A New "Quest" - a meandering...

I get excited when there is new movement in my life...

When I awoke this morning there was a sense of a 
new "Quest" - a new "journey."

Don't know why - just felt it...

I wrote in my journal:
"A new journal book today,
maybe a new way of 'seeing',
a new 'journey'? - A journey of
discovery...
The "Quest, as I see it, is really an Exploration of a 
'Deeper Reality' within, for lack of a better
term." (It's just how it came to me...)

I have to be open, aware, and curious
to take this journey.

When I checked our video camera pics from
the night and morning, there was one of a hummingbird -
stopped directly in front of the camera,
looking right into it, flapping its little wings.
And within milliseconds darted off and away.

I giggled and played it several times -
giggling like a little kid each time.

Something stirred within me
that I hadn't felt in a long time...

I was suddenly filled with the nectar of life,
the magic of living;  inebriated with the joy of life again...

(missing for so long, bogged down, and feeling
imprisoned by life).

Today I felt totally gifted...   free....  joyful...

Had "The Universe" heard the unshed tears of my Heart?

I'm excited to be on this new journey of discovery,
exploring the depths within...

The "Deeper Reality" includes Joy - in the simple things;
an Inner Quiet of Being, and
the excitement and the innocent laughter of a child.
It is playful...

I want to see where this goes!

Mystic Meandering
Sept. 17, 2023

 

The Basket - Robin Wall Kimmerer

The marvel of a basket is in its transformation, its journey
from wholeness as a living plant to fragmented strands
and back to wholeness again as a basket.  A basket knows
the dual powers of destruction and reaction that shape the
world.  Strands once separated are woven into a new whole.
The journey of a basket is also a journey of a people.

Robin Wall Kimmerer

from: Braiding Sweetgrass

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Journey - Henri Bergson

Fortunately, some are born with spiritual immune systems that
sooner or later give rejection to the illusory worldview grafted
upon them from birth through social conditioning.  They begin
sensing that something is amiss, and start looking for answers.
Inner knowledge and anomalous outer experiences show them
a side of reality others are oblivious to, and so begins their 
journey of awakening.  Each step of the journey is made by
following the heart instead of following the crowd and by
choosing [inner] knowledge over the veils of ignorance.

Henri Bergson
Daily Zen

with thanks to Whiskey River

~

Photo Mystic Meandering

 

Turning of the Heart - Matt Licata

[You may be asking] Why, after years or even decades of working
on myself, meditating, praying, surrendering, and going to therapy
can it seem like nothing is changing! Why am I always feeling
disappointed?  When do I reach the end, become fully awakened,
enlightened, totally healed!  When will it change?  Will the
longing ever be fulfilled?

...true 'transformation'...does not always conform to the ways we
thought it would all turn out.  Many discover the 'great liberation'
in the realization that they are not who they thought they were..

...true 'transformation' isn't possible without tending to our
essential vulnerability and the entirety of unfelt feelings and
aspects of ourselves we have kept out of conscious awareness.

It is not possible for us to 'awaken' our live without befriending
all parts of ourselves, calling them all back home into the larger
field of what we are.  It is an attunement to the entirety of what
we are...

Many of us have quite a lot of insight into our embedded patterns
[samskaras and conditioning] and "know" what we need to do
to 'awaken'.  But - despite all the "knowing", fundamental change
can remain elusive.

At some point it might only be a turning of the heart that has the
power and beauty and poetic impact to soothe the cosmic exhaustion,
wounds and pain of an unlived life, where love is revealed to be
the ultimate medicine, which can penetrate the deepest layers of 
our conditioning and felt sense of separation.

We must tend to our turning of the heart through the fire of our 
own direct experience - opening to our pain, our grief, our longing,
honoring the psyche and the soul.  Mere [intellectual] insight
alone will not reveal the deepest layers... instead [they are revealed]
through awareness illumined from within by the heart, by warmth,
and by love.

Matt Licata
from: A Healing Space

~

Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all
the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

Rumi

~

Photo - Mysitc Meandering

 

An Affair of the Heart - "A Simple Man"

A Spiritual Autobiography of a fellow traveler and Friend

Free on-line book with PDF here

From the Preface

  

You should only trust what you Know in direct experience. All
else is hearsay, concept, theory, and conjecture; the interpretations,
by others, of their experiences, after the fact.  This book is about
none of that.  I don't present an interpretation of my past experiences
or ongoing experience.  I don't hold forth a theology, cosmology, or
notion of the "Truth."  Any seeming assertions are merely questions,
cloaked in possibility.  Whatever commonalities may exist in our
mutual experience, each of our Paths is unique.  If I describe the
Path I've taken, it isn't to inform, instruct, or suggest such a Path
to you, but only to Evoke Love and Longing, to ignite the Ember
at the Heart of your Being.

the Author

~

The author calls himself "a simple man" - sharing his "spiritual
journey."  I know him as a man of depth and devotion to the path
of Love, and The Beloved.  It's an amazingly authentic story of his
"spiritual quest" from childhood on.  Leaving the walled villages
of traditional religion, to wander in the "Spiritual Wilderness", 
looking for the fulfillment of his Heart's Longing.  He experienced
the Great Sorrow and Suffering of the world and its Breathtaking
Beauty, while tasting different spiritual teachings and philosophies
along the way with various "spiritual teachers."  He relentlessly
questions all he was taught to be "true" - discovering the Perfume
of The Beloved is in the Nature of his own Essence.

His writing is honest, genuine, passionate and humble...
I found much resonance and commonality in our spiritual
experience...

An amazing story.  I loved it!
Take the journey with him!

An Affair of the Heart

~

MM

 

Moving Into Love - Danna Faulds

On this voyage of
the soul, may we be
bridge builders,
our common ground
visible beneath the
surface differences.

May we braid the
threads of reconciliation
into a chain of possibility
that joins, heals, and
includes what once
seemed separate.

May our shared prayer
be answered: to grow 
so open that there is
no "them" or "us"
only...moving
always into
love.

Danna Faulds
From: Limitless

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Infinite Unfolding - Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

The Mystical Path
takes one into the depths of the Heart.
It leads you from the known to the unknown,
and then further into
the unknowable,
into a darkness brighter than
any light.

Nothing can prepare you for the Heart's journey,
for the places it can take you,
the depths and the heights
that are within you.
So many times  you think you are crazy,
bewildered and lost.
There are few signposts,
often little sense of direction.
It is our own unique journey.

It takes us to places where there are no
books or stories, no words to comfort us,
except the story of our own Heart,
our own confusion, longing and love.

We awaken to the simple and fundamental truth
that there is nothing other than 'God.'
Even the idea of a path is an illusion...

~

So what is this love story that unfolds within
the Heart of a Mystic?

How much of "our story" is [really] "God's story"?

...all one story,
One Light
split into many fragments,
yet always remaining
One Light...

This one story
is lived in millions of ways,
each story a unique fragrance of Love.
Every cell in creation lives its own love story -
its longing for the Source.
Human beings have the capacity
to make this story conscious,
to know the nature of their
hidden longing.

There can only ever be
one story,
because
there is only one Beloved,
and yet
we are part of this story;
our little "i"
must also be
a part of
The Beloved...

Infinitely Unfolding

Excerpts from:
Fragments of a Love Story
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Sufi Mystic

~

Please  note: I have taken excerpts from  the book
and arranged them in the form of a prose poem.

~

Photo: Mystic Meandering
Lotus Heart Stained Glass piece digitally zoom blurred

Haunted...

A kind of 'grief' has hit me again...
I'm beginning to feel haunted with memories of my mother's death,
how she looked the last few days, with eyes glazed over, struggling,
unable to make a connection.  I wasn't there to see her the last
morning when "she" died...  the person, the persona, the body...

But the "pictures" of the days before that I hold in my mind are
beginning to flash back.

I don't understand why she didn't go peacefully, even before
those last few days, when she lost her ability to speak,
her tongue swollen, unable to eat or drink without choking;
she had lost her ability to swallow.
She couldn't move her arms or turn in bed - as if paralyzed.
It must have been scary for her.

In those last few days I couldn't offer any solace or comfort.
It frightened me to see her this way,
because I felt helpless to do anything for her...
The body mechanism was dying...
The circuits of her brain were shutting down.

All we could do was wait, and watch over a period of days
as she slowly passed - still conscious, then semi-conscious,
then unconscious, then gone...

She would look up at the ceiling as if there was something
there, but she could not communicate what she saw.
And she'd look out the window as if to look for something
'out there.'  Maybe the beautiful woman that she said she
saw on the fence, when she could speak, who told her that
she was going to help her on her "Journey."

"Journey" well Mom...

So those are the memories I have of Mom on this
Memorial Day, trying to find better memories
in my mind.

Strange how the grief comes back to haunt you...

I can't overlay it with some nice "spiritual" belief;
It is what it is.  I feel what I feel.
Accepting everything as it is...

~

Photo - Mom in the hospital Dec. 27, 2018
less than 3 months before she passed at home
on March 21, 2019

The Blessing of The Deer - Jane Hirshfield

As the house of a person
in age sometimes grows cluttered
with what is
too loved or too heavy to part with,
the heart may grow cluttered.

And still the house will be emptied,
and still the heart.

As the thoughts of a person
in age sometimes grow sparer,
like a great cleanness come into a room,
the soul may grow sparer;
one sparrow song carves it completely.
And still the room is full,
and still the heart.

Empty and filled,
like the curling half-light of morning,
in which everything is still possible...

Filled and empty,
like the curling half-light of evening,
in which everything now is finished...

Beloved, what can be, what was,
will be taken away from us.

I have disappointed.
I am sorry.  I knew no better.

[.....]

This morning, out the window,
the deer stood like a blessing, then vanished.

Jane Hirshfield
Original title: "Standing Deer"
from The Lives of the Heart

Thanks to - The Beauty We Love

Have You Met "The Beloved?" - Chuck Surface

If you have not yet met The Beloved,
And wonder where She might be found...

Look within.

Let your Attention journey to The Tavern,
At the Crossroads of Heart and Mind.

And look for Her there,
With the eyes of your Soul.

If you wander off down the road of Mind,
You'll only reach a "conclusion."

If you wander off down the road of Heart,
You'll lose yourself in the imagined.

Journey to the Tavern of The Beloved,
At the Crossroads of Heart and Mind.

And look for Her there,
With the eyes of your Soul.

For She is your Essence,
Dancing in the Heart of your Being.

It is Her Great Joy to pour Grace,
Into a Cup held forth Empty.

But you must hold forth your Cup.

If you lose yourself in chatter there,
You will miss Her Silent arrival.

If you seek stature among those gathered,
You will see only yourself.

If you must have fellowship,
Commune with your empty Cup.

If you must yammer,
Speak to Her as if She is already found.

If you must think, reminisce,
Of that which was known, then forgotten.

If you must daydream, imagine,
The vanishing of duality.

Wait there, at the Tavern of The Beloved,
The Mind starved, the Heart Drowned in Longing;

For if you have not yet met Her,
It is There that you will surely find Her.

Or rather, I should say,
It is there that She will surely find you...

At the crossroads of Heart and Mind.

Chuck Surface

Original title: "At the Crossroads of the Heart and Mind"

In The Garden of the Beloved Facebook

Garden of the Beloved Website

Mystical Presence - Vaughan-Lee & Campbell

To know that beneath all the divisions of the outer world

 there is a single stream of mystical [Presence]
is in itself a refuge and deep reassurance.
It is so easy to get caught up in the forms and images
of the outer world, and yet, as Rumi writes,"God does not
look at your outer forms, but at the love within your love."
And as I have discovered from my own journey into the heart,
there is a love that embraces each of us with a tenderness
and passion known only to lovers.
We are taken by love to love.

We begin this mystical journey with the simple act of listening
within the heart.  We bring the mind down into the heart,
into the feeling center of our self.  And here we wait and listen,
not to the sounds of the outer world, but to the silence
that is within our self.  This silence is nourishing, and draws
us deeper and deeper within.  It is the silence from which
love is born.  It nourishes us from the depths of our own soul,
[and] our outer, everyday life becomes more and more
grounded in the core of our Being.

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Sufi Mystic
From: The Prayer of the Heart

~

The divine manifestation is ubiquitous, only our eyes are not
open to it.  Awe is what moves us forward.
Live from your own center. The divine lives within you.
The separation apparent in the world is secondary.
Beyond the world of opposites is an unseen, but experienced,
unity and identity in us all.

See the radiance everywhere...

Sanctify the place you are in...

Joseph Campbell
Mythologist

Postcards From the Heart...

Remember the Essence of Love
from which you came,
and which you are.
This is your truth
and your substance…

~*~

Do not be afraid of where Love might take you
or how it will change you.
Allow the stream of Love to carry you,
to flow you through life with its
winding turns, over rapids, through eddies, and around obstacles.
Be at peace in the flow and fluidity of Love’s Presence.
Each day step into the channel of Love’s music.
The music of Life is Love…

~*~

The deep change you desire comes through/from
the confluence of Love within yourself.
Pay attention to its flow, its music, its message.
Look beyond the surface irritations,
the surface constrictions
that seem to
suffocate you.
That is only the surface.
Your True Life is hidden
deep within
the Heart

~*~

Be at peace…
Even in the midst of chaos there is Love.
Even in the midst of collapse there is Love.
Even in the midst of confusion there is Love.

The energy of Creation is Love...

Absorb the truth of this,
the wisdom of this.

In this is healing.

Love is your sanctuary.
You reside in the Great Heart of Love.

~*~

See life through the Innocence of Love -
through the eyes of the Heart,
despite the pains and frustrations,
wounds and traumas that are emerging
through the physical and emotional body -
and the collective body.
Embrace it all in Innocence.
Let your Innocence carry you to
the still Heart of Love.

This is the lesson:
To see Love in everything.
It is the Divine Truth of all things.

~*~

It is your destiny to be Love – to be a presence of Love.
The only “purpose” is to BE Love.

Let the ripples of luminescent Love
form and expand in your Heart
It is already there…

~*~

May your journey to be a journey of Love,
for all is Grace and Love…

~*~

Namaste
_/\_

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
2004-2006

For The Traveler - John O'Donohue...

Thought I’d share some photos of a little trip down the road we took today to open country to get away from the hectic life stream that surrounds us here in the burbs - to be in the unattached quietness of Nature…   Smelling the fragrances of earth blowing on the prairie wind across the prairie grasses, sitting in the utter silence of life under the expansiveness of the open sky opened me to inspiration again… In our travels we even found a little pond with croaking frogs hidden among the marshy grass.  Under each photo is an excerpt of a poem by John O’Donohue, called “For The Traveler”…

"Every time you leave home,
another road takes you
into a world you were never in."

"When you travel, you find yourself
alone in a different way,
more attentive now
to the self you bring along;
and how what meets you
touches that part of the heart
that lies low at home."

"A journey can become a sacred thing.
…free your heart of ballast
so that the compass of your soul
might direct you toward
the territories of spirit
where you will discover
more of your hidden life
and the urgencies
that deserve to claim you."

"When you travel,
a new silence
goes with you,
and if you listen,
you will hear
what your heart would
Love to say."

Excerpts from the poem: “For The Traveler”
by John O’Donohue

From the book: To Bless The Space Between Us

Journey of Discovery...

"Discovery is a place that doesn’t know,
doesn’t evaluate,
and is willing to see what is.

Discovery sees beyond conflict
to an open realm of possibilities.

Discovery enables us to let go
of the filters of our past
and the blinders
of our expectations.

Discovery perceives
no right or wrong.
only inquiry
and
creativity.

Discovery turns
frustration
into
fascination
and work
into
play."

Thomas Crum
The Magic of Conflict

"Your soul knows the geography of your destiny…
It will take you where you need to go,
but more important
it will teach you a
kindness of rhythm
in your journey.”

John O’Donohue

"It is a journey towards simplicity,

towards quietness,
towards a kind of joy
that is not in time.
It’s a journey that
takes us from primary
identification
with body and psyche [mind],
to an identification with God,
and ultimately beyond
any identification."

Ram Dass

Be Where Love Is...

"My heart, sit only with those

who know and understand you.

Sit only under a tree

that is full of blossoms.

In the bazaar of herbs and potions

don't wander aimlessly,

find the shop with a potion that is sweet.

If you don't have a measure

people will rob you in no time.

You will take counterfeit coins

thinking they are real.

Don't fill your bowl with food from

every boiling pot you see.

Not every joke is humorous, so don't search

for meaning where there isn't one.

Not every eye can see,

not every sea is full of pearls.

My heart, sing the song of longing

like nightingale.

The sound of your voice casts a spell

on every stone, on every thorn.

First, lay down your head,

then one by one

let go of all distractions.

Embrace the light and let it guide you

beyond the winds of desire.

There you will find a spring and

nourished by its sweet waters

like a tree you will bear fruit forever."

 –Rumi

Via: Love Is A Place

I was lamenting to a friend recently about the dynamics of my family of origin and how challenging it is to be around an angry alcoholic who hates the world and acts with disgust toward everyone, making faces at both my mother and me...  TMI?  J  Maybe, but this is the reality of facing into life as it is…  I sometimes want to recoil, and find my heart contracting in the face of such disdain - not wanting to be wounded again, vowing that *I* do *not* have to endure this behavior - clearly failing in the "unconditional love" department. :)  And yet, I return and try to keep the Heart open once again...  But I also made this comment to my friend: “I need to be where Love is…” – as Rumi points to in his poem – to be in the unprotected ease and openness of people who *know* LOVE.  But do any of us really *know* Love - the pure Essence of Love…  Sometimes our families of origin are not where we find Love – the unconditional kind of Love that nurtures, and allows us to flourish.  I'm sure some of you have already experienced this…   And so, where do I find this Heart of Love, how do I come to know this Love more deeply myself, so that I may be present in and to a family who doesn’t *know* real Love, but is caught up in the matrix of their madness?   

It is in the deep Silence during meditative times that I experience this expansive Love the most.  We are immersed in this vast open *space* of Love that holds us and embraces us without condition - from within...  The Heart of Love is within. 

“And so the journey continues…  Your Heart takes you…..to an endless landscape of love that knows no boundaries.  And the wind is real and the snow continues to fall and the love continues, and will always continue.  So you can leave behind those old worn clothes that you called your existence, those ways you used to walk when you thought you were alive.  Because here in this place that is like no other there is the freedom you always knew, a freedom that belongs to love.

Do not be discouraged…..when the wheels of existence carry you always along roads you would rather not travel.  There is this other land, this landscape that belongs to love.  This is the place where the two seas meet [meaning where human and Divine meet], where existence reveals its secrets, where time uncovers what always was, even if you have never seen it before.

 You *are* the place where the two seas meet, where love is uncovered…  There is always this place, the vastness [of love] that calls to us.  Remember, it is always here.  It cannot be anywhere else."

 Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Sufi Mystic

From: Fragments of a Love Story


You might also be interested in reading the post:
Prickly Personalities 
about how I met this prickly situation two years ago...

Photo:  My new Amaryllis in full bloom!

Evoking Love J

Incubating Love...

Love was not a language spoken in my family growing up.  Consequently, I do not *see* myself as a particularly “loving” person – in the sense of being demonstrative in my expressions of love.  An astrologer once told me that I probably found it easier to express anger than to express love, as she read my astrology chart.  Sad but true…  We can blame it on the stars J LOL… 

But – L~O~V~E has been knocking on my door again lately, trying to get me to open and cross the threshold…  I can feel the Heart space subtly awakening, and natural, more spontaneous expressions of Love are coming through…  I assure you that expressions of love here have always been genuine! But there has been a shift to another space of Love now.  I hope you know what I’m saying here…

I certainly understand that from an “enlightened” point of view “Love” *is* our True Nature (Divine Nature). And I am learning the *essence* of that “Love” through my “spiritual process” – opening to that Divine space of Love within more and more fully - awakening to the flower of the Divine Self – the Lotus in the Heart…

Yesterday I tapped into a boat load of love listening to the *crazy* Happy Song by Pharrel Williams on YouTube – dancing through the house - feeling love for Life arising from the core once again.  You kinda have to be in the mood to listen to this :~) but love comes in many disguises.  And it's the *vibration* of happiness that it creates inside that matters... 

Love was also recently inspired in me by a beautiful blog post by Aarathi Selvan called“Love is the background to it all.”  Please do check it out.  Her post is what inspired me to post Make a Journey of Love.  In her post she says that Love is the “background” for everything, and asks us to change our perspective, to see life as a “journey of love” – to find those things in life that invoke love within us.  That is the journey I wish to be on now – to become more aware of and open to the experience of a deeper Love that lies within; the Love that infuses all Life, that is the Ground of all Existence.  And so I have been journaling about what invokes Love within me each day for the last 8 days.  I like the word “invoke” as it implies what calls Love forth, what awakens that inner sense of Love in us…  Not surprisingly I found it is the simple things of life – like a flower. 

With the blooming of the Amaryllis, before my recent illness, I unexpectedly tapped into that quiet space of love…   I found myself feeling a “love connection” to the Amaryllis blossoms.  I would talk to them each morning in soothing cooing sounds, stroking the long stem with tender loving strokes, being present to the flower in a quiet act of giving and receiving love.  How easy it was to open the Heart to a flower!  Or was it the flower opening my Heart!?  Ahhhhh - I think that was it…  J

Maybe this is what Love really is: an unguarded open quiet space of Presence – experiencing and expressing the *vibration* of Love that is there; meeting life and people from this quiet space of energetic Love that just is.  Love is not something that can be conjured up, or forced – but its vibration can be *felt.*

There is a vibration of Love “incubating” within.  And I am allowing myself to *feel* and *expand* into that space.  Unconditional love does not come from the “ego”, the mind, the personality, or “practice” – but through awareness of the quiet space of Inner Beingness; the cocoon of the Heart, where we draw Love from – the elixir of Life ItSelf.

Have you hugged a plant today? J

~*~

Excerpt from: “The Heart”
by Jeff Foster

“The heart is an unlimited room
There is always enough room
for the contents of this moment.
The highest joy,
the deepest agony,
thoughts that won’t stop spinning.
The heart can hold it all.
Embrace is all it knows.
Space is its nature.
It needs no time.
It asks nothing.
It gives everything in return.
It is home...

for all those lost parts of yourself
for all the abandoned pieces
of the puzzle of ‘you.’

They gave you a name
before you were named.
And that name was Love…”

Thresholds - John O'Donohue and Rumi...

“Like Spring secretly at work within the heart of Winter,
below the surface of our lives
huge changes are in fermentation.
We never suspect a thing.
Then when the grip of some
long-enduring winter mentality
begins to loosen,
we find ourselves
vulnerable
to
a
flourish
of

possibility

and we are suddenly negotiating
the challenges
of
a threshold…

At any time you can ask yourself:

At which threshold am I now standing?
At this time in my life, what am I leaving?

Where am I about to enter?

A threshold is not a simple boundary;
it is a frontier
that divides two different territories,
rhythms, and atmospheres.

Indeed, it is a lovely testimony
to the fullness and integrity
of an experience or a stage of life
that it intensifies toward the end
into a real frontier
that cannot be crossed
without
the heart being passionately
engaged
and
woken up.

At this threshold
a great complexity of emotion
comes alive:
confusion,
fear,
excitement,
sadness,
hope.

This is one of the reasons
such vital crossings
were always clothed in ritual.

It is wise in your own life
to be able to recognize and acknowledge
the key thresholds;
to take your time;
to feel all the varieties of presence
that accrue there;
to listen inward
with complete attention
until you hear
the inner voice
calling you
forward:

The time has come
to cross.”

John O’Donohue
Excerpts taken From: To Bless the Space Between Us
and put into prose poem format...

“Remember, the entrance door to the sanctuary
is inside you.”

Rumi

~

Whatever “threshold” you find yourself at
in the coming year,
I hope you make a peaceful passage.
May your life journey
be illuminated
from within
bringing
you “home”
to
the
Heart

~♥~

Photos taken by Hubby
Sunrise, Dec. 23, 2013

Notice the “angel wings”
at the top of the top photo J