Real Acceptance - Henry Rollins

If the world gives you the blues, if you wake up in the
middle of the night with waves of fear and senseless
panic washing over you, I am your friend.  If you're
overcome by a desperation that makes your mouth
open for a scream that never comes out but just freezes
your face in mute despair, then you and I have something
in common.  If you can't understand them for the life of
you, even though you've tried so hard, when that
dislocation makes you feel like you're the only one of
your species on the planet, I know I can confide in you.
If this endless ghetto of lies and heart break, this life-
long run of fences and flickering neon signs and night
sweats makes you feel like stopping, just stopping,
wait.  Wait...

You don't have to tell me your name.
You don't have to prove yourself to me.
I accept you...

Henry Rollins

with thanks to Whiskey River

~

Love and Blessings to all who are struggling
in body, mind and spirit...

_/\_

MM

~

Polar Bears Hugging Photo from the Internet

 

A Heart Warmer...

These photos are so heart warming.  We received them from an
online friend back in 2011, and I can't even remember who.  But

I think they are from England, and I was so moved by them
that I wanted to share them again, after 13 years...

This is the short story that came with these pictures:  Lily is a 
Great Dane that has been blind since a bizarre medical condition
required that she have both eyes removed.  For the last 5 years,
Maddison, another Great Dane, has been her sight.  The two are,
of course inseparable...

This was the caption at the bottom of the photos:

"People will forget what you said; People will forget what you
did.  But people will never forget how you made them feel."

~~

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives
means the most to us, we often find that it is those who,
instead of giving much advice, solutions or cures,
have chosen rather to share our pain
and touch our wounds
with a gentle hand.

The friend who can be silent with us
in a moment of despair or confusion,
who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement,
who can tolerate not knowing,
not curing,
not healing,

and face with us the reality of our powerlessness,
that is a friend who cares."

Henri Nouwen

~

Wishing you many blessings of love,
especially in these challenging and
 less than loving times...

MM

 

Perspectives on perspective - a meandering...

My father had a saying on a small plaque over
 his desk that said:

"Don't judge another man till you've walked a mile in
his shoes."

I Googled it to see if I could find the quote, and it came
up with several variations.

I liked this one:

"You can't really understand another person's experience
until you've walked a mile in their shoes."

Cherokee Indian saying

~

Then it gave someone's interpretation on the meaning:

"to experience life as someone else lives it and see the
world from their perspective, instead of trying to
change their perspective; it's known as empathy and
compassion..."

author unknown

~

And then there was this one...

You never really know someone until you understand 
their point of view, until you climb around in their skin
and walk around in it.

Harper Lee
To Kill a Mockingbird

~

How often in the "spiritual culture" do the spiritual elite
try to convince you that their perspective is the "right"
perspective, the non-dual, spiritual perspective,
under the guise of "Truth."

But maybe we all just "see" the "Truth" differently,
through different "windows", through different
 lenses of perception...
It's all a play of perspectives...

Namaste 

_/\_

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Different Perspectives out the same window

 

Everyone Is Wounded - Rachel Naomi Remen

All people are wounded, but people who come here can't cover
it up the way the rest do.  Everybody has pain, everybody is
wounded.  And because [Commonweal] participants can't cover up
 their woundedness now that they have cancer, they can trust each
other. I can trust another person only if I can sense that they, too
have woundedness, have pain, have fear.

[When you have cancer, or other chronic or serious illness]
you feel separated from the whole  human race.  You feel
 as though you're looking at the world through plate glass. 
You can see other people, but you feel as if you can't touch them
 or be with them, because you are different.  They say that the
sense of isolation, of being separated from people who are
well, is as painful as chemotherapy, as cancer itself...

Years ago, when I was Associate Director of the pediatric
clinics at the Stanford Medical School, one of my
colleagues, Marshall Klaus, did a study which at the time
was extremely innovative.  He was chief of the intensive
care nursery, where all the babies were these tiny little
people you could hold in your hand.  Each incubator was
surrounded by shifts of people and millions of dollars worth
of equipment.  Everything was high-tech. Of course, we
didn't touch these infants because we'd get germs on them.
But Klaus decided to do an experiment in which half the
babies in the nursery would be treated as usual, and the 
other half would be touched for fifteen minutes every few
hours.  You'd take your pinky finger and rub it up and down
the little baby's back.  And we discovered that the babies
that were touched survived better.  No one knows why.
Maybe there's something about touching that strengthens
the will to live.  Maybe isolation weakens us.

Rachel Naomi Remen
Cofounder of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program,
as interviewed by Bill Moyers in
Healing and the Mind

with thanks to Rod MacIver 
at Heron Dance
Rod is a survivor of 4th stage Lymphoma.

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

~

"People don't care how much you know,
until they know how much you care."

whatever happened to compassion...

 

The "Caregiver"...

I have to find a way through this...

I am missing quiet times in the Silence;
- writing; poems, if they arise;
and emails to friends; or chapters 
for future books - never to be published -
ghost stories
about a life unlived...

I am missing the life I had -
or rather - the rhythm with the Life I lived:
quiet, slow, restful - a contemplative's elder years;
that allowed me to spontaneously express from the deeper,
quieter space of Being - now frozen in an emotionally
draining time-bound reality,
that at times feels unreal, unfamiliar.

I got caught in a time warp somewhere
by someone else's dreamscape...

I am paralyzed, unexpressive in many ways,
flatlined by my life experience;
choked on life's challenges big enough to kill one's spirit;
trying to be kind, compassionate and caring,
and somehow magically pulling it off,
with a little humor at times,
while my own life slowly wanes into non-existence.

I need my Life back - although it will never be the same
again...  The Life energy drains from the body - physically
flattened and barely functioning, becoming mechanical,
trying to hold onto my Heart,
through barrages of blame,
and arrows of long held hatred
from a troubled soul...

I have to find myself again -
before it's too late...

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 4, 2023
1 am
(the quiet hour)

This just happens to be the anniversary of my
father's death 38 years ago - at age 61...
It seems like a lifetime ago in another reality -
and of course it was...  He has missed so much,
but maybe that's a good thing...

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Drop the Judgement...

There is no judgement about what we do
or don't do - about what is said or not said...

Drop the judgement and see what happens...

Everything is just what it is.

Everyone is just what they are.

If you drop the judgement
you drop the anger...

Judgement is like resistance -
it binds the heart...

You can't get people to change...

The issue is to drop the judgement
and just allow things to be the way they are -
because that's the way they are...

When I can 't feel compassion
I need to drop the judgement...

Mystic Meandering
Sept. 30, 2023

12:52 am

(I'm still working on it :)

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Suffering - Francis Weller

No one escapes suffering in this life.
None of us is exempt from loss, pain, illness and death.
How is it that we have so little understanding of [and empathy for]
these essential experiences?  How is it that we have attempted
to keep grief separated from our lives and only begrudgingly 
acknowledge its presence at the most obvious of time, such as
a funeral.

It is the accumulated losses of a lifetime that slowly weigh us
down - the times of rejection, the moments of isolation when we felt
cut off from the sustaining touch of comfort and love.  It is an ache
that resides in the heart, the faint echo calling us back to the times of
loss.  We are called back, not so much to make things right, but to
acknowledge what happened to us.

Grief asks that we honor the loss and, in doing so, deepen our
capacity for compassion.  When grief remains unexpressed, however,
 it  hardens, becomes as solid as stone.  We, in turn, become rigid and
stop moving in rhythm with the soul.... with the flow of life.  Grief is
part of the dance.

As we begin to pay attention, we notice that grief is never far from
our awareness.  We become aware of the many ways it arrives in
our daily lives. It is the blue mood that greets us upon waking.  It
is the melancholy that shades the day in muted tones.  It is the
recognition of time's passing, the slow emptying of our days.  It
is the searing pain that erupts when someone close to us dies -
It is the confounding grief when our life circumstances are
shattered by the unexpected....  the ground beneath us opens,
shaken by violent rumblings.  Grief enfolds our lives....

It is essential for us to welcome grief, whatever form it takes.
When we do, we open ourselves to our shared experiences in life.
Grief is our common bond.  Opening to our sorrow connects us
with everyone, everywhere.  There is no gesture of kindness that
is wasted, no offering of compassion that is useless.  We can be
generous to every sorrow we see.  It is sacred work.

Francis Weller

from The Wild Edge of Sorrow:
Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief;
The Threshold Between Loss and Revelation
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Life Suspended...

I don't remember winter
being so grey - even when
the sun is shining...

So frozen, so cold, hard crusted;
which may only be a reflection
of my own inner landscape.
I have been frozen lately -
iced in by life circumstances....

And then, out of the blue,
standing in the kitchen
under a moonlit sky light
in the dark of night,
everything softened -
as I thought about "the visitor"
sitting alone in her chair,
suffering and struggling,
mentally and physically,
day in and day out...

Sadness arose for her aloneness,
and hard life - self imposed 
by life choices made long ago -
for which she now pays the consequences -
or so I tell myself...

Then Compassion overtook me -
and my heart melted, released of its
hard line - and dare I say "love" arose
for "the visitor" who sits alone in her chair,
her body and mind breaking down;
memory and mental capacity quickly waning -
struggling day in and day out;
just sitting -
solitaire and TV
 her constant companions...

A life suspended...

Mystic Meandering
January 6, 2023

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Life as it is - a meandering

Religion is a heavy mantle some people wear -
robes of ritual, dogma and doctrine...

Advaita is a heady game some people like to play -
self/no-self?

Non-duality - a conundrum -
not two - but not one...

I'm tired of all these heavy "games" I've played
in the "Spiritual Game"...

It's time for me to just step out of the way -
to let myself unfold -
and not entangle myself in the many webs
that constrain and constrict that Flow.

Maybe some ancient saint or sage had it all figured out -
maybe not...

My inner sage tells me it's about acceptance,
about empathy, compassion; about living life as it is
the best I can without living up to some "spiritual"
ideal: Someone else's beliefs, someone else's "way",
someone else's "truth"; the "right" perspective, or
"right" thinking... 

Needing to listen to the
deeper Rhythm of my own Soul/Essence/Being...

But strong primal instincts arise,
unable to "spiritualize"
the rawness of emotions into - pretty language...

The practicality of Buddhist Wisdom draws me now -
not as a religion or belief system, but as day to day
wisdom for getting through...
The wisdom of accepting what is, of just being present,
of mindfulness, of caring and compassion, of stepping
out of the way of the experience and just seeing what unfolds,
letting go of expectations, the need for solutions,
 and the need to control - allowing life to happen
as it does...

No more lofty goals of "enlightenment" -
just fulfilling the requirements of ordinary daily living
in the midst of global and personal chaos
- in my new role as "caregiver" -
doing what needs to be done
as life keeps living itself
 as it is...

Mystic Meandering
Dec. 12, 2022

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Hubby and Emmy sleeping....

 

Shared Brokeness - Desmond Tutu

We are able to forgive because we are able to
recognize our shared humanity.  We are able to
recognize that we are all fragile, vulnerable,
flawed human beings capable of thoughtlessness
and cruelty.  We also recognize that no one is born
evil and that we are all more than the worst thing
we have done in our lives.

A human life is a great mixture of goodness, beauty
cruelty, heartbreak, indifference, love, and so much more.
We want to divide the good from the bad, the saints from
the sinners, but we cannot.  All of us share the core qualities
of our human nature, and so sometimes we are generous
and sometimes selfish.  Sometimes we are thoughtful and
other times thoughtless, sometimes we are kind and sometimes
cruel.  This is not a belief.  This is a fact.

If we look at any hurt, we can see a larger context in which
the hurt happened.  If we look at any perpetrator, we can
discover a story that tells us something about what led up
to that person causing harm.  It doesn't justify the person's
actions; it does provide some context...

No one is born a liar or a rapist or a terrorist.  No one is born
full of hatred.  No one is born full of violence.  No one is
born in any less glory or goodness than you or I.

But on any given day, in any given situation, in any painful
life experience, this glory and goodness can be forgotten,
obscured, or lost.  We can easily be hurt and broken, and
it is good to remember that we can just as easily be the 
ones who have done the hurting and the breaking.  We are
all members of the same human family...

In seeing the many ways we are similar and how our lives
are inextricably linked, we can find empathy and compassion.
In finding empathy and compassion, we are able to move
in the direction of forgiving.

Ultimately it is humble awareness of our own humanity
that allows us to forgive:

We are, every one of us flawed and so very fragile.  I know
that, were I born a member of the white ruling class at that
time in South Africa's past, I might easily have treated someone
with the same dismissive disdain with which I was treated.  I
know given the same pressures and circumstances, I am capable
of the same monstrous acts as any other human on this 
achingly beautiful planet.  It is this knowledge of my own frailty
that helps me find compassion, empathy and similarity,
and forgiveness for the frailty and cruelty of others.

Desmond Tutu
and Mpho A. Tutu

from: The Book of Forgiving:
The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves
and the World

With thanks to The Beauty We Love

Photo - thanks to Uradiance

 

The Decisive Element - Goethe

I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am
the decisive element.  It is my personal approach that
creates the climate.  It is my daily mood that makes the
weather.  I possess tremendous power to make life
miserable or joyous.  I can be a tool of torture or an
instrument of inspiration.  I can humiliate or humor,
hurt or heal.  In all situations it is my response that
decides whether a crisis is escalated or deescalated, 
and a person is humanized or dehumanized.  If we
treat people as they ought to be, we help them
become what they are capable of becoming.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

with thanks to Whiskey River

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Competition and Compassion - Sharon Salzburg

Competition today is tantamount to a blood sport -
and not just on the playing field or in the ring.

The psychoanalytic theorist Karen Horney introduced
the concept of hyper-competitiveness as a neurotic
personality trait almost 70 years ago.  She characterized
the hyper competitive coping strategy as "moving against
people" (in contrast to moving toward or away from people).
Her observations are now all too evident in our culture.
Extreme us-versus-them behavior has created a lonely world.
There is always some new adversary to move against, so we
get locked into a vicious circle of measuring our strengthe
by disparaging others.

Competition is natural, a part of the human arsenal for survival,
but when it creates enmity, we need to question its power in our
lives.

This is where sympathetic joy - joy in the happiness of others -
comes in.  If we're in a competitive frame of mind, when
 something good happens to someone else, we think it 
somehow diminishes us.  It doesn't really, of course, but
being consumed with jealousy and envy clouds our judgement.
Even when we're not in the running, extreme competitiveness
makes us feel as if we were.

If we approach life from a place of scarcity, a mind-set
that emphasizes what we lack instead of what we have, then
anyone who has something we want becomes the enemy.

As a Buddhist monk Nyanaponika Thera says:

"It is compassion that removes the heavy bar,
opens the door to freedom,
makes the narrow heart as wide as the world..."

Looking closely at the life of someone we consider to be the
competition, we are bound to see hardships that the person
endured or understand how tenuous status and good fortune
can be. When we can connect with a perceived enemy on the
level of human suffering, winning or losing seems less important.

A few years ago I led a meditation group at an elementary school

in Washington, D.C.  The walls of the school corridors were
plastered with homilies:  Treat people the way you would like
to be treated.  Play fair.  Don't hurt others on the inside or the
outside. The message that stopped my short, however, was
Everyone can play.

Sharon Salzburg
Buddhist Teacher

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

(and photo too)

 

Not to Worry - Emmet Fox

It makes no difference how deeply seated may be the trouble,
how hopeless the outlook,
how muddled the tangle,
how great the mistake.

A sufficient realization of love will dissolve it all...

Emmet Fox

with thanks to  Death Deconstructed

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Wisdom in the Storms - a meandering

Not everyone makes it through... and what tries to kill you
takes a lot of energy that makes you tired and anxious, and
might be better used elsewhere...

Rebecca Solnit
Recollections of My Nonexistence

~

What I call "unnecessary storms" are the ones that are created
by those in your life who have refused to take responsibility
for their own lives - whose life choices continue to impact you
in a negative way.  They can kill your spirit, your creativity
and your motivation, as well as drain your life energy, affecting
your health and well-being.  I almost drowned in another person's
addiction through "care taking", "rescuing", and enabling,
discovering how easy it is to get entangled in their "unnecessary
storms" - their crises, their dramas - that they create through their
addictive behavior; blaming you for their circumstances; calling
you names.  And no matter what you do for them, it is never
enough... (Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about.)

The "unnecessary storms" keep you focused on "the elephant in
the room" - keeping things in chaos and stress.  How interesting
that they have the power to do that - to distract and disrupt your
life rhythm - even your inner life - in their boredom, needing
your attention, time, and presence - in their self-induced
helplessness....

And yet... I have found there is wisdom gained in enduring these
"unnecessary storms."

A friend once told me, it is important to follow the wisdom of 
compassion, and I would add - kindness and even empathy.  We
all have our "addictions", even"spiritual" ones, and a common
dysfunction, which the Buddhists call conditioning.  The Hindus
call it Samskaras - the psychological wounds or imprints in the
mind, or innate behavior inclinations.  As a Professional advised:
Be compassionate - yes - but don't get into the water and drown
with them.  Don't get sucked into their vortex.

So I've had to learn to listen to and trust my inner instincts and
intuition, the whispers of the Heart...

Not to judge, but to find a way to relate in as compassionate way
as possible - seeing their pain, and reasons for their addiction;
often using humor when needing to set boundaries.  I recently
moved into acceptance mode: accepting them and their life
experiences as part of a larger Tapestry - a diverse human
tapestry inclusive of all life experiences - each expressing a
unique piece - even the darker ones.  I dropped the old, hard
stances, (as Alanon and CODA use) and my old roles; learning
the hard lesson to accept who they are and their path - not trying
to control their behavior - or what I think "should" be happening.

But - I also have to remember to step back, to not go down the
rabbit hole with them, but find ways to compassionately take
care of myself, tending to my own soul and sanity - putting on
some music and dancing, finding my natural rhythm again -
my own flow, freeing myself from entanglement in the
"unnecessary storms."

_/\_

MM

I share this personal meandering in the hopes that it might
strike a chord with those who might be experiencing
"unnecessary storms."

Even mystics have messy lives :)

May we somehow find our way through them...

Blessings

~

 

Cracked Open by Illness - Jeff Foster

Just because someone manages a  smile today, or seems to hold
a positive outlook, or cracks a little joke, or convinces you that
they're okay, doesn't mean they're okay.

The experience of being on the inside of chronic illness has
completely cracked me open to a deeper compassion for
all my brothers and sisters.

I have no idea what anyone is going through, under their facade,
their mask, their personality, their brilliant defences, the 
"positive" or "spiritual" outfit they wear to survive.

They are trying to survive in the only way they know how.

Spiritual teachers and their students, therapist and their clients,
priests, philosophers, life coaches, world authorities, saints
and sinners - they are all in pain.

We are ALL trying to survive the only way we know how.

Let's be a little kinder to each other.  Forgive each other for
our masks, our awkwardness, our closed hearts, our weirdness.
Go beyond surfaces.

Sometimes we are not okay,
and that's okay.

As Ram Dass said, "we are all walking each other home..."

Jeff Foster

As some of you know know Jeff Foster has been very ill
since last July with debilitating Neurological Lyme Disease
that impacted him, not only physically but emotionally.

~

You may also be interested in reading a poem by Danna Faulds
on illness, called What Remains.

Or read John O'Donohue's piece on The Challenge of Illness

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The body knows, the heart knows - Matt Licata

You don't have to fix anyone's problems.  You don't have to save
them, heal them, or get them to take on your favorite metaphysical
beliefs, theories, and techniques.

Just be there with them so that they feel felt and understood.
Bear witness to their own organic wisdom as it re-calibrates,
reorganizes, and emerges.

Listen.  Not only to their verbal narrative but to the somatic
story as well.  To the secret, sensitive language emerging from
their heart.

Bracket your beliefs and systems for a few moments.
Attune.  Enter into the miracle we-space with them, so that
they feel felt.

Extend to them a field of permission where they can go through
their experience without any pressure to heal or to meet some
hidden agenda in order for you to stay close.  Resist the
temptation to "teach" them.  But instead, "reach" them, finally,
by way of the circuitry of empathic immersion.

It's going to be difficult to do this if we are out of touch with 
our own unlived life - with the unmet grief, the unheld sadness,
the unmetabolized rage.  If we have disavowed these visitors -
including through our endless [spiritual] theories and beliefs...

Of course the mind has such a hard time with this.  It just can't
believe it.  What about my theories and techniques and spiritual
beliefs and all of it?  I must convey it all and show them.

But the body knows.  The heart knows. The holy nervous system
knows.

The "other" is not in need of new information, theories, or spiritual
beliefs, but needs and wants and longs for you...  your nakedness,
your tenderness, your raw unfiltered being, your love.

Matt Licata

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
November Rose

 

Grief is Sacred - Francis Weller

No one escapes suffering in this life.
None of us is exempt from loss, pain, illness and death.
How is it that we have so little understanding of these
essential experiences?  How is it that we have attempted to
keep grief separated from our lives and only begrudgingly
acknowledge its presence at the most obvious times, such
as a funeral?

'If sequestered pain made a sound,' Stephen Levine says,
'the atmosphere would be humming all the time.'

It is the accumulated losses of a lifetime that slowly weigh
us down - the times of rejection, the moments of isolation
when we felt cut off from the sustaining touch of comfort
and love.  It is an ache that resides in the heart, the faint echo
calling us back to the times of loss.  We are called back, not
so much to make things right, but to acknowledge what
happened to us.

Grief asks that we honor the loss and, in doing so, deepen
our capacity for compassion.  When grief remains unexpected,
however, it hardens, becomes as solid as stone.  We, in turn,
become rigid and stop moving in rhythm with the soul...

When our grief stagnates, we become fixed in place, unable
to move and dance with the flow of life.  Grief is part of
the dance.

As we begin to pay attention, we notice that grief is never 
far from our awareness.  We become aware of the many ways
it arrives in our daily lives.  It is the blue mood that greets us
upon waking.  It is the melancholy that shades the day in
muted tones.  It is the recognition of time's passing, the slow
emptying of our days.  It is the searing pain that erupts when
someone close to us dies....  It is the confounding grief when
our life circumstances are shattered by the unexpected.....

It is essential for us to welcome our grief, whatever form it
takes. When we do, we open ourselves to our shared
experiences in life. Opening to our sorrow connects us with
everyone, everywhere.  There is no gesture of kindness that is
wasted, no offering of compassion that is useless. 
We can be generous to every sorrow we see.
It is sacred work.

Francis Weller
from - The Wild Edge of Sorrow

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Quantum Strangeness - Fred LaMotte

Here's another secret of quantum strangeness from the annals
of the quark.  All events, as to their quiddity, are equally
significant.

The daring leap of a tree frog from the spigot of your garden
hose, to her sanctuary in a pot of begonias, is as important as
the birth of a new political party, or an earthquake in Brooklyn.

The universe is not just as you see it, but as the frog sees it.
Your attention magnifies a breath of August breeze into a
hurricane; but for the frog, all human catastrophes are as
weightless clouds in a distant sky.  They pass soundlessly
overhead.

Why do you assume that your chief concern should be mine?
The liberal wants to convince me, the conservative wants to
convert me.  Neither allows me to create myself.  But that is
one task I can do better than anyone else.  Let me follow the
wondrous river of my own interest over all its rocks, through
the rough waters of responsibility and consequence, and I will
learn my lesson much better than you can teach me.

A Greek philosopher said, 'Be kind: everyone you meet is
fighting a great battle.'  A Jewish carpenter said, 'Judge not,
lest ye be judged.'  Here's another piece of advice: if you want
to see radical transformation in humanity, stop trying to change
each other.

Have you ever walked the labyrinth?  One who seems closest
to the goal may suddenly find their way veering far off.  When
two pilgrims pass, they don't know who is nearing the center,
and who is drifting further from it.  Compassion is precisely
this not knowing.  All they can do is bow...

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Purpose

 What is my purpose in life? I asked "the Void"

Your problem is that you equate 
your purpose with goal-based
achievement.

The Universe isn't interested in your achievements...

Just your heart...

When you choose to act out of kindness, compassion
and love, you already are aligned with
your true purpose...

author unknown

~

On any given day it's not about the goal.
it's about the experience of living...

of simply being...

author unknown

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

The 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
that "I am That"...

It will not be held back, suffocated
by the 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
updated version 2/3/2021

~

Sadness is not something you need to fix,
cure, or transform.  It need not be healed, but held.
You need not shift 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

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering