Beyond a Timeline...

I rest in the Silent spaces of the Soul -
in and out of time,
beyond a timeline,
where existence transcends
time, flowing in the stream
of the eternal Cosmos,
just outside the noise
of troubled waters...

Quietude that nourishes
body and Soul.

Mystic Meandering
Oct. 2, 2024

~*~

In this spiritual world there are no time divisions
such as past, present and future; for they have
contracted themselves into a single moment of
the present where life quivers in its true sense.

The past and the future are both rolled up in this
present moment of illumination, and this present
moment is not something standing still with all
its contents, for it ceaselessly moves on.

D.T. Suzuki, 1870 - 1966
On Indian Mahayana Buddhism

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Light shadows on a wall...

 

Missed Moment - a meandering...

I stepped outside one morning in May recently
to put cracker crumbs under the bird feeder,
for the birds, squirrels or whatever would eat them.

Upon stepping out the door,
I immediately felt the cool morning breeze
on my face...

I stopped in my tracks,
lifted my face to the breeze in silence,

and was stunned by the aliveness of the greenery
of everything, through the dappled light of
the morning sun;
like a blind person seeing for the first time...

Everything went still - for about 5 seconds.
I didn't take it in, didn't linger longer to feel
the moment, but stepped out of the moment to
finish my task and went back inside to continue
my care-giver routine.

I had missed an opportunity, and I knew it,
to be in the quietness of Nature, my backyard
version of Nature, with its beautiful trees,
gentle breezes. and filtered sunlight;
recently seen only through windows - until this
one moment.  I had just one moment - and I 
missed it.

I realized how much I have missed the quiet connection
with Nature over the past couple of years, not even
going out into my backyard; a prisoner in my own home,
missing the quietness of Nature, the comfort of Nature.

I actually miss quietness in my life! BC
Before Caregiving- the role I took on nearly 20 months ago.
So many losses of quiet moments and personal freedoms
over that time.

That's a story I need to explore...

So what does *this* story that I tell myself
 about feeling imprisoned,
and missing moments
 trying to tell me...

That I need to find and savor quiet alone moments
like these - and stay there - allowing myself to connect
with a much needed deeper Quiet within...

Mystic Meandering

May 2024

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
watching for the mailman :)

 

A Non-Path Path :) - a meandering...

I am feeling the need to settle deeper into the interior, and 
rediscover a sense of the inner Truth of Myself; not by following
a particular external path - but by intuitively listening to the 
Inner Voice; by spending time in Quietude, and "The Silence"
(which I crave, but so easily avoid by getting distracted on
non-essential things.).

"The Quest" - for me then - is to discover the Deeper Reality of

Myself.  I have forgotten how to be ME!  In a sense, what I was
"designed" for; one could say my Soul's "calling"...   Some call it
the Self (or Higher Self), but I get hung up on those words, because
the big "S" Self is not another self hidden somewhere inside us with
a big S on it that we have to "become"/discover.  But it's the discovery
of, a remembering of, having a felt sense of, the authentic, natural
self, beyond mind, beyond religion, beyond "spirituality."  Who are
 we really?   What is the "Deeper Reality"? I thought maybe I knew, 
but I haven't really met Her - yet...  Hopefully I will find the Deep
Quiet of the Heart, and the Illuminating Light of the Soul.

The path of "Enlightenment"/"Awakening"/"Self-Realization",
particularly what is popularly known as "Non-Duality, wasn't
IT for me, with its attraction to the mind and its abstractions and
mind games. It is just another construct, a belief system.  I found
out that the "Emperor has no clothes!  And I'd rather not describe
Truth by a negative - with no-me, no-self, no other, no world - as
Truth  is all inclusive - including duality, me, self, other, humanity,
and the world.

Even if one follows a "spiritual path" (which can be any path), life
will not suddenly become easy or flowing with bliss, although there
may be little epiphanies and "awakenings" here and there. We won't
necessarily lose our personality with its quirks, and become an
emotionless automaton. We won't lose our conditioning, or our 
neuroses.  Our thoughts will not stop, neither will our surface
struggles, or our pain, or our stories.  Walking "a path" doesn't even
guarantee that we will actually *see* life differently, or suddenly
find our "purpose" - as if there is only one.  But no one tells you
this about "the path."  It has to be a self-discovery, even if we have
a "Teacher", a "Path", or use a "Teaching" to help point the way.

It is different for everyone, of course.  I'm only reflecting on my
own experience here...

Years of seeking, realization, recognition, and then forgetting, and
then seeking again, then remembering, and then forgetting again, etc.,
brought me to the realization that discovering (or rediscovering) the
Essence of who I am is, for me, through awareness of and deep
intimacy with "The Silence" within; through continually coming
back to "The Silence of Source" - the space of Stillness, and
innate Wisdom - which of course is wherever we are at the 
moment, not off in the distance somewhere.  It's not a place.
"The path" doesn't *go* anywhere.  There is no reward at the end.
It's an inner pathless path...  And that's my "path" - again :)
rediscovering the inner Silent Truth of Myself, directly;
experiencing the underlying Rhythm of Existence Itself, and
within that the Truth of Myself...

Mystic Meandering
April 2024

~

Wanderer, your footsteps are the road,
and nothing more;
Wanderer, there is no road.
The road is made by walking...

By walking one makes the road,
and upon glancing behind
one sees the path that will
never be trod again...

Wanderer, there is no road -
only wakes upon the sea..."

Antonio Machado

~

Empty yourself of everything.
Let the mind rest in peace.
The ten thousand things rise and fall
while the [inner] self watches their return.
They grow and flourish and then
return to the source.
Returning to the source is stillness,
which is the way of nature...

Returning is the motion of the Tao.

Lao Tzu

~~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
taken at the Denver Botanical Gardens

 

The Still Point - Rod MacIver

The source of your [authentic] power is your still point.
Your power comes from harmony with your inner world.
That relationship is nurtured in silence, in solitude, in reflection.

Joseph Campbell said much depends on knowing who you are
and what you want out of life.  The self-knowledge requires
reflection, quiet time to nurture and build.  Before expending energy,
build energy.  Spend time in contemplation, in a pre-verbal state
of receiving, waiting for guidance.

The still point is that place of quiet reflection, meditation or
prayer, time for rest and relaxation and contemplation.

Rod MacIver
Heron Dance
Excerpt from his latest post in his Art Journal

~

Still point = sanity :)

~

Within each of us , there is a silence, a silence as vast as
the universe,  And when we experience that silence, we
remember who we are...  It is a paradox that we encounter
so much internal noise when we first try to sit in silence.

Gunilla Brodde Norris

With thanks to Heron Dance

~

photo Mystic Meandering

 

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

 

Quiet Mysteries - Gina Puorro

[.....]

 I want to be a student of the subtle.
Of the soft whispers and sweet hymns
that ride the ocean breeze and the hawk's wing.
A slight pivot towards quietude and the small things.
There are tender spaces
between emptiness and longing
where we just might hear the songs that pass
from ancestral throats to receptive ears.

You contain multitudes - contradictions and stardust
and sacred instruction.

Leave your unanswered questions
on the kitchen counter
let them ripen a bit...
until their quiet mysteries penetrate you...

[.....]

Gina Puorro
Excerpt from: "nothing matters, everything matters"
Dec. 5, 2020

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Full Moon 1-28-21

The Gift of Silence - Dada Gavand

Silence is the gate...

We are missing the aesthetic beauty of Silence, the fragrance
of quietude and inner peace, because the mind has become
overgrown and overactive. It has captured us and
the whole energy of life, going on and on ceaselessly,
continuing with its mechanical momentum in time.

In the present competitive commercial society there seems
to be no room for Silence.

Quietude and Silence are not the negation of life, but the
regeneration of it.  Silence is the means to elevate life energy
to a timeless dimension.

We have got to find this unknown dimension of life.  The
whole world is in desperate need of a new-dimensional
consciousness, so that human beings can live intelligently,
creatively, spontaneously and lovingly, and not just follow
the ego pursuits mechanically.

When one begins to realize the limitation of all thought
activity and ego drives the attachment [to them] drops.
One is left with a deep, profound Silence.

Silence becomes eloquent and active.  Silence becomes
intelligent and positive.  Action that springs from the depth
of Silence is spontaneous, truthful and universal.  It is
immaculate, timeless and spiritual.

Silence is the means and Silence is the end.
Creative Silence is the ultimate challenge.

Silence is the sap that rejuvenates life.
Silence is the source of eternal life.

Dada Gavand
East Indian Mystic

~

Find the Silence and you'll find "God."

Ramakrishna

~

If you celebrate Christmas
may you experience the
Gift of Silence...

~

"The Silence"
dwells among us
and in us...

Holy-Holy

Quietude - Dada Gavand

So we have to work with ourselves and go directly to that core,
to that center, to that root wherein lies the whole secret and mystery
of life.  You need not depend upon anyone, or on any book, in fact not
on anything that is outside.  Just be quiet into yourself.  There will not
be any thought to imagine or demand a thing.  Simply be quiet
with the total fund of energy within, and in such quietude you are
going to discover something new.  You will then experience what
humility is, and what innocence is.  The mind which is quiet into itself
is innocent, humble, transparent and open to discover that which is real.

Then you will know what meditation is.  Meditation is not the chanting
or singing of devotional songs, nor the repetition of any word or
phrase. You will then be in a state of total surrender,
alone within yourself.

You have to be really alone and anonymous to be with the inner spirit.
When you are somebody, you are related to the world, you belong to
the world.  And as long as you are of the world, you cannot move
toward the inner spirit; you will have no relationship with it.  So to
have a contact with the spirit, you will have to be alone, on your own.
Then you will get a helping hand from within.  The whole secret is to
come back into yourself by gathering all your energy, and to be there
in quietude and silence.  To be in silence is to be near one's own inner
spirit.

To be in such silence within is the highest form of prayer.  Prayer is not
chanting or singing praises to someone, nor asking and begging for
rewards of the other world.  Desires and supplication of thought on any
level are not prayers.  The silence of one's own total energy in the inner
domain is the true state of prayer.  Such prayer finds its own reward in
a very mysterious way.  The innate energy, when it regains its balance
and stillness, finds its own fulfillment...

Dada Gavand
East Indian Mystic

From: Beyond the Mind

via: No Mind's Land

~

Photo - two shadows on a wall
digitally colored

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"?  :)

Emptying - Mark Nepo

Experience is a river that never stops coming.
Often we need to empty ourselves of conclusions, judgments and
preconceptions in order to meet whatever comes our way...
The early monastic vow of poverty was based on the need to empty,
as a way to involve a deeper form of listening.
In its original intent we find that poverty of mind reflects a quietude
that can restore an inner emptiness.  Poverty in an inner sense means
a divestment of all the distractions that occupy the mind.  It means an
emptying of the interior belongings that keep us from the essential
experience of being that waits beneath all our human noise.

[We] must carry less - must put down the wounds that clog
 and weigh the heart.  We must risk being touched [by life].

[But] letting go is not just about putting things down.
On a deeper plane, letting go is about letting your heart crumble,
 about letting yourself be rearranged by the journey of being alive.
  To soften and crumble is not to die.  It simply allows us to change.
  It is a call to enter the unknown.

When we can admit who we are, and give voice to what lives inside us,
[all that we feel and experience], that very act opens us like an inlet
and lets the depths of being rush in.  For in admitting who we are lets
the mysteries of life enter us.
We are talking about the authenticity of being.

Mark Nepo

From - The Exquisite Risk: Daring To Live An Authentic Life

~

Photo - the bottom of a glass bowl...

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. 

Winter Walk - "Hibernating Land..."

Frozen earth bound in time,
waiting for the thaw;
allowing flow and movement
to regain rhythm and rhyme…

Frozen streams of frosted glass,
crystallize the sun;
creating an opaque light

that illuminates the path...

The silence of the hibernating land,
speaks in loud whispers
through the firs,

as life still stirs -
while lying dormant…

Soul callers of the sky
fly in familiar formation,
following their
homing call;
unaffected by the
earth’s quiescent luminescence
of hibernation…




Mystic Meandering
From: “Hibernating Land”
originally written Jan. 1998
Revised Dec. 2011
copyright

Winter Walks...

I wanted to share these photos from some of my walks at twilight after our first Winter morning snow; plus some taken from out the windows… The words under the photos are excerpts from a poem called Silent Retreat© by Jamie Reaser. They are used here with her permission. You can read the entire poem in context and view her poetry at Talking Waters.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Sometimes you have to go
into the thick quietude
alone

Because no one
can meet the curve
of your words…..

……only the snow knows
the story that is hidden
from the closed eyes
of the world.

This is a silent retreat


Go then, this way…


Far within the bear’s den
where you will
hear your beating heart…

Speak nothing of the Beloved


until the Beloved has

your name

Then you’ll know
emergence
is the only possibility.



~*~

Winter Blessings to all...

Fall's Last Flash...

The lamps are different,
but the Light is the same...

Concentrate on essence,
concentrate on Light…

In lucid bliss,
calmly smoking off its own holy fire,
the Light streams towards you from all things...

The lamps are different,
but the Light is the same…

One matter, one energy, one Light,
one Light-mind,
endlessly emanating all things.
One turning and burning diamond.

One, one, one…

Ground yourself,
strip yourself down,
to blind loving silence.
Stay there, until you see
you are gazing at the Light
with its own ageless eyes…

Rumi
“One, One, One”

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 someone suddenly
born into color.

Do it now.
You’re covered with 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
”Quietness”

New Poem - "The Rhythm"

I float on the swells of the Great Sea,

the vast, open Spaciousness;

out beyond the thought stream of duality.

Just the deep calm of Isness rising and falling

in an endless subtle rhythmic movement;

a stillness that ebbs and flows fluidly.

Here there is a gateway into Rest, the Quietude,

where everything falls into “The Rhythm,”

into the deep calm of The One.

I allow myself to be taken by

“The Rhythm,”

the rising and falling of Stillness.

It’s “The Rhythm” of the Formless that holds me,

that sustains and supports me –

that is me…

There is only “The Rhythm” in everything,

as everything –

the expressions and experiences of Life.

We breathe, and are breathed by

“The Rhythm.”

Mystic Meandering

copyright January 2009

funky art :) - Christine