Humility - Brian Doyle

 

You cannot control anything.
You cannot order or command everything.
You cannot fix and repair everything.
You cannot protect [people] from pain
and loss and tragedy and illness.
You cannot be sure you will always be
employed, or healthy, or relatively sane.

All you can do is face the world with quiet grace.

When we are young we build a self, a persona, a story
in which to reside, or several selves in succession, or
several at once, sometimes;  when we are older we take on
other roles and personas, other masks and duties; and you
and I both know men and women who become trapped in
the selves they worked so hard to build, so desperately
imprisoned that sometimes they smash their lives simply to
escape who they no longer wish to be;  but finally, I think, if
we are lucky, if we read the book of pain and loss with
humility, we realize that we are all broken and small and brief....
and then, perhaps, we begin to understand something deep and
true about humility.

Humility does not mean self abnegation, lassitude, detachment;
it's more a calm recognition that you must trust in that which
does not make sense, that which is unreasonable, illogical, silly
ridiculous, crazy by the measure of most of our culture.  You
must trust that you being you matters somehow...

[and that]

.....pain is part and parcel of the gift of joy...

[and]
You do your best to reach out tenderly and touch and elevate as
many people as you can reach...

You either walk toward love or away from it with every breath
you draw.  Humility is the road to love.  Humility, maybe, is
love.  That could be.  I wouldn't know; I'm a muddle and a 
conundrum shuffling slowly along the road, gaping in wonder,
trying to just see and say what is, trying to leave shreds and shards
of ego along the road like wisps of litter and chaff.

Brian Doyle

Excerpts from the chapter - "The Final Frontier"
From: One Long River Song

~

Photo from the Internet

"Home"...

Never lose sight of "Home" -
your inner "Home"...
The deep Silence of your Being -
The Essence...

that sustains you -
that in-spires you -
through every life experience...

Through physical pain -
and emotional heartache...
The Silence waits for you -
like a dear Friend...

Welcomes you "Home"
again and again and again -
when you have wandered away -
into the chaos of the world...

You are loved beyond measure...

Mystic Meandering
March 11, 2025

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Water Bottle Reflections

 

Real Love Video

 A rescue kitten abused by a previous owner lashes out in 
fear.  But the foster Mom cat knows just what to do to
patiently gain the kitten's trust...

Rest Your Heart in Love - Fred LaMotte

The purest meditation is just to rest in Love...

Our love is often toward what we know to be God.
The "toward" of love is like an in-coming or out-going breath.
Its flow may proceed from my heart toward the Divine,
or from the Divine toward my heart,
until the two tides equalize in one serenity;
the silence between breaths... inhalation kisses exhalation.

Words cease.
Prayer becomes deep meditation,
and there is no more "toward"...
It is effortless repose through love, as love...

Just be with the formless feeling.
The little thread of formless love expands to fill the cosmos,
because it has no boundary, no image.
In a moment, you have captured the ocean of love
in the cup of the heart.

The tiniest thread, the faintest impulse of love,
is a breath of the Cosmic Mother,
felt as a sense of the heart.

Surrender to that subtle intuitive sensation,
without attaching any picture or face.
This ripple of affection will lead you to the sea.
Depth calleth unto depth.
In the formless abyss of love, one depth touches another.
The depth of God merges with the depth of You.

If images of an Avatar or a Master appear, let them.
They are delightful bubbles playing on the surface of
love's formless ocean.
They are all facets of one diamond,
the brilliance of your divine heart.
Your heart is a little hologram that contains the cosmos,
the forms of every Avatar, every God or Goddess.

Whatever sadhana we practice, just rest in the heart,
filling the empty silence where thought used to be.
This silent glory is the substance of creation itself,
suffusing every cell of the body.

Then it pours out through our eyes, our words, and our hands
in blessing...

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

Excerpts from a blog post.
Fred's words, my format.

~

Art - Mystic Meandering

 

Love Cries...

Love Cries...

For loss of the innocence of children
traumatized by
the world as it is...

For the compassion of strangers
lifting you up and walking you to
the "finish line" when you fall...

For the little things that touch your Heart
and open it - again;
a kind word, a gentle touch...

When the heart softens,
as the world hardens...

For fellow humans caught in unbearable
suffering - by those wielding delusional power...

For unexpected blessings
when all seems dark...

When you wake to a sense of inexplicable peace
in the midst of personal dis-ease and chaos...

When you hear the caring voice of a friend
you thought was lost to you,
suddenly call on the phone...

Love hears the Cries of our Hearts...

Love feels...

Love knows Itself...

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 20, 2024

~

My next post will have a story about
the dogs in the photo above with more
photos.  One is blind!  It is definitely
is a heart opener...

 

The Heart's Journey - Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Everything, every particle in creation is surrounded by and
infused with Divine Light,  We do not see it because we
are veiled by our own darkness and forgetfulness, but it is
the Light of creation remembering the Light of The Divine's
own self-expression - the brush stroke of the Great Artist,,,

~

It's our own unique journey, our heart that is being broken
by love, our own sorrow and bliss.  It is called the journey
from the alone to the Alone, because we are left alone with
the cry of our heart and the places it takes us - both terrible
and beautiful - places where there are no books, or stories,
no words to comfort us, except the story of our own heart,
our confusion, longing and love...

~

Love's journey brings many scars, often scars of the heart,
and they do not all fade away, even if their drama has
lessened.  They tell us something about what it means to
be human, to stand at the place where the two seas meet...

And yet, because in the moments of real experience there
is no time,just the instant that is.  These stories do not
belong to any past; they are simply a part of the deepest
knowing of our self.

.~

allow this unending love to live within me...

 Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Quotes from: Fragments of a Love Story

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Work of Love - Mark Nepo

It is not the work of love to change people,
or force their growth in our direction.
The work of love depends on giving others
a sense of safety in the world, nurturing their
confidence to lean into life and the unknown...

But how do we listen and be with those who
have fallen through the ice?
Stay close and keep them warm, resisting the
urge to prematurely solve the situation.  If
nothing can be done, sit with them and
withstand the urge to abandon those who
seem stuck.  Offer your tent and stay till
the way out presents itself, not forcing a rescue.

Mark Nepo
Seven Thousand Ways to Listen

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Love Yourself - Fred LaMotte

Who led us to believe we must dissolve our "separateness".
destroy our little "i", and merge with a flatline of "non-duality?"
That's a lot of work!  It's the work of the mind, chewing on
itself, creating concepts.  "Separateness" is a concept.
"Non-duality" is a concept.

The Divine Mother's ocean of love is not like the intellect
of man.  We can drop this mind into the starry night of the
heart.  When the little droplet of "i" falls into the ocean of
Her love, it won't dissolve into impersonal nothingness.
Rather, the ocean will become the drop.

As the drop merges with the ocean, the ocean merges with
the drop....

Surrendered to the love that enwombs the stars, You are no
longer just a little "i." You irradiate the cosmos.  You don't
need to rise above your Being, but sink into it.  Love yourself.

Countless galaxies whirl out of your unbreathed unborn stillness.
And every star in the cosmos is imbued with the sweetness
of your own peculiar light...

With this very breath, love yourself!

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Love Floats...

~ Love ~

wafted through my being one night;
a simple, unassuming
gentle, tender, openness of love
that just
floated
t h r o u g h ~~~~

Don't know where it came from - or why...

It's imponderable...

It moved through
like a feather of light;
a moment of in-spiration
here and gone,
awakening the 
Heart.

It came without reason...

Just ~ Love ~ loving.

Somehow I knew
that our deepest purpose,
our deepest Truth
is this "Love"
that softly glided through,
unannounced...

We cannot contrive this
Love, this purpose...
grasp it, or hold onto it.
It is not a goal, or concept.
It is not "we" who love
but simply Love loving,

on its own,
without effort.

Love happening...

Unbidden
Unexpected

"We" merely remain open
and allow
Love
to come,
to move in us,
and through us.

Like a fragrant breeze
that drifts
through an open window,
softly kissing the air,
startling the senses
awake...

and before dissipating,
silently whispers...

All there is,

is
~ Love ~

~

And so it is...

Mystic Meandering
May 17, 2015

~

Photo -  Mystic Meandering

 

Love is Space - Jeff Foster

A True Healer does not heal you.
She simply reflects back to you
your capacity to heal.
She is a reflector,
a loving mirror.

A True Teacher does not teach you.
She does not see you as separate from her.
She reflects back to you
your own inner knowing.

She is a transparency.

LOVE is the space in which this meeting happens.
It is love that truly heals,
and we learn best in a loving field,
no threat of failure,
no punishment.

Jeff Foster

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

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

 

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

 

The Beginning of Love - Thomas Merton

The beginning of love
is to let those we love be perfectly themselves,
and not to twist them to fit our own image.

Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves

we find in them.

Thomas Merton

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo from pixabay.com

 

Remembering What You Love - Chuck Surface

What is there to do,
But Remember what you Love,
And ache with all your Heart,
However distant Heaven may seem,
However much a fairytale and a Dream

What is there to do,
But rest, with each breath and heartbeat,
In that U n b e a r a b l e Longing,
Which will not be consumed,
By the fires of doubt and despair.

For you did not choose to be stricken,
But simply found yourself afflicted,
With a Remembering beyond memory,
A Feeling beyond emotion.
A knowing beyond knowledge...

As yet unKnown.

What else...

For when faith fails, Longing endures,
When belief crumbles, Longing endures.
When other's paths prove not our own,
Longing endures.

Longing... endures.

What...
But to Remember what you Love,
However She presents Herself,
Within the Secret Heart,
Of your own unique Longing.

You are not cursed, weary Friend!
For this Longing, Unbearable,
Is both Path and Guru,
For those of us so Blessed.

And Love...

Chuck Surface

Facebook

Website

 

Hey God - John Roedel

John: Hey God.

God: Hey John

John: Grief keeps sneaking up on me.

God: That's because grief is like a ninja.

John: When will it leave me alone?

God: Hopefully never.

John: Um. What?!

God: To grieve means that you have loved.
Grieving is one of the truest human experiences
that you will ever participate in.  It often arrives
without warning - like a late day summer storm -
obscuring the sun and drenching you in a downpour.
It is a gift, isn't it?

John: Uh, no.

God: Grab a pen and write the following four things down.

1) Grief can come and go as it pleases.
You gave it a key to your house at the exact moment you
gave your heart to somebody else.

2) Bereavement is the debt you must pay for having loved.
There is no getting over the loss of a beloved who is now
resting in the arms of endless love.  Grief has no expectation
date.  Despite the passing time, the phantom pain of mourning
is always one memory away from returning.

3) Of all the emotions you face, grief is the by-far stickiest.
It gets all over everything.  Like peanut butter, grief sticks
to the roof of your soul.

4) Grief is like an
afternoon thunderstorm
in late July.

It's the storm
that's always waiting
on the edges
of your most sunny
days to roll
across the horizon
and right over you.

The ghosts of your loved
ones who have died
are the clouds.

The webbed lighting

illuminating the
dark canvas sky is
their reminder to you
that life is just a
brilliant temporary flash
of time.

It's a reminder
to live now.
to be bold.
to be electric.

The pounding rain isn't your tears.
It's the hope of eternal life that
falls on you.

It's that downpour of hope that will
help you grow deep roots in love...

The gale winds
of these storms are
the messages from
those you have
lost to death that
are whispering
to you through the pines
the following psalm:

"It's okay, my love.  Eternity is holding  me.
Death isn't an end.  Death is a threshold.
I'm still here.  I never left.  Love doesn't die.
I remain.  There is no afterlife.  There is only life.
I'm here with you.  Love doesn't die."

It's all such an adventure!

John Roedel
from: Hey God, Hey John
a book about John's simple conversations with God...

with thanks to Death Deconstructed

~

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

Full Participation - Matt Licata

 With the moon as your witness, renew your vow to no
longer postpone your full participation here, for even
one moment.  It is rare for one human being to allow the
implications of what it really means to take birth in a
star where love is alive.

While it may appear that your sensitivity and your heartbreak
are obstacles along the way, look carefully and see they are
forming the light strands of your journey in every moment.

Within the embodied temple of your heart-essence nature, 
everything is utterly valid, outrageously intelligent, and
overwhelmingly creative.

Without you and your vulnerability - without your unique gifts,

your courage, and your willingness to give everything for the
call to intimacy with all things - this realm will never know the
burning essence of timeless and eternal love.  The oceans, the
galaxies, the snow-capped mountains, and the translucent stars
are counting on you, for it is only through you that love can
enter into this rare world of time and space.

May love pour through you, awakening your cells, your organs,
and each and every strand of your sacred DNA.  May it open you
to the magic of the sacred world, re-wiring everything in its
wake with its signature and fragrance of aliveness.  May it make
use of your eyes to see the truth, your hands to touch another
sweetly, your body to feel more, your words to speak kindness,
and your presence to shower healing upon everyone and everything
you encounter.

May the mysteries of separation and union pour out of the unseen
and take form as your body, your nervous system, and as the flow
of thought, feeling, and emotion within you, crafted as a vehicle
of grace to see this world with the wild, creative, particles
of love.

Matt Licata, PhD
From a post on his blog

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Allow yourself to be used - Thomas Merton

You are fed up with words, I don't blame you.
I am nauseated by them sometimes.  I am also,
to tell the truth, nauseated by ideals and with causes.
This sounds like heresy, but I think you will understand
what I mean.  It is so easy to get engrossed with ideas
and slogans and myths that in the end one is left holding
the bag, empty, with no trace of meaning left in it.  And
then the temptation is to yell louder than ever in order to
make the meaning be there again by magic.  Going through
this kind of reaction helps you to guard against this.
Your system is complaining of too much verbalizing,
and it is right.

...The big results are not in your hands or mine, but they
suddenly happen, and we can share in them, but there is
no point in building our lives on personal satisfaction,
which may be denied us and which after all is not that
important.

The next step in the process is for you to see that your
even thinking about what you are doing is crucially
important.  You are probably striving to build yourself
an identity in your work, out of your work...  You are
using it, so to speak, to protect yourself against
nothingness, annihilation.  That is not the right use of
your work.  All the good that you will do will come,
not from you but from the fact that you have allowed
yourself to be used by Love [Grace].  Think of this
more and more and gradually you will be free from
the need to prove yourself, and you can be more
open to the power that will work through you
without your knowing it.

Thomas Merton

~

"We are an instrument of Grace...
We are being played...
Keep the instrument tuned so
that Grace can play the music."

Mitch Rosacker
Self Discovery Studio

~

Photo - "The Mystery" playing :)

"Spiritual Teachers" - Jeff Foster

'Spiritual teachers' [of certain traditions] often talk of pure
Awareness that doesn't suffer, a formless consciousness
untouched by form...

They speak of a state in which anger, fear, confusion and doubt
do not arise.  Or if they do it's a 'sign' that we are 'not there yet.'

How ironic, a non-dual teaching that is deeply dualistic at its core,
and deeply shaming of our vulnerable humanity,
and deeply, deeply unconscious of this.

What kind of 'Oneness' does not radically include all of her forms?
What kind of ocean does not embrace, and infuse, every single one
of its precious waves?

'Spiritual teachers' tell us that there is no goal, nothing to attain,
and they are not special in any way.

Yet - in the same breath, they speak of the 'falling away' of the
'separate self'', the sudden or gradual 'death of the ego', the
silencing of their mind, and how they achieved states of
permanent bliss, peace and equanimity.

They speak of non-judgmental love, yet judge and guilt-trip
and correct their students for having fears, doubts, annoying
questions and... resistance!  They make their students doubt
their own experience.  They claim to be 'enlightened', yet
judge others as not being 'enlightened.'

They identify themselves as having lost their separate self,

yet speak of having no identity at all....

The mind is an addict.  It is desperate for somewhere to land.
Some certainty. Some dogma. Some 'true teaching'.  The mind
will addict itself to even the most beautiful, refined,
spiritual concepts:
'I am pure Awareness.'
'I am not the body.'
'There is no separate self.'
'It's all an illusion.'

Avoiding the tender, moment-by-moment embrace of our
fragile, fleshy, muddy, messy humanness.

Our confusion is clearly lovable.Our doubts are certainly sacred.
Our longings, aches and wounds are not signs that we haven't
 reached the correct state, or that we are far from the Promised Land.
They are holy sites in us themselves, expressions of the
One Life that cannot be uttered.

There are no experts, no 'enlightened' ones,
no authorities...

Just willingness to not know.
To begin again.  And again.
To soften into the grieving heart...

The broken heart is holy.

I reject any spirituality that cannot see the grace in that.

I reject any spirituality that doesn't allow us to be fully human.

If "spiritual teacher" means someone who sees the 'fierce grace'
in the pits of suffering, and the unspeakable beauty in our
wounded and tender places, and the non-duality shining brightly
in the damn chaos, and the ever-present existence of a Love so
vast, it cannot be understood by mind - a Love that loves our
imperfections and mistakes, and embraces them in loving
awareness in each and every moment of our lives -
then sign me up!

Jeff Foster
Former Non-Dual "Spiritual Teacher"
Excerpt from - "Why I Resigned As A "Spiritual Teacher"

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Primordial Love...

The Love that emerges from the Heart
when that Inner Sanctuary opens ~

Just Is...

Just Loves

Love ~ loving

A causeless Love

My first glimpse left me in awe
of its Vastness...
its Clarity...

its Lovingness...

This Love doesn't love
"because of"...

It loves without reason...

It is Primordial Love ~
Unconditioned

Untouched

It loves "just because" ~

because it IS Love...

Love beyond comprehension...
Love beyond "love"...

How could one possibly
comprehend the
limitless,

unbounded,
uncontained
Love
that

just

IS

~

~

~

Effluent Love
flowing from ItSelf

Endlessly
~
~
~

It is not an object called "love"
or an attribute that "I"
can achieve or attain...

But is the pure,
perpetual

GLOW

of

Effulgent Primordial Love

Self-sustaining, self-generating
 Brilliance
from
the Heart of Hearts

L~O~V~E

Mystic Meandering
2015

~

Photo Aurora Borealis from a calendar