The Art of Creating "Happiness" - Thich Nhat Hanh

What is the nature of joy and happiness?
How can we touch true joy in every moment?
How can we live in a way that brings a smile
to everyone we encounter?

Use your talent to find ways to bring
happiness [joy] to yourself and others.
The happiness that arises from meditation is
not the same as the feelings that come from
the pursuit of pleasure-seeking

Meditative joy has the capacity to nourish our
mindfulness, understanding, and love.
Live in a way that encourages deep meditative
happiness/joy in yourself.

You can vow to bring joy to one person in the
morning, and to help relieve the suffering of one
person in the afternoon.

Ask yourself, "Who can I make smile this morning?"
This is the art of creating happiness...

Thich Nhat Hanh

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

From the kitchen window the branches of
this apple tree that's trying to grow at the corner
of the shed have a luminescent pinkish glow...
Just gorgeous... :)  
Brings me an inner sense of "happiness."

 

Humility - Brian Doyle

 

You cannot control anything.
You cannot order or command everything.
You cannot fix and repair everything.
You cannot protect [people] from pain
and loss and tragedy and illness.
You cannot be sure you will always be
employed, or healthy, or relatively sane.

All you can do is face the world with quiet grace.

When we are young we build a self, a persona, a story
in which to reside, or several selves in succession, or
several at once, sometimes;  when we are older we take on
other roles and personas, other masks and duties; and you
and I both know men and women who become trapped in
the selves they worked so hard to build, so desperately
imprisoned that sometimes they smash their lives simply to
escape who they no longer wish to be;  but finally, I think, if
we are lucky, if we read the book of pain and loss with
humility, we realize that we are all broken and small and brief....
and then, perhaps, we begin to understand something deep and
true about humility.

Humility does not mean self abnegation, lassitude, detachment;
it's more a calm recognition that you must trust in that which
does not make sense, that which is unreasonable, illogical, silly
ridiculous, crazy by the measure of most of our culture.  You
must trust that you being you matters somehow...

[and that]

.....pain is part and parcel of the gift of joy...

[and]
You do your best to reach out tenderly and touch and elevate as
many people as you can reach...

You either walk toward love or away from it with every breath
you draw.  Humility is the road to love.  Humility, maybe, is
love.  That could be.  I wouldn't know; I'm a muddle and a 
conundrum shuffling slowly along the road, gaping in wonder,
trying to just see and say what is, trying to leave shreds and shards
of ego along the road like wisps of litter and chaff.

Brian Doyle

Excerpts from the chapter - "The Final Frontier"
From: One Long River Song

~

Photo from the Internet

On Suffering - Kathleen Knipp

 

Life is suffering...

This ubiquitous phrase, the first noble truth of Buddhism, is so
frequently repeated and disseminated throughout mainstream
media that even your uncle who disdains all things esoteric
has likely encountered a variation of it.  Life is suffering.
Many in my entourage are feeling the suffering.  They are
profoundly feeling it.  They keep company with others who
are feeling it.

Of all the teachings passed down through the ages, this message
has endured and become a widely recognized and popular catch-
phrase.

Why? 
 And, more importantly, how might we draw upon it as we face
these challenging times?

Many believe that the cause of their suffering is the destruction of
democracy and the destabilization of the world order.  Is this true?
Is it possible that the current catastrophes have only ripped the scab
off a subtler, root source of suffering?  Might it be that this round of
disasters serves as a compelling place to point a finger?  If that
lunatic were not running the US government (you can choose which
madman) then I'd feel OK.  Remember the early days of the pandemic
when we were all terrified to touch our groceries, no less our loved
ones?  Between then and today, maybe an illness or a death or a 
lost job or relationship took the helm of the suffering ship.

Why do we strive to rid ourselves of suffering?  Why not eradicate
joy?  Why, when, as we learn in Kashmir Shaivism:
 the Totality contains everything - everything, that Consciousness
manifests in an infinite variety of forms, not just the ones we like,
are we certain that "something needs to be done here!"  Why do I
believe life should be any different than it is?
[This is a tough question to ask oneself, especially when suffering.]

We are bound to suffering.  Might we ask ourselves, "What does
suffering actually feel like?"  How is it expressed in me?  Through
me?  Is it a nagging nebulous unsatisfactoriness or more of a
screaming painful certainty that I am in imminent danger?

[Or experiencing a chronic illness, or sudden decline in the body.]

Perhaps we can find a little time each day to sit on our cushion,
or lie down on our mat, or be wherever we are in whatever
position we happen to find ourselves, and we feel into the suffering.
Sense it deeply.  Every nuance of it.  Feel how we reject this
agony.  Sense the tension in our muscles, the knot in the belly,
the clenching of the teeth.  [Feel the anxiety and fear that arise.]
Feel how we protest and blame.  Recognize how we distract or
how we try to rearrange our lives to avoid feeling that which is
inevitable.  [Trying to rearrange the chairs on the deck of the Titanic :]
Engage this practice with curiosity and with love.  
Give it all you have.

Maybe inquire, "Who is feeling this pain?"

For sure, there is fallout from the current political scene.  There is
no denying that the lives of many people have been adversely 
affected, and that, likely, they will continue to be...

.....this human gig is temporary...
this particular set of crises, well, they too will pass.....

Observe with gentleness our very human tendency
to identify with mind and its contents...

[to forget] that it's a never-ending play of Consciousness.

Kathleen Knipp
Pathless Yoga
Non-Dual Teacher
Excerpts from "On Suffering"

[brackets mine]

~

Photo - Art - Mystic Meandering
Light and Dark Vortex

2011

 

The Beauty of the Night...

I love the darkness of night,

when all is still in my part of the world,
and The Silence of the Universe fills the body
and Heart....

No distractions, no disturbances...
I settle into what really matters -
The Silence of Being, the Nameless
- just breathing...

I would rather be awake during the darkness
of night, than enduring the brashness,
cacophony and chaos of the day.
The darkness is comforting, calming...
There's a Beauty in the night's darkness
that can be felt...

It is The Silence of Life ItSelf
that matters most to me;
an odd duck, I know.
Not "day driven" - going from
one task to another,
seeing how much I can get done;
maybe it's my age,
and waning life energy.

The simplicity
of night's quiet darkness
soothes me and allows me to access
the deep space within, again.
Deep calling to deep...

For now, though, I must let go of
the night's allure -
and fall into sleep.

Mystic  Meandering
March 21, 2025
2:05 am

~

I can hardly wait for "Window Sitting" to
begin again.   :)

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Full Moon July 2022

 

Dancing in the Fire - Oriah

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for, and if you
dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are.  I want 
to know if you risk looking like a fool for love,
for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring 
your moon.  I want to know if you have touched the
center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened
by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed
from fear of further pain.  I want to know if you can sit
with pain, mine or your own without moving to hide
it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, 
if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us
to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations
of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true
to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty, even when it's not
pretty every day, and if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and
mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout
to the sliver of the full moon, "Yes!"

 I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to
the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children,
[or your elderly parents, your spouse, or a dying loved one.]

It doesn't matter to me who you know or how you came to
be here.  I want to know if you will stand at the center
of the fire with me and not shrink back.
[can you meet me there...]

[This - is Friendship]

Oriah Mountain Dreamer
Original title - "The Invitation"
from - The Invitation

[brackets mine]

~

Vortex Art - Mystic Meandering
Woman Dancing in the Fire
(as seen from overhead)

~

"No one cares how much you know
until they know how much you care."

attributed to Theodore Roosevelt,
although no one really knows the
true author...

 

Creating Your Own Reality - Haramein

There is a concept that a person can create their own reality.

This concept is only partially correct because it is generally
discussed in a one-way manner i.e., a person sending a message
to the field [God, the Universe, etc.] with a request/intention/
prayer desiring an outcome.

This is only 1/2 of the loop.

The wave you're sending is the feed-forward part of the loop.
You need to realize that the wave coming back is the feed-back
which is the rest of the Universe creating its reality and 
responding to you.  The Universe (Planck Field or "The Divine")
interacts with the rest of humanity and your creation and the
Universe gives you a result that is a combination of everyone's
feed-forward waves.

If a person could create a reality exactly the way they wanted it,
 a few things would happen:

1) you would be the only one in it because everybody else would
be creating their own.  It would be very lonely.

2) you would also be bored within seconds since you had everything
you wanted.  

What happens is that you put your intention out into the field and
you stay open to what comes back realizing it's going to get modified
for the highest evolution of the whole.  (One can only hope this is true :)

The unexpected feed-back gives you empathy for yourself and others.
You might not get exactly what you expected but now you're learning
from the experience. [Hopefully true.]  The totality of everyone's learning
is how the Universe learns about itself....

Nassim Haramein

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

We Grow Up - Rainer Maria Rilke

We say release, and radiance, and roses,
and echo upon everything that's known;
and yet, behind the world our names enclose is
the Nameless: our true archetype and home.

The sun seems male, and earth is like a woman,
the field is humble, and the forest proud;
but over everything we say, inhuman,
moves the forever-undetermined god.

We grow up; but the world remains a child.

Star and flower, in silence, watch us go.
And sometimes we appear to be the final
exam they must succeed on.  And they do.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Stephen Mitchel version

~

Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth, 
that around every circle another can be drawn;
that there is no end in nature, bur every end is a
beginning; that there is always another dawn risen
on mid-noon, and under every deep a lower deep opens.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
from Essays: First Series (1841)

_

Photo from the Internet
Color digitally inverted

 

You Be You - Brian Swimme

Each era in the Universe is unique,
never to be repeated.  It's as if at dawn a deep
resonant voice calls forth to every entity in
existence:  "Become your unique self."
The Universe advances only if you 
blossom forth as you!

At birth each of us is given a quantum of
energy.  The Universe offers us a gift and
asks only one thing in return:
That we use it to say who we are.
When we live a life that expresses our unique
being, we align ourselves with the Universe.

Brian Swimme
Cosmogenesis

~

Photo - Aurora Borealis by John Hyde

 

Celebrating Uniqueness - Hermann Hesse

I revere trees when they live in tribes and families, in forests
and groves.  And even more I revere them when they stand alone.
They are like lonely persons.  In their highest boughs the world
rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they don't lose themselves there,
they struggle with all the force of their lives for only one thing:
to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their
own form, to represent themselves.

A tree says:  The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took
with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique
the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar
on my bark.  I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my
smallest special detail.

Hermann Hesse
Notes and Sketches

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Tree Refection in pond color inverted..

~

NOTE: For my Follow.it followers
there was a typo error
in the 4th line down which should
have read:
"but they don't lose themselves there..."
I was unable to edit it on your follow.it copy.
Sorry about that :)

 

"Home"...

Never lose sight of "Home" -
your inner "Home"...
The deep Silence of your Being -
The Essence...

that sustains you -
that in-spires you -
through every life experience...

Through physical pain -
and emotional heartache...
The Silence waits for you -
like a dear Friend...

Welcomes you "Home"
again and again and again -
when you have wandered away -
into the chaos of the world...

You are loved beyond measure...

Mystic Meandering
March 11, 2025

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Water Bottle Reflections

 

Embracing Humanity's Pain - a meandering...

I wrote this piece about 13 years ago in the aftermath of Hurricane
Sandy that devastated parts of the Northeast in the U.S.  It seemed
relevant to resurrect it with what is going on in the world today,
with floods, fire, famine and ongoing, endless wars -
the state of humanity...

~

The images on TV back then of people on the East coast left broken
 and brokenhearted - calling out for assistance, as if they had been
abandoned - touched my heart, touching that same feeling of
abandonment deep within myself somewhere.  And I wonder, how
could I live in a contemplative bubble that I am wont to do - close
myself off to what is happening in the world, under the guise of
"spirituality"?  I can't.  There is no either/or.  It's all one Life living
ItSelf out here - just as it is...  Pain and Peace...  And maybe it's
really that I want to protect myself from feeling my own pain.
That's what global pain does.  It gets us in touch with our own
pain, our own vulnerability, our own helplessness to know what
to do for a hurting world, let alone our own pain.

I saw a woman on TV back then helping in the clean-up effort in
her own coastal town - crying - saying - "I want to go home, but
there is no home.  It's gone."  I turned away and cried silently in
my heart.  I can't imagine the devastation to the psyche that no
amount of religious platitudes of non-attachment, or non-dual
refrains of: there is no "me" who wants to go home - can assuage.
It is a deep wound of the heart to lose one's sense of "Home" -
to *feel* that sense of separation and loss.  I'm sure some have
 felt that in one form or another at some time in our lives,
whether it was a loss of a physical place, a person, or an
emotional/spiritual sense of "Home" - that led to a sense of
 deep "homesickness" of the heart.

And a lot of us know people in our daily lives who need our
empathy and our compassion, who have lost their sense of
"Home", feeling abandoned by "God" (however we know that
to be) - losing that felt sense of connection adrift in their lives. 
 I understand this deep wound.  I know such people. 
 I've been there.  I empathize.
  It is a helpless feeling not knowing how to help them. 
 It's as if some people's pain is so deep , it cannot be mended. 
 It is not a tangible "fix" on a practical level, or seemingly a
"spiritual"one either.  It is a deep pain of the psyche.   
It is a loss of "Home" - a loss of one's internal bearing of the
Spirit;an insatiable pain that no one and nothing can fill.  I'm
sure you've met them too. The ones whose hearts cry the cry
of desperation in a dark wilderness of the mind, like sleep
 deprivation, leaving a deep hollow hunger within. 
 How do we help these wounded wanderers?
  Like the displaced people of Palestine, and
 Ukraine, in their current reality... 
Breaks my Heart again...

It all trickles down, pain upon pain - or maybe I sound too morbid -
too dramatic...  But it's true.  We are all impacted by the pain of
others, by the global, collective pain of a wounded world.  One
person's pain affects us all.  And yet, many times, as I have
discovered, we are helpless to end the pain, and so we distract
ourselves from the pain, theirs and our own, by shutting it out,
and shutting down; by pretending that it is all a grand illusion,
a dream that we can detach from.  I have done it too, not wanting
to experience the pain.  But the pain ripples out anyway - through
humanity.  How can we *not* be affected - how can we not allow
ourselves to *feel* it...

Humanity's pain *is* my/our pain.  It's all a reflection.  And lofty
beliefs and "spiritual" words are dismissive, not helpful, because
they cannot be heard, or received by those caught in their deep pain...
Humanity's pain needs the embrace of an empathetic heart of
compassion...

~

There's nothing I can offer
that buffers the pain
that softens the heartache,
or heals the wounds -

And yes, at times I don't want
to feel others' pain,
because it is too overwhelming...

And because I have my own pain.

And what to do with that as well...

I sit with it and let it speak,
let it cry,
let it take me to the "mothering":
womb of the Silence of all Life,
and rest there - waiting;
petitioning the Cosmic Energies,
neither male nor female,
to intervene,
on behalf of
a suffering world.

Sometimes
that's all I can do...

When the "practical"
fails to touch the soul...

We pray...

And that is our offering
of love...

Mystic Meandering
2012

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

So much held in the heart - Brian Doyle

So much held in the heart
in a lifetime.  So much held in a
heart in a day, an hour, a moment.  We
are utterly open with no one in the end -
not mother and father, not wife or husband,
not love, not child, not friend.  We open windows
to each but we live alone in the house of the heart.
Perhaps we must.  Perhaps we could not bear to be
so naked, for fear of a constantly harrowed
heart.

When young we think there will come one person who will
savor and sustain us always; when we are older we know
this is the dream of a child, that all hearts finally are
bruised and scarred, scored and torn, repaired by
time and will, patched and force of character, yet
fragile and rickety forevermore, no matter
how ferocious the defense and how many
bricks you bring to the wall.  You can
brick up your heart as stout and
tight and hard and cold and
impregnable as you possibly
can and down it comes
in an instant, felled by
[someone's] second
glance, a child's
apple breath,
the shatter
of glass
in the
road,
the
words
 I
have something
to tell you, a cat with
a broken spine dragging
itself into the forest to die,
the brush of your mother's
hand in the thicket of your hair,
the memory of your father's voice...

Brian Doyle
Joyas Voladoras
Excerpt from - One Long River of Song:
Notes on Wonder

(Brian's words, my format)

~

A couple of memories from childhood that warm my heart:
Smelling the aroma of coffee and breakfast wafting from the
kitchen that Mom was making mid morning on vacation days
when we rented a cabin in one of the coves on the lake...

And one of our closer moments with Dad, at the same cabin,
when he took us kids out on the little pier next to the
boathouse at night to point into the night sky, as we clustered
next to him like ducklings, and pointed to the
Big Dipper.

~

Art - Mystic Meandering

 

Brian Doyle's stories/essays were, for him, a mystical project
born of both joy and desperation - embracing humanity.

"We're only here for a minute. 
We're here for a little window.
And to use that time to catch and share
shards of light and laughter and grace
seems to me the great story."

Brian Doyle

The Jewel in the Heart - Pema Chodron

"Spiritual awakening" is frequently described as a journey to
the top of the mountain.  We [supposedly] leave our attachments
and our worldliness behind and slowly make our way to the top.
We [supposedly] transcend all pain...

On the journey, however, the path goes down, not up...
Instead of transcending our suffering, or that of others, we
move toward our own turbulence and doubt, and that of others,
however we can.  We explore the reality and unpredictability of
insecurity and pain, and we try not to push it away.  Even if it
takes years, we let it be what it is.

At our own pace, without speed or aggression, we  move down
and down and down.  With us move millions of others, our
companions in awakening from fear.  At the bottom we discover
water, the healing water of our heart - our wounded, softened heart.
Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that
will not die.  This love is called Bodichitta.  It is gentle and warm;
it is clear and sharp; it is open and spacious...

Healing can be found in the tenderness of pain itself.  Without
realizing it we continually shield ourselves from [emotional] pain
 because it scares us.  Based on a deep fear of being hurt, we erect
 protective walls made of our strategies, opinions, prejudices and
emotions. Yet, just as a jewel that has been buried in the earth
 for a million years is not discolored, the Heart of Bodchitta
is not affected by all the ways we try to protect ourselves from it. 
The jewel can be brought out into the light, and it will glow...

.....tenderness for life....awakens when we no longer shield ourselves
from the vulnerability of our condition, from the basic fragility of
existence.  It awakens through the kinship with the suffering of others.

Pema Chodron
Buddhist Teacher

Excerpts from:  Comfortable with Uncertainty
by Pema Chodron

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Jewel in the Heart

 

Real Love Video

 A rescue kitten abused by a previous owner lashes out in 
fear.  But the foster Mom cat knows just what to do to
patiently gain the kitten's trust...

Mystical Peace...

A stranger arrived yesterday,
unexpectedly,
engulfed me in Her Peace...

In Her Presence
everything settled...

everything let go of me..
all entanglements
all resistance
all struggle

everything became strangely Quiet within...

everything rested within me,
not lifeless - just rested...

It was like a mystical fog of Peace
surrounding me,
holding me -
and I was still - 
at my core...

When She arrived
life was allowed to be as life is,
despite what was going on externally.

I listened deeply to her whispers...

She felt 'strange' to me
only because She
was just there
unbidden,
a softening presence....

She was larger than life;
beyond mental understanding
or explanation...

Yet, I knew that I know this "stranger."
She was strangely familiar...
I'm sure we have met before...

I welcomed her with gratitude...

She drew closer and wrapped Her mantel of Peace
around my Heart...

The Fire-Light within began to brighten...

Love emerged...

She was Home...

Mystic Meandering

adapted from a poem written in 2015

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Winter 2015

~

 Even in the midst of chaos there is Peace...
Even in the midst of complexity there is Simplicity...
Even in the midst of confusion there is Stability... 

I keep reminding myself to
stay rooted in my Eternal Nature at the 
Core of my Being...

MM

"Revolution" - The Beatles

For those who are old enough to remember The Beatles :)

Their song "Revolution" was written in 1968 when the country
was in political upheaval (once again:).  This time over the
Vietnam War.  Lyndon Johnson was in office, and considered
the "New Left."  Richard Nixon was running for office ,
 a conservative... After he was in office, he was found to be
 a "crook" - hmmmm.  He eventually resigned...
I was 18 at college in Boston going to peace rallies on
Boston Common :)

John Lennon, one of the writers of the song, wasn't sure he
wanted to publish it because he felt it might be considered
too controversial...

One evening recently the words of the song just popped into
my head...  So I looked up the lyrics and felt it was appropriate
to post for our times as well...

I've taken the liberty of adding a heading just before each
refrain in brackets - a little dark humor - as we move through another
dark passage in our history...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Revolution

You say you want a Revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well, you know
We all wanna change the world

But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out

[MAGA refrain]

Don't you know it's gonna be alright
Alright
Alright

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We'd love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We are doing what we can

But if you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell you is brother you have to wait

[MAGA refrain]

Don't you know it's gonna be alright
Alright
Alright

You say you'll change the constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it's the institution
Well, you know
You'd better free your mind instead

[MAGA refrain]

Don't you know it's gonna be alright
Alright
Alright

Alright, alright
Alright, alright
Alright, alright
Alright, alright

~

Vortex Art - Mystic Meandering

 

Circles of Support - Starhawk

We are all longing to go home to some place we have 
never been - a place half-remembered and half-envisioned
we can only catch glimpses of from time to time.

Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak
with passion without having the words catch in our
throats.  Somewhere a circle of hands will open to
receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will
celebrate with us whenever we come into our power.
[And speak truth to power]
Community means strength that joins our strength to do
the work that needs to be done  Arms to hold us when we
falter.  A circle of healing.  A circle of friends.
Someplace where we can be free
[to be who we are, as we are.]

Starhawk, Dreaming the Dark

~

   Circle of Hands Mandala - Mystic Meandering
(unfinished)

 

Does the Path have a Heart? - Carlos Castaneda

You must always keep in mind that a path is only a path.
Each path is only one of a million paths.
If you feel that you must not follow it,

you need not stay with it under any circumstances.
Any path is only a path.

There is no affront to yourself or others in dropping a path
if that is what your heart tells you to do.
But your decision to keep on a path or to leave it
must be free of fear and ambition.

I caution you: look at every path closely and deliberately.
Try it as many times as you think necessary.
Then ask yourself and yourself alone this one question:
Does this path have a heart?

All paths are the same.  They lead nowhere.
They are paths going through the brush or into the brush
or under the brush of the Universe.
The only question is: Does this path have a heart?

If it does, then it is a good path.
If it doesn't, then it is of no use.

Carlos Castaneda

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Inverted color

 

Embracing my Body - a meandering

My Heart calls to me to stop, to just sit
- sitting meditation - breathing -
resting in the inner Stillness of Being...

My Heart wants to commune with
the Infiniteness of Silence.

It is the Light that brings awareness
to all hidden places...

It is the Spaciousness from which all knowing
and all needed action arises
with clarity...

Heart says:
'just sit'
in the depths of Silence

breathing
with the Infinite Silence -
the inner movement of "The Mystery" -
experiencing the Embrace,
and intelligence of what lives us...

~

But, at 75, I have a body that requires a lot of attention
now, which I must attend to...  Sometimes I get
caught in the ailments of the body - its unexpected fragility;
 the body needs to be embraced,
held in the Heart - like a child...

So I started doing what I lovingly call "Body Holding."
I start with the Heart, laying both hands 
over the Heart - embracing the Heart,
until its tingly static feels calm and at peace.
Then I hold the Solar Plexus;
sometimes with both hands,
sometimes with one hand on the Heart -
until its intense waves of pressure feels smooth and calm.
Then the belly just below the navel, and hold
my hands there.  If my mind has been overactive,
as it usually is, I hold one hand on either side 
of the top of my head and feel the electrical
buzziness of thinking, until it subsides.

All the while being aware
of the miracle of my Humanness and Infiniteness -
as One Rhythm - embracing the body...

~

The Infinite manifests in the finite
The Truth of Existence...

The  Pure Vibration of Existence
in form - in a human body...
We are a whole package
an embodied humanity -
enlivened by the Source of Life.

The body is not separate.
Spirit is in matter...

The Light of our Essence is in
the body...

Our Humanity is Embraced...

Mystic Meandering
2025

Art: Mystic Meandering
 Held

 

Prayer for the World - Mirabai Starr

Beloved One,
Living Light
Spirit of all that is...

Be with us now
As we lean in to hear your call...

Divine Mother,
Embodiment of Mercy and Compassion,
Enfold us in your protective cloak
As we dare to take in the pain of the world.
Comprised of every hue on the spectrum
Of the human community.
Give us the courage and strength
To drop our preconceptions
[and our prejudices]
And step onto the field of global strife
Armed with the flaming arrow of love.

Sacred Friend,
Hidden behind the eyes of the broken,
Reveal yourself,
Let us behold the beauty of your face
In all beings, everywhere, always.
Where once we perceived only the impossible,
Blinded by our desire for circumstances, people,
And our own sweet selves to be different,
Let us rest now in what is
Alert to your power to astonish us
With the global awakening.

Holy One,
We carry legacy of our ancestors
In the marrow of our own souls.
We are all reluctant prophets.
We must be called and called again,
And yet again.
We turn and turn away,
We yield and bow and rise,
Until at last,
Clasped by the ferocious wings of your angels,
We declare, Hineyni.
Here I am.
Make me a vessel of divine will...

Great Spirit,
Fill the hearts of our leaders
With humility and holey awe.
Embolden them not to turn away from the Other
But to lay down their weapons
And take the adversary in their arms.
Infuse them with the fire
That melts swords into ploughshares
And spears into pruning hooks.
Show them the secret passageway from hopeless conflict
Home to love. [to tolerance and acceptance].

Father-Mother God,
May the Children of Abraham and Sara
At last fall silent in the face of your radiance.
May our hearts soar in remembrance.
May our knees bend and bodies bow down,
And our spirits rejoice,
Overflowing with unceasing prayer,
Resounding and cleansing and blessing all the land...

AMEN

Mirabai Starr

Excerpts from a prayer written in 2015
during the Iran and US peace agreements

~

Photo from the Internet
digitally altered