"Ghost Existence"? - a meandering...

Don't know why, but these words, "ghost existence",
came to me while I was talking with B back in Feb....

The following words just kinda flowed out as well...

We *live* a "ghost existence" *in* a "ghost existence."
Not that it's not *real*, it is "real" as we live it, as we
experience it, but it's not *The* Real - i.e. The Deeper
Reality - which exists behind and within the "ghost
existence", animating it - a mystery...

~

Along with the words came an image of  an old west
town erected with facades on a movie set, where they
would have make believe shoot outs in the dusty streets,
while the patrons of the theme park, dressed in costumes,
 looked on from the sides, entertained by the make believe
 characters in the "ghost town" made specifically for the
*experience*, whatever that experience is in the 
"ghost existence."

When we die one belief is that that animating force "drops"
the body...  I like to think that the energy of the animating
force returns to its "original source", maybe in another
dimension...   I don't know...  This is all speculation from 
a "being" living in a "ghost existence."
That's why this is called a meandering. :)

But there are traditions that do believe that there is no self,
no me, no you, that we're all an illusion, a dream, a movie.

It seems real in the moment...
"Christine" may have 75 or more episodes 
in her "ghost existence" here,
like an old west show with her own "prop set"
called her life...

Wouldn't that be interesting, if it were true.
We've all been playing a role, in the play of life,
in a virtual reality, 
whatever that experience/drama happens to be;
or so some say...

And then the "willful self" is dropped by the body, and
we are absorbed (energetically) back into our place of
Origin - our Source:

"The Silence of Being"

Once again - speculation...:)
But one that works for me at the moment :)

I recently heard someone say: Our experience of "me"
 is not our essential identity.  The "me" is another
experience that Awareness/Consciousness/Source is having,
like the waves that arise from the Ocean are still
the Ocean. The "me" is another wave on the greater Ocean of
Awareness, but is still the Ocean, and eventually
 recedes back into the Ocean...

I like this...

Mystic Meandering
Feb. 19, 2024

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Snow figure on skylight

 

"I" am LIFE...

"I" am LIFE existing here...
not a concept...

"I" am the Essence of Life
living itself out
here...

I cannot say that I am "Christine" -
nor a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu,

Sufi, Buddhist, Non-Dualist, Taoist,

or Mystic...

Mother, daughter, sister, friend,
or wife...

not a dream,
or an illusion...

"I" am simply LIFE ~ existing ~
playing all these roles...

The weight of existence
occurs when I try to
cling to an identity...

~

"I am a

f

e

a

t

h

e

r

on
the
breath of God."

Hildegard of Bingen says ~

and even the
identity of a 
"feather"

is
too
heavy

~

It's only a metaphor

~
~
~

I follow the breath
to its
Source,
the
Silence,
and
realize
I am being
breathed

~
~
~

The "task" then
is to surrender,
to
the
Infinite
Breath of
LIFE

that
"I"
am

~
~
~

Mystic Meandering
2014

~

Art - Mystic Meandering
"Explosion of Life"

Craypas oils

2012

 

The River of Silence - Kahlil Gibran

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind
and to melt into the sun?  And what is it to cease
breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides,
that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you 
indeed sing.

And when you have reached the mountaintop, then shall
you begin to climb.  And when the earth shall claim your
limbs, then shall you truly dance.

Kahlil Gibran

~

You must seek nothing but the Source...

Rumi

~

Photo - my late blog friend Dorothea...
Walked into the Light - Jan. 17, 2021

~

In this season of honoring the rebirth of the Light;
in the cycle of birth, death and rebirth -

We don't have to physically die to experience the deep,
 restorative Silence - and dance


  MM

 

The Longing - a meandering...

Since I was a young child I longed to know "God" -
the "God' of my childhood religion...

~

Recently longing has arisen again...

I long to know "God" still,
even though that longing has been covered over by layers of
different beliefs and stances - all veils...  And my idea of, and
names for "God" have changed; like "The Mystery", The Beloved,
The Great Silence...

It's time to part the veils so that I may truly know the "God" of my
longing; not the "God" of my childhood religion - not a man-made
"God" - but "The Source" Itself...  The Primordial, Nameless "God"...
Some have called it the Primal Energy, or even the Divine Breath...
But I long for something more personal...

I sense that all our longings and sorrows come from this longing for
"Source"; to know who/what that truly is - our origin, and if we are
that - as the many spiritual teachings say.

So I turn to look for the Source of my longing, that I wish to know 
intimately - again - as in the beginning - before birth.  All others
have been only names, personas, maybe even "lesser gods."

The longing is not for a distant "God - but the "God" who
resides within - the Source or Essence of myself.

Whoa - What?

As those words slipped out onto the page, they caught my attention:
"the 'God' who resides within -
the Source or Essence of myself."

The "Source" is within!
What I long for is in myself! 

This hit me as if this was a "new" revelation,
with a feeling of relaxed awe and wonder...

And yet, I know I know this! - intellectually, in my head.
"God - aka the Primal Source of all that is resides in everyone and
everything...  But I want to know it experientially...
to feel it intimately...

I am not ashamed to feel that longing again; that was hidden by
the veils of the intellect, the intellectualized, conceptualized, and
abstract stances, and belief systems...

It is the Heart longing that will bring me to "the Source" of my
longing; not stances and belief systems, but the innocent, child-like
longing from the Heart - the direct experience that the "God" I long
for resides within myself.

I am finally allowing myself to feel that fire of longing
again...

My child-heart has opened once more...

Mystic Meandering
Dec. 8, 2023

from my journal

After this "revelation" I felt a Presence behind my heart and with it
a deep Quiet came over me internally...

the "God" of my longing dwells within!

Amazing!

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Sunset Heart Leaves

 

The "Cosmic Mother Energy"...

Photo by John Hyde

Laying the burdens of this existence down,
for just a  moment - late last night...
Coming to rest in the "Mother Energy";
the "originating primal energy"
of the Cosmos...
Fluid, Unfettered, Unbuffeted energies,
Untouched by the strain of life circumstances...

Embraced, and tangibly Infused by
Primordial Source Energy
coursing through my body,
I relax...

Mental images and constructs of present life
circumstances, once holding reign on my mind,
now pass through, as I focus on the dance
of energies within.

Pathways of the Primal Energies
subtly leave their imprint...

The body tries to self-correct after a life-time of
walking the energetic History Trail of Family Dynamics
in physicality - core survival issues that have left
indelible scars - begin to release - a bit...

I experience the "Deeper Reality" of this exquisite
Primal Energy, and realize it experiences Itself
in many forms; morphing Itself into different expressions,
different life experiences, reshaped by life occurrences that
also shaped my perspective and perceptions -
even now...

Now finally experiencing the fluidity of the "Mother Energy"
that innately flows through me/us - like an Aurora Borealis -
streaming through this body, leaving its illumined
energetic signature...

Mystic Meandering
Sept. 19, 2023

~

Photo of Aurora Borealis
by John Hyde
Near Juneau, Alaska

 

Pathless Pilgrim - a meandering...

I am a "pathless pilgrim" - and yet there is focus...
I now know I am not "called" to any particular 
"spiritual path", although I have meandered down many
over the course of my life.  I am no longer "seeking"
anything "out there" - not "God", nor even "enlightenment."
  And still, there is a sense of a "pilgrimage" of sorts; an
exploration of the Inner Landscape of "The Mystery."
Plumbing the depths of the mystery of Being within
and experiencing how that unfolds within me -
or better, how it unfolds me...

It has become a way of life actually, a continuous unfoldment,
an ongoing "returning" to the core of my Being; that silent,
still core of Being within, from which my life arises and
emerges as "me."

For what is "God" but that Eternal Essence within;
the Eternal OM of Existence - the Infinite Sound of Being;
the Emptiness that isn't empty; the Silence that isn't silent;
the Stillness that isn't still, but pulsates with The Rhythm of
Life, the Primal Energy that flows within us and through
Existence.  It is the genderless spaciousness of Primordial
Energy where there is no separation or union, just the 
Source of Being...

Mystic Meandering
Feb, 8, 2014
June 2023 - ongoing & unfolding

~

Photo from the Internet

 

The Great Suffering - A Simple Man

The Great Suffering is one of many perceptions and sensations
felt in the body, and happens simultaneously with the 
awareness of the Beauty around us - in the formless Field of
Awareness.

Everything is overlaid with acquired knowledge, and the
psychological and somatic conditioning.  The immediacy of
our experience becomes veiled, overlaid by unconscious,
reflexive conditioning.  The overlay applies to the totality of
experience and what it feels like to be alive.

The Great Suffering comes about as we learn of the darker
aspects of Nature and humankind.  The aspects of the Great
Suffering are not innate elements.  Nothing originally overlays
our Naked Essence. Can we come to an Experience of Being
that we have known before the constituents of The Great
Suffering clouded our Essence?

Our Essence is the Essential me unshrouded by all that has been
acquired over the course of a life; all that is not native to us.
It is the feeling of Aliveness.  You can feel yourself.  You can
feel the Field of Awareness Itself - which is the Feeling of
yourself...  You have to keep bringing your Attention back to
feeling yourself as the Source, which is prior to the arising of
thought...

Who then am I?

The Formless Aliveness, the Essential self , recognized and
remembered.  

Excerpts from: An Affair of the Heart
by - A Simple Man

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The River of Silence - Kahlil Gibran

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind
and to melt into the sun?  And what is it to cease
breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides,
that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you
indeed sing.

And when you have reached the mountain top, then shall
you begin to climb.  And when the earth shall claim your
limbs, then shall you truly dance.

Kahlil Gibran

with thanks to Death Deconstructed

~

If we can hear life, we can hear Silence
because the intensity of this pure energy
manifests itself through the sound of existence.

Yolande Duran

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Everything is this Primal Energy - the Primal Source of life;
not a persona, or god, or goddess or even Pure Consciousness;
just the fluid Energy of Life running through all living beings.
We are that Energy...

MM

~

Photo - my late blog friend Dorothea...
Walked into the Light - Jan 17, 2021