The Beauty of the Night...

I love the darkness of night,

when all is still in my part of the world,
and The Silence of the Universe fills the body
and Heart....

No distractions, no disturbances...
I settle into what really matters -
The Silence of Being, the Nameless
- just breathing...

I would rather be awake during the darkness
of night, than enduring the brashness,
cacophony and chaos of the day.
The darkness is comforting, calming...
There's a Beauty in the night's darkness
that can be felt...

It is The Silence of Life ItSelf
that matters most to me;
an odd duck, I know.
Not "day driven" - going from
one task to another,
seeing how much I can get done;
maybe it's my age,
and waning life energy.

The simplicity
of night's quiet darkness
soothes me and allows me to access
the deep space within, again.
Deep calling to deep...

For now, though, I must let go of
the night's allure -
and fall into sleep.

Mystic  Meandering
March 21, 2025
2:05 am

~

I can hardly wait for "Window Sitting" to
begin again.   :)

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Full Moon July 2022

 

Between Two Houses - a meandering...

Sitting watching the evening news,
I looked out the living room window - to the space
between my neighbors' houses.

Looking through
the bare branches of the trees between their homes,
I saw the pinkish, orange, gold-yellow of the sunset
fading in the West.

It occurred to me, in that moment,
that no matter what is happening on the earth,
and my personal life - the Cosmos still "works"!
The sun, the moon, the stars, the planets, the galaxies
all dance the Dance of the Cosmos -
for eons -

giving us beauty, wonder, and awe - and peace.
It's us humans that don't seem to be "working" well -
on this little planet - divided...

It also reminded me that there is a greater context
in which we live - a vaster Reality - hidden -
that I want to be aware of...

Sometimes this world seems so gray
- run by lunatics -
that I miss the beauty in
The Cosmos,
and in between spaces...

I really need to
look out my window more often! :)

And expand my view of the Universe...

Mystic Meandering
January 30, 2025

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
The photo was actually taken in April 2023

 

Endless Mystery - Rod MacIver

The deep, important journeys of life involve endless mystery.
The source of the cohesive disequilibrium of the universe  -
the disharmonies that combine to create harmony, the depths
of our inner worlds and the hidden belief systems and
mythologies, unique to each of us, that guide our lives
without us knowing it, the beauty of the natural world and the
search, individual to each of us, for the courage to manifest
the beauty within, to evolve, to change.  And the somewhat
contradictory search for inner peace.  We search for harmony
with our inner world, and sometimes find it, then, once again,
lose it.  And then of course the ultimate mystery of death and
the implications of that mystery on the true nature of life.
On living that life...

Rod MacIver

Heron Dance

 

Missed Moment - a meandering...

I stepped outside one morning in May recently
to put cracker crumbs under the bird feeder,
for the birds, squirrels or whatever would eat them.

Upon stepping out the door,
I immediately felt the cool morning breeze
on my face...

I stopped in my tracks,
lifted my face to the breeze in silence,

and was stunned by the aliveness of the greenery
of everything, through the dappled light of
the morning sun;
like a blind person seeing for the first time...

Everything went still - for about 5 seconds.
I didn't take it in, didn't linger longer to feel
the moment, but stepped out of the moment to
finish my task and went back inside to continue
my care-giver routine.

I had missed an opportunity, and I knew it,
to be in the quietness of Nature, my backyard
version of Nature, with its beautiful trees,
gentle breezes. and filtered sunlight;
recently seen only through windows - until this
one moment.  I had just one moment - and I 
missed it.

I realized how much I have missed the quiet connection
with Nature over the past couple of years, not even
going out into my backyard; a prisoner in my own home,
missing the quietness of Nature, the comfort of Nature.

I actually miss quietness in my life! BC
Before Caregiving- the role I took on nearly 20 months ago.
So many losses of quiet moments and personal freedoms
over that time.

That's a story I need to explore...

So what does *this* story that I tell myself
 about feeling imprisoned,
and missing moments
 trying to tell me...

That I need to find and savor quiet alone moments
like these - and stay there - allowing myself to connect
with a much needed deeper Quiet within...

Mystic Meandering

May 2024

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
watching for the mailman :)

 

Opening to Beauty - Rod MacIver

Of the challenges of life
Which are many, which we all have
Those inevitable just by virtue
Of being alive
And those that are self-imposed
Unnecessary but no less real
One of the most important
But easiest to avoid
Is seeing beauty.

It's a practice, like Buddhism or Yoga
Except that you are focused outwardly.
There are days I've walked through a field of wildflowers
Through forests of huge hemlock trees
Barely noticing, absorbed by some problem or other
Some painting not going well
Some piece of writing not coming together.

When I open my heart to beauty
Submerge myself in it
Turn my thought processes over to beauty
I get immediate perspective
On all the other things going on in my life
Which are truly important,
And which are trivial, meaningless, pointless.

Living in the woods
Surrounded by nature all day long
In a multitude of forms: sounds,smells, sights
You can come to accept beauty as normal
Take beauty for granted
It doesn't complain.

Beauty offers itself to us
Without price
Other than the price of paying attention
Focus, open heart, time.

Rod MacIver
Artist and Writer
Heron Dance Art Studio

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Peaceful Window...

I am surrounded by Beauty -
the Beauty of nature - just outside my window.
So peaceful, so quiet...  I marvel in wonderment;
in contrast with the chaos inside the window...

I breathe in the Beauty through my eyes - and relax -
knowing that ultimately everything is at peace
within itself - including myself - within and without -
and breathe a sigh of relief -

as the Beauty of Grace shows up once again...

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 3, 2022

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Open the Window to Your Soul...

Open the window to your Soul..

Let your Soul breathe;
enclosed and encrusted too long
in the musty air
of an unlived life...

Listen to the birds calling to you,
just outside the window of your Soul.
Hear the sounds of Nature thriving with Life!
And the silent steps of the neighbor's cat
walking the fence - stopping to peer in at you -
through the window...

Open your eyes to the magic of Life being lived,
just outside the window to your Soul...

Breathe in the Living Cosmos that enfolds you here...
Feel the Soul wind caressing you - vibrating your Heart.
Hear the voice of "The Mystery" whispering -

Come - Play!

Open your window!

Come alive again!

Mystic Meandering
May 6, 2022

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Peace of Wild Things - Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of the wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief.  I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light.  For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry
from: Collected Poems

with thanks to Beyond the Fields We Know

~

Photo - Cate Kerr
from Beyond the Fields We Know

 

Struck - Richard Wehrman

The leaves, turned for some
time, of the maple, the oak, lit by
the afternoon light, shattered the air,
the eye, in color alight like no
other, only their own with the sky
behind, crystalline and pale blue, the
air stripped of otherness, only the
instantaneous transmission of
luminous ether, from interstellar
to earthly receptor; one was
struck dumb, dropped to the knees
felt by Saints upon stones,
hands folded, eyes lifted upward
as angels descend, yet the only
action was to be struck stone still,
movement arrested, unbelievableness
standing present in the everyday,
there, with the everything else -
cars moving down the street,
people walking this way and that,
geese heading west before they
turned south; so the procession
proceeded, the unnoticed noted by
few, you could hardly say it
mattered, another Fall day - yet it
fell, it landed, as unlikely as
any fiery chariot out of the sky, the
ordinary unveiled; bliss beheld in
one simple moment's blessing.

Richard Wehrman

From - Being Here

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
The photo with my old i-5phone
 just doesn't do justice to this flaming wonder
against the moonlit sky tonight... 

 

Mystical Fog...

 

Unable to sleep, I pattered down to the living room
at 3:45 am and was surprised to find fog out the
window.  I haven't seen fog in a very long time...
I grew up in New England, but have lived in semi-
arid Colorado for more than 40 years.  There's not
often fog here...  So what a delight to find my
child-like wonder again! - on a sleepless mystical foggy
night; falling in love with the simple beauty and
magic of nature in the wee hours...

Here's a different view out the back window.
The chimney on the house behind us looks like
a lighthouse. :) A matter of perspective I know... 

And here I inverted the color for even more magic... :)

~

Regard everything as fantasy...

Regard everything as transparent...
See through everything...

See that everything is in transition...

Liberate concepts and beliefs...

Let go of the need for an "answer"/solution...

Rest in the nature of Essence ~ the Primordial
State of everything...

Be a child of fantasy...
Be curious instead of afraid...

Pema Chodron
Buddhist teacher

Here is There - Fred LaMotte

 Spend thousands for enlightenment at the Ashram of Tantric Wine
Tasting?  Advanced flow-yoga at a seaside resort in Bali?  Or that
Advaita in a Tuscan Villa.  At this Saturday's workshop, the spiritual
teacher will teach us that there is no teaching and no one here to teach.
The $1200 course fee includes a complimentary green smoothie.

No thanks.

I must be getting lazy.  I've lost my longing for exotic spiritual 
destinations.  I just want to wander in the woods now, beyond my
dilapidated fence, listening to raindrops on ferns, no dakinis sculpted
on the entrance of my mind cave, no Tibetan runes on the limestone
walls of my emptiness, no echoes of vanilla dharma talks.....

Guess I'm getting old.  I just want to sing about the vastness of what
I don't know.  I want to open my eye - not the eye in my forehead but
the eye in the callous of my sole, pressing dark loam with a barefoot
kiss.  From where I stand on the slow turning earth, I can see that this
wheel rolls nowhere.  "Here" is already "there"...

I want to walk more gently over the planet, sighing without words,
and call it prayer.  And I won't turn gratitude into a technique,
because gratitude is simply me, breathing.  Me, honoring the moss-
bearded cedars.  They are very great gurus who give their priceless
teaching for free; a mist-green stillness.

The roots of their lineage truffle dirtward down to the first moment
of creation, entangled in the fungi of the void, close to the fountain
of wonder that gushes up from the center of every Now.

At midnight, soundless owl wings slice through the glory of night,
bright knives of Unknowing. Starlight seeps out of the wound, and
I am awakened.  I am thrice-awakened - here, there, and in each
particle of dust.  Parasam Gateh, beyond the beyond, right where

I am.  Coyote howl will be my song.

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

~

Photo - Fred LaMotte

Forest on Mt. Rainier

The Wildest Comfort - Kathleen Dean Moore

 I don't know what despair is, if it's something or nothing, a kind
of filling up or an emptying out.  I don't know what sorrow does
to the world, what it adds or takes away.  What I think I do
know now is that sorrow is part of the Earth's great cycles,
flowing into the night like cool air sinking down a river course.
To feel sorrow is to float on the pulse of the Earth, the surge from
living to dying, from coming into being to ceasing to exist.
Maybe this is why the Earth has the power over time to wash
sorrow into a deeper pool....  And maybe this is why, even though
 sorrow never disappears, it can make a deeper connection to the
 currents of life and so connect, somehow, to sources of
wonder and solace...

...I don't know what gladness is or where it comes from,
this splitting open of the self.  It takes me by surprise.
Not an answer of beauty and mystery, but beauty and
mystery themselves, flooding into a mind suddenly
without boundaries.  Can this be gladness, to be lifted
by that flood?

...The Earth holds every possibility inside it, and the mystery
of transformation, one thing into another.

This is the wildest comfort.

Kathleen Dean Moore
Excerpts from - Wild Comfort - The Solace of Nature

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

A Quiet Spirit - Henry David Thoreau

 When I detect a beauty in any of the recesses of nature,
I am reminded by the serene and retired spirit in which it
requires to be contemplated, of the inexpressible privacy of life -
how silent and unambitious it is.
The beauty there in mosses will have to be considered from
the holiest, quietest nook.

My truest, serenest moments are too still for emotions...

~

To be calm, to be serene!
There is the calmness of the lake when there is not a breath
of wind; there is the calmness of a stagnant ditch.  So it is
with us.
Sometimes we are clarified and calmed healthily, as we never 
were before in our lives, not by an opiate, but by some 
unconscious obedience to the all-just laws,
so that we become like a still lake of purest crystal
and without an effort our depths are revealed to ourselves.

~

I awoke into a music which no one by me heard.
Whom shall I thank for it?  I feel it a blessing.
To the sane man the world is a musical instrument.
The very touch affords an exquisite pleasure.

Henry David Thoreau

taken from a journal entry, June 22, 1851

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Facing Into the Light...

Facing into the Sun for my daily
dose of warmth and light,
weeks of information overload
and overwhelm regarding
"the pandemic" has taken its toll
on my psyche...

Waking each morning
wondering - am I going to "catch it"?
watching for the signs;
wondering - will there be enough food
in the stores to last the *months* they
say it will take for the virus to dissipate?
What would be the "best" day to go
foraging for food in our big box
grocery stores, where food once
filled the shelves and cases, but
which has become sparse in the
panic of the pandemic?
What day would the shelves be
stocked the most - with the least
people to navigate?
One doesn't know these things now...

Who would have thought we would
become hunters and gatherers again,
searching for our daily bread...

Ominous...

But...

Today is not a day for mental discursions
of what I cannot control;
nor for fear of the unknown.
I must turn, instead, within
to the Sanity of my Inner Being,
and *stay* there, shelter there;
"stay home" in the Core of my Being,
if I can find "Her" again;
feel "Her" Presence, "Her" Light.

But it was not "She" who wandered off,
or was deluged with the collective fear
of the pandemic.
It was only my mind that fell into
the scare...

The Beauty of the World still exists.
The Earth is still suspended - stable - in space;
rotating around the warmth of the Sun
that lights us daily.
The Universe still sings its song
- uncalamitous -

ever-present in its
*essential* movement.

So I thank the Luminous Universe for being
- for perspective.

For I am not "earthbound" in this madness,
but am part of a celestial movement of stars and
planets dancing together, where the Hush of The
Mystery was once experienced viscerally in a moment
of Pure Silence...

I remember...

It fills my being and warms me to the core,
quelling the fear all the way to the heart,
piercing the veils of ignorance that covered
my mind.

Facing into the Sun, absorbing its warmth,
begins to ignite the Light within.

Facing into the Light within, I am prepared to
move through the day - unfettered by the
unessentials of the madness around me.

At peace in the Celestial Movement of Life...

Mystic Meandering
March 29, 2020

10:10 am

~

Thank you to Alain Joly at The Dawn Within
for the spark of inspiration that ignited this poem...

~

Photo - the Flammarion Engraving
from the Internet

Wonderment

Night of Northern Lights video

Be sure to click on the square icon in the lower right hand corner
after you start playing the video for the full screen affect.

~

...I don't know what gladness is or where it comes from, this splitting
open of the self.  It takes me by surprise.  Not an awareness of beauty
and mystery, but beauty and mystery themselves, flooding into a
mind suddenly without boundaries.  Can this be gladness, to be
lifted by the flood?

This is something that needs explaining, how light emerges from
darkness, how comfort wells up from sorrow.  The Earth holds
every possibility inside it, and the mystery of transformation,
one thing into another.  This is the wildest comfort.

Kathleen Dean Moore
From: Wild Comfort: The Solace of Nature

~

How can you explain the mystery of the inexplicable?
You can only surrender to it...
My "medicine" - my wild comfort - is
the wonderment and splendor
of the Infinite Cosmos
It soothes my soul...

MM

A Pause for Gratitude...

A Pause for Gratitude...

Gratitude for the Beauty of the Natural World

with its contrasts...

For the Joy of Imagination and Play

And Meditative Moments

For Moments with Mom - coloring

one of her mandalas

she is blind in one eye and losing her sight in the other
and yet she colors!

For Mystical Moments

And an unexpected November Rose

Whether you celebrate the American Thanksgiving or not,
may Peace, Joy, and Gratitude sit at your table today...
and every day...

The Temple of the Prairie...

Wanted to share this beautiful scenery from the prairie we visited yesterday, just after a storm passed through.  There was nothing but Pure Quiet, as if one had entered a sacred temple...  The air was pungent with sage and sweet grass - Nature's Incense! :) - delighting the senses, igniting the spirit of Life within.  The words under the photos are the words of Kabir.  Many of us know the "secret sound" that he refers to as the Primordial Silence within...  At the end I have added a quote from a person named Christina Harris that I found years ago...

If you want the truth...

Listen to the secret sound,

the real sound,

which is inside you...

The music from the strings
no one touches...

~ ~ ~

What remains is the child I was...
All other images once living here
have stepped away.
With each leave taking
the view is simplified.

Christina Harris

On the Threshold of Winter...

Well actually I think we’ve crossed it.

Winter arrived this morning in all its beauty...

At least 6-8 inches of snow covered everything.

The leaves still on the trees twittered in the wind.

Evidences of an invisible hand leaving its signature behind…

~

Excerpt from: Eternal Echoes
by John O’Donohue

“Within and around us there is an invisible [Formless] world; this is where each of us comes from.  Your relationship to the invisible influences so much of your life.  When you cross over from the invisible into the physical world, you bring with you a sense of belonging to the invisible that you can never lose or cancel.  Under the guise of emptiness, the invisible keeps its secrets to itself.  Yet the invisible remains the great background.  There is always some magnet that draws your eyes to [It] or invites you to explore behind things and seek out the concealed depths.  Your longing for the invisible is never stilled.  You know that the real nature of things is hidden deep within them.  When you enter the world, you come to live on the threshold between the visible and the invisible.  You are both artist and pilgrim of the threshold…”

For Samhain - "A Morning Blessing"

“I bless the night that nourished my heart
to set the ghosts of longing free
into the flow and figure of dream
that went to harvest from the dark,
bread for the hunger that no one sees.

All that is eternal in me
welcome the wonder of this day,
the field of brightness it creates
offering time for each thing
to arise and illuminate.

I place on the altar of dawn:
The quiet loyalty of breath,
the tent of thought where I shelter,
wave of desire I am shore to,
and all beauty drawn to the eye.

May my mind come alive today
to the invisible geography
that invites me to new frontiers,
to break the dead shell of yesterdays,
to risk being disturbed and changed.

May I have the courage today
to live the life that I would love,
to postpone my dream no longer
but do at last what I came here for
and waste my time on fear no more…”

John O’Donohue
”A Morning Offering”
From: To Bless the Space Between Us

~

For those of the ancient Celtic and Druid traditions Samhain
 (Nov. 1) is the beginning of a new cycle in
 the Great Round of Time - recognizing the cyclical nature
 of manifest existence.

Warm Blessings to all no matter what your tradition…

May Winter & Danna Faulds...

“I am everywhere present.
Seek me in the stately trees
or the melodies of sparrows
and you will surely find me.

Look for me in the Buddha’s smile,
the countenance of Christ,
the words of the Koran and
Sanskrit prayers…

I am always there.

Turn your attention to the sky where the
movements of the moon and stars
trace my beauty.

Experience true emptiness
and my presence permeates the void.
Now bring your focus closer to your Heart.
Grow still and find me within you.

Separation dissolves like salt water
when you experience your true identity
as me…

From knower and perceived,
seer and seen,
from two comes One.

Practice devotion and let go into the ocean
of my love,
or be the open space from which all things arise.

One and two,
duality and union,
ARE BOTH TRUE…

So I say to you
be jubilant,
and be at peace,
for inside you is
the seed and fruit,
the tree and root,

Choose to be in communion with me
and see the whole of this creation
infused with one energy…”

From: Prayer to the Infinite
Danna Faulds

~*~*~*~

Yes, we had snow in MAY! J

It’s Spring in Colorado…

We’ve been having buckets of rain all week,

which has been delightful! – and very unusual.

Then Saturday night rain turned to snow!

Although not the best photos,
taken at night through the windows, but

I thought I’d share them anyway…

Our lovely River Birch was nearly flattened…

And the long tendrils of the Silver Maple bowed in respect….

Winter’s Magic just kept hanging on…

What once looked like this just a day before… 

Turned to this – bending under the burden she bore…

She has since bounced back up J

Mother Nature’s Beauty

 reminding us that we’re not in control here J
except digitally maybe… LOL

May your life be filled with Love and Magical Moments...