Embrace The Day...

Rest, Dear Heart, Rest...

Embrace the day with Rest,
with clarity, with ease of mind...

Feel the warm, fluid rhythm
of Life around you;
upholding you,

carrying you
through the day,
landing you safely
on evening's shore,
through the twilight
and into the night...
And out of the darkness
a shining light...

Rest, Dear Heart, Rest...

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 29, 2018

~

Photo - Embracing the Day Mandala Art
Mystic Meandering

The Mandala Art was done as part of an "8 Day Challenge"
I did back in 2018
presented by
Donna Iona Drozda

She is currently doing an online series of video presentations called:
Exploring the Creative Energy Levels here.

Reminding me that creativity also brings harmony and balance to
body, mind and soul...

~

"Dance and Endure what comes to meet you on the path."

Donna Iona Drozda

~

"We must be willing to let go of the life we've planed, so as to
have the life that's waiting for us."

Joseph Campbell

 

The Rhythm of Rest...

I flow on the swells of the Great Sea.
Out beyond the thought stream,
in the deep calm of the Stillness
rising and falling in the endless, subtle
rhythmic movement beyond time;
a Stillness that ebbs and flows naturally.

Here is the gateway to deep Rest,
an attunement with the deep inner Silence,
where everything falls into
the Rhythm of Rest.

I allow myself to be taken by
"The Rhythm",
suspended in the mystical breath of the Cosmos,
the Silence of pre-existence.

Its Stillness holds me, sustains and supports me -
Is deeply Me...

And I realize everything is suspended in this 
Essential Rhythm of Life.
In some mysterious way,
We breath, and are breathed by
"The Rhythm."

Immersing myself in "The Rhythm"
I deeply Rest
in harmony with the Universe...

Ommmmmm......

Mystic Meandering
2022

~

Photo Art - Mystic Meandering

2018

 

The Solace of Solitude...

My Soul needs the solace of Solitude,
finding Its Rhythm again
in the deep silent space of "Home";
The Sacred Silence within...

The comfort of the deep Silence
brings everything into perspective;
an inner stability...

I breathe into my Soul
and my Soul breathes into me...
a mutual breath...

I fall into the slumber of a deeper
Rhythm of the Sanctuary of the Soul -

and rest...

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 25, 2022

~

Photo - Mandala Art
Meditating Monks
Mystic Meandering
2013

 

The Solace of Solitude...

My Soul needs the solace of Solitude,
finding its Rhythm again
in the deep silent space of "Home";
The Sacred Silence within...

The comfort of the deep Silence
brings everything into perspective...

I breathe into my Soul
and my Soul breathes into me...
a mutual breath...

I fall into sleep, into the deeper
 Rhythm of the Sanctuary of the Soul -

and rest...

Mystic Meandering 
Nov. 25, 2022

~

Photo - Mandala Art
Mystic Meandering
2013

 

 

Re-Visioning - D.H. Lawrence & Alan Watts

What we lack is a cosmic life...
The rhythm of the cosmos is something we cannot get away
from without impoverishing our lives.  We must get back into
relation, vivid and nourishing relation to the cosmos and the
universe.  For the truth is, we perish for lack of fulfillment of
our greater needs, we are cut off from the great source of our
inward nourishment and renewal, which flow eternally in the
universe...

D.H. Lawrence

~

We have been brought up to identify ourselves with just the ego,
and so we ignore and are unaware of the vast, vast extent of our
Being.  People who by various methods become fully aware of
their cosmic Consciousness.....discover that the real deep, deep
Self - that which you really are [our Essence], fundamentally and
forever - is the whole of your Being.

You have to get away from all the madness for a while because
we become insane, we get confused with our roles.  Man is not
his role.  Man is deeper than that.  So, go into the forest or
someplace alone in nature, all by yourself, and find out who
you really are!  And then you no longer confuse yourself with
your particular temporary body, [or role] but identify with the
entire process of nature and the whole cosmos...

Alan Watts

~

Photo - Mandala Art - Mystic Meandering
"Windows into Infinity"

2013

 

Embrace the Day...

Rest Dear Heart, Rest...

Embrace the day with Rest,

with clarity, with ease of mind...

Feel the warm, fluid rhythm
of Life around you;
upholding you,

carrying you
through the day,
landing you safely
on evening's shore,
through the twilight
and into the night...

And out of the darkness
a shining light...

Rest , Dear Heart, Rest...

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 29, 2018

~

Photo - Wave Curl Mandala

~

In 2018 I did an "8 Day Challenge" presented by
Donna Iona Drozda, artist and educator from
Wren House Studio, on becoming aware of our
natural rhythms with life; how we orient ourselves
to the rhythm of each day.  The above mandala was
done as a part of the process, representing the rising wave
of my Inner Rhythm reaching outward to embrace the light/day.

The poem came as a result of drawing the image.

 

"Seeing" MySelf...

I recently saw a video of my present self...
These were the "reflections" that came...

~

Seeing myself I immediately felt compassion and empathy for "her";
for the way she walked, the way she held herself, and how she had
aged, since the last time I saw "her", as if it wasn't me, but a dear
friend that I had known for a long, long time, and knew all that she
had been through...  There was a recognition of something in "her"
that I could not name at that moment...

Days later the "recognition" began to unwind itself.
I was awestruck that I could see myself as not myself, as if I were
someone else seeing "her", as if the true Presence at the Core of my
Being was seeing me/her...

I internally gasped...

There was a recognition of myself as that Presence...

It was the recognition that it was the Core Being that was
recognizing ItSelf as "me."

It was a spontaneous moment of truly "seeing" that which inhabits
and animates this "me"...

~

There was an awareness of myself being like an echo of that Inner
Being which was seeing; seeing an image of ItSelf as "me" -
as if 2, but which is really only an echo of ItSelf.

As the days passed beyond these initial "recognitions" there was
yet another recognition:

I am that which Sees from the Core of my Being.
And my Core Being sees "me" as ItSelf,
not "me" as I know myself to be through the mind.
The self that we think we are is only an echo of our
Eternal Beingness, or Essence...

~

I was seeing through the eyes of mySelf (the Eternal Being)
within myself, seeing/recognizing ItSelf within myself - as myself.

Instead of seeing myself through the eyes of my mind,
I was seeing myself through the eyes of the Eternal Being
that abides at the Core of my Being - here.

This changed the perception...

Seeing "her" from Beingness ItSelf,
seeing ItSelf in myself...

~

"She" (Source/Presence/Eternal Being) resides in us,
recognizes HerSelf in us as us.
The Eternal Being is the one Seeing,
without the mind's conditioning...

Namaste 

_/\_

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Meanderings
June 2020

~

Mandala Art - Mystic Meandering
"Eternal Echoes"

2013

The Play of Perceptions - Nancy Neithercut

"Awakening" is utterly uncaused...

All trying or trying not to try merely perpetuates the illusion
of something to get or some-one to "get it."

There's nothing you can do to "get it."

There is no path, no method, no practice.

"Awakening" is not a belief or understanding.
It is not about getting rid of beliefs.

You cannot erase yourself.

It does not happen in the character [called "self/me"].

It is a shift that occurs in the brain.

The brain imagines things like gods and selves.
We try all kinds of things to join together the separate
pieces to create unity - but all trying merely perpetuates
the illusion that some-one is trying - chasing their tail.

You may have had a glimpse of the feeling that life is
just doing itself [living itself], this edgeless centerless flow,
and you will do anything to try to get it  [the feeling] back.

Yet trying merely perpetuates the illusion.

All of life always occurs by itself.

It is intuited and cannot be captured with words or knowing
in a conventional sense because it is beyond belief,
imagination or understanding - and although there may seem
to be techniques in order that you may feel this, all these
techniques do is give you the idea of it...

This recognition, this deep knowing feeling tone of
seamlessness... embraces the mind with the  most wondrous
sense of awe.

It is an unfathomable, untouchable, un-pinpoint-able edgeless
vast expanse ever emerging never done nor undone,
seamless, fleeting, momentary, without time nor non-time,
neither moving nor non-moving - that has no name or
 non-name, unknowable yet deeply felt.

There is not me, not two, not one.
All we can know is that there is an un-interrupted,
invisible symphony of what we call perception and the
simultaneous recognition of it.  It is known and felt deeply -
the pulsating aliveness vibrantly appearing as anything and
everything.

There is no separate thing called life.  You are simply
Awareness [Beingness] aware, aware through a
symphony of perceptions, the streaming of you, of me,
of we...

[This recognition] is the end of everything you held to be
true about yourself and your world, including the ideas of
truth...

Nancy Neithercut

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

"Everything is a play of perception.
Life is an ongoing exploration of this
dance of perceptions."

Mitch Rosacker
Self Discovery Studio

~

Mandala Art - Mystic Meandering
2013

Which do you see - a crescent moon
or a caricature profile of a baby's face ? :)

The Abode at the Core of Her Being...

The Unamable suddenly moves in Her,
felt from the very core of Her being,
pulling Her awareness inward from the chaos
of the world trance.

Energy currents surge through Her Body
opening an internal space,
unlocking an inner door,
to the deeper "Abode at the Core of Her Being."

She enters...
breathing into the Core,
in deep gratitude...

She asks - "What do I need to "see" here?

A silent whisper replies:

"Abide at the Core of your Being."

Peace suffuses the very core of Her Body.
She settles into the timeless Quiet...
the healing balm for a restless mind,
in a troubled culture...

Finally, after years of meandering,
She's at home in Herself - Her True Abode -
Her Being.

Not needing to find a truer Self -
a "spiritual" Self - a Higher Self...

Just being Herself...

Accepting Her flow with life,
as it is...

Open to the movement of the Universe.

Mystic Meandering
June 12, 2020

~

Art - Mystic Meandering
"Eye of God" Mandala Art
2013 (?)

Weight Shift - Ram Dass

If we can imagine a wheel whose rim is the cycle of births and deaths,
all of the 'stuff' of life, conditioned reality, and whose center is
perfect flow, formless no-mind, the Source, we've got one foot with
most of our weight on the circumference of the wheel, and one foot
tentatively at the center.

That's the beginning of awakening.  And we come in, and we sit and
meditate, and suddenly there's a moment when we feel the perfection
of our Being and our connection.  Then our weight goes back on the
outside of the wheel. Over and over and over, this happens.

Slowly, slowly the weight shifts.  Then the weight shifts just enough
so that there is a slight predominance on the center of the wheel, and
we find that we naturally just want to sit down and be quiet, that we
don't have to say , "I've got to meditate now," or "I've got to read a
holy book." or "I've got to turn off the television set," or "I've got to
do... anything."  It doesn't become that kind of discipline anymore.
The balance has shifted.

And we keep allowing our lives to become more and more simple,
more and more harmonious.  And less and less are we grasping at
this or pushing that away...

[We are no longer trying to make anything happen.]

Ram Dass

[brackets mine]

~

Photo - digitalized Mandala Art

2013

Why I Sit in "Silence"...

I come to sit - to rest in the deep Quietness...

To sit with uncertainty,
with the fear and anger,
if they arise again, as they
most certainly will.

I come to sit - to mourn the losses of life
and losses of the ways of life;
to mourn the living and the dead,
for the suffering they have endured;

and for the grief - unending grief.

I come to sit - to feel the depths of healing Silence,
the deep Stillness;
to lay the burdens of the heart down
and just rest...

Mystic Meandering
April 30, 2020

~

Photo - Meditating Monks Mandala

?date

Waking Up to Bliss...

I woke this morning surprised by Bliss...

It was just there -
undisturbed by my mind...

Just this Bliss
bubbling up through me.

There was only Openness...
with/about life...

And there was Gratitude,
that apparently comes with Bliss...

Gratitude for my bed, my pillows,
for the sheets, and the body "I" inhabit,
that struggles so often...

I woke this morning feeling FREE...

Not free from anything -
just Freeness - unencumbered...

I was Freeness ItSelf...

And there was LOVE...
As if I could reach out to everyone with my Heart,
and just Love them!

It was a natural, organic urge for love and kindness
that rose from somewhere inside...

I woke this morning feeling - JOY!~

Quiet Joy...
Internal Joy...

I did not conjure up any of these...
I did not meditate on them,
or "practice" them...

They were already here...

They just happened!

I was graced - unexpectedly
when I wasn't looking for them...

I didn't want to lose this -
this Bliss, this gratitude,
this joy and love for life;
this unfettered Freeness.
So I just lay there...
basking in Bliss -
until it left, just as it came...

It was all inside;
not happening TO me,
but was taking place inside me...
It had nothing to do with me at all!
Something was coming alive within...

Was this "The Kiss of The Mystery"?
Most assuredly...
unbidden...

This realization arose from the Silence of Bliss:
One cannot "Awaken" one's self.
One's self does not "Awaken" - but
Something inside us
Opens
for no apparent reason,
spontaneously...

and creates in us a new way of seeing and being
in the world...

Mystic Meandering
Feb. 7, 2020

~

Photo - Mandala Art
Mystic Meandering

"Consciousness" is Vibration - Joan Ruvinsky

Kashmir Saivism (pronounced shaivism), specifically the
School of Recognition, assumes Consciousness, not matter
or energy, to be the basic stuff of the universe and that
manifestation is simply Consciousness vibrating at
grosser and grosser frequencies.  Spirit becomes Matter.
Divine Awareness solidifies from the formless through
denser mind and senses, all the way to the densest, most
basic elements of earth, water, fire, air and space.  The
world shines as the embodiment of the Divine Mother,
the eternal feminine - the Ultimate Reality...

Everything becomes potentially a doorway to the Infinite -
since it is simply a coagulation of this Infinity, in a play of
unfolding and refolding...

~

All manifestation, things, people, occurrences, effects and
affects are made of the self-same Consciousness [Infinite
Beingness] coagulated into form.

All pairs of opposites emerge from, are enfolded in and are
made of Pure Consciousness [Beingness].  Everything is
Consciousness[Beingness].  Everything happens.
Consciousness does not have a point of view.

Duality proceeds in non-duality.
It's not either/or - it's both/and.
The Infinite contains everything.

There is nothing that is not swept up in this fundamental
movement of Being-in-form.

~

"Consciousness" can also be called Awareness, Universal
Consciousness, Being, The Divine Feminine, The Divine
Mother from which manifestation materializes
according to the culture and background of Kashmir
Saivism.  It is also referred to as "This" - meaning
the Omnipresence of Ultimate Reality without
image or name.

~

Steep in the Unfathomable,
let the Mystery communicate ItSelf...

Joan Ruvinsky
Excerpts from -
The Recognition of our Own Heart
Pratyabhijnahrdayam

Love this book! :)

Read a "review" by Miriam Louisa Simons
at This Unlit Light

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
 Mandala Art

Every word of every tongue - Fakhruddin Iraqi

Every word of every tongue is
Love,
telling a story to her own ears.
Every thought in every mind,
She whispers a secret to her own Self.
Every vision in every eye,
She shows her beauty to her own sight.
Every smile on her face,
She reveals her own joy for herself to enjoy.

Love courses through everything,
no, Love is everything.
How can you say, there is no love,
when nothing but Love exists?

All that you see has appeared because of Love.
All shines from Love,
All pulses from Love,
All flows from Love -
No, once again, all IS Love!

Fakhruddin Iraqi

Sufi Poet
He was actually from a region in Iran
called Iraqi

via Poetry Chaikhana

~

Don't take your joys and suffering personally.
We are - all of us - stories
told by God
to him/herself
to illuminate him/herself.

Ivan Granger
Poetry Chaikhana

~

...how exhausting it is to always find fault!

Love knows that nothing is ever needed
but more Love...

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

~

Photo - Mandala Art
digitally altered
2013

Threads of Connection - Rig Veda

There is an endless net of threads throughout the Universe.
The horizontal threads are in space.
The vertical threads are in time.
At every crossing of the threads,
there is an individual,
and every individual is a crystal bead.
The Great Light of
Absolute Being
illuminates and penetrates
every crystal bead.
And every crystal bead reflects
not only the the light from every other crystal
in the net, but also every other reflection
through the entire universe...

The Rig Veda

The earliest Veda text

~

Photo - Mandala Art
Indra's Net of Jewels

Sacred Restlessness - Jeff Foster

Keep questioning everything you believe.
Question your concepts.  Question your religions.
Question everything your parents taught you.

Your gurus.  Your leaders.  Everything your learned
in books and on TV.  Everything is sacred and holy and
unquestionable.  Question it all.  Do not be afraid to lose
all your beliefs, all your prior reference points, all your
unshakable certainties.

With enough questioning, you may begin to question
yourself, the one who questions.

[Question] Everything you take yourself to be.

And then you will question the act of questioning itself.

Until there are no more questions. No more answers.

Just silence.  Stillness.  A wide open space...full of potential.

You will be left naked, open, raw, trembling, utterly vulnerable
to the sunset, penetrated by every sensation, shaken by the way
the light moves over the rooftops, the way sound enters you,
the color of a friend's eyes, the space and the contraction of
things,you will be one with it all, it will be your home and your
salvation, it will all break you and make you whole in every
instant.

You will have questioned yourself back into wonder, found your
true home in this fleeting world, followed your sacred restlessness
back into the deepest kind of peace imaginable.

Jeff Foster

~

Photo - Mandala Art Digitally Altered
This is exactly how I felt today, restless and unfocused...

"HERE" and "THERE" - Chuck Surface

There is a... a Space, Within,
A Place at the Very Heart of my Being,
Where Nothing exists, but Existence.

Not a space, of course, or a place, really,
But although unseen, ungraspable, "There",
It is Palpable, Visceral, Experienced "Here".

The Kingdom of Heaven, our Inner Sanctum,
"There", yet closer than the jugular, "Here",
The Essence we Are, before "we" are...

The "Am" before "I Am".

I will not speak for you, or others,
And become, thus, yet another theologian,
Preaching the "Truth" of all things.

But perhaps you have tasted this Wine,
Even if only as the Softest Ambience,
That Imbues, Surrounds, Enfolds in Love?

I am not in accordance with those,
who pronounce this Essence transcendent,
Beyond all qualities and attributes.

For when "I" Died, yet Remained,
An Attribute like non other was Revealed,
"There", at the End of all things...

Where Beginning and End do not exist.

A Rapture, an Ecstasy, beyond expression,
Beyond all dualities, without opposite,
"There", in the Heaven of Nonexistent Existence...

Where Heaven and Hell do not exist.

And a touch of that Ecstasy followed me "Here",
When "I" and Creation returned from "There",
So that "I" was never quite  "myself" again...

Where self in form and formless Soul coexist.

Existing "Here" as myself, but... not,
Moving in space and time, but... not,
Being both "Here" and "There"...

Where Space, Time do not exist.

Wounded and broken in my Humanity
But accompanied, through that Imperfection
By that Rapturous Perfection, Shining...

Where Perfect and Imperfect do not exist.

Chuck Surface

~

Photo - Mandala Art

Stillpoint Presence - John Welwood

If you look directly into the experiencing consciousness itself,
what you find is a silent presence that has no shape, location or
form.  This nameless, formless presence - in, around, behind
and between all our particular thoughts and experiences - is
what the great spiritual traditions regard as our True Nature,
the Essential Self, or Holy Spirit...

Be-ing means resting in the flow of this Presence, which is
awake, open and responsive.  This dynamic fluid openness
provides a direct channel to the heart of Life...

Our [unconditioned nature] lies much deeper than our
conditioned personality and behavior, which are always a
mix of positive and negative tendencies.  It lies in the essential
openness at the core of our nature [Being].
It is the stillpoint Presence.

In turning away from our [essential nature] we throw away our
own jewel-like essence and then express that alienation in
everything we do.  This is the plague that is ravaging humanity.

John Welwood
from: Love and Awakening

John was a Spiritual Psychotherapist
known for integrating Western Psychology
and Eastern Spiritual Wisdom

He passed Jan 17, 2019

~

Photo - Mandala Art
2013

Inner Rhythms

"A balanced life is based on its own rhythm.  If you don't set your
own rhythm, and have the discipline to follow it, your life will
move at the speed of the culture around [you], which moves too
fast.  The space we make for quiet time affects our thought patterns
and, in turn, the quality of our lives.  To what extent is the rhythm
of your life a result of.....adapting.....to the flow that surrounds you?"
Rod McIver - Artist

I feel a resonance with his words, knowing that I need to find that
sense of my own rhythm.  But I also want to find the deeper
 Rhythm of Life; not just my own personal daily rhythm with life, but
 the Flow of the Inner Being, also called the Tao, the undercurrent flow
of Life within - from which all movement arises.

The only way I know to do this is to turn within to The Silence within
where The Rhythm of the Inner Being is felt - the Rhythm of Silence.
Finding that deeper Inner Rhythm is, for me, the Rhythm of Pure
Being ItSelf - the deeper Rhythm that animates all life... 
 But the "externals" of life distract me and distort the felt sense
 of this Inner Rhythm.

The hypnosis of the world keeps me/us magnetized to the ways of the
world, and pulls me/us out of this deeper way of living and knowing.
We are conditioned to be drawn to the external drama of the world, to
chew on it, teethe on it...  I recently started using my husband's FB
account, just to see what it would be like...  I was hooked within a
couple of days.  It sucks you in, and displaces all other attention... I
have since tried to wean myself off of this "obsessive attention
disorder." It's the pablum of the matrix we live in. 
But no one trains us, when we're young, to turn within to the
 Quiet Inner Presence of Silence.
And so we follow the rhythm of the world, the civilized, political,
chaotic world, with its hypnosis of separation from our Inner Being,
instead of turning to that interior space of The Rhythm that pulsates
Its Aliveness within us, and does not depend on a
 name, label, or identity - or the world's rhythms... 
I'm still using training wheels...

Before your innocent Heart was hypnotized by the rhythms of the
world, what did you want deep in your Heart?  Not what you wanted
 to be when you grew up, but what did you really long for?  What
 called to you?  Do you remember?  Do you know now?

~

Photo - Bliss Lotus Mandala
digitally blurred

2013

~

Personal Note: I am aware that there are FB pages out there that are not part of the manipulative matrix of superficial social media - that offer substantive and inspiring writings.  For them I am grateful...

Embracing the Day

Rest, Dear Heart, Rest...

Embrace the day with Rest,
with clarity, with ease of mind...

Feel the warm, fluid rhythm
of Life around you;
upholding you,
carrying you
through the day,
landing you safely
on evening's shore,
through the twilight
and into the night...

And out of the darkness
a shining light...

Rest, Dear Heart, Rest...

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 29, 2018

~

Photo - Embracing the Day Mandala Art

I recently did an "8 Day Challenge"
presented by Donna Iona Drozda on becoming aware
of our natural rhythms with life; how we orient ourselves
to the rhythm of each day.  The above mandala was done
as a part of the process, representing the rising wave of our
Inner Rhythm reaching outward to embrace the day.  The
poem came as a result of drawing the image.

Iona's next "8 Day Challenge" will be in January.
You can contact her through her website:
Donna Iona Drozda Life Cycle Art/Life Programs.
Be inspired to live in balance with life!

~

"The Natural Rhythm is ever current, ever
within its organic flow,
allowing us to give voice to our
own creative expression of our Core Being
in the Heart..."

Donna Iona Drozda