The Face of The Sacred...

 All life is a Cosmic Dance
and a play of perspectives from which
you see it...

Everything is temporary -
breath, thoughts - life;
existence itself, even the planet.
All experience is energy;
pain, depression, anger,
joy, love - a vibration...

The Face of The Sacred is revealed in every "bloom" -
every experience of Life - as it is -
no matter how painful...

Every flower has its own "face" - concealed.
But even in the pain of life it blossoms...

Source reveals ItSelf through our pain...

She pulls back the veils of concealment to reveal
our True Face - a beautiful reflection of Her "bloom",
hidden in the movements of Her mystical Dance of Life...

Mystic Meandering
May 24, 2022

with thanks to Mitch Rosacker of Self Discovery Studio
for the inspiration for the poem :)

Video - from a Friend of Mitch

Personal Commentary about the poem:
This poem came about as a result of a break through moment while
talking with Mitch - and - from the video of the Iris that he sent
me from a Friend.  When the woman pulled back the top petals of
the Iris to reveal a face inside the "bloom" I gasped...  And realized
that our True Face is hidden behind the veils (or masks) that we
wear - thus the line: "She pulls back the veils of concealment to
reveal our True Face - a beautiful reflection of Her "bloom" (Face).

_/\_

MM

Dance Between the Worlds - Joseph Campbell

As we love ourselves, we move toward our own bliss, by which
Joseph Campbell meant our highest enthusiasm.  The word entheos
means "god-filled." Moving towards that which fills us with the
godhood [or Buddha Nature, The Mystery, Pure Consciousness,
etc.], that place where time is not, is all we need to do to change
our world.  Then we, naturally and without effort, love others
and allow them to move beyond their self-imposed limitations,
and in their own ways.  The goal is to evolve to that place where
the energy that had been projected outward to correct the [them]
 world is turned around to correct oneself - to find your own "track"
[rhythm] and to dance, in balance between the worlds.

Following your bliss, as Joseph meant it, is not self-indulgent
but vital; your whole physical system knows that this is the
way to be alive in this world and the way to give to the world
the very best that you have to offer.

From: A Joseph Campbell Companion
Selected and edited by Diane K. Osbon

with thanks to HeronDance.org/e-journal

Photo from the Internet

 

A Prayer...

Call my name...  Call my name...

My unborn name...

The name that only You know...

When I danced with the unnamed stars
and unknown galaxies...

Let me hear Your voice again...

Let me sink into Your depths...
Let me feel the warm glow of Your
hidden light...
Let me hear the soft sound of Your
unplayed music -
dancing through the Cosmos -
before You were called
Shakti, Shiva, The Buddha, Allah, The Christ;
or however You reveal Yourself,
in the land of myths and stories...

Let me rest in
Your Primal Energy at the Core of my Being,
That which infuses all life
and lights everything from within.
The Breath of the Eternal Source...

Amen

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 7, 2021

Photo from the Internet

 

The Yawn of Infinity - Caitlin Johnstone

...you and everything you've ever known is nothing but an
infinitely small blip in the middle of a yawning expanse of
infinity...

The very thing you think of as you is no more substantial
than a wisp of sea foam.  You're nothing but a loosely
associated cloud of cells swirling around for a short time
in the inseparable interplay with the ecosystem which 
birthed on a tiny planet in the outer periphery of a galaxy
which in the grand scheme of things is scarcely older than
you are.  You're a little eddie twirling in the middle of the
ocean for a single instant, and you presume yourself so wise
and authoritative that you can pass out decrees on the
meaninglessness of life...?

From every Big Bang in every universe there emerge
movements of every possible form.  These movements
may and can include pain.  And cancer.  [And COVID].
They can also include serial killers, ecocide, oligarchs, and
warmongers.  These things are all part of the swirling ongoing
explosion of this universe, which achieves peaks of dazzling
beauty, the likes of which your primate mind cannot even
imagine, then it grows old and collapses in on itself once again.
They're all little curlicues in the movement of its energy, just
like the sea foam on the waves.  And they are fully, entirely
beloved, just as they are.  No part of the cosmic dance is
rejected.  Every part is embrace.  And when it all goes, that
going is embraced as well, and so is the pain of loss.

Love doesn't seek to dominate and control what is happening.

Real love loves everything just as it is, however it shows up.
Real love doesn't reject what is; it's a deep and unconditional
yes.  And of course that yes can include saying yes to surgery,
and chemotherapy [or death].  The yes is always there, if you
can get past all the head noise and notice it.

You're every molecule is perfectly beloved no matter what
you do...
You can learn what is is to love life if you want...

Caitlin Johnstone
From an article entitled:
The Boy and the Starfish and the Yawning Chasm of Infinity

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

FunQi Art - Mystic Meandering
2012

 

Dancing with Life...

In moments of Solitude and Quiet
the life "characters" I've assumed -
fall away...

The defense mechanisms, beliefs, roles and identities
drop into the Quiet -
and the Eternal Perspective emerges...

unthinking happens...

Embracing the mystery and paradox of life,
I accept the totality of life experience;
not just the pathways of 
light and bliss and peace -
but the darker pathways,
with their shadows of the psyche,
without "spiritualizing" them...
Accepting the shadow side of life
as part of the Whole...

In the Quietude I listen to the "Oracle" of the Soul
that has imagery, poetry and music all its own.

With the innocence of a child -
open and spontaneous -
my Heart, hidden by the many masks I've worn,
melts through - hearing the music...

Unencumbered... Unconstrained... Undefined...
And dances with the innate Rhythm of Life again -
The Natural Rhythm,
as the world plays out its darker side.

Mystic Meandering

Aug. 29, 2021

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

 

The Cosmic Dance...

 I have conversed with the Universe,
contemplated and cogitated,
ascended and descended,
polarized, conceptualized and spiritualized;
dis-membered and re-membered -
and still, I find no -
"plan"...

Only vastness and immensity,
beyond theory, framework and perception.
The Greatest, Grandest Mystery
in an ever unfolding nebula,
procreating itself in billowy clouds
and golden streams of stardust
in and endless infinity...

A golden thread weaves through space
without beginning or end, through
the Silence beyond creation, through
Sound beyond sound, and
Light beyond light...

Matchlessly weaving its Eternal vibration
through timelessness,
into time and times beyond time,
with one theme braided into its
unending spiral
through dimensions,
distortions, and
dysfunctions...

~ Love ~

From this divine, mysterious weave
we dance the dance of duality,
complete in our light and our dark
within a vast Cosmic Love
of Divine Embrace...

Mystic Meandering

1999

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Your Body Is The Universe - Fred LaMotte

Photo from Dreamstime.com 

Your body is not a tomb, or a trap, or punishment.
Your body is the universe inviting you to wake up and dance.

Your body has no edges. It is an ocean of energy expanding
in waves of breath, teeming with stars, swirling with galaxies,
overflowing with the very rim of time and space.  And your
dance can be wild as a whirlwind, or as quiet as a heartbeat.
You need not even move; your body is moving anyway, hosts
of cells, countless atoms in the marvelous ballet of
incarnation...

The axis of infinity runs up your hollow spine, a silver thread
of silk to tether your skull to the most distant star, and your
belly to the fire of darkness in the center of the planet.

Your body is a lightening bolt, connecting heaven and earth.
In truth, it is only the limited mind that insists on
distinguishing the spiritual from the physical...

But please, don't mistake the mind for the Self.

You are not the mind.

Bathe in the sea of the Breath...

You are the cosmos, flowing in gratitude through the energy of
your flesh, dissolving your mind into the infinite sky.  Be bold.
Leap into the unfathomable ocean of your body.  Live in the
silent grace beyond thought.

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

Causeless Joy - Naomi Shihab Nye

 It's difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
With sadness, there's something to rub against.
A wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you,
you have pieces to pick up, something to hold
in your hands like ticket stubs or change.

But happiness floats.
It doesn't need you to hold it down.
Doesn't need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house singing
and disappears when it wants to. 

[.....]

Everything has a life of its own.

It, too, could wake up filled with possibilities of coffee cake
and ripe peaches and love even the floor which needs to be
swept, the soiled linens, and scratched records... 

Since there's no place large enough to contain so much happiness,
 you shrug, your raise your hands, and it flows out of you into
 everything you touch.

You're not responsible.

You take no credit.

As the night sky takes no credit for the moon,
but continues to hold it and to share it
and in that way, be known.

Naomi Shihab Nye

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

Photo - Mystic Meandering

~

I know it may seem strange to be posting about
Joy and Happiness etc. during such chaotic, disruptive,
apocalyptic times. I'm surprised as well that this has happened,
so just offering a bit of inspiration...  

This doesn't mean that I am
untouched by the struggles and difficulties of others.
I also continue to have my "moments" as well...

There's a lot going on for all of us...

The world, even with its turmoil, becomes, or is seen as,
a "divine play" or Cosmic Dance.  We find we can be
in the world, as it is, and not struggle with what is happening,
or try to "fix" it; but allow life to unfold as it does in its own rhythm;
 not seeking "liberation" or freedom from the world, but living
from the Deep Quiet space within, and let that show us 
where we can contribute with mindful engagement,

not emotional, reactive chaos...

MM

Cosmic Stirrings - Author Unknown

The Cosmic skies are stirring, there is a change in the air
that may awaken us to some new truths.

How beautiful that we don't yet know the way.
How beautiful that there are elements of life
that still confuse us, make us feel deeper than
we could have imagined, and remind us of
what is real and pure in our hearts.

How beautiful, that even though we don't yet
know "the way", we can spread our wings,
shift our awareness, and trust that there is a
new unfolding that is destined to come.

It is the journey of metamorphosis that we
are being guided to walk down.

Whatever comes, know that it is part of how we
move through our own cycle of ego into the
dark night of the soul, and then finally, into
spiritual wisdom.

Sometimes we need intensity to drive the
vehicle of transformation.

While we want to remain strong and centered,
we also don't want to limit or cut ourselves off
from allowing whatever comes to move us,
change us, and transform us.

We have to remember to keep shifting our
awareness of what life is and what role we are
here to play; to allow ourselves to keep dying
and being reborn.  Keep questioning, keep growing,
keep allowing things to shock and surprise us, for
they are often the fuel for our continued growth.

author unknown
found on Facebook

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
water droplets on a white background
color inverted and zoom blurred :)

Remembering My Origins...

Molten golden Light
splays itself out within a fathomless darkness,
like a million jewels tumbled into the Stillness of the Universe;
dancing particles of Divine Illumination...

The shutter of Infinity opens and the Light
imprints its glittering image within Divine Darkness.

In a moment of stillness, a moment of no breath,

a moment in the timelessness of deep space,
The Light and the Darkness are one...

In this space of Primordial Existence,
The Darkness and Light intermingle
in the purity of cosmic fusion;
forever "blended" - like twilight...
Neither the enemy of the other,
neither opposed to the other,
both expressing the same Source...

In the depths of The Deep
there is a dance of Life -
an inexpressible expression of
the Aliveness of the Absolute -
revealed in time as a movement of creation,
a movement of birth,
a movement and breath of
Light and Darkness - breathing as one...

In "Deep Space" - the Primordial Womb,
the Light and the Dark
exist together within the wholeness of
the Infinite Mystery
replicating ItSelf
through eons of time...

Mystic Meandering
April 2001

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
street light through tree branches
digitally altered to create this affect...

Graced with Gratitude...

Last night
Gratitude arose
like a warm flame
in my Heart;
a flame that
came alive
on its own
from within.

Overtaking me by surprise
as I lay there waiting for sleep...

It was a gratitude of
unknown origin -
not contrived,
or cultivated,
but
deeply felt in the
core of my Heart;
just there...

Only awareness was
needed...

It was a gratitude,
not for being alive,

but for Aliveness ItSelf,
for the Aliveness that
is Life;
that dances and sings
the Cosmos
into being;
that imbues existence
with LIFE!

For the color and movement
of life being lived
in every minute detail;
for the opening and
unfoldment of life
that has its own
course,
its own
way,
unfolding ItSelf in
total freedom of Being.

I am truly graced...
With Gratitude -
beyond words...

Mystic Meandering
Oct. 2015


~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
street light through ice on window
2011

Through Time...

My life is but a passage through time;
a zephyr ~~~~

smoke and mirrors that seem real;
a role to play, a story to unwind...

Sometimes burdened by the density of matter reality,
with its never ending mentations, and entanglements
of the personality;

baggage carried from the past;
paradoxes of the present;
perceptions of "Reality" that don't quite fit
the keyhole - waiting to be unlocked.

At times the mysteries of the Cosmos call me to
ethereal flights, and I play in the
 cosmic dance of timelessness...
Free of the passage of time.
Free of the persona, the story line,
that carries me through time...

Mystic Meandering
August 23, 2019
3am

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

The Dharma of Illness - Tarchin Hearn

In the midst of the 21st century, many people, in spite of all
their worldly wisdom, are still laden with medieval attitudes to
illness.....as if sickness is some kind of failing.  Physical dysfunction,
frailty or weakness is often experienced as if it were something to be
ashamed of, or guilty about - as if we have failed to meet some target
or some kind of socially acceptable ideal of good health.  We often
feel a need to make excuses for our suffering.  As if we needed to make
excuses for being vulnerably co-dependent dancings that we are!  We
try to identify a concrete cause for our condition, not only to help us
find a resolution to it but because the only alternative to identifying
a clear 'outer' cause seems to be that we ourselves, our behavior or our
lifestyles, are the cause.  It's our bad 'karma' or perhaps our bad diet or
lack of exercise or excessive stress, and illness is punishment or
retribution for our dissolute living!

[Could it be that] illness has invited us into a period of intensified
enquiry, contemplation and spiritual ripening...

An immeasurable expanse of experience and experiences surrounds
 and suffuses [us], a weaving together of uncountable situations and
circumstances - a seamless whole in the act of constant transformation
 - this dancing of [our] current knowing/beingness.

All complex, inter-dependent life dancings, in other words, all living
beings, have come about through the collaboration and balancing of
uncountable factors.  As the relationship between these factors
 changes, the system functions differently.  If the relationships change
 sufficiently, the functioning will change into something else
all together and the original functioning will no longer be there. 
These constantly changing relationships are a basic nature of all
interdependent arisings.  There is no shame in this.

Birth without death would not be life.  This continuous streaming of
birthing/dying is life in action.

~

Moving in the flow of compassion and deepening enquiry,
we engage with all beings in ways that support the integrity,
the stability and the beauty of the entire living world.

Engaging with this [flow] of birthing/dying living,
embracing it, surrendering to it, [we find that] the mystery
is tremendously integrated.
It is extraordinarily stable.  It has been in action for
billions of years.  It is breath-stoppingly beautiful in
all its vulnerability...

My medicine is wonderment...

Tarchin Hearn

Excerpts from:
The Dharma of Illness and The Medicine of Wonderment

Tarchin has a unique view of the inter-dependency of all life,
which he calls the "Holoverse", borrowing from the idea of
the Hologram.  The full article is worth the read, especially
for those dealing with a chronic health condition.  It really
helped me change my perspective on my own health issues.

(Dharma = Cosmic order)

There Is Always a Song - The Radiance Sutras

Strong or soft, wild or serene -
Wherever breath flows there is song.
Hear its whisper touching behind the face,
singing in the throat,
Dancing spirals in the sanctuary of your heart.

In this practice of listening,
A moment may come when you just want to lie down.
This is a doorway - surrender.
Fall into the wide-open embrace of life.
You are the instrument breath is playing.

All the meditations you have ever loved
Are vibrating in this luxurious hum,
Continuing even in sleep and dreams.
This is your school.  Just you and infinity.
The texture of the Self is untamed freedom.

Lorin Roche
The Radiance Sutras, 32

via: Being Silently Drawn

~

Photo - Mandala Art digitally altered

A Mystic's "Spirituality"...

Being an unapologetic "mystic" at Heart, since childhood, means for me experiencing the living Presence of Life that animates all life.  Some call that God, The Divine, The Beloved, The Ineffable, The Mystery, Pure Consciousness, Infinite Being, Spirit, Brahman, the Tao, etc.  It has many names and forms.  It means being able to see and experience "The Mystery" in the every-day-ness of life; something I am still admittedly "working" to try to be more aware of - to be more aware of the Sacred in the entropy of world affairs, in the chaotic mundane personal affairs of life; the requirements of daily living; in the must do's and have-to's that always find their way to the top of my list, and seem to drive my life...

As a "mystic" I long to experience the depths of Ultimate Reality - immersing myself daily in the depths of Meditative Silence, listening to the Hush of "The Mystery."  Some may assume a "mystic" doesn't experience longing, or the darker feelings and frustrations with living the Infinite Cosmic Dance.  That has not been my experience.  A "mystic" just experiences them within the context of the Greater Reality - and learns to embrace them as part of the totality of experience.  Some feel that a "mystic" has special insights or powers, or visions, or is only interested in seeking "mystical experiences."  But for me it is not in "seeking" experiences (I have very few of them), but being aware of and open to the movement of "The Mystery", through its many expressions, living in the intimacy of "The Mystery," and at times experiencing an intimate encounter with what I know to be "The Divine", like my "Epiphany" back in 2013, or through "meditative writings", and celestial songs (poetry) that sometimes just spills out onto the page. Mystical "spirituality" acknowledges the universality of what most have come to call "God", "The Divine", or Buddha Nature (Dharmakaya), not associated with any particular faith, religion, or practice, but a transcendent truth - realizing that humans, at the very core of their being, are both "Divine" and human, formlessness in form, spirit in matter, Timeless in time...

Wayne Teasdale, a 20th century Christian Mystic, and author of A Mystic Heart says: "Mystical spirituality draws us into the depths of our Being, where we come face to face with ourselves, our weakness, AND with the Ultimate Mystery.  Spirituality is not external religiosity, not confined to ritual and liturgy.  It is a way of life that affects and includes every moment of existence...  It is a disposition to a life of depth..."

He goes on - "How we make the journey is what spirituality is really about - finding our own path. This means finding a way to [awareness of] the vast unlimited consciousness of The Divine, The Mystery within.  We are created for this 'spiritual journey' - the direct and immediate experience of Ultimate Reality, which knows everything as ItSelf.  Being infinitely aware, it knows in a unitive and universal fashion through awareness...  The spiritual journey is essentially one of discovering the roots of our true identity.  It is a process of returning to the totality of Consciousness, from which we have arise."

~

We cannot live in a world that is interpreted for us by others.
[We must] take back our own listening,
use our own voice,
see our own Light."

Hildegard of Bingen
12th Century Christian Mystic

_/\_

Namaste

Timelessness...

I have conversed with the Universe,

commiserated and cogitated,

ascended, descended,

polarized, conceptualized and spiritualized,

dis-membered and re-membered ~

and still I find no “plan” ~

Only vastness and immensity

beyond theory, framework, and concept.

The Greatest, Grandest Mystery

procreating itself

in endless infinity;

without beginning or end,

Sound beyond sound,

Light beyond light ~
Mystery of mysteries…

Expressing ItSelf in timelessness,

through time, and space beyond time,

with one vibration:

~ Love ~

From this mysterious pulse of Love

we are coalesced into Form,

and dance the dance of duality ~

our light and our dark
seamlessly woven

as one thread within the
 cosmic fabric of Timelessness
 dancing in Time…

~*~

Mystic Meandering

Originally written on Winter Solstice

1999
revised December 2015

Graced With Gratitude...

Gratitude arises
like a warm flame
in the Heart;
a flame that
comes alive
on its own
from within

Overtaking me by surprise…

It’s a gratitude of
unknown origin -
not contrived,
or cultivated,
but
deeply felt in the
core of my Being;
only awareness is
needed….

A gratitude
not for being alive,
but for Aliveness ItSelf,
for the Aliveness that
is Life;
that dances and sings
the Cosmos
into being;
that imbues existence
with LIFE!

For the color and movement
of life being lived
in every minute detail;
for the opening and
unfoldment of life
that has its own
course,
its own
way,
unfolding Itself in
total freedom of Being

I am truly graced with Gratitude -
beyond words…


Mystic Meandering
Meditative writings
October 2015

~

Photo: street light through ice on window
2011

The Cosmic Dance...

Come, Dance…

Remember…
the dance of Silence within;
the vast Cosmic Dance of the Divine
that exists within
this Still Presence
that we are…

Come, Dance…

In the Stillness of the Cosmic Ocean…

Listen…

Hear the Rhythm of Silence
that lies within, behind
the door of the Heart…

that connects us to the Great Mystery;
the Expansiveness of Life ItSelf,
 beyond
the contractions, contradictions,
constrictions,
distractions, distinctions
and distortions
on the surface waters of
life - as we live it…

Come, Dance…

Be emptied out…
Recede into

 the Great Unknown
as a wave falling
back
into the endless movement
of the Ocean;

held by the still waters of The Mystery…

Cradle your heart in your arms,

turn inward,
open and
unfurl your self  into the Great Ocean
of the Eternal Heart of Love…

Dance…

Mystic Meandering

July 2015

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

This poem was inspired by watching several you tube videos
and learning the symbolism behind the Sufi Whirling Dance,
which is referred to as a “concert of the galaxies”
and was essentially done to open the Heart
to the Universal Heart - our Divine nature.

Rumi first initiated the dance around a pole at
the Mosque during his grieving for the loss of
his Friend Shams of Tabriz…

Photo: Blown Glass Ball with glass extensions inside
I can see a Whirling Dervish there :)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~