How the Light Gets In - Pat Schneider - For Solstice

To open a door in one's mind, whether in writing,
in prayer, or in writing-as-prayer, is to invite an
experience of "the deep."

It's rather like standing on the edge of a cliff overlooking
the ocean at night, a cliff from which I can hear the 
pounding surf below me, and see in the distance a 
multitude of stars.

I am aware of danger, but I am also aware of my own
freedom and my own good sense.

Although I could do so, I will not back up, close down,
and refuse to see or hear.
Although I could do so, I will not step out and lose myself.
I will not fall to my death.

I will stand where I am and allow the vast expanse to
come to me through my eyes, through my ears, through
wind moving the tiny hairs on my skin, through the
pressure of the solid rock against the soles of my feet.
I feel awe, I feel my own smallness, but I feel that I,
too, belong.  If I am open to the possibility, I sense that
I am seen;
I am known;
I am held in the attention of the mystery.

from: How the Light  Gets In
by Pat Schneider

~

During the winter moon/months,
it's natural to make a creative connection to
the Quiet Depth of your inner gold mine...

In the outer world, everything moves very fast.
There's no doubt things are ramped up.
Follow your Inner Counsel
Trust your still small voice.

May resilience be radiant within all living  beings.
That even the darkest of times,
a light shines forth from the heart.

Donna Iona Drozda
From Opening the North Gate

~

For Winter Solstice
Dec. 21, 2023

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

 

Take Flight My Soul...

Take flight my Soul -
Be free...

Open to a larger freedom...

You are not bound by the constraints
of life circumstances;
imprisoned, or captive, nor
weighed down.

Choose a greater freedom
and take flight...

Set yourself free -
unfettered, unencumbered -

opening to ecstasy...

Mystic Meandering
April 23, 2023

~

Photo from the Internet

 

Break Into Freedom - David Whyte

To remove ourselves entirely and absolutely, abruptly and
at times uncompromisingly is often the real and radically
courageous break for freedom.

Unsticking ourselves from the mythical Tar Baby, seemingly
 set up, just for us, right in the middle of our path, we start
the process of losing our sense of falsity, of ridding ourselves
of illusions, of letting go of our self-manufactured enemies,
and even our false friends, and most especially the false 
sense of self we have manufactured to live with them.  We
make ourselves available for the simple seeing of ourselves
and our world more elementally and therefore more clearly
again.  We withdraw, not to disappear, but to find another
ground from which to see; a solid ground from which to step,
and from which to speak again, in a different way, a clear,
rested, embodied voice we begin to remember as our own.

David Whyte
Excerpt from an essay - "Withdrawal"

~

Inside this new love, die...
Your way begins on the other side.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone born into color.
Do it now...

Rumi

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Path of Time - Andrew Colliver

Mercy, there have been revelations.
Grace, there has been realization.  Still you must
travel the path of time and circumstance.

The further you go, the more it comes back to paying attention.
The rough skin of the tallowwood, the trade routes of lorikeets,
a sky lifting behind the afternoon clouds.  Staying close to the
texture of things.

People can go before you and talk all they want,
but only one thing makes sense:
the way the world enters and finds its voice in you:
the place you are free.

Andrew Colliver

with thanks to Being Silently Drawn

~

Photo - from the internet

 

Innately...

 Everything lives according to
its Innate Rhythm:
The flowers know when to bloom -
innately...

The leaves leaf out of the trees -
innately...

die and go dormant
innately...

So too our own body lives and dies
in sacred cycles of opening, unfolding, and
falling apart - innately; a lifespan...
Reorganizing its energy in different ways -
innately...

And "we", we continue our innate pull to Wholeness.

Dying is in the life of everything...

The Grand Mystery of Life living ItSelf...

...innately.

Mystic Meandering

Summer Solstice 2021

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Rumi

Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.

Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.

Escape.

Walk out like somebody suddenly born into color.

Dot it now.
You're covered with a thick cloud.
Slide out the side.

Die,
and be quiet.
Quietness is the surest sign that
you've died.

Your old life was a frantic running
from silence...

Rumi

~

Let yourself be silently drawn by the
stronger pull of what you really love...

Rumi

~

Longing is the core of mystery.
Longing itself is the cure...

Rumi

~

Photo - downpour in the sun

Bare Awareness - Danna Faulds

Bare awareness
awake to its
true nature -
limitless and
vast, nothing to
grasp, no masks
or name tag.

What am I beyond
the answers of the
mind, outside
anything I can
find by seeking?

What is true
right now, and
what is transitory?

The witness watches
thoughts spin their
convincing stories
out of thin air and
doesn't care how
often I forget
that freedom is
the truth of being,
and no part of truth
is ever separate
from what is.

Danna Faulds
from: Limitless: 2009

~

Golden Sunset

Surrender - Jon Bernie

So we sit down, we're quiet for a while.
And gradually the unwinding happens -
of the mind, and the body, and the heart.
And then maybe we get a glimpse, or a taste,
of freedom; and if we do, then we give our
attention to that.  We surrender to that presence.
Dropping out of our heads and surrendering to stillness,

one-pointed presence, effortless vastness.
We let it take us, completely.
That's what surrender is.

Jon Bernie

Photo  - a seashell,
or a delicate wing floating
effortlessly through the Vastness...

Turn Your World Red - Danna Faulds

Cardinal calls me from the
railing of the deck.  "Turn
your world red," he says,
insistent, beckoning.  "Risk
life outside your hard-earned
walls and windows.  Cast
aside caution, propriety,
and your too small sense
of what you can and cannot do."

Fly!

I tell you that the
sky knows no constraints.
All your are or can be comes
clear in the near approach of clouds.

Fly!

That which you
fear the most holds your
deepest teaching.  Let your
spirit be the bridge between
safety and release.  Soar to
the far end of what is known
from dawn to twilight, then
throw yourself at the whim
of the wild night winds.
Turn your world red, and
live with no regrets.

Fly!

[.....]

Danna Faulds
From: Poems from the Heart of Yoga

~

Photo - Drip painting...
If you look real close you can
almost see a little red bird
sitting on the thick vertical line
in the middle near the top - very unintentional :)

Upon Waking...

I woke this morning - Untroubled...
I awoke this morning with a heart of Gratitude...

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

I was just Peace.
I was just Awareness,
Empty Pristine Awareness...

There was only Openness -
with/about life...
I didn't want to start thinking - I thought,
for fear I would contract;
and laughed at the thought...
It dissipated...

I became aware again
of
Open Awareness...


I woke this morning feeling FREE;
not Freedom FROM anything -
just Freeness - unencumbered...
I was Freeness Itself...

I woke this morning feeling LOVE;
as if I could reach out to everyone and Love them!

This could be dangerous - I thought...
Had I ever felt this way before!?

I didn't contract in the thought.
Instead -
there was a natural urge for love and kindness
that kept bubbling up
from somewhere inside...

I awoke this morning feeling  - JOY!

Quiet Joy...

Internal Joy...

I did not conjure any of these up!
I did not meditate on them,
or practice them...
They were already there...
They just happened!
I was graced - unexpectedly
when I wasn't looking...

I didn't want to lose this -
this gratitude, this joy for life;
this unfettered Freeness.
Yet I didn't want to grasp at it either;
this new way of experiencing life.
I let it sit inside,
aware that it was not happening TO me,
but was taking place inside...
It had nothing to do with me at all!
Something was coming alive within...

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

And the realization arose from the Silence:
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...

Good Morning!

Mystic Meandering
July 5, 2016

~

Photo taken by my brother

Do What You Need To Do...

“One day you finally knew
what you had to do,
and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice;
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles…

“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.

It was already late enough,
and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.

But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do -
determined to save
the only life you could save.”

The Journey
by Mary Oliver

Photo: Shadow of knive handles in a knife block holder.
To me it gives the appearance of an outstretched hand,
as if inviting me to follow…

PS: I am not suggesting anything morbid here!
Just thought the shadow was interesting...

*

I love this poem, and am letting it speak for me.
I know I have posted it before,
in fact in August of last year
when faced with family drama.
I’m apparently going in circles. :)
It seems appropriate to post it again
 for where I am now
and the pull I feel on my life -
as I go through another cycle of letting go
of the ego-centric dramas of my life
and fully awaken to the True Self…
Maybe this year… :)

Omen of Change...

This ominous looking winged creature showed up at the back door on July 11th. Its wing span was at least 4 inches tip to tip – probably more. Its head still encased in its chrysalis. I had no idea what it was, so I contacted Cate Kerr from Beyond The Fields We Know. She is an aficionado of Flora, Fauna and Bugs, :) as well as a great photographer! She kindly went on a “diagnostic expedition” and returned a couple of days later with her findings. It was, she said, a Big Poplar Sphinx Moth. Looked like a stealth bomber to me! Being a mystic, I went on my own expedition to see what its symbolism might be. Mystics are like that. :) We like to explore and directly experience all aspects of Truth and the wisdom that shows up at the door.

As it turns out there are multiple meanings, but in general “moths” are ancient symbols of change – new directions – and revealing that which has been hidden. Good Omen I thought… And Sphinx – well there are multiple cultural meanings as well – but a Sphinx is kind of like a Chimera, a creation of the imagination - symbolizing a merging, or union, of many aspects - mind and body, intellect and spirit, Divine and human. Whatever cultural myths are believed become embodied in its symbols and spirituality – like separation.

On the same day that the Sphinx Moth landed, I had written in my journal: “There is definitely the *feel* of a shift in my life – a change of direction – but I have no idea what that is to be.” For a couple of months I’ve been experiencing this shift, getting these little hits, these feelings that life was being turned in another direction; that I have reached some kind of “turning point”, or what the Buddhists call a “turning of the wheel”, but was experienced as being stopped dead in my tracks, unable to move, to turn, to navigate – like being ground to a halt. My navigational system – my compass – is changing.

Direction: Unknown.

There was also a sense that all the scaffoldings that had held “me” in place needed to collapse – particularly the “spiritual scaffoldings” of “non-duality.” Meaning the framework, the conceptual structure of “non-duality” – not the actual *experience* of Beingness as It is. And with this there was a sense that there would be “new directions”, “new meanderings” along life’s path – unfettered, unencumbered, unbounded – out of the box. In a sense a move toward a freer, more authentic way of being in the world.

I am currently experiencing a great deal of unrest, unsettledness, and yes, even a sense of separation with all this – as if shaken to the core – which emerged this last week as another bout with “illness” that flattened me for several days. More scaffoldings collapsing…

What I seem to understand at this point in the shift - what I have always known, but have felt constrained by these mental “frameworks” - is that Life/Awareness/The Beloved/Existence *delights* in expressing ItSelf, and *how* It expresses ItSelf really doesn’t matter to It. Awareness has no concept of non-dual awareness, of non-dual language, of non-duality. It *sees* everything as ItSelf, and therefore as not separate from ItSelf. The idea that it is “non-dual” or “dual” does not even occur to It. It does not concern ItSelf with “non-duality” – or duality for that matter. It doesn’t *see* duality, the self, the me, as a problem to overcome, or be seen through, or merged with, as other than non-dual. The whole me/no-me, self/no-self concept, often discussed in non-dual circles, doesn’t matter anymore. I somehow had constrained mySelf by subtly making those very linear delineations, splitting Existence in two – creating duality; becoming more *self* conscious - trying to fit this expression of Being into a “non-dual” conceptual framework, instead of just Being what I already knew myself to be. My SELF!

BEingness being ItSelf…

What a relief! Such freedom! I can just be ME! - living from the Heart and not the framework, the scaffolding. In a sense I muted this Aliveness that wants to express here *through* constraining myself to the frameworks and scaffoldings of *conceptual* “non-dual” ideas, interpretations, language and beliefs – trying to fit myself into a nice neat “spiritual” box. And evidently this “new direction” is about coming Alive again, rekindling the Life that already lives here -“outside the box.”

Our Eternal Beingness only expresses “Livingness.” It’s only purpose, evidently, is to express Life, in all of its forms. “Livingness” expressing ItSelf as Life – all life, not just “non-dual” life – whatever that might mean…

Cue moth…

The Pull of Consciousness Window

For the last month I have been experiencing a huge pull from within; an intense version of the “Inside-Out” experience that I referred to in the “Inside-Out” post. It is what a friend called “the pull of Consciousness.” I have described it in my journal as a “pull to Freedom.” It’s as if Consciousness ItSelf pulls ‘self’ into ItSelf, essentially reclaiming Itself. Consequently there is a sense of collapse of the ‘outer’ into the Inner, or the outer dissolving *in* the Inner.

This “outer” expression – self - is losing its sense of separateness from the “Inner” and seems to be collapsing *into* that which doesn’t have a name: into Unknowable Beingness - into the Mystery - into the NO-thing-ness - into Existence prior to expression; sinking into the space of Awareness – dissolving – falling into Freedom, the recognition of the Freedom of Awareness. Well almost. :) It feels a little like alchemy. There’s a process going on here – a process of recognition, of Seeing how things really are: That it is not that *I* am ‘That’, but that *That* is all there is! – undisturbed Aware Consciousness… Whew, what a ride!

Although this may all *sound* wonderfully blissful, this “pull of Consciousness” vortex actually feels like a death – a death that is also a birthing. There is a *deep* sense of surrender – of succumbing actually - to this inner pull of Awareness; not necessarily to the “present moment”, or to “life as it is”, but to the Tao – the Flow – the movement of Aware Consciousness within, and how *It* wants to Flow. There is a willingness here to move with this pull of Consciousness on a day-to-day, moment-to-moment basis; a willingness to not be able to see where I’m going or how I’m getting there; to not seek relief – but to just be with this experience and allow it to go where it does until it pulls ‘me’ (Itself) all the way through...

And it’s not so much the death of ‘self’ (me) as it is death of the *perception* of self – a dissolving of orientation, of thought patterns, of identities, of attachments. It’s a “surrender” - a “succumbing” - of all that was held in this system of separation before. It is not “awakening,” it is a dying into Reality.

This “death” is like the famous metaphor of the wave sinking back into the Ocean - finding The Rhythm again, finding the calm resonance within the Rhythm of the Ocean of Awareness – Home. The wave cannot move *except* for the Rhythm of the Ocean within. So I follow the pull into quiet Awareness – most of the time :).

For brief moments, here and there, there is a dissolving of perceptions, where I recognize that I am not the body-mind. But patterns of the body-mind, of the “me,” are still working themselves through. They are rising to the surface. And there is a tendency to want to suppress them. But the need to be swallowed up by Awareness – to fall into Freedom is greater – most of the time :).

Abandoning the *idea* of a separate ‘self’, the scaffolding of the ‘self’, for THIS, this spacious Awareness that dances *through* conceptual reality is Freedom. Yet, there is not the *sense* of being freed *from* anything. There is only the recognition, however brief at the moment, that the pull of Consciousness is a pull to Freedom – inner Freedom. It is recognizing that Awareness is Freedom; that Consciousness aware of ItSelf is Freedom.

~*~

“…pure Consciousness will pull you back. It is not that you will enter it… but when It pulls you It has made the choice to pull you Home…..This is Home, the holy company of the Self. The most holy association is to be as you are [the Self] – this is Freedom.” Papaji

~*~


FunQi Art™ - Christine

I can’t take full credit for this art looking like it does.
The original is a beautiful shade of blue,
(which I will post on the next blog post). When I took the picture,
with a light shining on the picture and the flash of the camera,
this is the way it came out! Almost ethereal… Amazing…
I was awestruck. My husband explained the science of it:
The picture is only a mirror of the light that shines on it.
It can only reflect the light that comes to it…
Hmmmmm….