Welcome...

Come meander with me on the pathless path of the Heart
in these anecdotal,
sometimes inspiring, sometimes personal meanderings of the Heart's opening in the every-day-ness of life...
Showing posts with label Play. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Play. Show all posts

Friday, October 11, 2024

Listen to the Inner Friend - Matt Licata


In times of liminality and transition, there is a unique invitation
delivered to each of us, form the inner Friend, to slow down and
open to what it might truly feel like to play and imagine once again.

To explore from that place of beginner's mind, re-opening to those
natural states of awe, wonder and the simple joy inherent in a few
moments of just Being, Being who and what we already are,
without having to turn our lives into some unending self-improvement
project.

While we can hold an intention to improve our lives, relationships,
and sense of self, which is intelligent, and kind, simultaneously to
spend some time each day in these less-structured experiences, ones
that aren't oriented in improvement, in getting a different experience.

Maybe for us that's being out in nature (perhaps without our electronic
devices) or writing down our dreams, or doing some type of yoga or
meditation or prayer or whatever that might be: Writing, dancing,
putting our hands in some sand...

Tending to the wild undomesticated aliveness of the sensual world.
An invitation of being emptied-out of the known, the frozen, and
the crystalized within us...

Taking time each day to interrupt the trance of the collective, the
pull into a survival-level restlessness, and return into our bodies,
and provide an inner temple in which we can feel, where that
which has remained unlived can come into embodied reality and
disclose its wisdom.

To attune to that emerging right-brain flow of image, feeling, 
sensation, and those states of communion, Union and Unity
[within]...

Matt Licata

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Notice the reflection of the statue in the round sand frame,
The "Inner Friend"? ... :)



 

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

The Playground of Life...


We are "The Mystery" come into being...
Consciousness awakened...
Self replicating ItSelf;
or whatever word you give
"The Mystery"...

"The Mystery" dressed up as "me."
Formless as form,
Form as formlessness.
"Divine" and human intertwined...

Opening to "The Mystery"
we are free to be our unique selves,
however defined...

When we know this
"something" wakes up inside
and comes Alive -
it hums...

Everything is
~ humming ~
playing in the play of Life;
a multitude of expressions
all playing together
in this virtual reality...

"The Mystery" playing you, playing me,
each a reflection of the other...
both "The Mystery" playing ItSelf...

When we let go of conceptual words
and frameworks of belief and interpretations
we are just FREE...

Letting go of the non-dual concepts of
i/I, me and "no me", Self/no-self,
we are just Life living ItSelf here...
We are being LIVED
as we are.

There is something authentic
in allowing myself to be
just as i am...

Life is met from a different space -
the space of vast openness
to "The Mystery" of Life ItSelf,
where everything is embraced
as it is...

The deep grief and sadness of loss,
the laughter and joy of new birth,
the physical pain and psychological drama
of being human...
All dancing together in the playground of Life...


Mystic Meandering
2019/2024

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering



 

Friday, May 6, 2022

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



 

Wednesday, November 11, 2020

A Journey of Liberation...


 This meandering is really a journey of liberation...

Recognizing one's "Indigenous" Nature.
Not Native American Spirituality, but the felt sense of
your Fundamental Nature...
liberating...

Recognizing "The Mystery" in disguise - playing you!
Revealing Itself through the "play" of you - the Joy of you!
liberating...

Moving beyond the "mechanics of living" to Indigenous-wisdom,
Natural Wisdom; living more spontaneously and intuitively; 
using direct, felt experience as guide...
liberating...

Recognizing more and more that we are "The Mystery" in form,
which expresses Itself through our self - as our self...
liberating...

Recognizing that "The Mystery" is our Fundamental Nature,
covered over by years of religious/psychological/emotional
conditioning and traumas - giving us an identity - which we
believe to be who we are - but aren't...
liberating...

Realizing it is the beliefs about the "self" that must dissolve,
not the self/ego/personality.  The personality then shines
with the Light of the Fundamental Nature.
This recognition is what liberates...
Not the pursuit of "enlightenment", of becoming
"enlightened", but recognizing the Inherent, liberated Being
that we are...
liberating...

Liberation is not the "me/self" that is liberated.  It's "The Mystery"
within that is liberated - in our recognition of it.
It's the Infinite within us, that which animates us, that is liberated.
It all gets liberated in the recognition of Itself in us, as us.

the mystery is - that we are "The Mystery."

Liberated!


Mystic Meandering
Oct. 31, 2020

_/\_

"The Mystery" in me bows to "The Mystery" in you!

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Light through an old cutting board :)

Monday, October 5, 2020

Cosmic Light...


 Sadness gives way to spontaneity...
The inner child of the Cosmos
has come to play...

There's a hidden joy inside that shimmers up
- playful,
tickling the heart...

Subtle joy turns into Love for the whole experience of
LIFE
knowing it's all the "Play" of the Cosmos...

The Light of the Cosmos
hidden within myself
begins to glow -
an unlit light.

It is the rhythm of the Cosmos that moves me,
taking my breath away,
making my heart skip;
and the realization that

I am Cosmic Light -
lit from within!

I am the Cosmos!

I am the Joy of the Universe...

It's all the Play of Cosmic Light!


Mystic Meandering
Sept 21, 2020

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

~

71 years around the Sun-star today!
Hard to believe...
More playful, "light-hearted", and unencumbered...
Intuitively listening to where she wants to spend her
heart beats in these waning years....

_/\_
Namaste

Thursday, November 24, 2016

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...


Friday, March 7, 2014

The Joy of Rain!

Some of you may think that I spend a little too much time in the ethers, floating in the Cosmos with the planets and stars… J  I can assure you that is not true.  Well actually, we are all floating in the Cosmos of planets and stars on a planet suspended in space.  We just *think* the earth is all there is… LOL J  This morning it was raining on my part of planet earth. And it brought such *delight*!  It brought joy to my Heart and lifted my Spirit.   It was an innocent, playful JOY I had not felt in a long time.  I know some of the world has been getting too much rain, and there are floods, and people have lost homes and been misplaced as a result. And for that I feel sadness and compassion.  And some of you are tired of seeing white all winter long that has caused so much havoc over the south and east.  But here in semi-arid Colorado we haven’t been getting much all winter, except in the mountains.


So when I looked out the window and saw the pavement wet with rain this morning, my heart leaped with JOY!  There’s something “inviting” about rain. It wants you to come play… 



It’s been ages since we’ve had RAIN!  I grew up in New England where we had rainy, wet Springs and I miss it – the *sound* and smell of wetness.  It opens me up and makes me more *aware* of Life!  It has a sound you know – the swish under the tires of passing cars, the patter on my jacket, the clopping of my shoes on wet pavement. And then there’s the exhilerating cool wet feeling on my parched skin, and the earthy smell of moisture filling my dry nostrils, and the movement and fluidity that it creates.

 Just wetness!



I realized today just how much my spirit *needs* it. 



And so I put my play clothes on, and took myself on a little excursion.



I rode around in the rain, until it turned to snow, snapping some photos with my *regular* camera.  I don’t have a camera on my old clunky cell phone.  But I quickly saw how one becomes *distracted* trying to drive and use a camera!!!  Not a good idea… J



It's better if you wait until you're stopped at a light :)



Anyway, here is a link to a poem I wrote several years ago after some rain.   May you find what makes your Heart sing! – no matter what the weather… J




*NOTE* - Top photo is from a greeting card and is copyrighted by
Chris Jones, The Borealis Press 1997


Friday, June 14, 2013

Musical Interlude - Shadow Dancing...

With all this intensity this week I thought for those who are still hanging in there with me we could use a little playful pause. J  The video is Lindsey Stirling playing upbeat violin and dancing.  It is called “Shadows.”  

Enjoy your weekend!

Here’s a link to her most popular video that I posted back in Feb. 2012
It's called "Crystal" and was filmed in an outdoor ice castle in Colorado.



Friday, February 22, 2013

Unconfined...


"We have not come here to take prisoners
but to surrender evere more deeply
to freedom and joy…
 


We have not come into this exquisite world
to hold ourselves hostage from love.
  

Run, my dear, from anything
that may not strengthen
your precious budding wings.
  

 Run like hell, my dear,
from anyone likely to put a sharp knife
into the sacred, tender vision
of your beautiful heart.


We have a duty to befriend
those aspects…..
that stand outside of our house
and shout to our reason,
”oh please, oh please,
come out to play.”
  

 For we have not come here to take prisoners,
or to confine our wondrous spirits,
but to experience ever and ever more deeply
our divine courage, freedom and Light!"
  


Hafiz

Hafiz poem from Love Is A Place




Sunday, September 30, 2012

Back To The Garden...

"And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden..."
lyric from "Woodstock"

I took a little trip “back to the garden” last week to relieve my myopic view of life, to feel a little spaciousness and gain clearer perspective; to “slow down to the pace of my soul”/spirit/Being. (A phrase coined by Ruth at Washed Stones).  I hadn’t been back to the Garden since May - a public garden, like a botanical garden…  This time it was a delightful damp Fall day.  We haven’t had many of those here this Summer/Fall.  I thrive in the damp coolness of wet earth, subdued skies, and the quiet aloneness with Nature under a still lush canopy of trees that have not yet displayed their colors.   I wandered, through this partially man-made “forest”, meandered down different roads, and paths, listening to silent Intuition lead, waiting for the Voice to speak, to draw my attention to what it wanted me to see - following It’s path…   This is what Intuition found…  Enjoy the view!


Coming around a bend, down a slight hill, I came upon a gaggle of women delighting over Dahlias, which for some reason moved me to tears, internally, to see such joy and excitement being expressed in adults, who were just as excited as children discovering something for the first time!  They spontaneously let their inner spirit come out to play.  Something I needed to do as well, after being bogged down in the bogs of the mind.  I had actually never seen Dahlias before. They *were* wondrously, magically HUGE, as if from Alice’s Wonderland – and their multiplicity of color I had never seen in flowers before!  Only got this one picture though, because the gaggling women were hovering over each long stemmed bloom with a camera, and I had to wait my turn, trying to be obscure– slipping in and slipping away – so as not to intrude… J


Moving on I came across the Pumpkin Patch, as if abandoned to some forlorn landscape away from the Garden… They were HUGE pumpkins – obviously well fed and watered…  I wondered, what do pumpkins think, Charlie Brown… Can they hear the trees talking across the path…  Are they *aware*…  Ah, here it comes, the playful spirit. There was a break in the mental fog…



Intuition led me away to the serenity, silence and stillness of the Lily ponds.  Those big round pads that look like large pizza pies fascinated me (photo below), how they effortlessly just sat on top of the water – tethered somewhere deep beneath the surface, waiting for who knows what – just open and waiting, in silence…  receptive…  Which is what I was trying to be in that moment – listening, awareing with my whole Being…



I passed by this sculpture nestled amongst the evergreens that reminded me of two monks bowing in deep regard for each other, a deep acknowledgment for the *Life* in each other.  Even the statues exuded a certain silent reverence, held in the embrace of the Spruce, and sung to by the whispers of the Pines…


I continued on the winding trails, taking in the smell of the dampness of earth and dying leaves – the smell of change and transition; hearing the gravelly sound as my feet walked on minute crushed rock.  Letting go of mental obsessions, I noticed the sound of rushing water, and followed…  It took me into an enclave of bushes and trees with benches and a lovely little cascade of water over rocks.  Pure, clear fluidity…  The water cascades over the rocks to the right. Wish I had remembered to turn the video on instead…  But you get the idea…  Maybe next time… Gives me a reason to go back, to let my spirit out to play again…



There now, doesn’t that feel better J 




Walk Slowly

“It only takes a reminder to breathe,
a moment to be still, and just like that,
something in me settles, softens, makes
space for imperfection.  The harsh voice
of judgment drops to a whisper and I
remember again that life isn’t a relay
race; that we will all cross the finish
line; that waking up to life is what we
are born for.  As many times as I
forget, catch myself charging forward
without even knowing where I’m going,
that many times I can make the choice
to stop, to breathe, and be, and walk
slowly into the mystery.”

DannaFaulds
From: Go In and In