Listen to the Wound...

In Deep Silence
In Deep Rest
In Deep Quiet
Deeply Listen

Sit in the depths
of the Sacred Silence
of Existence
and
breathe...

Touch and be touched by
this Sacred Space
that holds your
stories,
your wounding,
your brokenness.

From the depths of
your Being
Listen to the whisper
of the Wound...

From here all things
are made
clear...

Touch its depth
and
allow it
into the liquid flow
of Life

again...

Mystic Meandering
2024

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

a "wound" in a tree...
Can you see the weathered face
screaming?

 

Your Sacred Place - Joseph Campbell

Your Sacred place
is where you can find yourself
again and again...

A sacred place is hermetically sealed off from the temporal
world,  When you're in such a space, there is no penetration
through the enclosure.  You are in an eternal zone that is 
protected from the impact of the stimuli of the day and the
hour.

The Grail Castle - for that's what this sacred space is - is the
place where your associations are not with the field of
phenomenal experience, but with the field of your own sacred
space.  Then, once you have found the connection in your
sacred space, you can perhaps translate it into other parts of
your life.  But first you have to have a little well that goes
down deep...

Joseph Campbell as quoted in A Joseph Campbell Companion.
Selected and Edited by Diane K. Osbon

With thanks to Heron Dance

 

Out of the Unseen - Matt Licata

In an environment of "embodied attunement", we are able to
rest in the mystery of Being.  We can explore unstructured
states of consciousness and enter courageously into the dark
and into the light.  In this sense, love is an alive field of
presence in which experience can unfold into greater levels
of integration and cohesion.

From this perspective, "I love you" = "I allow you."  I can
allow you to have your own experience, to organize and make
meaning of the world in the way that you do.  I can allow you
to be what you are.  While I will not allow you to abuse me or
to act violently or break the agreements and boundaries we
have established, I can allow your experience to be what it is,
and unfold the way it does.

By meeting people where they are we can be vehicles of love...

We can enter into friendship with another and their experience
as it is, but not so close that we lose perspective and become
emotionally fused...  In this sacred middle territory we offer
the gift of our "attuned presence" - the offering of pure space...
For space is our true nature.  By resting in the organic space of
Being.....we do not need people to be different, to change, to
become "awakened", to be in "high vibration", or to "heal" in
order for us to love them.  We also will not place the burden
upon them to take care of our unlived lives and unmet
emotions for us, and we will honor their unique process and
journey, by being there for them if we are needed.

We can provide the same space for ourselves.
In any here and now moment, we can discover that our
nature as Awareness Itself is in fact the ultimate holding
environment.  While as an infant we depended upon
another to provide this environment for us, in which we
could rest in Primordial Beingness, it is actually here at all
times.  It is here now, pouring out of the unseen and soaking
into ever cell and strand of DNA.

With eyes and heart wide open.....just look and you will feel it
surrounding you... right now.  While we may not always
understand our experience [or others] - and while it may never
conform to our ideas, hopes, and dreams about the life we were
"meant to live" - we can come to trust that it is unfolding
uniquely, emerging out of the unseen hand of Love.

Matt Licata

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Mammatus Clouds.
See the two hands with forearms
reaching down, from right upper corner
to center of photo :)

It Will Be in the Silence - Jamie K. Reaser

Sometimes you come upon a place that
beckons you into silence: an old stone bench,
a lake shore, a certain time of your life.  Nothing
small can reside there.

.

I'm looking for that place now, the kind of place
that puts clocks to rest because something must
come forth to reset everything.  I don't want to
follow these rules and constructs anymore -

written, not written, felt.

.

Something is asking me not to, and it is wise.

.

Reason doesn't have roots that run deep enough
to tap the place that I am longing for, that place
where obvious things cannot be explained. That
place that is called sacred even by those who
never used the word before.

.

I want you to sit and wait with me, away from the
noise and the voices of those who speak only to rob
you of your name.  What most needs to be heard
hasn't yet been said.

Jamie K. Reaser

© 2016

From "Conversations with Mary"

Holiness Is Still Here - Annie Dillard & The Dalai Lama

There is no less holiness at this time - as you read this - than there
was the day the Red Sea parted, or that day as Ezekiel was a captive
by the river Chebar, when the heavens opened and he saw visions of
God.  There is no whit less enlightenment under the tree by your street
than there was under the Buddha's "bo" tree.  There is no whit less
might in heaven or on earth than there was the day Jesus said
'Maid, arise' to the centurion's daughter, or the day Peter walked on
water, or the night Mohammed flew to heaven on a horse.  In any
instant the sacred may wipe you with its finger.  In any instant the bush
may flare, your feet may rise.  In any instant you may avail yourself
of the power to love your enemies; to accept failure, slander, or
the grief of loss...

Annie Dillard

For The Time Being

~

We can reject everything else: religion, ideology, all received
 wisdom. But we cannot escape the necessity of
 love and compassion...

This then, is my true religion...  In this sense, there is no need for
 temple or church, for mosque or synagogue, no need for
complicated philosophy, doctrine or dogma.  Our own heart,
our own mind, is the temple.  The doctrine is compassion.

Love for others and respect for their rights and dignity, no matter
 if we are learned or unlearned, whether we believe in Buddha or God,
 or follow some other religion or none at all, as long as
we have compassion for others, no matter who or what they are:
ultimately these are all we need.

Tenzin Gyatso - The 14th Dalai Lama

_/\_

~

Photo - from the internet

A Dream of Wholeness - Matt Licata

As you fall asleep at night,
and look up into the moon -
It's just there waiting for you -
that vague sense that something is missing;
of disappointment in the way things are unfolding...

Perhaps at a much earlier time, with a star or a tree or water
as your witness, you made a prayer of wholeness.
The response to that prayer has come,
but not in the way you expected.
It has arrived by way of the shattering of an old dream,
the dream of how you thought it would all turn out.
While this dream is painful, it is alive, sacred and holy.

Heartbreak and disappointment are not easy.
They will pull the rug out from under you and remind you
of how [raw] it really is here, of how anything could happen,
and of how unresolvable life truly is.

These ancient feelings and emotions are not your enemies
working against you.  They are not evidence of your failure,
or that you have fallen off the path.
They are the path.
But they are not the path you thought.
They are of the unknown and seeded with creativity.

They are relentless in a way, these forms of love,
but will never give up,
they will never stop looking for you
and calling you home.

Matt Licata

The Temple of the Prairie...

Wanted to share this beautiful scenery from the prairie we visited yesterday, just after a storm passed through.  There was nothing but Pure Quiet, as if one had entered a sacred temple...  The air was pungent with sage and sweet grass - Nature's Incense! :) - delighting the senses, igniting the spirit of Life within.  The words under the photos are the words of Kabir.  Many of us know the "secret sound" that he refers to as the Primordial Silence within...  At the end I have added a quote from a person named Christina Harris that I found years ago...

If you want the truth...

Listen to the secret sound,

the real sound,

which is inside you...

The music from the strings
no one touches...

~ ~ ~

What remains is the child I was...
All other images once living here
have stepped away.
With each leave taking
the view is simplified.

Christina Harris

The Invisible Circle - John O'Donohue and more...

“There is a resonant heart in the depth of silence.
When you true heart speaks,
the echo will return to assure you
that every moment of your presence
happens in the shelter of the
invisible circle…”

“You belong within a great embrace
that urges you to have the courage
to honor the immensity that sleeps
in your heart.

When you learn to listen to and trust
the wisdom of your longing,
you will awaken to the invitation
of grace…
…and become aware of the
presence within and around you…”

‘The invisible remains the great background…”


John O’Donohoe
Quotes from Eternal Echoes

~

“You’re always standing in the middle of a sacred circle…
There is always a space around us called gentleness…
Allow yourself to experience how large
and fluid
and full of color and energy
that space is.

That space is our circle.

“Everyone who walks up to you has entered that sacred space,
and it is not an accident.
Whatever comes into the space
is there to teach you what you need to know.”

”Life’s work is to wake up;
to let the things (people) that enter
that circle wake us up.

The only way to do this
is to be open,
and
curious…”


Pema Chodron
Quotes from The Wisdom of No Escape

~

“Truth is the perfect circle.
Its center is everywhere;
its circumference
stretches into infinite space…”

We’ve all been touched by the sacred;
a sense of cosmic divine love,
and feel as though
we have come home.”

“Awareness is the essential ingredient.”


Surya Das
Quotes From Awakening to the Sacred

~

“Pain is a moment of grace
because we surrender
into the deep space
around us
that is alive
with consciousness,
and fall into the arms
of infinite Grace.”


Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

~

I received the following musci video from Sukipoet recently.
It is a beautiful Blessing Chant that I wanted to share here.

Thank you Suki!




~

Vortex Art™
Grace

I did this piece while listening to the chant…

Companions on the Road...

I took you all on an “expotition” with me today, as Pooh Bear calls it. You were my companions on the road, not looking for anything in particular – just exploring nature. I thought you’d like to see where you had been :)

We arrived at one of my favorite places along an old agricultural irrigation canal.

We saw the majestic cottonwoods bared by winter and the stately evergreens lining the path, as we crossed the walking bridge over the frozen canal onto the path, knowing we were entering Sacred space, the realm of Nature. We noticed a single hawk silently spiraling overhead, and a flock of Canadian Geese called out as they made their way over the field for several passes before they landed, winding lower and lower until final touch down. (Unfortunately we couldn’t capture those pictures ;)

The dirt path, about 12 feet wide, was snow covered and muddy in places, giving off the wonderful pungent odor of wet earth that says Spring is not far off. As we walked in the slippery mud it made that funny gushy, sticky, sucking sound under our feet. So we hugged the edge of the path to keep from slipping in the muck…

The ponds and canal were still frozen, or partly frozen – waiting for the thaw; the frosted ice on this one slowly melting away from the edges, returning to its liquid form, as the canal waited for flow to return.

A multitude of birds where enthusiastically chittering and chattering in the low branches at the edges of the pond as we walked by…. Chickadees, Red Wing Black Birds, Magpies, Finches. I wished I had brought the tape recorder… Fletchers and Woodpeckers made their hollow pecking sounds on old dead trees – all in a magically syncopated chorus. We stood silent, watched and listened, aware of the sound and movement of Life, breathing in its Aliveness. Then someone spotted a tree with 3 large nests.

We were excited to find this old cottonwood fallen across the canal, bottom exposed. And like curious children we all wanted to clamor on it to get a better view inside – but there wasn’t enough room for us all to fit – no shoving please… So we just peeked in the hollow to see what we could see – one at a time.

We gathered around this bench by the trees to take a break, the eldest ones sitting, of course. :)

We listened to the Silence of Nature and its Rhythms. Then meandered on again, taking more pictures of the partially thawed ice on the canal, and a bridge that crosses over to a small private farm.

We had a good ‘expotition’, we field explorers of Life, companions on “the Road,” having a shared experience called "life", discovering the ease of simply being and the Mystery of Life living through us all. Thanks for coming along. I was, and am, graced by your Presence - in spirit…

“We shall not cease from exploration.
And the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive
where we started
and know the place
for the first time…”

TS Elliot

Serenity's Sanctuary - Bow to Life

“…Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all,

even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty…

Still treat each guest honorably.

[She] may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond…”

Rumi

~

“To bow to the fact of our life’s sorrows

and betrayals is to accept them;

and from this deep gesture we

discover that all life is workable.”

Jack Kornfield

~

“No matter what happens to you,

you are always standing in the middle

of sacred space,

standing in the middle of

a sacred circle…

Everything that comes into that circle

and exists with you there

has come to teach you what you need to know

to open your heart…"

Pema Chodron

~

“Can you be here just the way you are?

Are you able to be tender with whatever

is arising in your experience?”

Neelam

~

Today I became experientially aware that I hold both

sadness and joy at the same time!

They exist together!

Sweet laughter and crying arose

in the seeing of this…

Sweet Bows of Serenity

Christine

photo - trees bowing - Christine