"Stilling" - Kathleen Knipp

Consider what would feel "stilling", calming, settling.
Many traditions teach "be still" and that stillness can be a
stilling of the body.  Finding a position in which the body
can remain still has the effect of stilling the mind to some
extent. Stilling has an effect on the body as well as the mental
and emotional faculties.  Just as emotions have an effect on
the physical body they can influence the experience of 
emotions and thoughts.  So becoming still is happening on
multiple levels simultaneously. As the process of stilling
ceases, you become more aware of the breath that's always
happening...

As we become more still, the more subtle aspects of our Being
are more evident.  In stillness we have a greater capacity to open
to listening, to pure listening, not with the ears, or listening for
something, or to something.  Just listening - availability.

In stilling the body and stilling the mind we become more
present to that which is - what's here - which can manifest in
an infinite variety of ways.  What's here is ever changing, ever
renewing.

Allowing the body to be as it is gives the emotions and thoughts
the freedom to move and change.

As we become more still, that which is essential becomes
more apparent, that which is most important, the sense of a
"greater purpose", the "feeling" of being drawn/called toward
that which may be beyond our comprehension, beyond explanation,
beyond words.  Yet in the stillness it is felt as a bodily experience.
Yield to it, trust, knowing that it takes care of itself.  Just fall into
the stream, as the flow of life flows through us.

As we become still there may be a sense of ease, softening,
equanimity.  Meet what arises with an attitude of openness and
curiosity.  It is constantly changing and ever evolving.  Sensing
beyond the habits of the mind and surface turbulence there is
great stillness, unfathomable stillness...

Stillness that just is....

Kathleen Knipp
excerpts from a Yoga Nidra Meditation

original title - "be still"

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Inner Listening - Danna Faulds

I'm trying to listen
at the level of the soul,
to hear the liquid gold
that flows in from Source,
to receive the mystery
with all my inner senses.

I can't tell you how I
do this exactly.  It's a
matter of attuning and
also choosing to receive.
It isn't so much a practice
as a way of life --
opting for quiet so I don't
miss the gifts that come
from who knows where
to keep me focused on
the truth.  I'm not sure why
inner listening means so
much to me, but I think
it's why I'm here.  Today,
what the universe has to
say to me is this: There is
only one consciousness
shining through the whole.
Open to it.  Breathe it in.
Receive it fully.  By being
yourself without shame
or excuses, you add your
small puzzle piece to the
infinite frame of the unknown.

Danna Faulds

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Ceaselessly Being Written - Wendell Berry

We arrive here in this world having forgotten where we came from,
though something of a memory seems to remain: a whisper, a
distant shine like that of a house window at night on the far side
of the valley, perhaps what some have called "the inner light," to
guide us when finally we have been jolted awake.  And so we 
don't come from nothing.  But once here we don't know where we
are.  At first I learned the world as a book written, completed the
day before my birth, not to be changed by another pen stroke. 
And then I saw that some I know were departing from it, never
to return, and new strangers were arriving.  The newcomers, if
they stayed, would learn more of less of where they were.  And
then, in time, they too would depart, taking with them the sum
of all they had learned, leaving behind them maybe a few who
would remember them, and then the rememberers too would go 
and be gone.  I see in this order of things, nothing to complain
about.  I have been here long enough to watch the whole turn of 
the wheel.  I see that we are passing through this world like a
river of water flowing through a river of earth.  A far cry from a
written book, the world - to extend my desperate metaphor - is
a book ceaselessly being written, and not in a human language.
This too has not been submitted to our judgment, and it is not
for us to regret.  To give thanks seems truly to be the right
response, for as we come and go we learn something of love,
the gift and the giving of it, if we accept it...

That is the heart speaking in the heart's language, and out of
a mystery so vast that order and chance may be reconciled
within it.  Because, for all we surely know, we come into our
times and places as much at random as leaves falling...

Wendell Berry

from How it Went - Thirteen more stories of
the Port William membership

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo -Mystic Meandering

 

The Language of Invisible Vibrations - Hazrat Inayat Khan

Color and sound are not only the language in which one
communicates with the life without, but also the language in
which one communicates with the life within.  One might ask
how it is done.  We can see the answer in certain scientific
experiments.  Special plates are made, and by speaking near
such a plate marks are made upon the plate with sound and
vibrations.  Those marks make either harmonious or in-
harmonious forms.  If that is true, then every person, from
 morning till evening, is making invisible forms in space by
what he says. He is creating invisible vibrations around him
 and so he is  producing an atmosphere.  Therefore it is that
 one person who may come into the house, and before he speaks
you are tired of him, you wish to get rid of him.  Before he
 has said or done anything you are finished with him, you would
 like him to go away, for in his atmosphere he is creating a sound;
 a sound is going on which is disagreeable.  There is another person
 with whom you feel sympathy, to whom you feel drawn, whose
friendship you value, whose presence you long for; harmony
is continually created through him.  That is sound too.

If that is true then it is not only the external signs, but also the
inner condition which is audible and visible.  Though not visible
to the eyes and not audible to the ears, yet it is audible and
visible in the soul.  We say: "I feel his vibrations.  I feel the person's
presence.  I feel sympathy, or antipathy towards that person."
There is a feeling, and a person creates a feeling without having
said anything or done anything.  What you are speaks louder than
what you say.  "It is life itself which has its tone, its color, its vibration.
It speaks aloud."

Hazrat Inayat Khan
Vol. 2, The Mysticism of Sound and Music
7. The Spiritual Significance of Color and Sound

with thanks to Whiskey River

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Unknown Wanderer - Ed Crowley

I'm the Unknown Wanderer.
Understand that I speak not 
the language of your mind.

My speech is completely Silent.
It's compassionate and kind

I speak the silent alphabet,
that only talks Heart to Heart.
It immediately quells all fears

If you cannot hear it,
then go ahead and
shut the gates of both
your eyes and ears.

Go within, beyond mind,
far deeper, to the stillness
of the Silence within.

Listen closely and you
will hear the melodies
of Heart to Heart music
within the tranquil stillness,
where truth has always been.

There's only one sound
drowning out all others.
It's the transcendent,
primordial sound of OM.

It's echoing within the
innermost chambers
of your Soul.  I'll be ringing
the sacred inner temple bell,
I'll be calling you back Home.

It's the ecstatic bliss
of the Beloved One,
singing It's loving presence,
Intimately to your Essence.

Now open all your eyes,
the inner and outer ones,
You'll finally see the Reality
of the splendor of Existence.

With an empty mind and
a pure Heart, all of the 
world's miracles abound.

Feel the reverberating,
crescendo culminating.

You'll [be] Consciously
Awake, to Realize, that
It is Love that is indeed
Creation's primordial sound.

Ed Crowley

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Sacred - Ostaseski

The Sacred makes surprise appearances,,,

To know the Sacred is not to see new things,
but rather to see things in a new way...

The Sacred is not separate or different from all
things: It is hidden in all things.
The Sacred has always existed.
It is the nature of reality.
We don't always perceive or distinguish
the Sacred.

We see in a conditioned way,
staying on the surface of life.
When we pay attention, however, we realize
that the Sacred reveals itself continuously - yet
is unnamable and cannot be fully described.
Ordinary people can and do regularly experience
the Sacred in myriad ways and forms.
Silence is a natural response to the presence of the Sacred
no matter when it appears.  We become aware of the 
majesty in the ordinary and the depth of the Sacred
that is always around us and within us...

Frank Ostaseski

From: The Five Invitations

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

"The Companion" - a meandering...

"The Companion" is unidentifiable, nameless,
identity-less - and - indwells us.
"The Companion" is a felt sense of Presence within;
beyond all concepts of "God", religion, deity, or
enlightenment...

"The Companion cannot be reduced to a name, or
label - it's beyond that...
You can't wrap it, or trap it, in a conceptual framework.
It's beyond concept...

"The Companion" is a felt resonance...
that helps align us with the internal frequency of
our Essence, our Being, our Soul -
even when we don't recognize it.

It's what attunes us to the Essence of our Being -
inexplicably...

"The Companion" is always within us;
noticed as an inner stillness
when we pay attention to it.
It's been there all along - comforting.

We just haven't been aware...

~

Companion from the Unseen
Mysterious Friend of the Heart
You comfort me, and sustain me
and free me from my darkest night.

Mystic Meandering

Sept. 28, 2022

Written after a conversation with my husband
about something we were both experiencing back
in Sept - and we called it "The Companion" to give
a sense of what if feels like within - but which is
beyond even that description...

~

Photo - Northern Lights from a Calendar