Everything Falls Away...

Everything is falling away.
Systems and internal conceptual structures
are fracturing; all around you - disintegration.
Only a shadow of what they were...

You cannot mend this -
People believe what they want to believe,
think what they want to think.

Hold fast...
Hold fast - do not be moved.
Lean into the intensity and hold fast.

Be brave - the storm is yet to come...

Mystic Meandering

_/\_

I found this written on some scratch paper
while decluttering on 7/28
Have no idea when it was written, but seems
appropriate to what we are facing now,
in this realm of existence...

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Reflecting on Time - Daria Bocicova

Time as we know it in our everyday lives is, essentially,
an idea based on a sensation based on an observation, which
in turn, is based on our knowledge and memory of the state
or condition before the measurement of that change.  Time is
the feeling that we experience when we see some kind of
change...

When people think that celestial changes are seasonal changes
associated with the Earth's position around the Sun are time,
it's like thinking that a fish swimming in an aquarium is water.
In fact, a tank is like space, and water is like time.  Water fills
the tank, and it's everywhere.  If it wasn't, the fish wouldn't be
able to move and would be dead, despite all the space in the
aquarium...

Time itself is neither linear nor circular.  It does not flow or
move but allows others to do so.  So the cycles we observe
have nothing to do with time, except that time will enable
them to exist.  Time is attached to each part of space, forming
a space-time continuum, and as everything moves, vibrates,
changes, it is related to the fact that time is a dimension
that allows all cycles to exist...

Daria Bocicova - physicist
excerpts from an article  in The Plant News

with thanks to Under My Umbrella and Beyond

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
The time was actually 2:32pm :)

 

A Divine Hug - Jessica Nathanson

I am here, even in this anger and despair
See me here, and you will see me everywhere
How deeply can you enter this moment to be with me?

If you only hear me
In the spaces between sounds
You'll miss me in music
If you only hear me in stillness
You'll miss me in thunder
If you only think of me as light
You'll not see me
When I'm weeping

If you only want me radiant
You'll reject me
When I show up in agony
When I am (you) drowning in darkness
I am with you, wherever you go,
whatever you do...

Let yourself commune with me...

Jessica Nathanson
Excerpt from her poem called:
"Message from God"

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo from the Internet

 

Dare To Be Imperfect - Fred LaMotte

A life-coach told me,
"you're perfect right now."
So I went home and tried it,
but found it boring.

Who would be Me
if I didn't keep

[messing] things up
in my own peculiar way?
Blemishes delight me,
define me, jagged edges,
the letters of my true name.
Call me Broken Buddha,
the Half-Awake.
This universe just wouldn't
be the same without
my sins.
I am more priceless uncut,
like a ruby in the mud
that looks like a fallen berry.
What is the sign of progress?
I'm even less
perfect than I was
yesterday.
I dedicate this poem
to you, dear, who discovered
the hot mess of your body
on the kitchen floor
slobbering tears
into the linoleum
with Good Morning
America bleeding out
in the living room.
I honor the unconditional
catastrophe of your hair,
your crow's feet, the
droop of udder destruction,
the spreading warmth
of your wounded
mysterious smile
in the compost of uprooted
plans and scattered
possibilities,
when you finally realize
that no matter
how deeply you fall,
you are caught,
you have plunged
into the hug
that was always
there.

Fred LaMotte

Uradiance

~

Photo from the Internet

 

Courage - Matt Licata

A certain 'death' occurs as part of the ["spiritual"] process;
in the deepening of self-awareness...  There is a fantasy that we
can come out the other side intact, without having to sacrifice
some aspect of ourselves in the fires of transformation.  But it
doesn't really seem to work this way...  There is wisdom within
the reorganization itself that we cannot know if we abandon
[the process] prematurely.

When we engage in any work of depth, we inevitably come up
against a cultural bias toward the light, the upward, and the
brightened dimensions of the path.  We cannot sidestep or bypass
the darkened condition, those parts of the psyche buried and
hidden beneath ordinary awareness. This turning into the dark
can be quite challenging, especially if we identify as a 'spiritual
person' - kind, compassionate, giving, selfless, [loving], grateful,
forgiving, at peace, and not ever caught in the so-called
negative emotions of fear, rage, and depression.....but we must
find the curiosity and courage to engage this dimension.

[In this dimension] we see things that could not be seen from
the held-together state.  The old dream crumbles - the image
through which we'd been seeing ourselves, or any emotionally
significant part of our world - has finished its time here.

The wisdom in the dark is preparing the vessel [us] for the
next illumination.  The invitation is to allow the old to wash
away, and let our perception be reorganized.  New images, new
myths, new lenses must emerge through which we can navigate
a new world. [A new way of being in the world.]  A shift in the
heart is most required, a willingness to befriend ourselves at
levels previously thought impossible.

We must clarify within us what is most wanting and needing 
our attention, awareness, care and love.....even if it feels
unspiritual.  The intelligence in the heart brings forward the
prima materia for us if we slow down and open into the
unknown - and the unknowable...
We must honor the realities of our hearts...

Matt Licata
from - A Healing Space:
Befriending Ourselves in Difficult Times

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Yin/Yang Bowl

 

The Mystery of Death...

We are a mist, a vapor that appears and disappears,
like an aurora borealis - here and gone;
a moment in the sky,
then absorbed into Space.

We are a breath of Spirit,
the Breath of Life Itself,
in-spired at birth,
expired in one long sigh at "death."

We are energy that dances in the wind -

for a time - and then gone.  Gone, gone, gone beyond,
absorbed by the Primordial Womb again.
"Returned" to Source.
Exhaled and inhaled by the Primordial Breath.

"We" go - Life Itself goes back to the Cosmic Womb
again, and again, and again - to the Energy
that suspends all life in Its Embrace...

Energy to Energy
Breath to Breath
Life to Life

One movement in the Dance of Life...

A Mystery...

Mystic Meandering

Sept. 2009

This was written only a few weeks after our old cat,
Yodi Bodhi "died."  

~

Photo - South Pole Aurora Borealis 
from the Internet

 

Love Rises...

 

Love Rises...

Unsought... Unintended...
Surprising me with its soft
dancing vibration in the
hollow of my chest...

Love Rises...

A Mystical Energy....
Unbidden... Uncreated...

Hidden within
this caged Heart...

Love Rises...

Surrounding the wounded heart...
An unexpected presence,
vibrating quietly like a
breeze flutters leaves...

Love Rises...

Revealing Itself...
Emerging from the depths
of The Silence within...
Of Its own accord,
In Its own time,
In Its own way...

When I'm not looking...

Love Rises...

Gently brushing my Heart open,
moving me to tears...

The Mystery of Love:

Love Rises...

From within...

No matter how dark
our life circumstances;
how broken society is...

Love Rises...

Mystic Meandering
July 16, 2022

~

Photo taken by my husband on 
the Full Moon July 2022

A Vessel For Blessing - John O'Donohue

May morning be astir withe the harvest of night;
Your mind quickening to the eros of a new question,
Your eyes seduced by some unintended glimpse
That cut right through the surface to Source.

May this be a morning of innocent beginning,
When the gift within you slips clear
Of the sticky web of the personal
With its hurt and its hauntings,
And fixed fortress corners.

A morning when you become a pure vessel
For what wants to ascend from Silence.

May your imagination know
The grace of perfect danger,

To reach beyond imitation,
and the wheel of repetition,

Deep into the call of all
The unfinished and unsolved

Until the veil of the unknown yields
And something original begins
To stir toward your senses
And grow stronger in your heart

In order to come to birth
In a clean line of form,
That claims from time
A rhythm not yet heard,
That calls space to
A different shape.

May it be its own force field
And dwell uniquely
Between the heart and the light

To surprise the hungry eye
By how deftly it fits
About its secret loss.

John O'Donohue
From - To Bless The Space Between Us
Original title: "Blessing for Artists at the Start of the Day"

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Commentary by Brittany Deninger:

One of the things that O'Donohue's exquisite blessings suggest is that blessing doesn't erase difficulty, but rather reaches deeper.  [Blessing] he says, is not the invention of what is not there, nor the glaze-eyed belief that the innocent energy of goodwill can alter what is destructive.  Blessing.....issues from the confident depth of the hidden self, and its vision and force can transform what is deadlocked, numbed, and inevitable.  When you bless someone, you literally call the force of their infinite self into action.

The hope of a blessing is that we reach for language that is large enough to hold and welcome the full range of human experience. ...our hardships are an inevitable part of the story.  Our difficult experiences are our teachers that mark us and make us. ...the words that pass between us have potential to invite and to invoke.  Our words can clear a path for the depth of another soul to emerge.  The central gesture of a blessing is presence calling to presence.

Brittany Deninger
Asst. Instructor in Theology and Culture
Excerpt from an essay entitled: "The Art of Blessing", posted in the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology Website

 

The Current of the Breath - Kathleen Knipp

.....set aside our habitual way of being,
befriend our woundedness, our fragility -
personally and collectively.

Be in the place of utter receptivity, listening to the sound of
our own Heart.  Feel its pulsation, that's not uniquely your own -
not just the physical beating.  The unique heartbeat is just an
expression of the pulsation of Aliveness that just is - infinitely
recreating Itself in each moment.  Sense the breath [the rhythm
of the breath], absorbed in the sensation of the cycle of breath.
It nourishes, it revitalizes, it sustains the body, and it disappears.

Breath washes through the stuck and sticky places, soothing
the places that hurt, whether physical, emotional, or psychological,
softening resistance, resolving tension.

Receive breath as a soothing balm - the current of breath -
flowing into a vast ocean of pure Awareness - beyond words,
beyond understanding.

The breath animating this form, this body
is infinite and finite...

Excerpt from a Yoga Nidra Meditation
The Gift of Breath
by Kathleen Knipp

You might also like this wonderful Yoga Nidra Meditation
called Deep Rest, especially in these chaotic times.
  It's one of my favorites.

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Cosmic Symphony...

The Cosmos plays a continuous symphony of Silence
that only Inner Stillness can hear...
We have forgotten the music of the
Celestial Songs
that sound the stellar light language of 
Love ~

Our remembrance lies hidden deep in
the cave of the Heart - untouched...
The unspoken language of the Heart
longs to be opened - awakened...
The dormant vibration calls to us,
to resonate with the tones of Creation
in the Space of Silence ~

Listen deeply and hear the
Celestial Symphony
within the Stillness
of the Heart ~

Follow the cosmic waves,
the pulsing sound of Life,
into the Vastness 
of Being ~

Find your own resonance
with The Rhythm
in your Heart ~

~ and know ~

We are all a tone of Love
playing our uniqueness in the
Chord of Life,
reverberating with the
Sound of Source ~

Mystic Meandering
August 1, 2001

~

Photo from the James Webb Telescope

 

The Song of the Stars - Radiance Sutra

Bathe deeply in that ocean of sound
which is even now vibrating within you,
resonating softly,

permeating the space of the heart.
The ear that is tuned by rapt listening
learns to hear the song of creation.
First like a hand bell,
then subtler still as a stringed instrument,
eventually the buzz of a bee.
Entering this current of sound, the Listening One
forgets the external world, and becomes
absorbed into internal sound,
and then absorbed into vastness
like the song of the stars as they shine.

The Radiance Sutra part XV

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

That's how you came here,
like a star without a name...

Rumi

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Renewal - D.H. Lawrence & Alan Watts

What we lack is a cosmic life...

The rhythm of the cosmos is something we cannot get away
from without impoverishing our lives.  We must get back into
relation, vivid and nourishing relation to the cosmos and the
universe.  For the truth is, we perish for lack of fulfillment of
our greater needs, we are cut off from the great source of our
inward nourishment and renewal, sources which flow eternally
in the universe...

D.H. Lawrence

~

We have been brought up to identify ourselves with just the ego,
and so we ignore and are unaware of the vast, vast extent of our
Being.  People who by various methods become fully aware of
their cosmic Consciousness.....discover that the real deep, deep
Self - that which you really are [your Essence], fundamentally
and forever - is the whole of your Being.

You have to get away from all the madness for a while because
we become insane, we get confused with our roles.  Man is not 
his role.  Man is deeper than that.  So, go into the forest or
someplace alone in nature, all by yourself, and find our who 
you really are!  And then you no longer confuse yourself with
your particular temporary body, [or role] but identify with the
entire process of nature and the whole cosmos...

Alan Watts

with thanks to No Mind's Land for the Alan Watts quotes.

~

Photo Art - Mystic Meandering
"Windows into Infinity Mandala"
2013

 

Death and Rebirth - Matt Licata

In each moment the sacred process of death and rebirth
is playing out within us.  With each breath something
in us is dying - some aspect of who we think we are -
or the spiritual path that once brought us meaning...

In the face of this dissolution, the question isn't so 
much how we can most quickly facilitate rebirth, but
to what degree we will participate [consciously] in the
death when it appears.  Psychological death, or
spiritual death, is not just a preliminary process in
which we engage so that we can put it behind us and
get on to birth.  It is a valid, holy unfolding with its
own intelligence...  [It is] a catalyst, and vessel of
insight, perspective, and revelation...

It is natural to resist this falling apart and do what we
can to put it all back together.  But it is only from the
womb of death - attuned consciously - that rebirth can
emerge.

Allow the death time to unfold, to share its poetry and
fragrance...   Death is not merely a phase to get through.
In those periods in our lives, when things are being
rearranged and reorganized inside and around us, we
can attune to what is truly being asked of us...  Listen
to the wisdom in death and what it has to teach us about
love...  We allow the dissolution so that new forms can
emerge and provide the transformation for which we
most deeply long.

Matt Licata
from - A Healing Space:
Befriending Ourselves in Difficult Times

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Waiting - Leza Lowitz

Art - Barbara Stone

You keep waiting for something to happen,
the thing that lifts you out of yourself,

catapults you into doing all the things you've out off,
the great things you're meant to do in your life,

but somehow you never quite get to.
You keep waiting for the planets to shift

the new moon to bring news,
the universe to align, something to give.

Meanwhile, the pile of papers, the laundry the dishes, the job -
it all stacks up while you keep hoping

for some miracle to blast down upon you,
scattering the piles to the winds.

Sometimes you lie in bed, terrified of your life.
Sometimes you laugh at the privilege of waking.

But all the while, life goes on in its messy way.
And then you turn forty. Or fifty.  Of sixty... [or 70] :)

and some part of you realizes you are not alone
and you find signs of this in the animal kingdom -

when a snake sheds its skin its eyes glaze over,

it slinks under a rock, not wanting to be touched,

and when a caterpillar turns to butterfly
if the pupa is brushed, it will die -

and when the bird taps its beak hungrily against the egg
it's because the thing is too small, too small,

and it needs to break out.

And midlife walks you into that wisdom

that is what transformation looks like -

the mess of it, the tapping at the walls of your life,

the yearning and writhing and pushing,

until one day, one day

you emerge from the wreck
embracing both the immense dawn

and the dusk of the body,
glistening, beautiful

just as you are.

Leza Lowitz

~

Many people die with their music still in them.
Too often it is because they are always getting
ready to live.  Before they know it, time runs out...

Oliver Wendell Holmes

 

Break Into Freedom - David Whyte

To remove ourselves entirely and absolutely, abruptly and
at times uncompromisingly is often the real and radically
courageous break for freedom.

Unsticking ourselves from the mythical Tar Baby, seemingly
 set up, just for us, right in the middle of our path, we start
the process of losing our sense of falsity, of ridding ourselves
of illusions, of letting go of our self-manufactured enemies,
and even our false friends, and most especially the false 
sense of self we have manufactured to live with them.  We
make ourselves available for the simple seeing of ourselves
and our world more elementally and therefore more clearly
again.  We withdraw, not to disappear, but to find another
ground from which to see; a solid ground from which to step,
and from which to speak again, in a different way, a clear,
rested, embodied voice we begin to remember as our own.

David Whyte
Excerpt from an essay - "Withdrawal"

~

Inside this new love, die...
Your way begins on the other side.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone born into color.
Do it now...

Rumi

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Divine Discontent - a meandering...

Something is arising in me - calling to me through the veils
of "spirituality" - that cannot be ignored...  The Call of the
Soul - the Passion of the Soul...  The call to a deeper
authenticity...

It's as if my Being, my Soul, is trying to free Itself from its
confines and constraints - A Divine Discontent.  There's a
sense of needing to break out of those limiting constraints,
to break out of a "role", a "spiritual identity", a "spiritual"
self-image that has kept me dancing to a tune that I now feel
out of sync with - out of sync with my Soul; needing to
find my own unique rhythm with life.

"Spirituality" has, in ways that I don't fully understand,
 suffocated my authentic expression of "The Mystery." 
And now I need to emancipate myself and live that
unique expression.  I must discover my own way, and
navigate my unique path.  It cannot be prescribed by others;
conforming to someone else's maps of Reality, but 
emancipating the true expression of the Soul, whatever
that may look like; listening to the authentic Voice within.

As I write these words, I feel myself settling back into
myself again - my Natural self - not an abstract 
"spiritualized" Self - hiding behind the
veils of "spirituality."

So what is my Soul calling me to?
What is my "unique path" - my unique expression?
What is the Fire in my Soul?

They are yet to be discovered...

But there is a kind of Alchemical transformation
arising within...  I feel its Fire...

_/\_

Mystic Meandering

July 1, 2022

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering