Shadowy Beliefs - Alan Watts

Real courage is possible only through seeing.
It's not possible through belief in the divine self, 
which we all share in common, as if that were
something you could believe in.  This is only to
be discovered through not hanging on to anything,
not having any armor, not having any beliefs, not
having any kind of gimmick with which to try to
hold the weaving of smoke in position. You don't
need it.  If you really are the basis of the world,
you don't need a belief that that is so.

Alan Watts

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Receptivity - Rick Rubin

Be receptive to the Source, whatever that mysterious force
may be.  Listen, Meditate, Pay attention...
Take seriously receiving suggestions from friends and
others that you may be immediately inclined to reject.
It may be the Universe trying to bring an important
[message] into your awareness.

In order to make room in your life and consciousness
for incoming messages, you need to be time efficient.
Not rushed, you can't rush from appointment to appointment,
from project to project.  You need to slow down.
You need to protect your interior stability.
Avoid arguments.  Avoid over-committing.
Avoid people who are out of balance and inclined to waste
their time and yours.  Focus on projects that 
multiply your energy.

Rick Rubin

Music Producer

with thanks to Heron Dance

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Cosmic Spirit Lifts Us - Hermann Hesse

As every flower fades and as all youth
Departs, so life at every stage,
So every virtue, so our grasp of truth,
Blooms in its day and may not last forever.
Since life may summon us at every age
Be ready, heart, for parting, new endeavor,
Be ready bravely and without remorse
To find new light that old ties cannot give.
In all beginnings dwells a magic force
For guarding us and helping us to live.

Serenely let us move to distant places
And let no sentiments of home detain us.
The Cosmic Spirit seeks not to restrain us
But lifts us stage by stage to wider spaces.
If we accept a home of our own making,
Familiar habit makes for indolence.
We must prepare for parting and leave-taking
Or else remain the slaves of permanence.

Even the hour of our death may send
Us speeding on to fresh and newer spaces,
And life may summon us to newer races.
So be it, heart: bid farewell without end.

Hermann Hesse
translation by Richard and Clare Winston

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Inner Life - John O'Donohue

The visible world is only the shoreline of the magnificent
ocean of the invisible.  The invisible is not empty, but is
textured and tense with presences [energies].  These
presences cannot be named; they can only be sensed, not seen.

When you name a dimension of your experience, one of your
qualities or difficulties...you give it an identity.  It then responds
to you according to the tone of its name... 

The wildness of the invisible world is nameless.  It has no name.
A first step towards reawakening respect for your inner life
may be to become aware of the private collage of dead names
you have for your inner life.  Often the experiences of
wilderness can return us to the nameless wildness within.  
Sometimes, go away to a wild place of your own. Leave
your name and the grid of intentions and projects and images
which mark you out as citizen Z.  Leave it all and let yourself
just slip back into the rhythms of your intimate wildness.[rhythm]
You will be surprised at the lost terrains, wells, and mountains
that you will rediscover,  territories which have been buried
under well-meant but dead names.  To go beyond confinement
is to rediscover yourself.

John O'Donohue
from Eternal Echoes

~

Photo taken by my brother
Plum Cove Gloucester MA

 

Embrace the Totality of Experience - Kathleen Knipp

It is possible to sink beneath the play of duality
and feel and know the totality in which all of this
play is happening, in whatever drama happens to be
unfolding in your life.  It doesn't diminish the impact
of difficult experience - but creates a bigger picture...

The experience of True Nature is somatic, [a felt experience]
through the sensations in the body; a fluidity of all elements
[sensations, feelings, etc.] that don't contradict each other,
but happen simultaneously, like lightness and density, etc.

Everything is formed out of the element of space and happens
within the element of space.  The body is simply compressed
space.  The space around it, and within it is the same space -
wide open spaciousness.  The spaciousness that just is
even in the presence of solidity of form - being 
simultaneously wide open spaciousness - and - the 
solidification of form.

To the mind it seems contradictory.  In the realm of sensing,
it can be quite apparent.  For is emptiness, emptiness is form
may seem esoteric - yet what is the experience? 
Simultaneously dense - and - wide open; feeling weighted
and light;  feeling still and moving.  All of the apparent
contradictions drop away in the sensory realm.

The totality contains everything, all expressions of the one -
unrecognized:  This that is before time, before words, 
before division.  It's not either/or, it's both/and.

Remembering our infiniteness in the face of finiteness.
Experiencing totality simultaneously,
The unique being that is me - remembering.

Kathleen Knipp
Excerpt from a Yoga Nidra Meditation

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Pathless Pilgrim - a meandering...

I am a "pathless pilgrim" - and yet there is focus...
I now know I am not "called" to any particular 
"spiritual path", although I have meandered down many
over the course of my life.  I am no longer "seeking"
anything "out there" - not "God", nor even "enlightenment."
  And still, there is a sense of a "pilgrimage" of sorts; an
exploration of the Inner Landscape of "The Mystery."
Plumbing the depths of the mystery of Being within
and experiencing how that unfolds within me -
or better, how it unfolds me...

It has become a way of life actually, a continuous unfoldment,
an ongoing "returning" to the core of my Being; that silent,
still core of Being within, from which my life arises and
emerges as "me."

For what is "God" but that Eternal Essence within;
the Eternal OM of Existence - the Infinite Sound of Being;
the Emptiness that isn't empty; the Silence that isn't silent;
the Stillness that isn't still, but pulsates with The Rhythm of
Life, the Primal Energy that flows within us and through
Existence.  It is the genderless spaciousness of Primordial
Energy where there is no separation or union, just the 
Source of Being...

Mystic Meandering
Feb, 8, 2014
June 2023 - ongoing & unfolding

~

Photo from the Internet

 

Wandering Without a Trail...

Wandering without a trail,
my focus on finding The Truth
is realized as a self-made illusion.

Not needing to find yet another belief system;
no longer a need for a specific path
cut by others; not the illusion of 
future "enlightenment" through practices,
disciplines, or self-control...

Finding comfort in loosening the
constraints of  the "spiritual cocoon"
that I wrapped myself in for so long;
even the mantel of meditation
has become too heavy and is unraveling -
becoming frayed - like an old prayer shawl.

Reborn from the Chrysalis of my comforting beliefs,
finding freedom in Just BEing ME,
without suffocating concepts of dogma or doctrine,
or a defined "spiritual image"; instead, 
rediscovering myself...

Breaking free from the "spiritual" constructs;
the scaffolding of beliefs and ideas about
"spirituality" that propped "me" up;
caught in spiritual ideals and identities,
unable to fly...

Freed now from the cage of my own making
I can breathe, I can LIVE
intuitively, being moved from within,
listening for what calls to me...
discovering freedom in being open to where life goes,
as I wander without a trail...

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 18, 2019

~

Photo - taken by my father 1952/53

~

"our grasp of truth.....may not last forever.

Hermann Hesse

 

The Rhythm behind the rhythm...

I've heard a deeper rhythm...
Composed of cello, viola and oboe, I think.
I heard it when I was in the kitchen
cooking dinner one night,
a few years ago,
and every other night after that,
for several weeks,
until it stopped...
when the noise of my life
became too loud - again,
and the weight of my weary heart
drowned it out...

There was no music playing on the stereo,
just the sound of the meal cooking,
and the sounds of daily living
outside the window:
children playing,
dogs barking,
lawn mowers,
power saws,
and birds -
chirping...

Underneath it all was a Rhythm
so melodious I could even hum it;
forgotten now...

I just listened, and hummed, with wonder...
Where was this coming from -
this music -
this slow, deep melodic rhythm,
drawing me into itself...

I didn't even have to try to listen,
it was just there

soft - in the distance,
barely audible,
as if in another room,
through another door,
maybe even in another realm;
a cosmic rhythm...

I knew then, somehow, that my own life rhythm
was hidden in this deeper Rhythm...

But I no longer hear it now;
drowned out by the 
noise of living
other people's 
rhythms -
and the endless
rhythms
of daily
existence.

But I know it is there -
playing somewhere.
I listen for it -
this deeper Rhythm,
that underlies
all other rhythms...

The Rhythm behind the rhythm...

Mystic Meandering
Nov, 5, 2015

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Rhythm of Sadness...

A deep rhythm of sadness 
arises from my heart...
unexpectedly,
spontaneously...

It rises even though
I "know"
that before thought and feeling
"I" am Eternal Beingness...

The rhythm of sadness
is not assuaged
with the knowledge of
that "I am That"...

It will not be held back, suffocated, 
repressed by sand bags of knowledge of
"the teachings,"
from the caverns of the mind...

It matters not to
"The Eternal"
that sadness and grief
arise in this mechanism called
"me",

like the tides of the ocean
rising and falling
in a darkened harbor;
felt not seen...

It is held in the embrace of "The Eternal"
breathing me...

It just is - sadness,
rising and falling
through me...

I follow the rhythm of sadness
breathing into the Heart
where it meets
The Rhythm
of
"The Eternal"

and slowly
becomes
rivulets
of energy;
just energy,
decreasing in
intensity.

Only to rise again
on the next tide...

Mystic Meandering
Feb 3,2021

~

Sadness is not something you need to fix, cure or
transform.  It need not be "healed", but held.  You need
not shift the sadness into some "higher" state or apply
teachings so that it will yield into something else.  For
it is complete and pure on its own.

With the fire of awareness and the ally of your breath,
touch your heart...
Go on a journey into the core of the feeling, the sensation,
the images, and the raw, shaky life that is longing to be held.
And listen.

It is by way of this journey that sadness will be revealed to be
what it is, a bridge into the universal heart, a messenger
of power, mercy, and fierce compassion...

Matt Licata

 

The Soul's Rhythm - John O'Donohue

We should not force ourselves to change by hammering our
lives into any predetermined shape.  We do not need to operate
according to the idea of a predetermined program or plan for
our lives.  Rather, we need to practice a new art of attention
to our inner rhythm of our days and lives.  This attention 
brings a new awareness of our own human and divine presence.

It is far more creative to work with the idea of mindfulness than
with the idea of will.  Too often people try to change their lives
by using the will as a kind of hammer to beat their life into 
proper shape. The intellect identifies the goal of the program,
and the will accordingly forces the life into shape.  This way of
approaching the sacredness of one's own presence is externalistic
and  violent.  It brings you falsely outside of your own self and
you can spend years lost in the wilderness of your own mechanical,
spiritual programs.  You can perish in a famine of your own
making.

If you work with a different rhythm, you will come easily and 
naturally home to your self. Your soul knows the geography of
your destiny.  Your soul alone has a map of your future, therefore 
you can trust this indirect, oblique side of your self.  If you do,
it will take you where you need to go, but more importantly, it
will teach you a kindness of rhythm in your journey.  There are no
general principles for this art of being.  Yet the signature of this
unique journey is inscribed deeply in each soul. If you attend to
your self and seek to come into your own presence, you will find
exactly the right rhythm for you life. The senses are generous
pathways which can bring you home.

John O'Donohue
from Anam Cara

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Where you belong should always be worthy of your dignity.
You should belong first in your own interiority.  If you belong,
and if you are in rhythm with yourself and connected to that
deep, unique source within, then you will never be vulnerable
when you are outside belonging is qualified, relativised, or 
taken away.  You will be able to stand.....on the ground of
your soul where you are not tenant, where you are at home.

John O'Donohue
from Anam Cara

~

Art - Mystic Meandering
Craypas oils done with fingers

2012

 

Inner Rhythms - a meandering...

I've been trying to find my "Inner Rhythms" again; the Inner
Rhythm of Being, of the Soul, and how that wants to move
in and through me.  I receive postings from  Nature Artist
and Writer, Rod MacIver, from his website, Heron Dance.
He has spent a lot of time alone in nature, getting in touch
with his Inner Rhythm.  He reflects:

"A balanced life is based on its own rhythm.  If you don't set
your own rhythm, and have the discipline to follow it, your
life will move at the speed of the culture around [you], which
moves too fast.  The space we make for quiet time affects our
thought patterns and, in turn, the quality of our lives."  And, he
asks:  "To what extent is the rhythm of your life a result of....
adapting.....to the flow that surrounds [you]."  Or, I would
even say, to the people around you.  Have we entrained to the
people around us - living their rhythm?  I know I have...

I felt a resonance with his words, knowing that I needed to find
that sense of the deeper Inner Rhythm again, not just my own
personal daily rhythm with life, but the Flow with the Inner
Rhythm of my Being; the undercurrent flow of Life within -
from which all movement arises.

The only way I know to do this is to turn within to The Silence 
where The Rhythm of the Inner Being is felt - the Rhythm of
Silence ItSelf.  Being in The Sacred Silence is what brings me
joy, and a felt sense of Presence.  Finding that Inner Rhythm,
The Silence of Being, is "Divine Communion."  This, for me,
is the True Rhythm, the Rhythm of Pure Being ItSelf - the deep
undercurrent of Life that animates all life - which is The
Silence.  This is what calls to me - over and over again.

But the hypnosis of the world keeps me/us magnetized to the
ways of the world and pulls me/us out of this deeper way of
living and knowing.  We are conditioned to be drawn to the
external dramas of the world, to chew on them, teethe on them...
It's the pablum of the matrix we live in.  But no one trains us
to turn within to the Quiet Inner Presence of Silence.  And so
we follow the rhythm of the world (the "civilized", mechanized,
political, chaotic world), with its hypnosis of separation from
our Inner Rhythm, instead of turning inward to the awareness
of the Inner Rhythm; to that interior space of the "Great Mystery"
 that pulsates Its Rhythm within us...

I'm curious, before your innocent Heart was hypnotized by the
rhythms of the world, what did you want deep in your Heart,
not what you wanted to be when you grew up, but what did
you really long for?  What called to you?  Do you remember?
Do you know now?

Mystic Meandering
Sept. 6, 2015

~

Photo - Mandala Art
2013

 

Your Inner World - Rod MacIver

The Ocean within you is the universal reality or essence 
that dwells withing all beings...  Discovering this ocean is
vitally important for the discovery of balance because it 
provides a place of peace for you to return home to
despite all the chaos of the day.

Joel and Michelle Levy
Living in Balance

~

A friendship with your quiet interior allows you to better
understand the patterns of your life.  A special power comes
from diving deep into that world and accessing the wisdom it
contains.  It is a place of wisdom and peace, but our relationship
with it requires nurturing.

Your inner world guides you without you knowing it.  Our
thought patterns determine the quality of our lives.  The question
is, how can we gain access to the potentials of "knowledge" [knowing]
contained in the depth of us, how can we achieve increased capacities
of direct intuition [experience] and enlarged awareness...

A life journey, a creative journey, grows out of the seed of one.s song.

How would you describe the current of energy, the life force inside
you...?  Our most important relationship is our relationship with our
 self, with our interior world.  What do you do to nurture that
 relationship?  How you nurture that relationship will determine the
 quality of your life.

Rod MacIver
Heron Dance

~

What we call fate does not come to us from outside; it goes forth
from within us.

Rainer Maria Rilke

With thanks to Heron Dance

~

Photo from the Internet

 

The innermost self - Hermann Hesse

I seek to reach the innermost part of myself...

One thing no longer existed for him, the wish to have teachers
and to listen to teachings.

He asked himself - "But what is this, what you have sought to
learn from teachings and from teachers, and what they, who 
have taught you much, were still unable to teach you?"  And
he found: "It was the self, the purpose and essence of which
I sought to learn.  It was the self I wanted to free myself from,
which I sought to overcome.  But I was not able to overcome
it, could only deceive it, could only flee from it, only hide from
it.

No thing in this world has kept my thoughts thus busy, as this
my very own self, this mystery of one being one and being
separated...  And there is nothing I know less about... I know
nothing about myself!  I searched Atman, I searched Brahman,
I was willing to dissect myself and pull off all of its layers, to
find the core of all peels in its unknown interior, the Atman, life
the divine part, the ultimate part.  But I have lost myself in the
process.  I do not want to kill and dissect myself any longer, to
find a secret behind the ruins.

I want to get to know myself, the secret of Sidartha.

[The beauty of this world] was no longer the veil of Maya, was
no longer a pointless coincidental diversity of mere appearance,
despicable to the deeply thinking Brahman, who scorns diversity
who seeks unity, but the beauty was also in Sidartha, the singular
and the divine lived hidden - the purpose and the essential
properties were not somewhere behind the things, they were in 
them, in everything...

From: Sidartha
Herman Hesse

~

I do not believe in "spiritual paths."
The purpose of spiritual paths is to
enmesh you in the world of knowledge,
while Reality resides prior to it.

All spiritual paths lead to unreality,
Discard all paths...

Nisargadatta Maharaj

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering