Prayer is Listening - Soren Kierkegaard

As my prayer became more attentive and inward
I had less and less to say.
I finally became completely silent.
I started to listen

- which is even further removed from speaking.

I first thought that praying entailed speaking.
I then learnt that praying is hearing,

not merely being silent.

This is how it is.
To pray does not mean to listen to oneself speaking,
Prayer involves becoming silent,
And being silent,
And waiting until "God" [The Deep Silence] is heard.

 Soren Kierkegaard

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Vortex Art - Mystic Meandering
2011

 

"Inner Opening" - Ivan Granger

Most of us spend our entire lives avoiding an inner opening.
It is that quiet itch at the back of awareness that makes us
squirm and turn away.  And when it really presses on us,
it can arouse terror, as if we were facing down death.

...to approach it is to face death.  It is the death of our old
worldview, the death of patterned awareness, the death of
our limited notion of who we are.  All we thought ourselves
 to be stops - and so it is a sort of death.  To feel that grace
approaching , to welcome it, requires a wild sort of courage.

It requires courage and, yes, surrender.  We have this idea
that spiritual opening is a terrible effort.  No.  That unfolding
wants to occur within us.  The only effort is to let go of our
endless strategies to halt the process.  We all feel it, a gentle
prodding to let the heart open, to know ourselves truly, to be
present and radiate ourselves into the world.

That opening is insistent, trying to happen within us.  Call it
grace, if you like.  The question is before us: Do we
courageously accept the invitation?

For those of us who live in modern urban society, think how
hard it is to stop the ticking of the clock.  From an early age
we internalize the sense of time and progress and deadlines.
Yet, in doing so, we forget that these are all just concepts,
just one way to understand the unfolding of being and
experience.  That sense of time is a powerful tool for doing
and accomplishment, but it isn't inherently real.  It doesn't
have much to do with who or what we are.  There is a flow
of days and months, but they are the surface current of a
much deeper timelessness.

It is fascinating how we use the hyperactivity of thought to
define the world.  The other thing about thought: it creates time.
When thought settles down, we discover timelessness. ...the
mind comes to rest, not in the head, but in the heart.

Having come to rest, we remember.  It is not through intellection
but through stillness that we remember.  Remember.  Re-member.
To remember is to finally see how the apparent separation of
reality actually fits together in a single wholeness.  Discursive
thought can only ever examine pieces of the whole.  To re-member
is to have the full vision of Wholeness, as things actually are.
But this vision is found in timelessness and stillness, through the
quiet mind unfiltered.

Ivan Granger
Poetry Chaikhana

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Just Walk It - a meandering...

Some people's nature is made for Silence and Solitude,
others - not...

I crave it...

that is - my body and soul crave it...

I am often overwhelmed by the stimulation
of daily living, being pulled by the externals,
needing to turn to the Inner Life...

There are many ways of accessing our "Inner Being"/Essence,
or "The Divine", or "Source" - however one calls it;
through being out in nature, thru Dance, or writing Poetry,
in Art, or Music, and Meditation; however we are naturally
inclined.  It's an individual thing and "The Divine"/Source/Life
meets us where we are, *as* we are...

There are no "shoulds" or "have to's" in intimacy with
"The Inner Silence."
You don't have to regurgitate what you have been taught
was the "truth"; what you are conditioned to *believe*
as an established way of "believing" - a dogma...

Maybe we're just a dramatization/expression of
"Consciousness", or "The Source", or "The Ineffable";
Unique waves on the Ocean of Awareness.

No one person, religion, spirituality, philosophy or
institution *has* the "answer"...

The Real Source of "truth" is within, and transcends all
beliefs, unencumbered by religion, language, history, or culture...

Life unfolds differently for all of us.
And maybe it "happens" according to the way we "believe" -
who knows...

Go the way you feel pulled/called to go,
the path will change as needed.

Whatever your walk of Life,
whatever your nature,
whatever your path,
just walk it...

Mystic Meandering
March 15, 2024

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

"Ghost Existence"? - a meandering...

Don't know why, but these words, "ghost existence",
came to me while I was talking with B back in Feb....

The following words just kinda flowed out as well...

We *live* a "ghost existence" *in* a "ghost existence."
Not that it's not *real*, it is "real" as we live it, as we
experience it, but it's not *The* Real - i.e. The Deeper
Reality - which exists behind and within the "ghost
existence", animating it - a mystery...

~

Along with the words came an image of  an old west
town erected with facades on a movie set, where they
would have make believe shoot outs in the dusty streets,
while the patrons of the theme park, dressed in costumes,
 looked on from the sides, entertained by the make believe
 characters in the "ghost town" made specifically for the
*experience*, whatever that experience is in the 
"ghost existence."

When we die one belief is that that animating force "drops"
the body...  I like to think that the energy of the animating
force returns to its "original source", maybe in another
dimension...   I don't know...  This is all speculation from 
a "being" living in a "ghost existence."
That's why this is called a meandering. :)

But there are traditions that do believe that there is no self,
no me, no you, that we're all an illusion, a dream, a movie.

It seems real in the moment...
"Christine" may have 75 or more episodes 
in her "ghost existence" here,
like an old west show with her own "prop set"
called her life...

Wouldn't that be interesting, if it were true.
We've all been playing a role, in the play of life,
in a virtual reality, 
whatever that experience/drama happens to be;
or so some say...

And then the "willful self" is dropped by the body, and
we are absorbed (energetically) back into our place of
Origin - our Source:

"The Silence of Being"

Once again - speculation...:)
But one that works for me at the moment :)

I recently heard someone say: Our experience of "me"
 is not our essential identity.  The "me" is another
experience that Awareness/Consciousness/Source is having,
like the waves that arise from the Ocean are still
the Ocean. The "me" is another wave on the greater Ocean of
Awareness, but is still the Ocean, and eventually
 recedes back into the Ocean...

I like this...

Mystic Meandering
Feb. 19, 2024

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Snow figure on skylight

 

Silence Lost?...

Entering "The Silence"
the place of deep inner Silence and Stillness...

Relaxing...

Listening deeply for the Inner Voice.
Following its sound.
Finding its Rhythm in the fluid, instinctive
inner River...

It is the space of The Sacred...

This aware, awake space is curious and unafraid,
wants to engage, to see, to know,
to experience ~

...and be experienced...

This space is deeply compassionate,
deeply open.

...and is waiting to be known...

Pure Awareness
flows through here ~

the life blood of The Sacred.
It flows around the obstacles of my mind,
and moves toward every disturbance,

filling every mind-made crack and crevice,
wanting to meet, soothe, comfort, and embrace.

In "The Silence"
there is only patience, listening
and deep rest...

It is a gentle refuge
that feels like Home...

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 2010

~

Vortex Art - Mystic Meandering
Craypas Oils with fingers
March 2024

~

Personal Note:

In 2010, and for many years, encountering the deep
Silence of Being for me felt like encountering "God",
"The Beloved", "The Sacred", "The Ineffable."

I basked in The Sacred Silence, absorbed, feeling the
sense of Presence, of something vaster than an image of
"God" that I hold in my mind; something which is
ever-present and personal...  The Deep Silence within
is the Heart of Being, "The Mystery" - my refuge.

Over the last 17 months I have "lost" the "sense" of
Intimacy with The Deep Silence within, getting
consumed by the *content* of my current life
experience...

The Great Silence has been my Companion, my Helper,
my Sanctuary, my "Teacher" for many years, and I hope
to regain that inner sense of Communion, to be able to
access the Deeper Dimension of The Silence again,
as this is the only way I will get through this period
in time, with its struggles and challenges...

Intellectually/conceptually I understand that "The Silence"
- however one calls it - "God", "The Beloved", "The Divine",

"Awareness" is always here - never "lost."
What is "lost" is the felt sense of intimacy with "The Silence
of the Sacred", my "Source."
I miss it - like a dear Friend...

But as of this post I do feel it slowly returning...
Or is it me that is returning to the Source :)

MM

March 2024

 

The Paradox of the Journey - Andrew Harvey

All major mystical traditions have recognized that there is a
paradox at the heart of the journey of return to Origin.

Put simply, this is that we are already what we seek, and that
what we are looking for on the Path with such intensity of
striving and passion and discipline is already within and
around us at all moments.  The journey and all its different
ordeals are all emanations of the One Spirit that is
manifesting everything in all dimensions; every rung of the
ladder we climb toward final awareness is made of the
divine stuff of Awareness itself...

Divine Consciousness is at once creating and manifesting
all things and acting in and as all things in various states of
self-disguise throughout all the different levels and
dimensions of the universe.

Andrew Harvey
teacher of mystical traditions

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

There slumbers in every human being faculties by means
of which he can acquire for himself a knowledge of higher
worlds.  Mystics, Gnostics, Theosophists - all speak of a
world of soul and spirit which for them is just as real as
the world we see with our physical eyes and touch with our
physical hands.

[...] Just as in the body, eye and ear develop as organs of
perception, as senses for bodily processes, so does a man
develop in himself soul and spiritual organs of perception

through which the soul and spiritual worlds are opened to him.

Rudolf Steiner

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Art - Mystic Meandering

 

 

"I" am LIFE...

"I" am LIFE existing here...
not a concept...

"I" am the Essence of Life
living itself out
here...

I cannot say that I am "Christine" -
nor a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu,

Sufi, Buddhist, Non-Dualist, Taoist,

or Mystic...

Mother, daughter, sister, friend,
or wife...

not a dream,
or an illusion...

"I" am simply LIFE ~ existing ~
playing all these roles...

The weight of existence
occurs when I try to
cling to an identity...

~

"I am a

f

e

a

t

h

e

r

on
the
breath of God."

Hildegard of Bingen says ~

and even the
identity of a 
"feather"

is
too
heavy

~

It's only a metaphor

~
~
~

I follow the breath
to its
Source,
the
Silence,
and
realize
I am being
breathed

~
~
~

The "task" then
is to surrender,
to
the
Infinite
Breath of
LIFE

that
"I"
am

~
~
~

Mystic Meandering
2014

~

Art - Mystic Meandering
"Explosion of Life"

Craypas oils

2012

 

Who Are You? - Thomas Merton

Be still
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
to speak your

name.

Listen
to the living walls.

Who are you?
Who
Are You?
Whose Silence are you?

Who (be quiet)
are you (as these stones
are quiet).  Do not
think of what you are
still less of

What you may one day be.
Rather
be what you are (but who?)
Be the unthinkable one
You do not know.

O be still, while
you are still alive,

and all things live around you
speaking to your own being,
speaking by the Unknown
that is in you and in themselves.

I will try, like them, 
to be my own silence:
And this is difficult.
The whole world is secretly on fire.
The stones burn, even the stones.
They burn me.

How can man be still or listen to all
things burning?  How can he dare 
to sit with them when
all their silence

is on fire?

Thomas Merton
In Silence

with thanks to  Love Is A Place

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Mind of Fear - Mooji

The mind fears...

What is the message in the fear?
Find the message in the fear...

Fear empties itself as soon as there is revelation...

YOU [the Eternal Self] *are* before the movement of fear
that arises.  Realize your Beingness that is before time...

Wake up to the recognition of your Eternal Self.

[That is] the Awareness in which fear occurs.

Just keep quiet...

Don't identify yourself with the reactions,
just *feel* your Existence

and

let the fear burn off...

Identify the Presence that sees,
and stay with this Presence,
and you'll come to a place of
complete [internal] Stillness...

There is Stillness in that space of fear...

When fear is met
what expands is a sense of spaciousness...

There is an intuitive sense that you and the spaciousness
of Stillness are one...

In this place your mind of fear will not have much power

because you're in your
Natural State...

Mooji

excerpts taken from a talk

~

Art - Mystic Meandering
The Cave
CrayPas Oils
done with fingers
2010

 

The Ancestors' Unlived Life - Matt Licata

Deep in the somatic unconscious, the ancestors continue to live
within us, emerging-into-now by way of their sensitivities and
gifts, as well as through the shards of their unlived lives.

Their lost joy, broken dreams, and unfulfilled creativity have a
way of taking up residency in our cell tissue, subtle bodies, and
in our bellies and hearts.

As we enter into the mandala of descent - downward into body,
mud, roots and Earth - these ones begin to appear: as symbol,
image, feeling and synchronicity.  They have a way of shifting
shapes in order to find us, through color, tree, water, and sound.

What is that we're carrying on their behalf?  What dreams remain
undreamed and unmanifested for them?  What are their deepest
longings?  What secrets have they never been able to share?

What keeps them awake at night?  What brings them alive and
unleashes their creativity and unique essence?  What visions are
not permitted to take form, of the divine within and of the divine
world?

What were they required to disown in order to fit in to a place that
had lost its sensitivity and soul?  What became buried in the
shadows?  What story were they unable to tell, what feelings were
they unable to feel?

In what way are we being asked to open a portal into re-emergence,
re-enchantment, and revisioning?

As we open to receive this offering, an inner sanctuary forms to
illuminate and transmute this transgenerational soul-material.  Inside
that structure, the seemingly solid lines between past, present and
future begin to fall away.

Being "in the present moment" we share this moment with the
ancestral ones and the spirits of the Earth who are with us.

In this way, past, present, and future co-emerge and interpenetrate,
opening a diamond-like passageway into the mysteries of self 
and other, being and becoming, and a new alchemy of
separation and union.

The individual self is an emanation, a manifestation, of the Totality,
a unified expression of the clear-light nature.  Unique and 
differentiated, while at the same time non-separate and one.

Matt Licata

~

Vortex Art
Mystic Meandering
Feb. 2024

 

A Bridge Between - Michael Meade

In old traditions those who acted as elders were considered to
have one foot in daily life and the other foot in the otherworld.
Elders acted as a bridge between the visible world and the
unseen realms of spirit and soul.  A person in touch with the
otherworld stands out because something normally invisible
can be seen through them.  The old word for having a foot in
each world is weird - originally spelled "wyrd."  The original sense
 of weird involved both fate and destiny.  Becoming weird
enough to be wise requires that a person learn to accommodate
 the strange way they are shaped within and aimed at the world.

An old idea suggests that those seeking an elder ["teacher"]
should look for someone weird enough to be wise. 
 For just as there can be no general wisdom, there are no
 "normal" elders.  Normal bespeaks the "norms" that society
uses to regulate people, whereas an awakened destiny always
involves connections to the weird and the warp of life.  In Norse
mythology, as in Shakespeare, the Fates appear as the Weird
Sisters who hold time and the timeless together.

Those who would become truly wise must become weird enough
to be in touch with timeless things and abnormal enough to 
follow the guidance of the unseen.  Elders are supposed to be
weird, not simply "weirdos," but strange and unusual in meaningful
ways.  Elders are supposed to be more in touch with the 
otherworld, but not out of touch with the struggles of this world.

Elders have one foot firmly in the ground of survival and another
in the realm of great imagination.  This double-minded stance
serves to help the living community and even help the species.

Michael Meade
About Elders

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Mysterious Creative Unknown - a meandering...

Recently I watched a series called "Creative Energy Levels on
video by Donna Iona Drozda - artist/writer, and fellow blogger.
I watched the Intro and "0" (zero) videos, (there are 9 levels).
During the "0" video she talked of the zero being a symbol of
wholeness.  That was my Aha moment, and wrote in my journal -
"I need to come back to wholeness, come back to my Authentic
Being-Self!  My Natural State of Being.  I need to reclaim my
wholeness again.  So I started engaging in creating vortexes
with CrayPas oils.

~

Twenty years ago I worked with an artist/"spiritual teacher"
of the Kashmir Shaivism tradition who had a studio called:
"Art Iza Way."  He used creativity/art as a way of remembering
your True Self.  Now, I'm not an "artist", but I started drawing/
painting "vortexes" (top down) back then on pieces of poster
board with CrayPas oil sticks.  During sessions he would show
me how oftentimes figures would unexpectedly emerge in and
through the"art", depending on how you *looked* at it -
The Mysterious Creative Unknown.

He showed me how to *look* at art (life) from different angles,
turning it, or looking sideways at it, etc., and see what revealed
itself.  Interestingly my earlier vortexes didn't reveal anything
"mystical" :)  He was trying to show me through art, that
everything is a matter of perspective, which of course depends
on how you *see*, and from *where* you see. He would say:
"life is a play of perspectives."

He has since moved his studio, and calls it "Self Discovery Studio,"
and no longer offers "art" as part of his sessions, but uses
different styles of Self-inquiry through relaxed conversation, as
well as meditation, and sometimes chanting.

~

One night after listening to the "0" video in the Creative Energy
Levels series with Donna Iona Drozda, I decided I wanted to
revive doing vortexes.  So pulled some poster board from under
the bed, cut out an 11x11 piece, got the CrayPas oil sticks, picked 
the colors I was drawn to (usually 2 complimentary colors), used a
large piece of cardboard, which just happened to under the bed as
well, and just started rubbing the oil sticks in circles, one by one,
on a piece of poster board.  I worked on the floor on the piece of
cardboard.  It was 11:30pm.

It was exhilarating and calming at the same time - freeing, just going
round and round, creating circles with my fingers and thumb.  Then
I started blending the oils on the poster board with fingers and thumb,

also going in a circular motion.  The corrugated cardboard made
imprints as well, as I worked the oils together.

Working in this way there really was no intention.  There was no
expectation of what it will look like, other than a vortex, but
sometimes it surprised me.  It is the Creative Unknown that sometimes
emerges.  In the photo above a "figure" emerged.  It appeared to be a
hooded figure at first, then it seemed to be a cap with possibly a long
beard. I clearly saw a face with two eyes looking out at me.  I gasped,
and was excited.  I get excited when there is movement from
within; when "The Mystery" reveals Itself in some way, whether
through art, poems, or life itself...

The "far away" view here in the photo gives the overall look of this
mysterious figure.  In closer views the figure got lost, blended back
into the vortex.  It is seen better in person than what the camera can
capture, and you may not see anything at all, or you may see
something different.

It'z magical :)

Creativity can bring a new sense of wholeness and balance back into
life again;  and can "reconnect" me with my "Inner Life" - my Inner
Beingness - waiting to reveal Itself...

Mystic Meandering
Feb. 11, 2024

~

Art - Mystic Meandering
Vortex Art
Red Vortex with Figure
Feb 2024

 

The Creative Drive - Galway Kinnell

One can have a lot of time and yet feel one has very little.
A person who wants an inner life needs what you might call
"open" time - time that hasn't already been filled before one
enters it with minor concerns, little duties.  The more
conscientious a person is, the more easily small things force
themselves into the consciousness.  Precisely because they are
so small one knows one can easily take care of them.  I keep
finding in my pockets old lists of errands that in hindsight are
incredibly trivial.  It's the fact that the items are crossed off
that 's so pathetic - the fact that I actually worried about these
tasks and actually did them.  Tillie Olson has written an essay
on the penalties of postponing serious work for the sake of
things of this kind.  It's a fine essay.  She advocates going
straight for the real work and to hell with everything else.
And she's right.  The creative drive withers away otherwise.

I produce most and write best when I have no schedule at all,
when I'm able to wander where whim carries me - both physically,
through a city or a countryside, and mentally, in reading, talking,
scribbling, thinking, whatever.  Poems don't come to me often
when solicited.

Galway Kinnell

- from an interview published in the book Walking Down the
Stairs.

Downtime is the basis of creative time.  It is important that that
time not be filled with trivial things --  errands, doing the
dishes -- but rather time to day dream, [to spend time in
"The Silence"], to meander through the backwoods, to wander
around town, notebook in hand, just in case something bubbles up.

Rod MacIver
Heron Dance

~

Art - Mystic Meandering

Vortex Art 2024

Water Whirlpool
on black paper

 

Intimacy with Deep Silence...

There is an intimacy with the deep Silence
that is indefinable,
luxuriatingly peaceful...

A fluidity of

~ s p a c i o u s n e s s ~

of Silent Awareness

aware-ing,

listening...

Nothing irritates or disturbs.

Everything is open

BE~ing~ness

There is depth,

and breadth,

and substance,

and fullness

to this

rhythmic

space

of 

Silence

that

embraces,

surrounds,

and

fills

every crack and crevice

of the
body and mind,

soothing the 'energies'

softening their flow ~ ~ ~

There is sanity in this Silence

that

is
beyond
breathtaking.

It is:

The Breath of the Infinite

The Whisper of Love

The Taste of Forever

The Feeling of Peace

The Awareness of Presence

~

Intimacy with this deep
Silence 
is *knowing*
I am
Home...

...resting in
The Primordial Womb
of Life!'

~

Mystic Meandering
Oct. 27, 2011

~

Photo ~  Aurora Borealis
sent to us by someone
who worked in Antarctica
several years ago.

It looks like a face kissing the earth :)

~

You may also like:
Perfect Pulsing Silence

 

This "Silence" - Amoda Maa

A non-dual perspective on our Essential Nature

"Silence" is not a mental state or a spiritual state, it is already
here prior to thinking, labeling or naming, or feeling;
prior to any experience in perception.

It is not about achieving a state of silence - by rising above.
It is an invitation to go inward to the Deep, the Quiet within.

It is what you already are.  It's your Essential Nature.

"Silence" is known before you take hold of your experience
and categorize it putting it into a mental category of
understanding or knowing.

It's your primary nature - everything else is secondary.

Amoda Maa
on you tube

~

This "Silence" is not about closing the doors, turning off the
phone and lighting candles.  Nor is it to do with trying to get
rid of your thoughts or imagining the perfect sanctuary of
peace.

This "Silence" happens when you stop giving attention to the
narratives that wrap themselves around your experience of
reality.  This "Silence" happens when you turn towards tenderness
every time an unwanted feeling enters your inner landscape.
This "Silence" happens when you have surrendered all resistance
to what is.  This "Silence" happens when you [realize] that
the whole universe is you.  

....Whether you sit in deep stillness or whether you are doing
something [the requirements of daily living] this "Silence" is
always here...  It is in you as Being-ness [your Essential Being].

It's about whether you can fall into the "Silence" that is
always here...

Perhaps it is wise to ask: how can I meet the world
as "Silence"?

Amoda Maa

With thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Undulating Silence