Housed in the Quiet...

I am grateful for the Quiet in this House
that I dwell in...

Immersing me in the Quiet within;
the deep Stillness, with only the whir of the ceiling fan
and occasional distant sounds that somehow soothe...

It's as if the "House" is not my house -
but houses me anyway -
like the body "housing" my Being,
allowing IT to dwell here,
living in these spaces...

The "House" is still - yet alive,
breathing in and out with the breeze.
I can tell by the way the curtains softly sway...
Its space holds my "things" - that
aren't my "things" - only accumulated
symbols of a life lived: spiritually, creatively,
intuitively, meaningfully -
mementos for someone else's attic someday.

There is exquisite peace in the mind
in these Quiet spaces...

No stories, no ruminating on the past,
No mental fires to put out,
No trying to fix anyone's problems,
No inner conflict,
just the deep Quiet of Being -
communing with the Stillness within me...

Life goes on as it has been
and I remain in the Quiet of my Soul...

Mystic Meandering
April 2024

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Idleness - Csikszentmihalvi

Robertson Davies, the Canadian author, said one of the most
important things in his life was being able to take a nap every
day after lunch for twenty minutes.  That's for two reasons. One
is that by developing a schedule that's under your control, you are
not being flogged around by life, as he puts it; you are not always
jumping to someone else's tune.  You develop your own rhythm...

The other thing is that it's during idle time that ideas have a chance
to recombine in new ways, because of we think consciously about
solving a problem or writing a book, then we are sitting there
forcing our ideas to move in a lockstep, in a straight line, and
probably what comes out is not very new or original.

For original ideas to come about, you have to to let them percolate
under the level of consciousness in a place where we have no
way to make them obey our own desires or our own direction.  So
they find their way, their random combinations that are driven by
forces we don't know about.  It's through this recombination that
something new may come up, not when we try to push them
directly.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalvi interviewed by Michael Toms in the
New Dimensions Newsletter.

with thanks to Heron Dance

~

We can keep ourselves so busy, fill our lives with so many
 diversions, stuff our heads with so much knowledge, involve
ourselves with so many people and cover so much ground
that we never have time to probe the fearful and wonderful world
within...  By middle life most of us are accomplished fugitives
from ourselves.

John Gardner

with thanks to Whiskey River

~

Personal Note - this is also why what I call "silent time" is
so important to me.  It doesn't have to be "meditation" but just
getting still, getting quiet, without interruption.  It seems then that
 words for a poem will rise to the surface, or an idea for something
that my mind could not "solve"...  Usually that "silent time" isn't
until the Quiet Hour, between 12 midnight and 1am  :)

MM

~

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

 

Peace in the Attic ...

Photo by Dan V on Unsplash.com

I am grateful for the Quiet in this "House"...
Immersing me in the Quiet within;
The Stillness - with only the whir of the ceiling fan
and occasional distant sounds that somehow soothe...

It's as if the "House" is not my house -
but houses me anyway -
like the body "housing" my spirit,
allowing me to dwell here,
living in its spaces...

Its space holds my "things" - that
aren't "my" things - only accumulated
symbols of a life lived - spiritually, creatively,
intuitively, meaningfully -
mementos for someone's attic someday.

The "House" is still - yet Alive,
breathing in and out with the breeze;
curtains softly sway at the window...

When there is peace in the Attic of the mind there are
no addicting stories, no ruminating on the past, no trying
to fix anyone's problems - 
just quiet peace...

"The Mystery" of Life itself also
inhabits this "House"
- untouched - undisturbed -
filling every closet, drawer and cabinet;
and every space of my Being,
with its Fullness...

~

A dog barks sharply, breaking the Quiet...

But the "House", and its inhabitant, remain still -
breathing with the breeze...

Mystic Meandering
Sept, 20, 2022

 

Never Not Broken - Gina Puorro

These are strange times, sitting in this liminal space between
what was and what will be, a crossroads within both the mircro-
and macrocosms. I have been feeling a deep internal shakeup in
a way that I always do when met with something much greater
than me, bringing lessons of my insignificance and an opportunity
to shape-shift.  There's been less than glamorous insights into self;
meeting places of deep tension between my compassion and 
intolerance, my flexibility and rigid worldview, my humility and
my desire to be right, my longing for and resistance to change,
[to what is], where I remain open and where I shut down...  so
much friction between what feels like split personalities living
in this body.  And, in the way that friction does, it's making many
little fires in me that need tending, so as not to be snuffed out, or
burn me right down to the ground.

I hear the call of many wise teachers and elders singing similar
instructions; slow down, get quiet, be still, listen.

What if slowing down and finding stillness has nothing to do with
movement or speed and has everything to do with being completely
broken and not trying to pick up the pieces too quickly.  Rather
than striving for a greater capacity to hold more, aiming for total
incapacitation, surrender instead.  Perhaps it's a good time to
venerate Akhilandeshvari, Goddess of Never Not Broken; I hear
her asking us to sit with the wreckage and feel the sharp pangs of
loss and grief.  No expectation of the future, no instructions for
how to move forward.  A time to hospice ourselves through a good
death, and a long slow process of composting our former selves.

What if getting quiet has nothing to do with turning down the volume,
and more to do with a subtle attunement towards finding the sacred
amidst the noise and chaos...

Invite the power of disruption that shakes us up and disorients us,
that opens portals, seducing us towards the in-between spaces and
to dance in the wild unknown.  To see creation and destruction as
necessary to each other's survival, and the inherent violence in what
we have named nature.  Let us be students of alchemy and mischief,
and to think and act in unorthodox ways as the wise fool.

Perhaps it is time for deep remembering and reclamation.  To sit
with the many troubles of being alive, to let go of reaching towards
any sort of arrival, victory, or stability, and meet each other in our
differences, [in our shared brokenness].  Let's stay shattered a while,
and let ourselves spill up and out of the many containers we have
confined ourselves to; never certain, never permanent, never alone,
never not broken.

Gina Puorro

For any of you dealing with a deep sense of brokenness you
may find this essay from The Sutra Journal about Akhilandeshwari
an interesting read.  I had not heard of this Hindu Tantric Goddess
 before and found the article quite relevant to my own experience,
 although I am not Hindu...

The essay is called - Akhilandeshwari: The Power of Brokenness
by Laura Amazzone

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

~

I have no spiritual platitudes to offer,
no "answers" - no "fixes."

All I have to share with you today
is my brokenness.

MM
Sept 12, 2022

 

The Power of Quiet - Malidoma Patrice Some

The power of quiet is great.
It generates the same feelings in everything one encounters.
It vibrates with the cosmic rhythm...
It is everywhere, available to anyone at any time.
It is us.
The force within that makes us stable, trusting and loving.
It is contemplation contemplating.
Peace is letting go - returning to the Silence that cannot enter
the realm of words because it is too pure to be contained
in words.

Malidoma Patrice Some

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo from Death Deconstructed

 

The Unchanging Reality - Sattva Lynn

Art by Meganne Forbes

Don't try to control the noise;
just notice what is always Quiet -
which is the Noticing Itself.

That Noticing
is Loving Aliveness,
Pure Awareness or Light.

Only what is
total silence, stillness,
unmoving, and unchanging...
can possibly notice anything.

Or else it would be
another changing thing.
Therefore, what is unchanging
must be Eternal.

It must be Invulnerable -
meaning without influence.
It cannot be affected
or influenced in any way.
or it would change.

Just notice what is
always unmoving -
always Here to
notice anything at all.

That is where true power lies.
BECAUSE it does not change.
It is always what It Is.

Then you don't have to
try to control, alter
or overcome the noise
of thoughts and feelings,
and habits of identification.

You just keep noticing,
or open your heart
to the Unchanging Reality -
and ask inside how
to know it as your Self.

Sattva Lynn

With thanks to No Mind's Land

 

Dancing with Life...

In moments of Solitude and Quiet
the life "characters" I've assumed -
fall away...

The defense mechanisms, beliefs, roles and identities
drop into the Quiet -
and the Eternal Perspective emerges...

unthinking happens...

Embracing the mystery and paradox of life,
I accept the totality of life experience;
not just the pathways of 
light and bliss and peace -
but the darker pathways,
with their shadows of the psyche,
without "spiritualizing" them...
Accepting the shadow side of life
as part of the Whole...

In the Quietude I listen to the "Oracle" of the Soul
that has imagery, poetry and music all its own.

With the innocence of a child -
open and spontaneous -
my Heart, hidden by the many masks I've worn,
melts through - hearing the music...

Unencumbered... Unconstrained... Undefined...
And dances with the innate Rhythm of Life again -
The Natural Rhythm,
as the world plays out its darker side.

Mystic Meandering

Aug. 29, 2021

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

 

Wrapped in Silence - Rumi

 Last night,
I begged the Wise One to tell me
the secret of the world.

Gently, gently, he whispered -
"Be quiet,
the secret cannot be spoken
it is wrapped in Silence."

All is known in the Sacred Silence

Rumi

Original title: "Last Night"

from the collection
Whispers of the Beloved
translated by Maryam Mafi & Azima Melita Kolin

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

May Peace Prevail Within Our Hearts!

The Abode at the Core of Her Being...

The Unamable suddenly moves in Her,
felt from the very core of Her being,
pulling Her awareness inward from the chaos
of the world trance.

Energy currents surge through Her Body
opening an internal space,
unlocking an inner door,
to the deeper "Abode at the Core of Her Being."

She enters...
breathing into the Core,
in deep gratitude...

She asks - "What do I need to "see" here?

A silent whisper replies:

"Abide at the Core of your Being."

Peace suffuses the very core of Her Body.
She settles into the timeless Quiet...
the healing balm for a restless mind,
in a troubled culture...

Finally, after years of meandering,
She's at home in Herself - Her True Abode -
Her Being.

Not needing to find a truer Self -
a "spiritual" Self - a Higher Self...

Just being Herself...

Accepting Her flow with life,
as it is...

Open to the movement of the Universe.

Mystic Meandering
June 12, 2020

~

Art - Mystic Meandering
"Eye of God" Mandala Art
2013 (?)

Blessing in the Chaos - Jan Richardson

To all that is chaotic
in you,
let there come silence.

Let there be
a calming
of the clamoring,
a stilling
of the voices that
have laid their claim
on you,
that have made their
home in you,

that go with you
even to the
holy places
but will not
let you rest,
will not let you
hear your life
with wholeness
or feel the grace
that fashioned you.

Let what distracts you
cease.
Let what divides you
cease.
Let there come an end
to what diminishes
and demeans,
and let depart
all that keeps you
in its cage.

Let there be
an opening
into the quiet
that lies beneath
the chaos,
where you find
the peace
you did not think
possible
and see what shimmers
within the storm.

The human heart continues to dream of a state of wholeness,
a place where everything comes together,
where loss will be made good, where blindness will transform
into vision, where damage will be made whole,
where the clenched question will open in the house of surprise,
where the travails of a life's journey will enjoy a homecoming.
To invoke a blessing is to call some of that wholeness upon a
person now.

Jan Richardson

With thanks to  The Beauty We Love

~

Photo taken at Keukenhof Tulip Garden in Holland
by Ellen Ratmeyer

Weight Shift - Ram Dass

If we can imagine a wheel whose rim is the cycle of births and deaths,
all of the 'stuff' of life, conditioned reality, and whose center is
perfect flow, formless no-mind, the Source, we've got one foot with
most of our weight on the circumference of the wheel, and one foot
tentatively at the center.

That's the beginning of awakening.  And we come in, and we sit and
meditate, and suddenly there's a moment when we feel the perfection
of our Being and our connection.  Then our weight goes back on the
outside of the wheel. Over and over and over, this happens.

Slowly, slowly the weight shifts.  Then the weight shifts just enough
so that there is a slight predominance on the center of the wheel, and
we find that we naturally just want to sit down and be quiet, that we
don't have to say , "I've got to meditate now," or "I've got to read a
holy book." or "I've got to turn off the television set," or "I've got to
do... anything."  It doesn't become that kind of discipline anymore.
The balance has shifted.

And we keep allowing our lives to become more and more simple,
more and more harmonious.  And less and less are we grasping at
this or pushing that away...

[We are no longer trying to make anything happen.]

Ram Dass

[brackets mine]

~

Photo - digitalized Mandala Art

2013

Why I Sit in "Silence"...

I come to sit - to rest in the deep Quietness...

To sit with uncertainty,
with the fear and anger,
if they arise again, as they
most certainly will.

I come to sit - to mourn the losses of life
and losses of the ways of life;
to mourn the living and the dead,
for the suffering they have endured;

and for the grief - unending grief.

I come to sit - to feel the depths of healing Silence,
the deep Stillness;
to lay the burdens of the heart down
and just rest...

Mystic Meandering
April 30, 2020

~

Photo - Meditating Monks Mandala

?date

Om is the Sound Inside Silence - Fred LaMotte

Om is not just a chant. Om is the vibration of absolute Silence.
It is the paradox of trembling stillness, Silence rising and falling
in waves of itself.  Creation is born from the womb of a paradox -
Om.

Om is the unstruck sound whose resonant womb bears heaven
and earth, the galaxies, and all the space beyond the rim of time.

Physicists tell us that emptiness shimmers with "fluctuations of
the vacuum" - the virtual photons and electrons of light and energy
that burst forth as the physical universe, created from nothing.

Om is the sound of this fullness in the harmony of emptiness, the
mysterious Word that speaks the worlds out of Silence.  Om is
not human speech, but divine wonder.

...you can hear it.  Just be quiet and listen.  Om is the sound inside
the Silence.

When you truly listen, your mind does not make the noise of
thinking. Then you hear the thunder of quarks and neutrinos.
You hear the chorus of a trillion suns in a single proton.

...Drown in the oceanic waves of quietness.  There is no more
listener, only boundless Listening...

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

~

Photo - Vortex Art
done with craypas oils
and fingers...

2012

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...

Quiet Grace...

Quiet Grace made Herself known today,
rising up from within,
surrounding from without,
like a familiar fragrance that wafts through,
only - felt by the senses,
recognized in the Heart...

She drew me in with the clearness of Her Quietness;
an invitation I could only accept,,,

I floated in Her clear, deep Stillness - unfettered.
The tangible, soothing quintessence of Quietness
filled all my fractured places,
smoothed all the jagged edges, and
unwound the choking tension of
body and mind...

Without asking,
She knew just where to go...

Her Essence moved in me...
Her gentle, clear, and fluid Presence
drew me ever more deeply
into Her receptive tenderness,
allowing me to experience
Her pristine Stillness,
like that of a sacred hidden pool,
unexpectedly discovered.

I waded in Her waters,
surprised and blessed by
this unbidden revelation of
Quiet Grace...

Mystic Meandering
April 28, 2017

_/\_

A Humble Lover of "The Mystery"

~

Photo - The Savannah River
Augusta, GA
taken by my husband

Blessing In The Chaos - Jan Richardson

To all that is chaotic
in you,
let there come silence.

Let there be
a calming
of the clamoring,
a stilling
of the voices that
have laid their claim
on you,
that have made their
home in you,

that go with you
even to the
holy places
but will not
let you rest,
will not let you
hear your life
with wholeness
or feel the grace
that fashioned you.

Let what distracts you
cease,
Let what divides you
cease.
Let there come an end
to what diminishes
and demeans,
and let depart
all that keeps you
in its cage.

Let there be
an opening
into the quiet
that lies beneath
the chaos,
where you find
the peace
you did not think
possible
and see what shimmers
within the storm.

Jan Richardson

~

Photo - Craypas oils
2009

The Gift of "The Quiet"...

I awoke to "The Quiet" filling this space...
A palpable Nameless Presence in the air this morning,
as if "It" had taken up residence here,
in this space of dwelling...

I breathed "The Quiet" in,
and with curiosity
turned my awareness more keenly to
"The Quiet",
and was comforted...
by this unbidden Presence.

Through fluid eyes I understood that
only "The Quiet Presence" truly occupies this space,
not the *things* in the rooms, or the rooms themselves,
but only the ubiquitous space of "The Quiet"
that matter reality dwells *in*
beyond sight, beyond form...
Every sound, every form dwells within "The Quiet"
and "The Quiet" dwells in them...

I surrendered in Love and Gratitude to "The Quiet"
that dwells here,
that fills the space here - tangibly -
forever present in each breath
of this space that"I"
occupy as well...

Hush...

"The Quiet" Presence
dwells among us
and in us...

Holy-Holy

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Meanderings
Dec. 5, 2016

~

If you celebrate Christmas
may you experience
the gift of "The Quiet" Presence
filling your space today...
and every day...

_/\_

Photo - have no idea what this is a photo of,
probably a "mistake" - but can you see
the faint outline

 of a heart in the center
of that "cloud"?  :)

Break for Freedom - David Whyte & Rumi

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"

Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
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
"Become the Sky"

~

Top Photo - Ceiling Abstract
taken looking up where several ceiling levels
come together, also a ceiling beam, and a rod
with a hanger on it :)  Color inverted.

Bottom photo - Through the glass of a greenhouse ceiling. 

Silence is Prayer - Zensho Wolfgang Kopp

Awareness of the Divine Essence as our innermost true Self
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 what secretly speaks to us
in the inner room of the heart.

What is hidden deep in our inner most being
 lies in silence and stillness,
and in the silence of the deep
springs the eternal, inexauastable, original
source of being.

Where words fall silent, the everlasting begins...

Wolfgang Kopp

From: Free Yourself of Everything