anger,
joy, love - a vibration...

The Face of The Sacred is revealed in every "bloom" -
every experience of Life - as it is -
no matter how painful...

Every flower has its own "face" - concealed.
But even in the pain of life it blossoms...

Source reveals ItSelf through our pain...

She pulls back the veils of concealment to reveal
our True Face - a beautiful reflection of Her "bloom",
hidden in the movements of Her mystical Dance of Life...

Mystic Meandering
May 24, 2022

with thanks to Mitch Rosacker of Self Discovery Studio
for the inspiration for the poem :)

Video - from a Friend of Mitch

Personal Commentary about the poem:
This poem came about as a result of a break through moment while
talking with Mitch - and - from the video of the Iris that he sent
me from a Friend.  When the woman pulled back the top petals of
the Iris to reveal a face inside the "bloom" I gasped...  And realized
that our True Face is hidden behind the veils (or masks) that we
wear - thus the line: "She pulls back the veils of concealment to
reveal our True Face - a beautiful reflection of Her "bloom" (Face).

_/\_

MM

A Solemn Journey...

Photo by Martin Stranka

I feel deeply for a world in pain...
I know others of you do too...
A world bound by insanity and ignorance,
hatred and greed;
holding onto racist ideologies,
beliefs of empires of the past,
tattered by time and flamed by delusion.
Volatile violence erupting from darkened minds;
the new "prophets" of a civilization in denial
- uncivil -

burdening others with their detritus; like
robots blindly playing their part in the universal
tick-tock - already dead - lost to false beliefs -
blinded by their own nightmare,
wanting to inflict their pain on others...
Children killing children...
Survivors traumatized for life...

And we - the collective "we" - carry on-
business as usual...

Nothing changes...
And yet - Everything changes...

Life is a solemn journey for many...

Prayers for a broken world...

Mystic Meandering
May 15, 2022
revised May 24, 2022

~

Photo from No Mind's Land

 

 

Love is Space - Jeff Foster

A True Healer does not heal you.
She simply reflects back to you
your capacity to heal.
She is a reflector,
a loving mirror.

A True Teacher does not teach you.
She does not see you as separate from her.
She reflects back to you
your own inner knowing.

She is a transparency.

LOVE is the space in which this meeting happens.
It is love that truly heals,
and we learn best in a loving field,
no threat of failure,
no punishment.

Jeff Foster

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Indigenous Within - Malidoma Patrice Some

The indigenous world, in trying to emulate Nature, espouses
a walk with life, a low quiet day-to-day kind of existence.  The
modern world, on the other hand, steams through life like a 
locomotive, controlled by a certain sense of careless waste
and destruction. Such life eats at the psyche and moves its
faster and faster along, as they are progressively emptied out
of their spiritual and psychic fuel.  It is here, consequently,
where one's spirit is in crisis, that speed is the yardstick by
which the crisis itself is expressed.

Any person in modern culture who is aware of this destruction
from the machine world upon the spiritual world......realizes
that there is a starvation of the soul.  And realizing that, he or
she starts to wonder what to do about it.  In places that I have
been to speak to people about the beliefs and realities of the
indigenous world, there has been a consistent number of people
who have been so touched, even profoundly shaken by what I
was telling them that I have to believe that I was not so much
appealing to their minds as I was awakening something within
their souls - something that has always been there.  This tells
me that there must be an indigenous being within each of us.

[The Buddhists call it out True Nature, Advaitins call it the Self.
Hinduism call it the Atman, or the innermost Essence.]

Malidoma Patrice Some

[brackets mine]

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Soul of the Night - Chet Raymo

It is a thin membrane that separates us from chaos...

The space between the stars is silence.  How are we to 
understand the silence of the Universe?  Beyond the earth's
skin of our thin sky is silent.  Stars blow themselves to
smithereens, we hear nothing...

The fireball of Creation exploded from a pinprick of infinite
energy - there is no soundtrack - the Universe is silent...

If we converted the radiant energy of stars into sound what
would we hear?  The static of electrons fidgeting between 
energy levels in the atoms of stellar atmosphere;
 statistical, indifferent noise...

In the almost perfect vacuum of interstellar space, stars
detonate, meteors blast craters on moons, and planets split
at their seams without sound.

What's up there is just one galaxy after another, magnificent|
in their silent turning.....a primeval silence...  The silence of
that which cannot be named...

Chet Raymo
From: The Soul of the Night

~

"In a dark time the eye begins to see."
Theodore Roethke

Medieval Mystics embraced the darkness...
The Night is our window into the Infinite...

Few people willingly choose to walk the dark path,
to enter the dark wood...

Chet Raymo
From: The Soul of the Night

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Lunar Eclipse May 15, 2022

(taken with my cell phone :)

 

 

A Nocturnal Dreamscape - Rod MacIver

In the middle of the night
on the edges of my dreamscape
Caribou race along the rim of distant hills
and disappear.
They offer no words
but somehow they say,
in vague, shifting images of gray and brown
moonlight and  pounding hooves:

Stand still.  Wait for once.
Don't race over there
and stand in the middle.
Let chaos go its own way.
Confused, discordant.

Keep your internal center of balance,
a compass on the bridge of a storm-tossed ship.
What is the destination?
Where do we want to go?
I wish I knew.

In the darkness
just past the light of the campfire
in the wild, nocturnal mystery
Sounds
coming at you from the night,
Footsteps
Breathing
the sound of some big animal breathing.
Something is waiting for you there.

Go
You won't create your new tomorrow
hanging around the fire, waiting,
waiting for tomorrow,
staring at the flames
that become embers
that become darkness.

Embrace your darkness now...

So a road opened up
and I took it.
Down some dark stairways into myself
in search of the sun.

What was supposed to happen, didn't.
And wasn't supposed to, did.
I don't know what is going on,
I don't know how things are
supposed to be...

Rod MacIver
Nature Artist
Heron Dance

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Eradicating Violence? - J. Krishnamurti

...is it possible to eradicate violence in ourselves?

I am asking whether it is possible for a human being living
psychologically in any society to clear violence from himself
inwardly?  If it is, the very process will produce a different way

of living in this world.

Some of us, in order to rid ourselves of violence, have used a
concept, an ideal, called non-violence, and we think by having
an ideal of the opposite to violence, non-violence, we can get rid
of the fact, the actual - but we cannot.  We have had ideals
without number, all the sacred books are full of them, 
yet we are still violent - so why not deal with violence itself and
forget the word altogether?

If you want to understand the actual you must give your whole
attention, all your energy, to it.  That attention and energy are
distracted when you create a fictitious, ideal world.  So can you
completely banish the ideal?  The man who is really serious,
with the urge to find out what truth is, what love is, has no
concept at all.  He lives only what is.

To investigate the fact of our own anger you must pass no 
judgement on it, for the moment you conceive of its opposite
you condemn it and therefore you cannot see it as it is.  When
you say you dislike or hate someone, that is a fact, although
it sounds terrible.  If you look at it, go into it completely, it
ceases, but if you say, "I must not hate; I must have love in my
heart," then you are living in a hypocritical world with double
standards.

To live completely, fully, in the moment is to live with what is,
the actual, without any sense of condemnation or justification -

then you understand it so totally that you are finished with it.

When you see clearly the problem is solved.

J. Krishnamurti
from Freedom from the Known

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Bleeding Enso 
2011

~

Enso is a sacred symbol of Zen Buddhism meaning circle...
It is traditionally drawn using only one brush stroke as a 
meditative practice in letting go of the mind...  While at
first glance, the enso symbol appears no more than a 
misshapen circle, it symbolizes many things: the beauty
in imperfection, the art of letting go of expectations, the
circle of life, and connection.  The enso is a manifestation
of the artist at the moment of creation and the acceptance of
the innermost self.  The enso is said to leave the artist fully
exposed at that one particular moment in time.

Barbara Bash - Artist

(I have no idea what I was feeling at the time I created 
this enso on wax paper, thus the drips - the only one I ever did.)

 

 

The Mind's Dreamscape...

Dream images pass through the mind -

stories, events, experiences,
of past, present and yet to come,
weaving their memories through
the vast vault of the brain;
chemicals playing with the neurons
and synapses.

Dramas of the dreamscape
come and go daily.
Thoughts from the mental kingdom
come and go second by second,
like coded messages keyed out over the
wires by a clerk in an abandoned
ghost town - long gone - long dead.

They are merely images of the mind -
only thoughts - surface activities
moving through the mechanism of time
with the speed and feel of electricity,
disturbing a tranquil stillness within
with static thought waves
that we take to be real,
lost in the dreamscape of the world,
spinning on the wheel of life,
believing the abstract mind.

Mystic Meandering
Oct. 24, 2005

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Waiting for the War to End - Gangaji

Human beings have been making war in every culture for a very
long time.  Culture is a reflection of the individual mind, and the
individual mind is a reflection of the cultural mind.  Since you
are reading this, I assume you are interested in peace in your
own mind.  You are not waiting for "them" to make peace.  This
is good news, because war is fought to get others to do it our
way so that we can be at peace.  When you stop waiting for
them, instead shift your attention to your own mind, then you
can recognize the tendency toward war in your own mind, the
tendencies of totalitarianism, hate, revenge, and holding on.  
And you can recognize the suffering that those tendencies
continue to deliver.

Somehow, in the face of it all, you find you want peace.  You
are sick and tired of the war within your own mind. You only
need to accept the invitation of your own heart, regardless of
the outer or inner circumstances, and let yourself sink into the
peace of your innermost Being.

Unless all of us take responsibility for our own inner peace,
the wars will continue.  We cannot wait any longer for
someone else to change. We cannot wait for someone else to
forgive us so that we can forgive them.  We cannot wait for
 someone else to say they are sorry.  
Peace cannot be postponed.

Gangaji

From - The Diamond in Your Pocket

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

(Waiting for the Dr. in the exam room)

 

Before the Universe - Lao Tzu

Something mysteriously formed,
formless and perfect
in the silence and the void,
before the universe was born.
It is serene. Empty.

Solitary. Unchanging.
Infinite.  Eternally present.
It is the mother of the universe.

For lack of a better name, 
I call it the Tao.

It flows through all things,
inside and outside, and returns
to the origin of all things.

Lao Tzu
Tao Te Ching

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

Definition of the Tao:  "The Tao is the absolute principle underlying the universe, signifying the way that is in harmony with the natural order of the Universe - living in harmony with the Universe and the energy in it, or Chi, that is guiding everything in the Universe."

 

Silence is "The Mother" of the Cosmos - Fred LaMotte

Silence is not a concept.
You cannot think it.
Silence is Being.

Silence is.....at the root of the Cosmos.
In meditation Silence is the Mother.
The real "Virgin Mother" is the mystical
eternal Silence.  Silence is the language of God.

The material world is made out of vibrating energy.
But what is the energy that vibrates?

The perfect Silence...

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

~

Silence is the "Mother Energy", the "originating energy"
of the Cosmos, of Life, of Being.

MM

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Mammatus or "Mamma Clouds" 
Happy Mother's Day :)

 

Open the Window to Your Soul...

Open the window to your Soul..

Let your Soul breathe;
enclosed and encrusted too long
in the musty air
of an unlived life...

Listen to the birds calling to you,
just outside the window of your Soul.
Hear the sounds of Nature thriving with Life!
And the silent steps of the neighbor's cat
walking the fence - stopping to peer in at you -
through the window...

Open your eyes to the magic of Life being lived,
just outside the window to your Soul...

Breathe in the Living Cosmos that enfolds you here...
Feel the Soul wind caressing you - vibrating your Heart.
Hear the voice of "The Mystery" whispering -

Come - Play!

Open your window!

Come alive again!

Mystic Meandering
May 6, 2022

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Rising In Perilous Hope - Marge Piercy

What can I hold in my hands this morning
that will not flow through my fingers?

What words can I say that will catch...

If my touch could heal, I would lay my hands
on your bent head and bellow prayers.

If my words could change the weather
or the government or the way the world
twists us....

what could I do but what I know?

I fit words together and say them;
it is a given like the color of my eyes.

I hope it makes a small difference, as
I hope the drought will break and the morning

come rising out of the ocean wearing
a cloak of clean sweet mist and swirling terns.

Marge Piercy
from: Colors Passing Through Us
2003

With thanks to Whiskey River

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

 

Pure Cosmic Joy...

Standing in the nakedness of new innocence,
at the edge of a swirling star-gate,
I prepare to step into a vastness beyond destiny.

Through the portal of the Cosmic Heart I came ~

My Soul catapulting me
Into an invisible Sanctity...
From the veils of illusion and shadow I emerged ~

Teetering on the rim of a Greater Reality ~
still unknown to me...

Fledgling at this Gateway of the Unknown.
Swaddled in a golden mantle of light.
Re-birthing my innocence in a twilight sleep of delight.
Bathed in the tranquil fluid of the Invisible Womb.
Awaiting re-birth...

Ready to surrender traditions of the mind,
beliefs, theories of knowing,
and all concepts of "reality" - that bind.
And enter a Greater Mystery
where my heart is free and mind is clear ~

Unencumbered by psychological dynamics
and densified fear.

No longer separate, fragmented and torn.
Sacred Union about to be re-born.
Light of Light, Heart of Heart.
Matter and Spirit merge in
star-kissed cosmogony 

Where everything is seen as "The Mystery" ~

And Love is understood in its entirety ~
Fulfilled in the simplicity of just Being...

Pure Cosmic Joy...

Mystic Meandering
Aug. 25, 2000

~

Photo - from the James Webb Telescope

 

The Homing Call...

I have heard the Homing Call of the Cosmos.
The deep soundings of stars and galaxies
singing the Cosmos ~

drawing me into their luminous waters...

I step through the gateway of this mortal land of
Earth and Stone
into the Eternal Cosmic Ocean ~

The Illumined hush of "The Mystery"...

Following the call,
I recognize the Celestial Songs...

Venturing into the Vastness of the Cosmic Sea,
oceanic movement becomes a pulsating permeation
of deep Stillness...

Suspended in this silent etheric fluid
~ the womb of Creation ~

everything once known to be real
is held motionless in translucent radiance.
Not needing identity or conceptual framework.
Only the immediacy and spontaneity of pure Being...

Mystic Meandering
May 6, 2001

Photo from the Internet