Stand Still. Listen. - Kathleen Knipp

I returned to the cabin at dusk.  As I was unlocking the door,
I heard a panicked voice leave a message on my answering
machine (yes, an actual answering machine - remember
those?)  My guest, who had set out for a hike with promises
to turn back early, was lost.  Very lost.  Darkness falls quickly
in the winter desert; the temperature can drop 20 degrees in an
hour.  She'd gathered her altitude, longitude, and latitude from 
her technology, but her data points did not reveal the trail.

So, I did what any experienced hiker would do.  I commanded
her to stop speaking and to listen carefully.  Then, I read her
a poem.

It was the same poem I'd received almost a decade earlier from
a wise and seasoned outdoorswoman one evening when I had
gotten turned around in the woods behind my home in Quebec.
It begins:

"Stand still.  The trees ahead and the bushes beside you
Are not lost.  Wherever you are is called Here...
The forest breathes.  Listen.  It answers..."

By the time I'd ascended 500 feet, running full throttle with
my headlamp lighting up loose rocks, roots, and downed
trees - hazards for chronically sprained ankles - we made
contact again.  She had located the elusive path shortly after
our call and was now making her way down.

Stand still.  Listen.

When we can't find our way, we try our best to figure out
what to do.  We look for solutions, consult, gather information.
Do I turn left or right?  Speak up or hold silence?  Innovate or
uphold tradition?...

Listening - true listening - is not an activity.  It's not about
listening to something,or even for something.  It's not
listening to the mental chatter or the wisdom of the body.
Rather, it's about dropping into the primacy of experiencing,

into the field of pure receptivity, free from egoic interference.
It's resting in complete availability until the next step becomes
perfectly clear.

Listening.  It's what I teach.  It's what I practice.  It's what I
humbly learn and relearn daily through my own missteps and
moments of distraction.  When I fall into the habit of believing
that "I" can figure it out, that "I" make the decisions, that "I"
must find my way, the field narrows and"I" end up running
around in circles.

"Stand still.  The forest knows
Where you are.
You must let it find you."

Kathleen Knipp
Pathless Yoga

The poem "Lost" by David Wagoner

~

Photo taken by my brother
at Sunday River Ski Resort
in Maine.  He is a volunteer
ski patrol there...

~

Personal Note:

I love this piece by Kathleen.  It moved me deeply, not only
for it's message but because Kathleen did not give a "non-dual"
answer, dismissing her predicament, she gave a loving, caring,
compassionate answer to the woman who had gotten lost on
the trail - by reading comforting words from a poem about
 not being lost, about standing still and listening to the trees
 for the way to go.
And then Kathleen took action and went to help her friend
in trouble.  She acted with love from her heart...

In these very troubling times around the world, we need to
support each other in dealing with the reality we are faced with
 - in our  seeming"lostness"; as we navigate
a way "Home..." and remember our Infiniteness...

MM

Stand Still - David Wagoner

Stand still.
The trees ahead and the bushes beside you Are not lost.
Wherever you are is called Here.

And you must treat it as a powerful stranger.
Must ask permission to to know it and be known.
The forest breathes.  Listen.  It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost.  Stand still.
The forest knows Where you are.
You must let if find you.

David Wagoner
original title: "Lost"

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

I'm Baaack :) & Mark Nepo

"The Pause" has ended for now...  I am re-entering blog land. :)
It was an intense "Pause" and life continues to be intense in
many ways, but I wanted to start sharing some of the insights,
poetry that came, and other people's writings that spoke to me
during the pause...
 In a kind of mysterious synchronicity I was
given what I needed to hear or see...

This does not mean that my life circumstances have changed.
  As always, life is an ever-unfolding experience - but I am trying
 to learn to *meet* life differently - trying to be open
 and listen more to where life wants me to go,
 with less resistance - and open more
 to Light - hopefully.

~*~

On Being "Lost" - Mark Nepo

From Day One of "The Pause"

When we lose our "self-created" map,
our real knowledge of the path begins...

...the journey truly begins when we lose possession of what
we *thought* were answers, and are left to accept that we are
not in control.  ...beyond every answer is a larger quest-ion.

Being lost on the inner plane can be understood as a
disorientation that is necessary as we are thrust from what we
*think* we know, into the vibrant field of all we do not know.

Being lost can be a prelude to a deeper way, because once we
admit that we're not sure where life is taking us, then we are
ripe for transformation.  Then we are shapeable.  When losing
our way, we frequently retreat and withhold or take what we
think is a safer path.  This often complicates our confusion.

The reason most people get/feel lost is because they don't go
far enough.  They doubt where they are and change direction
too soon.  Somehow we are called to lean forward [to lean
into life more] with what little light we are given.

There are sudden moments - lightening flashes - by which
we can navigate for a while, sometimes years. And the moods
of confusion in between - those very dark nights - are where
we need to practice patience [waiting].  Too often, when
drifting through a difficult passage of uncertainty, we punish
ourselves for not knowing more, or not being more decisive
[or more "spiritual"].

But the lightening flash to dark night and back again is part of
the journey, despite how hard we work.  When the lightening
flashes - in our mind or in our heart - we glimpse the hidden
order and our changing place in it.

If we can see our way *through* the uncertainty of feeling "lost",
unexpected callings often present themselves.

Mark Nepo
excerpts from Seven Thousand Ways to Listen:
Staying Close to the Sacred

~

Photo from the Internet

 

Lost and Found - David Wagoner

Stand still.
The trees ahead and bushes beside you are not lost.
Wherever you are is called Here, and you must treat
it as a powerful stranger, must ask permission to know it
and be known.

The forest breathes.  Listen.  It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or bush does is lost on you,
you are surely lost.

Stand still.
The forest knows where you are.
You must let it find you.

David Wagoner
Original title: "Lost"

1999

~

Photo - Mt. Rainier Forest
Fred LaMotte

 

The Forest Knows - Wagoner and Berry

Stand still.  The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost.  Wherever you are is called Here.
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes.  Listen.  It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost.  Stand still.  The forest knows
Where you are.  You must let it find you.

David Wagoner
From "Lost"

~*~

I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirrings become quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.
Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.
Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear leaves it,
and the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.
After days of labor,
mute in my consternations,
I hear my song at last,
and I sing it.  As we sing,
the day turns, the trees move.

Wendell Berry
"I Go Among Trees"

Adrift - Chuck Surface

All the words I have written...
May have given you the illusion that I
have my bearings, and an understanding
of all that is unfolding...
When I am simply adrift
Without a compass...

Rudderless

Here...

In this Great Mystery

Excerpted from "Adrift"
by Chuck Surface
In the Garden of the Beloved

~*~

I woke up recently with this realization:
It is only this sense of me that feels adrift, lost, floundering -
not the Eternal Being that I am...
And, it is all happening within
the vast Ocean of the Great Mystery...
Everything happens within the Great Mystery...

And so it is all really okay, this floundering...
I accept it... Embrace it... Trust it...
It is simply where "I" am in time...

When I meet and embrace the feeling with acceptance
the grip of fear and lostness inside me lets go...
I then am able to float in the soft embrace of The Great Mystery,
and wait for the Inner Movement of
The Ineffable again...

Photo - taken by my brother...

~*~

Roam aimlessly
and find
What-Is

Wu Hsin

If I Appear Lost - Mark Nepo

[If  it appears that] I am lost,

[It means] that the few maps I’ve found or made up

have brought me to the edge of the unknown…

When I can’t speak at all

I don’t mean anything.

It’s just that I’ve unstitched the words

and have slipped into the

silence they contain…

Mark Nepo

Excerpt from the poem: “Entering Our Tenth Year”

From: Inside The Miracle

Twilight Moon...

Stand still.
The trees ahead and bushes beside you
are not lost.
Wherever you are is called Here…

…The forest breathes.
Listen.
It answers…

I have made this place around you.
If you leave it,
you may come back again,
saying Here…

Stand still.
The forest knows where you are.
You must let it find you…


David Wagoner
Excerpt From: “Lost”
To read the complete poem click here

I walk the maze of moments,
and everywhere I turn to
begins a new beginning
and never finds a finish.

I walk to the horizon,
and there I find another.
It all seems so surprising,
and then I find I know –

Anywhere Is…

Enya
Lyrics from: Anywhere Is

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone…

…To feel abandoned is to deny the intimacy
of your surroundings.

Surely…you have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence…crowding out your solo voice…

Put down the weight of your aloneness…
The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink,
the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness
and seen the good in you at last.
All birds and creatures of the world
are unutterably themselves.

Everything is waiting for you…


David Whyte
Excerpt From: Everything Is Waiting For You…
To read the complete poem click here

“At some point there has to be a direct apprehension.
It’s about a visceral taste of this living event…

This is what “being in the Now” is all about.
When the focus on thought stories subsides,
the living happening reveals itself.
There’s just a happening happening -
shifting modulations of a great event.

Clear seeing…..simply reveals what is always
already the case.
It soon dawns that whatever is occurring
in whatever state
is nothing other than a modulation of Life’s creative play.”


Radical Tao