Notes From The Window - 9-27-24

Sitting at the window in The Silence of just Being
soothes my Soul - it *feeds* the Soul.
The Stillness is powerful tonight...

The Silence within and the night hold me
in Quietude...

I feel emotionally "safe" here in The Silence 
and know that this Silence is my Core,
it is The Silence of the Soul.
I just bask in its Peace...

~

The Silence of the Soul at the window is what
I need.  I've been using bandaids again:
techniques and strategies, though helpful,
they are not what nourishes the Soul...

When I'm at the window at night,
I feel a sense of well-being inside.

I relax and breathe - even when I still
get caught in the negative meanderings of
the mind - I return to The Silence within,
and am at peace...

Mystic Meandering
Sept. 27, 2024

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Dance in the Depths...

In these turbulent times with its upheaval
on the surface of life,
dive deep...
into the stillness of Being within,
where nothing is disturbed, nothing is harmed...
Dance in the Depths...

externally it's all "The Mystery" playing
in the construct of time - the Unmanifest in form.

In the Greater Context in which life takes place,
everything is allowed...
The world will go the way it goes -
life will continue to unfold the way it unfolds -
the light and the dark will continue to dance together
in time-bound reality.

But do not focus only on the chaos;
the mind-created contractions of fear...

Instead...  Turn Within...

Experience the depths of Inner Stillness,
the Stillness of the Everlasting Deep within.
Discover what's beyond the chaos and fear
- what holds the Cosmos together;
the enduring hum of Aliveness within all form...
We are held in that Rhythm of Stillness that
sustains Existence, that IS Existence.

Rest...

In the Embrace of that which animates Life...

_/\_

Namaste

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings whispered to me
 Nov. 2016

~

I need to practice this again and again...

 

Solitude - the furnace of transformation

Solitude is the furnace of transformation.
Without solitude
we remain victims of our society
and continue to be
entangled in the illusions
of the false self...

Henri Nouwen

~

The great omission in American life is solitude;
not loneliness,
for there is an alienation
that thrives most in the midst of crowds,
but [it is] that zone of time and space,
free from outside pressures,
which is the incubator
of the spirit.

Maya Mannes

~

Awareness of the Divine Essence as our
innermost [Being] requires silence...

It is turning toward what lies hidden within -
to the internal - the all-embracing totality
of Divine Being.

It is the way of meditation,
the way of inner silence before Spirit.

Remaining quiet before Spirit is a prayer of silence,
through which we listen to that which secretly speaks
to us in the inner room of the heart.

What is hidden deep in our innermost being
lies in silence and stillness,

and in the silence of the deep
springs the eternal, inexhaustible, original
source of all being.

Where words fall silent,
the everlasting begins...

Wolfgang Kopp
From: Free Yourself Of Everything

~

Spiritual joys come from solitude.
A little while in your room
will prove more valuable than anything else
that could ever be given...

To be one with the truth for just a moment
is worth more than the world and life itself...

Rumi

~

Personal Note:

I am not suggesting that we all live a cloistered life of 
solitude and silence!  We're not all meant for that.  I don't
think I could even do that as much as I need solitude and silence.
As I have discovered, solitude is not always the "answer."
But it is  about going deeper within,
listening and hearing the deeper Voice within,
and responding to the inner movement of That.
We can be in solitude while cleaning or creating, or in nature.
And sometimes that inner Voice speaks to us through the voice
of others, as these quotes here did for me.
I merely wish to point out that part of the angst and entropy
we are experiencing personally and in the world is due to
a lack of spending time in solitude and silence,
becoming aware of and getting to know our deeper,
mostly unknown, Core Being.

MM
_/\_

~

There is no effort that we can make to still ourselves.
True stillness comes naturally from moments of solitude
where we allow our minds to settle.  Just as water seeks
its own level, the mind will gravitate toward the holy.
Muddy water will become clear if allowed to stand
undisturbed, and so too will the mind become clear
if it is allowed to be still.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao, Daily Meditations

~

Photos - Mystic Meandering

"Inner Opening" - Ivan Granger

Most of us spend our entire lives avoiding an inner opening.
It is that quiet itch at the back of awareness that makes us
squirm and turn away.  And when it really presses on us,
it can arouse terror, as if we were facing down death.

...to approach it is to face death.  It is the death of our old
worldview, the death of patterned awareness, the death of
our limited notion of who we are.  All we thought ourselves
 to be stops - and so it is a sort of death.  To feel that grace
approaching , to welcome it, requires a wild sort of courage.

It requires courage and, yes, surrender.  We have this idea
that spiritual opening is a terrible effort.  No.  That unfolding
wants to occur within us.  The only effort is to let go of our
endless strategies to halt the process.  We all feel it, a gentle
prodding to let the heart open, to know ourselves truly, to be
present and radiate ourselves into the world.

That opening is insistent, trying to happen within us.  Call it
grace, if you like.  The question is before us: Do we
courageously accept the invitation?

For those of us who live in modern urban society, think how
hard it is to stop the ticking of the clock.  From an early age
we internalize the sense of time and progress and deadlines.
Yet, in doing so, we forget that these are all just concepts,
just one way to understand the unfolding of being and
experience.  That sense of time is a powerful tool for doing
and accomplishment, but it isn't inherently real.  It doesn't
have much to do with who or what we are.  There is a flow
of days and months, but they are the surface current of a
much deeper timelessness.

It is fascinating how we use the hyperactivity of thought to
define the world.  The other thing about thought: it creates time.
When thought settles down, we discover timelessness. ...the
mind comes to rest, not in the head, but in the heart.

Having come to rest, we remember.  It is not through intellection
but through stillness that we remember.  Remember.  Re-member.
To remember is to finally see how the apparent separation of
reality actually fits together in a single wholeness.  Discursive
thought can only ever examine pieces of the whole.  To re-member
is to have the full vision of Wholeness, as things actually are.
But this vision is found in timelessness and stillness, through the
quiet mind unfiltered.

Ivan Granger
Poetry Chaikhana

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Still - and still moving - T.S.Eliot

"Home" is where we start from.  As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living.  Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after, 
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album.)
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.

Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity

....for a deeper communion.....

T. S. Eliot

from East Coker V, Four Quartets

With thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Still your mind in me, still yourself in me
and you shall be united with me,
the One Love, dwelling in your heart.

Bhagavad Gita

With thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Peaceful Hour...

Listen to the Wisdom in the peaceful hour,
when no other voices are heard,
only the wisdom of a Quiet Heart and mind,
immersed in the stillness of just Being;
an Oceanic Rhythm of Stillness and Silence that
arises naturally...

In the peaceful hour I withdraw from the day
and come back to myself
and listen to the Silence within,
in the silence of the night...

Anxiety and Stress are gone.
I take my first real deep breath of the day
and sink into peace and inner stability,
loving the silence that surrounds me,
unfettered, unencumbered,
just resting,
comforted in serenity...

Finally, slowly, coming back into sync
with the Rhythm of my Being -
an exquisite pause fills my body from the
stresses of the day and I slow down.
It's now that I feel that everything will be okay,
if only in the peaceful hour...

Restful, Rhythmic Peace...

Mystic Meandering
Aug 16, 2023

1am

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Without Stillness There Can Be No Knowing - Sigurd Olson

The sun was trembling now on the edge of the ridge.
It was alive, almost fluid and pulsating, and as I watched
it sink, I thought that I could feel the earth turning from it,
actually feel its rotation.  Overall was the silence of the
wilderness, that sense of oneness which comes only when
there are no distracting sights or sounds, when we listen
with inward ears and see with inward eyes, when we feel
and are aware with our entire beings rather than our senses.
I thought as I sat of the ancient admonition,
 "Be still and know that I am God," and knew that without
stillness there can be no knowing, without divorcement from
outside influences man cannot know what spirit means.

Sigurd Olson, The Singing Wilderness

with thanks to Heron Dance

~

I turn within...  I am not turning up to the sky - I am not turning
anywhere outside of my own being - I am not looking around for
holy temples or holy teachers or holy books.  I am turning within.

Here am I.  The very seat and source of God [The Divine, or
however one knows "God"] within me.  The abiding place
of God [The Divine].  God is within the inner sanctuary of
my own being.  I am not seeking for my life, what I shall eat or
what I shall drink.  I am not seeking for health, employment 
or opportunities.  I am seeking.....Grace.

Joel S. Goldsmith
Contemplative Mystic

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

"The Silence"...

I come to sit - called by - "The Silence" within -
to rest in the deep Core of my being,
my refuge...
to listen to the "Sacred Silence" of an Alive Cosmos;
to be held in that Rhythm - the in-breath and out-breath
of Life...

I come to feel the depths of Sacred Silence;

to be immersed in the vast Stillness of the Inner Cosmos;
to lay the burdens of the heart down -
and just rest...

Held and supported by the Universe in
some mysterious way - unknown to me...

Mystic Meandering

March 22, 2022

~

Photo from the Internet

 

Still Waters - Tao Daily Meditation

If waters are placid, the moon will be mirrored perfectly.  If
we still ourselves, we can mirror the divine perfectly.  But if
we engage solely in the frenetic activities of our daily 
involvements, if we seek to impose our own schemes on the
natural order, and if we allow ourselves to become absorbed
in self-centered views, the surface of our waters becomes
turbulent.  Then we cannot be receptive to Tao.

There is no effort that we can make to still ourselves.  True
stillness comes naturally from moments of solitude where
we allow our minds to settle.  Just as water seeks its own
level, the mind will gravitate toward the holy.  Muddy water
will become clear if allowed to stand undisturbed, and so
too will the mind become clear if it is allowed to be still.

Deng Ming-Dao, from "365 Tao, Daily Meditations"

with thanks to Heron Dance

 

"The Cave"...

Entering "The Cave"

the place of deep inner Silence and stillness...

Relaxing...

Listening deeply for the Inner Voice.
Following its sound.
Finding its Rhythm in the fluid, instinctive
inner River...

It is the space of The Sacred...

This aware, awake space is curious and unafraid,
wants to engage, to see, to know,
to experience ~

...and be experienced...

This Space is deeply compassionate,
deeply open,

...and is waiting to be known...

Pure Awareness
flows through here ~

the life blood of The Sacred.
It flows around the obstacles of my mind,
and moves toward every disturbance,
filling every mind-made crack and crevice,
wanting to meet, soothe, comfort, and embrace.

In "The Cave"
there is only patience, listening
and deep rest...

It is a gentle refuge
that feels like Home...

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 2010

Personal Note:  It's been a long time since I've
entered "The Cave."  I've missed it...

~

Photo - Art - Mystic Meandering
Craypas oils with fingers

 

"Stilling" - Kathleen Knipp

Consider what would feel "stilling", calming, settling.
Many traditions teach "be still" and that stillness can be a
stilling of the body.  Finding a position in which the body
can remain still has the effect of stilling the mind to some
extent. Stilling has an effect on the body as well as the mental
and emotional faculties.  Just as emotions have an effect on
the physical body they can influence the experience of 
emotions and thoughts.  So becoming still is happening on
multiple levels simultaneously. As the process of stilling
ceases, you become more aware of the breath that's always
happening...

As we become more still, the more subtle aspects of our Being
are more evident.  In stillness we have a greater capacity to open
to listening, to pure listening, not with the ears, or listening for
something, or to something.  Just listening - availability.

In stilling the body and stilling the mind we become more
present to that which is - what's here - which can manifest in
an infinite variety of ways.  What's here is ever changing, ever
renewing.

Allowing the body to be as it is gives the emotions and thoughts
the freedom to move and change.

As we become more still, that which is essential becomes
more apparent, that which is most important, the sense of a
"greater purpose", the "feeling" of being drawn/called toward
that which may be beyond our comprehension, beyond explanation,
beyond words.  Yet in the stillness it is felt as a bodily experience.
Yield to it, trust, knowing that it takes care of itself.  Just fall into
the stream, as the flow of life flows through us.

As we become still there may be a sense of ease, softening,
equanimity.  Meet what arises with an attitude of openness and
curiosity.  It is constantly changing and ever evolving.  Sensing
beyond the habits of the mind and surface turbulence there is
great stillness, unfathomable stillness...

Stillness that just is....

Kathleen Knipp
excerpts from a Yoga Nidra Meditation

original title - "be still"

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Resting in the Womb of Creation - Kathleen Knipp

...The body is one radiant mass of Aliveness,
the Aliveness that just Is...  Feel the pulse of the Universe throb
through, giving up any struggle, any need to do or know; to 
figure out...  Just resting, being breathed...

The natural flow of thoughts and emotions will continue...
Slip behind or below the thoughts and emotions like an
ocean with waves and froth on the top - surface turbulence.
Sink down beneath, deep down, below all the movement
of the mind, resting in absolute stillness; the vast silence
of the Ocean of Pure Awareness, Pure Beingness...

There may be a sense of being pulled, drawing you deeper
and deeper into the silence, into a stillness beyond
comprehension and words, receding into the womb of
creation before time, deeply resting, being held in a feeling
of ease and well-being that is familiar...

Kathleen Knipp
Excerpt from a Yoga Nidra Meditation
Resting in the Womb of Creation

~

Photo from the Internet

 

Let the Mind be the Mind - Danna Faulds

Photo - Cate Kerr

Let the mind be the mind...

Behind its restless activity,
just one layer deeper is stillness,
and beneath even that,
is an ocean of mystery and truth.

Swim in this eternal sea
until you know yourself
to be infinity,
and bring that knowing
back into your day.

Let the mind be the mind,
but don't bind yourself
to its limited reality.

Trust your experience of vastness.
Trust the truth that never
loses potency
or disappears 
in fear.

Let the mind be the mind
and identify not with thought
but with with Silence...

Danna Faulds
Yoga Practitioner and Poet
From: Limitless

~

Photo - Cate Kerr
Beyond the Fields We Know

~*~

Still your mind in me,
still yourself in me,
and without a doubt
you shall be united in me,
Lord of Love,
dwelling in the Heart.

Bhagavad Gita

 

Remembering My Origins...

Molten golden Light
splays itself out within a fathomless darkness,
like a million jewels tumbled into the Stillness of the Universe;
dancing particles of Divine Illumination...

The shutter of Infinity opens and the Light
imprints its glittering image within Divine Darkness.
In a moment of stillness, a moment of no breath,
a moment in the timelessness of deep space,
The Light and the Darkness are one...

Int this space of Primordial Existence
The Darkness and Light intermingle
in the purity of cosmic fusion;
forever "blended" - like twilight...
Neither the enemy of the  other,
neither opposed to the other,
both expressing the same Source...

In the depths of The Deep
there is a dance of Life -
an inexpressible expression of
the Aliveness of the Absolute -
revealed in time as a movement of creation,
a movement of birth,
a movement and breath of
Light and Darkness - breathing as one...

In "Deep Space" - the Primordial Womb,
the Light and the Dark
exist together within the wholeness of
the Infinite Mystery
replicating ItSelf
through eons of time...

Mystic Meandering
April 2001

~

Earth-birthed in this body 73 years ago today (10/5/1949)
To Infinity and Beyond!  :)

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Mystery of Death...

We are a mist, a vapor that appears and disappears,
like an aurora borealis - here and gone;
a moment in the sky,
then absorbed into Space.

We are a breath of Spirit,
the Breath of Life Itself,
in-spired at birth,
expired in one long sigh at "death."

We are energy that dances in the wind -

for a time - and then gone.  Gone, gone, gone beyond,
absorbed by the Primordial Womb again.
"Returned" to Source.
Exhaled and inhaled by the Primordial Breath.

"We" go - Life Itself goes back to the Cosmic Womb
again, and again, and again - to the Energy
that suspends all life in Its Embrace...

Energy to Energy
Breath to Breath
Life to Life

One movement in the Dance of Life...

A Mystery...

Mystic Meandering

Sept. 2009

This was written only a few weeks after our old cat,
Yodi Bodhi "died."  

~

Photo - South Pole Aurora Borealis 
from the Internet

 

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

 

Divine Wind...

This body, the vehicle I inhabit,
needs deep rest...

Relief - from the constant stimulation of life and living -
and the unbalance that it brings...
Shutting out the "worldwind" that spins
 out of control around me;
Not obliged to enter its chaotic storms,
I turn to the rhythmic pace of the Soul...
The Holy Space...

Even my Soul needs quiet "shelter"...
Respite - from the endless sucking winds of the demands of
others who are lost in an addiction to themselves...
Empty shells wanting to be filled;
grasping at me, drowning in their dark, distorted shadow,
as they try to pull me under to save them from themselves -

like hungry ghosts...

And my Heart needs to feel the Stillness
at the Core of my Being - again;
to hear the comforting sound of the Divine Wind,
restoring me to
sanity and wellness of being;
whispering Life into my Heart,
as I surrender
to its soft, silent Breeze...

Mystic Meandering
January 12, 2022

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Pathless - Fred LaMotte

 I breathe in darkness, breathe out light, but pranayama is
not my way.  I bend and bow and honor the tides in my
spine, but asanas are not my way.

I savor the name of God, but the Word is not my way. I
honor the Guru, but my path has no master.

Though I listen to the songs and suras of the wise, I follow
not the Vedas, the Torah, the Qur'an.

I give to those in need, but the path of seva is not for me.  I
surrender, Lord, but even You, even You, are not my way.
Parasam Gateh, "beyond the beyond," is where I am right now.

With no chant, no altar, no eucharist or puja, I wander in the
forest, offering the silence of cedar, trillium, fern.

At midnight, soundless owl wings, bright knives of un-knowing,
slice through the glory of darkness.  Coyote howl is my song.

And because the light of primeval stars is only now arriving
in my body, I am awake.

Each electron bathes in the glory of its origin.  Every photon
collides with the darkest particle of its other self.  I follow the
wordless path of this breath Om.

But my way is not a journey, it passes neither in nor out, but
shatters every window between seer and seen, sinking every
vessel in the ocean of transparency.

I have trillions of eyes, gazing into the well of eternal aloneness,
where past and future kiss, annihilating time.  This very
moment is the diamond of my awakening.

I achieve the beatific vision of celestial mansions, simply by
gazing at the motionless explosion of a rose.

Every religion a blood-colored petal of this, but I would offer
the whole flower, the wounded bud which opens in all directions
at once.

Where I Am there are no steps, no degrees of initiation, no levels
one to seven: only fragrances, only dissolving.

Each lineage of masters is a pollen mote, but I have sticky feet. 
I visit the center, where the nectar is made in secret darkness.

Down where the pistil and stamen touch in a throb of stillness.
Come, drink.....

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

At the Core of Being...

At the very Core of Being
there is complete stillness,
a dynamic Stillness of Being

~

Just Being

There is utter awareness
of all life, all existence,
not as form,
but
the felt sense of the
ISness of Being ~

of Life

~

Living

~

In the Silence of
this dynamic Stillness
one is aware of
to cocooning hush
of The Mystery,
of Primordial Existence
that holds the unmanifest
in the comfort of
Its Womb

before its birth
into form

~

In this Stillness
the rhythmic Breath

of the Cosmos
pulses like
waves

~

The originating Cosmic energies
of an Alive Cosmos
generate themselves
into existence
spiraling outward
from the
Core ~

giving birth to itself
through spiraling open its petals,
blossoming into time and space

~

All Existence is at
the Core of our Being ~

In every atom, every cell...

We are the living Cosmos...

~

Existence lives ItSelf,
in a perpetual unfolding of Life ~

The Core of Being birthing ItSelf

in and as us ~

The unmanifest manifesting
the formless into form ~

~

At the Core of Being

there is only

Aliveness
Stillness
Silence
Peace
Love
Life

It is who we are...

~*~

Namaste
_/\_

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings

Feb. 12, 2015

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

El Shaddai - Fred LaMotte

Art by Joe Maccer on Deviant Art

Myriad names of God swirl from the womb of holy silence.
Just so, stars spiral from a black hole at the center of the galaxy.
Yet all the black holes in the cosmos are one and the same fertile
void.  This star-birthing singularity, the infinite hush of the maternal
dark, is not far away.  It is the core of your being, the bindhu at the
center of your heart.

In Jewish Kabbala, the Great Seal of Protection is a mandala
containing 72 divine names.  We can find similar mantra-mandalas
made of Tibetan and Sanskrit letters.  In the untranslated letters of
St. Pachomias, "father of Christian monasticism", I have seen such
mandalas of syllables written in Old Latin.  They were possibly
derived from the Demotic, the language of Egypt, home to the
wisdom schools of Christian Gnosticism.  In all these mystical
traditions - Indian, Tibetan, Hebrew, Christian - the names are
bija mantras, healing sound-vibrations used in meditation.

In the Old Testament , the Lord tells Abraham that, "my name is 
El Shaddai," usually translated God Almighty.  But the etymology
is uncertain.  As with many sacred Hebrew words, there are alternate
roots, each with its own significance, resulting in parallel
commentaries. These multiple roots are complimentary,
not contradictory.

One root of Shaddai means "fertile field, uncultivated wilderness."
This would suggest the other divine names, which are the very
energies of creation, spring from a wild impregnable field to which
the intellect of man may lay no claim - or what Christian mystic
Ruysbroeck called, "the wayless wilderness of the Godhead."

...in the most popular etymology of the Hebrew word, Shaddai means
"mother's breasts."  El Shaddai is the "God who is like a mother's
breasts," the feminine power.  So countless worlds, innumerable
energies, and all the names of God are born of one Mother,
who is the divine Silence.  This Silence we may experience,
 but never "know."  For this is the

Silence of The Beloved...

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance