Loss after Loss - Mark Nepo

...Somehow we go on
loss after loss, like seeds
drowning in their possibilities
under all that snow.

From a distance, stars
are pins of light
pushing back the dark. 

But inside, each
is a world of light.

And the Spirit we carry -
that carries us - flares like a
star, everywhere we go pushing
back the pain and loss.

Still, a star can't be seen
without its covering of night,
nor a soul without its
human skin.

I don't know why -
It has nothing to do with
optimism or pessimism
or with triumph and defeat.

More, the impressible reach
of a beam of light entering the
darkest place it can find,
because that is how it
fulfills itself.

Mark Nepo
Excerpt from "Still"
From: Inside the Miracle

~

...[when the heart] is ripped apart
nothing makes sense while
in this re-arranging pain.
Nothing.
No matter what others say,
nothing is of comfort while
the heart is reforged in
the furnace no one asks for.

...Against our will, our heart
is remade by the angel of grief
who grips the center of our life,
shaking everything dead within us
from our branches, until
the heart condenses into a diamond.

Hard as this is to endure,
this too is a miracle.

Mark Nepo

Excerpts from: "After Mira"

From: Inside the Miracle.

~

Photo: Mystic Meandering

Shimmers of Light...

We are the grace of Love fulfilled,
the shimmer of Sacred Light,
lustrous uniqueness in a field of
multitudinal Divine Shimmers
- autonomous, yet in glittering Oneness.

We are the twinkle of liberated luminosity
radiating from the Heart Pulse of Love,
in the Sound Stream of Life,
continuously unfolding...

We are created, and create, from the glowing embers
of the mystical furnace of Love's Fire...

We are the molten flow of golden translucence
that forms us in the fire of Divine Love.
Love infuses us in every micron of consciousness
- Golden Light turned fluid,
flowing incessantly from the Primordial Heart...

Light of Love.
Love of Love.

Love experiencing Itself as Love
in every breath,
in every beat of our heart...

Mystic Meandering
Dec. 2001

~
Ultimately there is light and love and intelligence
in this Universe.
And we are it.
We carry that within us.
It's not just something 'out there.'
It is within us
and this is what
we are trying to
re-connect with -
our original light,
love and intelligence,
which is who we are.

...remember...

Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo
(A Tibetan Buddhist Nun)

Photo - Mystic Meandering
reflection of light on wall
from a doorknob!

Neither "Separate" nor "One" - Matt Licata

We are neither "separate" nor "one", but the erupting holding
field in which the energies of "separate" and "one" interpenetrate
and dance the relative into being.  Neither of these concepts
are majestic enough to contain the mystery of the soul.  While
we may have a preference over unity and oneness, over
multiplicity and differentiation, it would appear that Love
does not share this bias and is ready at all times to equally
employ either of its manifestations to be its envoy here.

Those visitors of raw, achy, lonely, broken openness are not
neuroses to be cured or mistakes to be remedied. The shaky
vulnerability is not pathology, it is path.  As our perception
is cleansed, we see that they are not obstacles, but passionate,
yearning requests, tending to the lost grief, joy, rage
and peace of the unlived life.

The freedom we long for will never be found in the eradication
of the unwanted, but only in deeper layers of attunement to the
love and information it carries.  At times the burning can seem
unbearable.  Such is the nature of the human heart.  We may
burn until we are translucent, but it is by way of this burning
that wholeness is revealed.

Matt Licata

One Soul - Danna Faulds

When one soul is set ablaze
by truth, the whole universe
ignites, and for an instant
light reaches every corner,
cave and crevasse.  When

the heart remembers what
it is, joined in vastness by
joy and suffering, both the
future and the past dissolve
like snowflakes on the tongue.

There is nowhere to run, no
reason to do anything but
rest in the cradle of the
cosmos, rocked in the arms
of emptiness, and held in
the near embrace of love.

Danna Faulds
From: One Soul
2003

How We Endure - Meister Eckhart

What keeps us alive,
what allows us to endure?
I think it is the hope of loving,
or being loved.

I heard a fable once about the sun going on a journey
to find its source, and how the moon wept
without her lover's
warm gaze.

We weep when light does not reach our hearts.
We wither like fields if someone close
does not rain their
kindness
upon
us.

Meister Eckhart

The Fire of Separation - Mirabai Starr

There is a longing that burns at the root of spiritual practice.
This is the fire that fuels your journey.  The romantic suffering
you pretend to have grown out of, that remains coiled like a
serpent beneath the veneer of maturity.  You have studied the
sacred texts.  You know that separation from your divine source
is an illusion.  You subscribe to the philosophy that there is
nowhere to go and nothing to attain, because you are already
there and you already possess it.

But what about this yearning?  What about the way a poem by
by Rilke or Rumi breaks open your heart and triggers a sorrow
that could consume you if you gave in to it?  You're pretty sure
this is not a matter of mere psychology.  It has little to do with
unresolved issues of childhood abandonment, or codependent
tendencies to falsely place the source of your wholeness outside
yourself.  The longing is your recognition of the deepest
 truth that God is love and that this is all you want.  Every
 lesser desire melts when it comes near the flame.

You realized that not every one experiences this.  For some
people, the spiritual journey is not so dramatic.  It's less about
the overwhelming desire for union with some invisible Beloved
than it is about quietly waking up.  It's about developing
compassion, rather than suffering passion.  There are people who
never doubt that God is with them, and so there is nothing to long
for.

But there are those, like you, who have felt the Divine move like
an ocean inside them, and, incapable of sustaining an unbroken
relationship with that vastness, feel they have been banished to
the desert when the wave recedes.  There is a tribe of holy lovers,
who have tasted the glorious sweetness that lies on the other side
of yearning, when the boundaries of the separate self momentarily
melt into the One, before the cold wind of ordinary consciousness
blows through again, and restores your individuality.  You would
risk everything to rekindle that annihilating fire.  You would leave
your shoes at the door and run after the cosmic flute player, if only
you could hear that music one more time.

You would give up everything for one glimpse of the Beloved's
face.  You sneak into his chamber in the middle of the night and
say "Here I am. Ravish me."  But when you awake the next morning,
swooning, and alone, you realize you missed the entire encounter.
You throw your clay cup on the cobblestones and it shatters.  You
thought you would marry, bear babies, make a career in broadcasting.
You wander city streets during siesta hour and wonder where He is
sleeping.  Your longing and your satisfaction are reciprocal.
The moan of separation is the cry of union...

Mirabai Starr

Excerpt from: Longing for the Beloved
posted in Parabola
via - No Mind's Land

"Devotion"...

An unexpected visceral longing arises -
again...
A primal Love and Longing for what cannot be named;
like a lover pining away for their "Beloved."
Its intensity nearly snuffs my heart out
and will only be revived by the Silence of "The Presence."

The Heart only wants to touch and be touched
by, "The Divine",
however defined, or undefined.
It only wants to dissolve into
the Sacred Silence of the Inner Room.
Nothing else matters...

Even when "spiritual seeking" ends,
this inexplicable Longing remains
deep within the Heart -
not heeding the dissuasive voices of
the minds of acquired knowledge,
or those who claim "enlightenment"
who would dismiss it,
discredit it,
and say there is no need for it;
as if I were a fool for longing.

It just is...

It is beyond words...

I allow the Longing to be...
following its irresistible pull -
drawing me more deeply inward
to Itself...

Letting go of external "spiritual" constructs
and the conceptual maps of what I assumed to be reality...

Instead

I listen - to The Heart of my heart that Longs for
the undeniable fragrance of "Her" Presence...
the warm touch of "Her" Invisible Hand
upon the Heart,
opening its "gates" to the rush of Love...

The Fire of Love's Longing will not be quelled until it is
quenched with the Golden Elixir of
The Ineffable Living Presence...

Even after seeking ends,
this Heart aches, at times,
to Remember;
to feel the felt sense of "Her";
to hear the whisper of "her" Voice;
to experience the indescribable perfusion
of this Immutable Reality
breathing in and out
through this body...

This Primal Love and Longing IS Devotion...

Unashamedly, I embrace it,
this Love, this Longing,
which at times immerses me in the
Illumined Glow of Love's Furnace...

It is an Invisible Path -
deepening into
the Mysteries of the Heart;
not an outward journey of seeking and arriving,
or finding,
but diving deep
into the
"Mystical Heart"
whose only language is
Love...

Mystic Meandering
Oct. 2016

Note: "The Divine", as I use it here, is not an entity as such with a name "God" or "Goddess."  It is neither male nor female.  It is an Ineffable Presence, an "energetic signature", if you will, of "The Mystery."  When I use the term "Her", it refers to this "energy" that has a felt sense of being "feminine" - which is of course completely subjective, but experienced by many.

_/\_

Photo: Burning Fire Vortex
Craypas Oils
2011

The Other Window - Mark Nepo

[.....]

At the edge of winter, open the window
of your heart, see your breath,
how what you bring up becomes
the air.

When you're ready or pushed,
close your eyes and the other window
will appear,
the one that faces all of time.
What flies there never lands,
but hovers, dropping the seeds of
infinity in the breaks we can't heal.
So open the window of your pain,
though the whispers tell you
to nail it shut, and let in everything
that's ever lived.

What flies and never lands
has been waiting.
Be brave.
Don't run.
Let the fire
around your window
burn until you become
the opening.

Mark Nepo
Excerpt from the poem: "Love Your Window"
From the book: Inside the Miracle

Solstice - Shimmer of Light...

We are the Grace of Love fulfilled,
the shimmer of Sacred Light,
lustrous uniqueness in a field of
multitudinal Divine Shimmers
in glittering oneness…

We are the twinkle of liberated luminosity
radiating from the Heart pulse of the
Divine Mystery…
We are created and create from
the glowing embers
of the furnace
of
Love’s
Fire

Touch the Holiness of the Solstice,
its symbolism,
upon which all the other
”holi-days” are based;
the real reason for the Season:
the symbolic return of The Light…

Let it awaken you to your Inner Brilliance,

Your Divine Nature,
Your Shimmer of Light…

Mystic Meandering

for Winter Solstice 2015

Strange Peace...

 A stranger arrived

this mid-winter day…

In Her presence

everything settled…

everything let go…
all resistance
all struggle

everything became still…
…inside…

everything within me rested,

not lifeless – just rested…

everything felt strangely

~ Peaceful ~

When She came

life was allowed to be as life is,

as I listened deeply to

Her whispers…

She felt ‘strange’ to me

only because She

came unexpectedly…

She is larger than life;

beyond mental understanding

or explanation…

Yet, I know that I know this “stranger.”

She is strangely familiar…

I’m sure we have met before…

I welcomed Her in...

She wrapped Her mantel of Peace

around my Heart…

The Fire-Light within began to brighten…

Love emerged…

 She was Home...

Mystic Meandering

 Feb 1, 2015

Divine Fire...

I want to walk through life
truly *seeing* - truly Aware…

Awake to the Truth of Existence

Open to LIFE…

I want to See *everything* as the expression
 of Divine Beingness;
every leaf that drops,
or snowflake that falls,
every being…

with the same innocent wonder
and amazement
as I did as a child;
as if truly *seeing* Life
for the first
time.

I want to be in love with Life again…
if ever I was…
Maybe loving Life in new ways…

I want to hear
Divine laughter

In my
Heart
and
experience
Divine
intimacy
in
my
being

Let me be free from the entanglements
of the mind
that keep me compliant
and complicit
with the world’s ways…

Let me embrace
every thought,
expression,
and feeling
as it arises
without
trying
to
confine
it
or
suppress
it

Life
 is a passage,
endless pathways,
and I want to risk
not following
the rules
of
the well-worn
paths.

Instead,
rising above
the familiarity
of “the path”
to feel
the Essence
of Life
that lives
this
life
that
”I”
am

/

The
Divine
Fire

Mystic Meandering
meditative writings
2012/14

~

Photo: Amaryllis flower
 radially blurred

Make a Journey of Love...

Make your journey to be a journey of Love,

for all is Love…

Open daily to Love.
It is always there,
always available…

Make yourself available
to Love

Feel Love’s Presence
carrying you…

Each day step into
the channel
of Love’s call…

It is time to see things new -
through innocence and Love…
Despite the pains and frustrations,
wounds and traumas
that are emerging
through the physical body
and collective body.

Embrace it all in Innocence…

This is the lesson:

To see Love in everything.
It is the Divine Truth of all things…

The deep change you need comes through/from
the confluence of Love within you…
Pay attention to its flow,
its music,
its message:

There is nothing but Love.

It is your destiny to BE Love

from which you came
and which you are…

It is your Truth and your Substance…

Let the seeds of Love grow within you
to blossom and flower into its fullness.

It is already there in your Heart -
in the core of your Being.

~*~

This is the same Amaryllis plant from my previous post.
The light from the sun showing through the petals
gives it this yellow tinge and glow.  It also
actually had little sparkles on the petals
which I couldn’t capture with my camera…

The Amaryllis plant is a symbol for many things
one of which is opening to the infinite expansiveness of Love

giving the strength to dance intimately with Life
 and speak from the Heart
with clarity and compassion…

~*~

Verses under photos are from my
meditative writings
2004-2006

Postcard from the Heart...

"There is some kiss we want

with our whole lives,

the touch of Spirit...

Seawater begs the pearl

to break its shell.

And the lily,
 how passionately

it needs some wild Darling!

At
 night,
 I open the window

and ask the moon to come

and press its face against mine.

Breathe
 into
 me.

Close the language-door,

and open
 the
 love
window

The moon won't use the door,

only the window."

Rumi

And what if the moon should silently whisper…

”I want to know what your heart aches for,
and if you dare to dream of
meeting your heart’s longing…

Remember…
you belong to the Sacred…
You are an embodiment
 of the sacred Mystery,
surrounded
and
held
by
The Beloved.”

Oriah

We are loved beyond measure… ♥

~

Photo: The Kiss of Spirit

The Hard Kind of Love...

“Love never dies a natural death.
It dies because we don’t know how
to replenish its source.

It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals.
It dies of illness and wounds;
it dies of weariness,
or witherings,
or tarnishings.”

Anais Nin

 

This may seem like an odd quote to post on the global day for celebrating “love.”  But when I read it a week or so ago on Love Is A Place it struck me as being true in so many ways – not just about romantic love, but in our day to day relationships with lovers, spouses, partners and companions; our dysfunctional families who are hard to love, friendships that die because of betrayal or wounds; or when the love for life within dies when we grow tired of the pain of life and living; when despair comes to visit and platitudes of love no longer “work” to soothe the weary heart.  We need to find a way to nourish Love – not being quick to correct and criticize, but eager to empathize and encourage – to hold the Heart open – as hard as that is.  We need to find Love’s Source and bathe in it to know the enduring kind of love that sustains – that understands the weariness, the witherings and tarnishings of love over time, embracing them.  It’s a hard kind of love that willingly leans into life when it doesn’t turn out as we planned, that willingly lets go of betrayals, and errors, and wounds; that willingly stands in the face of hatred - unmoved.  I am not good at this kind of love…   It’s the hard kind of love that no one tells you that you will need for the journey of Love.  It must be discovered, and rediscovered, as it calls us to open our hearts again and again and again – to Love…

Photo: a heart shaped stone
laid in an old weathered wound of a tree…

Do you see that incredible weathered face there?

Do I *Really* Want To Love...?

That was the surprising question that arose as I was watching a documentary called “Cultivating Loving Awareness” on video the day after Thanksgiving.  The question for me means:  Am I willing to surrender to what Love asks of me?  I *say* I want to be a presence of Love, but I continue to *react* with frustration to the challenges of family dynamics and living life – wanting it to be different than it is.

The video is essentially about unconditional love.  And while watching it, after the usual frustrating Thanksgiving family experience, it hit me that I really am unable to love in that way – unconditionally; not able to see very clearly with the eyes of the Heart. There wasn’t a lot of that growing up.  We were wired to be critical, to judge, to be opinionated, to correct others we deem wrong, to defend our sense of self, to want things to be the way we want them, to get *others* to be the way we want them to be, to hold ourselves separate from “others”- and to fight others to maintain that sense of separateness.  You know, the typical American family, which sounds a lot like the world we see right now. J  Our minds and hearts have been wired by fear, not open-hearted unconditional love – mainly because most of us didn’t receive that kind of love growing up, but were raised by fearful beings who had no clue what unconditional love was like themselves!  But it occurred to me that my family dynamic, as it is now, has become the vehicle for unconditional love to be learned, for this crusty shell of a heart to break open – by being presented with challenging family/life situations – and - being *willing* to be opened by them.  It means giving up my mental images and expectations of how I want “family” (or the world) to be.

But do I really *want* to love unconditionally - to allow Love to open me?  Or - do I just want to continue to complain about how it is, and play my role in the drama – which is much easier to do… Loving unconditionally takes awareness and consciousness, a break in the personality patterns, a willingness to want to step out of the usual dynamic of relating.  And I am at a point where I am really looking at this, as it doesn’t appear that “unconditional love” is suddenly bestowed like fairy dust just because one *wants* to be loving, or because one is on a “spiritual path” – even though I know that’s where it leads.  For now, it seems that *opportunities* are being presented to open the heart *through* navigating the difficult dynamics of family and life.  At least that’s how I see it this week J

Recently I caught myself in this little mind game of wanting someone else to *do* something *about* her life situation, so the rest of us don’t have to suffer the consequences of her choices.  I have not been able to just love this person unconditionally, just allowing her to be who she is, but want her to conform to what *I* want her to be, or to do – so that her life doesn’t impact me (and others) in a negative way; a self-centered motivation that only keeps me spinning my wheels - and suffering.  And of course, I am getting nowhere with her either in this way.  She continues to be who she is, to do life the way she does, and I continue to want her to be something other than that.  And nothing is happening.

It also occurred to me, after watching the film, that maybe all she really needs is to be loved as she is…  Isn’t that what we are really looking for – this unconditional love – this all embracing acceptance for who we are – warts and all – being seen, and loved anyway; the full monty of open-hearted LOVE!!!   But opening the heart fully to another in this way feels scary and vulnerable when one is used to hiding their heart…  But that *is* the path…

So I guess the real question is:  Am I willing to surrender and let go into Love?  Am I willing to be opened to that Love… What if I knew my Self as loving awareness?  What would that feel like?  I don’t know… But maybe it’s worth finding out…

“We affect others by loving them.”

Ram Dass

Photo: Yes, those are little heart leaves :)
Cottonwood tree leaves are heart shaped...

The Heart of Christmas...

We are the grace of Love fulfilled,
the shimmer of Sacred Light,
lustrous uniqueness in a field of
mutlitudinal Divine Shimmers
- autonomous, yet in glittering Oneness.

We are the twinkle of liberated luminosity
radiating from the Heart of Love,
within the Stream of Life,
in continuous unfoldment.
We are created, and create, from the glowing embers
of the magical furnace of Love’s Fire…

Receive the molten flow of golden translucence
that forms you in the fire of Divine Love.
Let Love infuse you in every micron of consciousness
- Golden Love turned fluid,
flowing incessantly from the Primordial Heart.

Recognize Love’s Presence, and Love’s presents:
Grace, Freedom, Truth, Wisdom,
Light and Love ~~~~~
Love of Love…
Love experiencing Itself as Love
in every breath,
in every form…


December 21, 2001
Mystic Meandering
copyright

~~

Love and Gratitude
to all my blogger friends
who have meandered with me;
and to those readers
whom I have not met yet.
Your Presence and comments
are always appreciated here.

~

May we all remember the Light
that lives in our Hearts
beyond this Christmas night…

Love's Furnace...

We are the grace of Love,
the shimmer of Sacred Light,
lustrous uniqueness in a field of
multitudinal Divine Shimmers
~ autonomous, yet in glittering oneness.

We are the twinkle of liberated luminosity
radiating from the Heart Pulse of Love
within the Stream of Life,
in continuous unfoldment.
We are created, and create from,
the glowing embers
of the magical furnace of
Love’s Fire…

Receive the molten flow of golden translucence
that forms you in the fire of Divine Love.
Let it infuse you in every micron of consciousness
~ the Spirit of Golden Love Light turned fluid,
flowing incessantly and seamlessly
from the Primordial Heart.

Receive Love’s Presence,
and Love’s presents:
Grace
Freedom
Flow
Truth
Wisdom
Light and Love -----
Love of Love
Love experiencing Itself as Love
in every breath…


Written December 21, 2001


Art: Burning Fire Vortex
This was done during one of my recent fevers :)