Liminal Space - Alan Seale

 Liminal space is the waiting space.  That space between an
end and a beginning.  That space and time when we are
no longer where we were, yet we are not yet in a new place.
A space that can feel empty, where we can feel lost and
confused.  Yet when we are fully present to this waiting
time - when we are willing to accept this seeming emptiness
without conditions and let it talk to us - what has been
hidden can slip quietly into the open.  What has been a
mystery begins to be understood.  The "waiting space"
becomes a discovery space.

It can feel like you are caught in between.....you realize 
that something is going on in your inner awareness.

It is a "crossing over" space.  It's a transition space,
that can take many forms...

Liminal space can cause us to question the very core of
our beliefs...  It shakes us out of our habitual lives,,,  It
draws us out of what we have known...  The liminal space
is an invitation to surrender.....and navigate the uncertainty,
trusting that we will be supported...

This is the space where a new reality can be born.  It's a space
where we can finally let go of a way of being, a role, an identity,
or a belief, so that something new can be created [born]... letting
something completely dissolve, leaving us open and free to
discover what is waiting for us...

Alan Seale
Excerpts from: Transformational Presence

read the full article here

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
reflection of light in a shadow on the kitchen counter :)

Cosmic Bardo - Matt Licata

All the techniques, the teachings, the things to manifest, the new
beliefs to take on, the worn-out ideas about the true source of
peace, aliveness and flowing abundance.  Perhaps there were
once answers to these questions, but now there is no answer to
be found.  Only a burning where the questions once existed.

This burning is the doorway, the portal...

A cosmic sort of exhaustion can come at times, where we find
ourselves in the bardo between one moment and the next.  We
can't quite go back to the way it was, but the rebirth has yet to
appear.  There is a creativity in the liminal but it can seem out
of reach.  We are asked to marinate in the womb..., to tend to
the groundlessness, and find refuge in the unknown: to be
midwife to the darkened illumination.  There are signs and
symbols and guidance all around and inside us, but their
appearance is governed by a timeline written somewhere else.

As we bear witness to a new day, in awe at the gift that has
been given... the breath is here.  The heart is quivering.  The
birds have come.  Sounds from the other world, another
opportunity to hear, to behold the miracle of the senses.  The
sun has come up again.  The moon is hiding nearby waiting
her turn.  For just one moment, the veil parts and the
perfection is there awaiting our participation.

Your life is not an unending self-improvement project and
your heart is not a venture to be undertaken, mastered and
completed.  Perhaps today was never going to be the day
when you figured it all out, got all your questions answered,
or resolved the contradictions....  but to let your heart open
to the vastness of the question.  To fall to the ground as a
humble lover of the mystery.  And listen once again.

Matt Licata

~

Photo by my husband...

Into The Twilight - Winter Solstice

There is a seamless "edge" when twilight comes...
And a twinge of longing when the
light wanes into twilight,
the edge of the veil;
that threshold between
light and dark...

A knowing that this life
is waning into twilight too,
from one state into another,
forever re-forming Itself...

Tree branches wave in the wind
in homage to the light
dimming in the West...

Owls hoo - calling the night
into existence
from the East;
prophets of twilight
standing at the edge
where ending meets beginning
and beginning, ending...

Twilight
the in-between,
as Life cycles through time,
through light and dark,
through living
and dying.

This night we stand at the edge of time,
and timelessness beyond time...

peering through
for a glimpse
of the
Infinite Light
that knows no dimming
and no night;
only Its own Eternal Radiance
of
Being...

This Light we are...

Mystic Meandering
Winter Solstice
Dec. 21, 2012

Sunrise!

Yesterday I commented on a fellow blogger's blog – Beyond the Fields We Know – on her series, SayYes to Life! – that I was never up at dawn, because I am a night owl, and an insomniac, so I don’t normally see the sunrise…  And that I wished I could see it…  Well, as Life would have it, I awoke this morning at 5:30 am, for what reason I don’t know.  My husband was up at 6:01, as usual.  I peeked at the clock… J  I tried to turn over and continue sleeping, but I could hear noises – that I don’t usually hear of course.  It was hubby puttering around in his office and down in the kitchen…  So I thought what the heck and clamored out of bed and went down to see if the sun was coming up.  Low and behold there it was!  The sunrise this morning was at 6:04 am.  I was probably up at 6:11, grabbed the camera and quickly took these photos through our dirty windows. And was back in bed by 6:30 am….  Still unable to sleep, I am back up posting this…    This was not the most colorful sunrise, but one I actually got to see! LOL    Be careful what you wish for. :)  The words below the photos are from John O’Donohue…

"May you awaken to the mystery of being here,
and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence."

"May you experience each day as a sacred gift
woven around the heart of wonder."

Snowy Evening Walk...

“At the edge of restful darkness…the sacred life force calls to us,
asking us to remember…

We feel the longing to go home to what we are…

It is the impulse of the life force within us…

Surrender…”


Oriah
Quotes from: The Call



“We are probably never more true to ourselves,
or more in tune with our fundamental nature,
and our inner light than when we are engaging
in the liminal…”

Cate Kerr
Beyond the Fields We Know

“Discover the light that is already within you.
It’s a discovery of Being,
revealed in your inner Reality.

We have always already been this light -
always been full of light.
Go within and see what’s there.
See the Truth of who you already are.

Just close your eyes and look in…”

Osho

"We try to grasp something strange and mysterious
because we believe that happiness lies elsewhere…

The Self is all pervading.
Our real nature is liberation,
but we imagine that we are bound,
and make strenuous efforts to become free,
although all the while we are free.

All that is required to realize the Self
is to be still.

Your true nature is that of infinite spirit."

Ramana Maharshi

The ineffable Mystery calls to us from within…
Come Home…

~


Photos - my twilight walk Saturday evening...

Twilight Walks - December

In December I started taking walks at twilight through the neighborhood. Something I haven’t done in the 15 years we have lived here; finally getting to know where I live… ‘Bout time, don’t you think :) Walking in this liminal light, life seems more alive to me. In this in-between space something awakens in me. The spirit of Life becomes more apparent as life goes through its daily transition from light to dark. I seem to become more *aware* of the Mystery behind it all, driving it all, compelling me to seek it out. Twilight becomes a threshold of heightened awareness of Life being lived: the sounds of birds bedding down in the pines and spruces; the sight of a flock of geese flying; the crunching of snow and ice beneath my feet; the smell of dinners being prepared; the sound of a man chipping ice from the gutter so the snow melt can flow; the sun splaying its light out in a final flare of color in the clouds just before the light disappears completely.

In all this noticing I become aware of the vast spaciousness of the sky. And in that noticing - the awareness that I am really *not* on solid ground – but suspended on a small spinning globe that looks like a marble *within* this vastness of space. It is not Earth *and* Sky – as if two separate entities meeting at the horizon - but Earth enveloped by Sky – enveloped by the vast eternal spaciousness of Being. Ironically, the twilight walks help me to *see*…

One evening in particular I felt a deep heart ache, a deep longing in my heart. Maybe you have felt it too sometimes - that deep longing or ache in your being for that felt sense of the Sacred, that sense of Presence; that felt “connection” with the Essence of all Life; for the Truth of Existence; a longing for a deeper intimacy with the Nature of Being. A *deep* unexplainable gratitude arose from this longing, for the experience of this vastness and intimacy with the Nature of all things, through nature. It was a gratitude that was beyond comprehension. This gratitude for Existence and the vastness of Being opened up a larger context of awareness that cannot be fully described, or grasped, allowing me to *see* the *beauty* and *aliveness* of the natural world, and our essential Nature - *as* all one Beingness, one Aliveness. Beingness ItSelf living ItSelf here, intimately alive – as this – as us… What a wonderful alive Mystery!

As I walked in the crispness of the winter air, feeling a deeper kinship with the Nature of all things, I began to feel as if I was really *meeting* Life for the first time. And I liked it. I liked this new exploration of my environment, the new felt connection to the natural world, and my new re-discovery of the vastness of Being - and what it stirred inside.

As the sun moved further down behind the mountains, house lights began to give off their warm glow. My focus went to wondering about the people who live in them. Neighbors, yet strangers – and all Beingness too. I noticed a cat viewing the sunset in one window, and a dog barking at me from another as I passed by. Beingness being too…

Enthralled by my inner discoveries and the dimming light of twilight, I startled when a neighbor greeted me from her driveway. We don’t know each other well, except the exchanged pleasantries of neighbor-strangers over the years. We had a brief encounter as she thanked me for the card I sent her over a year ago when she was first diagnosed with cancer, and tells me that her cancer has come back, even though treated for a year. She seems undisturbed by the news. I, on the other hand, in my vulnerable, open state, felt saddened by the awareness of another threshold occurring right across the street; another in-between space as life continues its natural cycles. None of us is immune. We’re always at a threshold of the unknown. And I’m beginning to allow myself to be there and deeply *feel* that in-between space; to be deeply touched by the unknown spaces of Life. I crossed the street, comforted by the sight of the familiar light of home at twilight – feeling a new openness to the vastness and essence of Life as I crossed the threshold…

What Lies at the Bottom of the Barrel...

I’ve been experiencing more of the “Winter Blues” lately. Have been feeling a bit melancholy, especially at twilight. I thought I hit the bottom of the barrel a week ago, but no, there was more, and it’s been very intense. So I had to look into the bottom of the barrel. There was something unexpected waiting.

Her visit wasn’t convenient; this being the Holiday Season and all where one is not supposed to be melancholy, dark, and sad – but joyous and cheerful. It’s not a switch one can just turn on, or off. Ho-Ho-Ho. I didn’t intend to feel this way. She just showed up unexpected one evening and stayed 5 days.

Sometimes she was felt as heartache – a longing for love; sometimes a wrenching gut feeling of the pain and grief of an undefined loss that felt like a crushing pressure. She was every memory of sadness as a child – that usually occurred at twilight - and losses of loved ones over the years – remembered at twilight. It was as if I was being emptied out of every painful feeling and experience from the past. As uncomfortable as it was, I stayed open to her. I knew deep inside she was a “guide from beyond”, as Rumi calls it, and so I welcomed her in each day, sat with her and listened.

It was revealed that “Melancholy” – this Divine Miss M - was really a deep longing for *living;* for engaging fully with Life!; for connecting with and experiencing love for life, communing with life *in* the living of it, and allowing myself to be *absorbed* by Life living me.

I reflected that life has primarily been a series of events, people, drama, crises that I have reacted to, struggled with, and against, and felt threatened by over the years – consequently missing opportunities to love; withdrawing sometimes instead from the harshness and difficulties of living, thinking there was something “better” in being on a “spiritual path.” But I recognized that I never fully engaged with Life! And now there is this impulse to fully engage – to creatively engage. There is a sense of urgency to *feel* life happening, to pay attention to life – in the waning years of life… The “how” has yet to be revealed.

After these insights, in sitting meditation, I relaxed and dropped into the Silence within, as I usually do. And in a fleeting moment I became inwardly aware of what lies at the bottom of the barrel. It was/ is “love.” I know that sounds trite. It’s not “love” as we have come to know it. It’s not the “in love” kind of love that oscillates and changes; or the sweet ooey-gooey kind of love that is just words that drop from the tongue and onto the floor, missing the heart. It’s “The Beloved’s Love” – a steady, equanimous, sustaining love that is always present, never wavering. This “love” that lies at the bottom of every experience, thought, feeling, emotion, physical function etc., can only be described as a spacious openness in which everything occurs. Love enfolds life within Itself; is in a sense, “in love” with ItSelf – how could it not be. And we are the animation of that Love - loving. It turns out that “melancholy” (as with any feeling) is a portal, a gateway to - Love.

I only touched on this love briefly, fleetingly. In trying to capture it with my mind it escaped from view. But for a brief moment I was aware that Love resides in the depths of living – feelings and all. And what a surprise it was one morning to cut into a tomatoe and find this heart deep inside! The “gift” from beyond. :)

Melancholy stayed 4 more days – emptying me out and opening me up. And Love merely *allowed* melancholy to be here, embracing her - until she melted away into the twilight - the space between the light and the dark…

The twilight keeps calling to me to open to the space where Love abides – to keep recognizing it. Now I go outside and walk at twilight - not with melancholy – but *feeling* life living. And in experiencing life intimately, I experience the spaciousness of Love that lies at the bottom of everything!

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival…

A joy, a depression, a meanness.
Some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all,
even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture.

Still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Rumi


“the longing you feel for this love
comes from inside you…”

“Love is the cure.
For your pain will keep giving birth
to more pain
until your eyes constantly exhale love
as effortlessly as you body
yields to its scent.”

Rumi


“Rumi tells us that the supreme secret of
the inner journey is the path of love.
If we can possess our whole heart
with contemplation of ‘The Beloved’
we will experience the wonders
and beauty of the universe.”

(I don’t remember where I got this :)

November Sky 2

“What calls the ear to listen,
or the eye to see
more than the surface façade
that shrouds the essential spirit?

…Bare your heart to the Unknown
and never look back.

What you are stands content,
invisible,
and everlasting.

…split open into eternal delight.”

Adyashanti




“All that remains is
the beaming luminosity
of Life Itself.”

Author unknown

May you awaken
to the mystery of being here
and enter the quiet immensity
of your own Presence.
May you have joy and peace
in the temple of your senses.
May you receive great encouragement
when new frontiers beckon.
May you respond to the call of your gift
and find the courage to follow its path.
May the flame of anger free you from falsity.
May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame,
and anxiety never linger about you.
May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of soul.
May you take time to celebrate the quiet miracles
that seek no attention.
May you be consoled
in the secret symmetry of your soul.
May you experience each day as a sacred gift
woven around the heart of wonder.


John O’Donohue

“When you tire of your own constriction
and you open to the flow of life,

you feel a river
moving in you,
a joy…”

“Something bigger and brighter always
calls to break through and shine.”


Elizabeth Lesser
Broken Open

"Courageously Creative"

I received an e-newsletter the other day from an astrologer friend of ours, Cindy Morris. In it she talks about the New Year’s Eve Blue Moon Lunar Eclipse and its meaning for the New Year… I was struck by the timing of receiving this newsletter and its contents. The energy of the eclipse evidently offers an opportunity for inner focus and contemplation, and then a releasing of what is no longer needed – essentially letting go of the “crap” in our lives… Hmmm… Yes, I think I got that message this week with the clogged sewer pipe :) The “stars” are evidently trying to communicate with me!

She refers to a particular alignment of planets and says: “…when we are willing to be courageously creative, thinking outside our usual limited perception of what we think can and cannot be, we can turn chaos into creative action that transforms…” Something inside me began to tune in to these words – “courageously creative” – as in how can I live these present chaotic life circumstances in courageously creative ways, rising from the ashes, or is that the dung heap, transforming “crap” into compost. Instead of being focused on what’s not working, how can I shift my focus to creatively living with what is - without the whining. Can I see what Life is offering me through these challenging events and circumstances, without asking - why isn’t Life flowing the way I want it to…

And then she asks: “How courageously creative are you willing to be in 2010?” “…am I willing to take a quantum leap of courage to create my heart’s desire?” – she asks herself.

Good question, I thought, can I do the same – considering everything that’s happening here – and how contracted I’ve become around it all – momentarily forgetting the awakened wisdom within.

So - how *do* I *live* the Heart’s desire – creatively and courageously…

I think of the creative people and artists out there in the blogosphere that I’ve come to know over the last few months who courageously live their heart’s desire in and through their art and creativity… And although I’m not an artist, I feel that same sense of creative expression in what I now call my “fun-qi” art :) (art for arts sake from the Life Force within) and to a certain extent the poetry that comes through from time to time. But it’s the actual act of “creating” with color on paper, using my fingers – more allowing this creative expression to come through from the space of Presence - that continually amazes me and connects me with the flow of inner Stillness, giving me a renewed sense of flow with Life ~~~~~~ And I certainly don’t create as often as I’d like – or need to. But I know more clearly that this Heart, this Presence within needs to express, to create, as that’s what gives me the courage to live life courageously…

Interestingly, last night I spent nearly 6 hours creating our new calendar for the year, working well into the early hours of the morning. It was a delightfully creative way to transition into the New Year – creatively focused. It’s something I’ve never done before…. Maybe a good omen! :)

Maria over at Liminal Light wrote a wonderful blog post called: Peace On Earth, For Real and indirectly addresses this same issue of courage and creativity. She writes: “Is it possible to look very clearly at Peace apart from its symbols and face value, to get all the way down to what it means to you, and then just live in it, even part time? Living in peace and love means simply expressing a natural aspect of yourself. It is already there…. It is restless with creativity… You can hear it, see it and feel it right now… ” May you have “the courage to let it live in what you say and do!”

And so as we continue on in another “New Year” of seeming chaos and entropy, both individually and collectively, may we all be “courageously creative” in life, in art and in our “spirituality”, willing to leave the “crap” behind and go deeper, fully recognizing The Self within, this courageous Creative Self that wants to live and express Itself from Its space of Divine Presence.

You can read Cindy Morris’ full astrological newsletter at her astrology blog.

Fun-Qi Art™ - :) Christine