Sail Away - Fred LaMotte

No writing on your sail.
No affirmations, not even "I."
Just let it ripple
in the cool steady breeze,
this breath.

The sail itself is the name of the Goddess.
You can stop rowing now.
Let the current carry you.
Throw the map away, the chart
of nadis and chi lines,
chakras and postures.
Who knows where you're going?
Destinations don't matter anymore.
Just sailing is grace.
Merely breathing in this body
is adventure.
And the sparkling sun on living water?
The beauty that shines
from your heart.

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance
and photo of art too...

Art: Leonid Afremov

 

Regaining the Rhythm of "Self" - John O'Donohue

When you regain a sense of your life as a journey of discovery,
you return to rhythm with your self.  When you take the time
to travel with reverence, a richer life unfolds before you.
Moments of beauty begin to braid your days.  When your
mind becomes more acquainted with reverence, the light,
grace and elegance of beauty find you more frequently.
When the destination becomes gracious, the journey
becomes an adventure of beauty.

John O'Donohue
Excerpt from: Divine Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

                                                                                        

Carving out a "Path"...

Life is asking me to redefine "the path" - again - to deepen
into a "new" way of seeing, being and living.  I am
embarking on what feels like a new step into the unknown,
carving out a "path" for myself, opening to new directions,
new perspectives, new awareness.  Being open to what is
really living this Life called "me" - and - at the same time,
allowing myself to just be the way I am.  As Ramana Maharshi
said to those who were searching for the Truth of their being -
"Be as you are..."  In letting go of the need to look through a
particular "spiritual" lens, I realize how freeing it is to allow
myself to just be myself...  To not strive to know the Truth,
but to let it reveal ItSelf; to not strive to be "spiritual" or
"non-dual" - or "enlightened."  I can just be who I am  -
as that is who my true "Beingness" IS.  I don't have to be
self-conscious about using words like "I", "me", "my" - in
some kind of pseudo non-dual awareness - because...  It's all
just Beingness, pure Awareness, pure Consciousness, Source,
God, etc., expressing ItSelf.  There's no need to make a
distinction between self and Self.  It's all The Self...
Imagine that :)

I don't need to worry about whether I'm coming from the ego-
self because it's part of the whole package, part of the
wholeness that we are.  I only need to BE, and let
BEingness reveal ItSelf, express ItSelf, live Itself as "me."

It's not about "me" being "enlightened", or spiritualizing
everything, but seeing the True Nature of myself and
being authentic...

I continue to gradually shed the conceptual frameworks that
have defined and informed my "path" so far - the boxes of belief
that have tended to constrain this authentic expression of Self,
extricating my sense of self from the life dramas that have
preoccupied my mind.  This shift in consciousness may take
some time, and I don't know where I will land, realizing that
Life is truly a Sacred Adventure of just Being, and adventure
in lightness and boldness; of letting go of the sack of
insignificant items/beliefs that I've been carrying for so long...
It's a never-ending exploration...

Namaste
Mystic Meandering

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

For A New Beginning - John O'Donohue

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life's desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

John O'Donohue

From: To Bless the Space Between Us

Live In Wonder - Bach, Monroe, Einstein

It must happen to all of us...  We pack up what we've learned
so far and leave the familiar behind.  No fun that shearing
separation but somewhere within, we must dimly know
that saying goodbye to safety brings the only security
we'll ever know.

Richard Bach

Quote from: Live In Wonder
a journal book
by Eric Saperston

~

Take wrong turns.  Talk to strangers.  Open unmarked doors.
There are so many adventures that you miss because you are
waiting to think of a plan.  To find them, look for tiny
interesting choices.

Randall Monroe

Quote from: Live In Wonder
a journal book
by Eric Saperston

~

The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Curiosity has its own reason for existence.
One cannot help but be in awe when he
contemplates the mysteries of eternity,
of life, of the marvelous structures of
reality.

Never lose a holy curiosity.

Albert Einstein

Quote from: Live In Wonder
a journal book
by Eric Saperston

~

Photo - Leaves on grass, color digitally inverted

An Expotition...

Pooh Bear and I went on an Expotition in the surrounding neighborhood last Thursday – our version of the 100 Acre Wood.  At my suggestion we went down a side street we had never been down before.  I was sure that there was a path that cut across a “power line right of way” back to our street, as I had seen the other end of the path from our street several times.  We kept walking down a long hill, following the curves in what seemed like a much longer way than the length of our own street just a block away.  We eventually found the path that cut through (yellow dotted line on map below), but it seemed to be a part of someone’s property that had a gate that was closed.  Neither one of us being the risk-taker type, Pooh and I decided to just keep going –  even though we had no idea where it would take us.

It was getting dark. Dogs were barking at us - strangers in this neck of the woods.  And we kept running into dead ends and cul-de-sacs.  We could see where we needed to be, but we couldn’t get there from where we were.  There was no path, no way through.  So we kept going and going and going, like an Expotition to nowhere.  Eventually we sighted a familiar main road.  We walked along the shoulder in rush hour traffic after dark – until we got to a large open field that we knew was just down the street from our house.  Once again I had seen that there was a path from our side of the field – that *appeared* to cut across the field.  But now that we were on the other side of the field we couldn’t find the path…  Okay, so this is becoming a theme here, don’t you think!

By this time I’m running on empty, stepping in gopher holes, and Pooh Bear is way ahead trying to find the way in the dark with only the remnants of light from the sunset.  We came to a deep ravine right in the middle of the field that spanned the entire width of the field.  There was no way across.  Ooops.  Very strange, I could have sworn I saw a path that went all the way the length of the field out to the main street.  I had not seen a deep ravine.  So we followed along the edge at the top of the ravine, hoping to find its end so we could get around it.  But the gaping hole didn’t end, until we got to a parking lot at the edge of the field.  We had to go through the parking lot and re-enter the field on the other side of the ravine where we *finally* found a way that would lead us home, which was not necessarily "the path" that we *thought* would take us there.  Phew.  Now *that* was an expotition.  It was probably about 2 miles, and about an hour’s brisk walk.

Upon reflection I found the whole journey an interesting life metaphor that we kept running into dead ends and cul-de-sacs, unable to get where we needed to go; not really knowing where we were going, unable to find a path that would take us home.  Everyday life reflecting an internal perception of “reality…”

 Just two days before I had awoken with the sense of needing to “leave the spiritual path behind” (also a recurring theme), although it was not clear to me what that meant exactly, and still isn’t, but change is in the air - again. J  It is the sense of “endings,” the sense of giving up the *trying*, the*striving* to find the right way, to stop *pursuing* the path; to just stop - to just *live* and not always try to *get* somewhere.  Pooh Bear has even commented that he felt I was trying too hard to find my way, efforting. And when I asked him why I was not getting the clarity and insight that seem to come to him so easily, he said – “because I’m not *trying*.”  Oooo – wise bear.  They just come to him because he stays open to life, without agenda, without the expectation of finding anything.  But as a consequence of my *trying* so hard to find the right path, the path has become illusive, and almost emotionally torturous to travel.  So I was not totally surprised when our little expotition ended up feeling a lot like my “spiritual path.”

 Recently I mentioned to a fellow blogger that I felt like I have been running on a “spiritual treadmill” going nowhere; still running on the surface of life.  That even after 30 years of being on a “spiritual path” I was still living on the surface of life, aware of a deeper Reality – a vast spacious background Presence in which all of life exists – but still focused mainly on the surface; lamenting that even “spirituality,” like religion, had become just another construct in the matrix. 

So it seems it’s time to get off the treadmill and leave the surface path behind, head deeper Into The Forest and Plumbthe Depths, tasting the sweet honey in the adventure of Being, and experience the current of Being that runs deeply through the internal pathways.

“Why search for anything when the very fabric of experience is
the path,
the unfolding of everyday experience.

Stop trying to awaken,
stop meddling with your experience
long enough to notice what is.

The key is within.”

Rob Matthews
”The Ineffable Mystery of Being”
(scroll down to read full article)

Wonders From the Depths of Being...

Bask in the passion of Truth – of Life;
the passionate Truth of Being.
Let yourself deepen into the
Depths

of the
Nameless Ocean of Being,
and become aware
of the
Truth of Being
that you are…

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
July 2012

Wonder of wonders, I may have discovered my reason to get up in the morning. J  It seems it is to *experience* the Adventure of Being – whether one calls it Being, Awareness, Consciousness, Existence, Essential Nature, True Nature, Buddha Nature, Christ Consciousness, The Beloved, The Great Msytery, Emptiness, Love, etc.  Any name we give it is merely a description, a characteristic, a quality, an attribute.  But what is this Presence – this Ubiquitous Presence that just IS, that we *feel* as the very basis of our being, of life, of living?  I recently experienced it as the primal passion of Being, the Passion of Being for living ItSelf - here… There’s an Aliveness that wells up, that wants to know ItSelf and be known – intimately - to be acknowledged, experienced, and to be expressed.  Beingness Itself, beyond the mask of “me”, wanting to experience and express ItSelf – as life – as us.  Have you felt it…

I listen to and experience the depths of Being through sitting meditation, through becoming intimately *aware* of Beingness at the depths of Silence, aware of what is Aware of every experience, every thought, every feeling.  Aware of the fluidity, the movement and the tangible depth of Being.  It is Being, expressing ItSelf *as* life.  There is a subtle tingling, a “vibration” of “livingness” going on continuously – unendingly – at the depths of Being… It’s wondrously amazing. The “Emptiness” of Existence is alive and constantly generating Itself in the vibration called life.  There is a deep resonance within the depths of Being – a deep primordial hum of “livingness” – the silent hum of the Universe that vibrates all life into Existence – OM.  It is a deep Aliveness that cannot be interpreted or labeled.  It is not even really “Joy.”  It’s not even “Awareness”.  I can only describe it as a natural, ongoing, all pervasive “Knowingness” – Omniscience – “Omness” (is that a word?) J  But that’s just my experience…  How do you experience the depths of Being – if you care to share…

And in truth, what wants to *be* and just *is* cannot be put into words! Even though we try :) Being has to be experienced – felt – known internally.  It requires complete openness to and immersion in the depths of Being, without agenda - untethered; a willingness to dive deep, to be still, to be aware, to ask to know the Truth of Existence, to listen at the depths of Being and go beyond everything that we *think* we know conceptually - and just know intuitively with the Heart…

Are we willing to *know* with child-like wonder that we *are* the living, breathing Om of the Universe, that we *are* Beingness itself – reverberating through time and timelessness…

Now that’s a reason to get up in the morning! J

Photo
Cloud cover tinted blue
and “radial blurred.”