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Come meander with me on the pathless path of the Heart
in these anecdotal,
sometimes inspiring, sometimes personal meanderings of the Heart's opening in the every-day-ness of life...
Showing posts with label Spirit of Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spirit of Life. Show all posts

Monday, May 18, 2020

Cosmic Dust...



We are Cosmic Dust...
Star stuff...
Elements of the firmament...
Infinitesimal atoms
coalesced in time and non-time;
non-existence into existence.

Star born,
in luminous womb-like nebulae.
Light, born from darkness.
Carried by Solar winds
among trillions of galaxies...

The Cosmos runs through us -
IS us...

Undying brilliance that death cannot erase;
forever gliding through the Universe...
unconfined by the limits of time and place,
our "spirit" is always free,
unfettered by the bonds of earth.

Shine on...


Mystic Meandering
May 18, 2020


For all those who have lost loved ones
- they are not "lost" -
Their "spirit" is shining forever brilliant
lighting the darkness,
forever free...

Shine on, dear ones, Shine on...

MM

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering



Saturday, January 25, 2020

The Winter of Life...


You know, I discovered recently that time has a way of
catching us unaware...
Even though spiritually speaking "time" is only a construct,
the body lives in a time-bound reality, subject to "time"
and deterioration...

I meandered into my 70's last October,
eyesight diminished, and hard of hearing -
What?  Are you talkin' to me?
Guess that means hearing aids...
Are you kidding me!? - resistance set in...

But here it is...  The Winter of my life has arrived,
catching me a little off guard.  I don't know why,
I see it in my hands...

It was as if some switch went off (or on) in my body
 when I turned 70 that whispered -  "body - old."
I could feel it in my body.  Actually, I felt my body
beginning to wind down years ago, but 70 was more
distinct, more of a palpable - "click" - as if time
started counting down - in earnest.

And then there was a fall in November,
a stumble that laid me up for a month!
And then some kind of respiratory "flu" in
December - the cough lasting 6 weeks!
All taking its toll on the body.
Even though I know "I" am not my body -
still...  it's wearing out;
this vehicle that has carried me this far...

Others have told me aging is all in your head.
meaning the mind.
But, the mind is going too!  Acuity left when
I wasn't looking, and memory is fogged in.
Maybe I'll forget that I'm getting old. :)
That's the biggest shocker - feeling old,
and not remembering things...
Scary

The furniture seems a little lower than it was;
harder to get up... toilet too.
It's harder to get around - stiffness has replaced
what fluidity I knew.  The grey hair has set in
around the edges.  And I see where I'm headed in
the faces of other "older women" now...

I wonder - will this "aging" affect my sense of
"knowing" the "Spirit" that animates this body?
"The Mystery", the Ineffable, Pure Awareness,
Consciousness, The Silence, "God", the Self;
however one calls IT.
Will I forget it all - that I've tried so hard to
remember...

That's my biggest "anxiety" -
If I "lose" my mind
will I remember Who "I" Really Am -
the Essence of "me"...

Do I even know that now...


Mystic Meandering
Jan. 24, 2020

~

There is a touching innocence in
the mystery of the human self.
Even after thousands of years of
experience and reflection,
we still remain a mystery to ourselves.
There is something deeply unpredictable
and unfathomable.
...Even when you approach yourself tenderly
with the candle of receptive and reverential
seeing, all you achieve is a glimpse...

John O'Donohue
from - Eternal Echoes

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering



Friday, June 21, 2019

Wild Medicine - Summer Solstice - Brigit McNeill


I see your hurts, your fears and your sorrow.
I see them like crumpled black lumps,
and brittle edged bits that feel heavy
and uncomfortable in your flesh.
But I also see your immense bravery,
your wisdom and your courage.
It grows from you like tendrils of
medicine plants; wild and wise.
It's bigger than you realize.

You are so very courageous and you
can do big things, hard things,
beautiful things and
monumental things.

I wish you could see what shines from you.
I wish you could wrap those wild vines
of courage around you.
The ones of wisdom and truth,
of power and bravery.
Wearing them like a cloak, a dress or a
second skin; absorbing and feeling the
wild medicine it brings you, for you have
grown it from within, they are seeds of your
knowing and they can't be taken from you.

You have made it through everything
and now it's time to see yourself as the
warrior and tender lover of your own being.
The one who grows medicine weeds and
sweet flowers from the concrete cracks of
their life.




Wishing everyone a renewed sense of strength and courage
on this Solstice...

I celebrate 10 years of posting on this blog today!
It's been a wonderful experience.
Thank you all for reading!
~

When you take off your clothes remember
to be thankful for your body underneath,
whatever shape it is.  It's your most tender
lover.  It's doing its best to swim upstream
against the current of all this entropy.
One day it will give up, exhausted,
and slip from you like those clothes,
and again you'll be thankful
for what's underneath.




Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Inquire Into Truth - Adyashanti


By inquiring into truth, we are led ever deeper into the
unknown, beyond beliefs and ideas, to the very core of
who and what we are...  This inquiry challenges us by
taking us out of our heads and into the heart of our deepest
experience of being, which is beyond limitations of body,
mind and conditioning.  Telling the truth is the secret of
all true spirituality, and in order to tell the truth you must
find out what truth is.

We are in need of a practical mysticism that reveals not only
the deepest core of being, but also addresses how to relate
from that core in the event called "life."  We do not need
another set of how-to instructions, which are so popular
within our modern consumer culture of quick fixes.  What
we need is an ever-deepening inquiry into how spirit
dances *as* this very life, for what we call life is but an
expression of spirit and therefore fully spirit itself...
manifesting as *all* of life and beyond.




Sunday, June 26, 2016

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


Monday, January 4, 2016

The Earth Is Not A Dream - Czeslaw Milosz

Hope is with you when you believe
that earth is not a dream but living flesh,
that sight, touch, and hearing do not lie,
that all things you have ever seen here
are like a garden looked at from a gate.

You cannot enter.  But you’re sure it’s there.
Could we but look more clearly and wisely
we might discover somewhere in the garden
a strange new flower and an unnamed star.

Some people say we should not trust our eyes,
that there is nothing, just a seeming [an appearance].
These are the ones who have no hope.
They think that the moment we turn away,
the world, behind our backs, ceases to exist,
as if snatched up by the hands of thieves.

”Hope” - by Czeslaw Milosz


~*~

The only “dream” we “awaken” from/to
is the dream of separation from
our True Divine Nature…
The Light of our True Being…

Mystic Meandering

~*~

“Nothing short of direct experience
of ‘The Divine’
will ever satisfy our needs
for wholeness, fulfillment,
and completion…”

Author unknown

~

Photo: from the internet
photographer unknown

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

The Return Journey - In Memoriam...

My Dad
birthed into form - April 23, 1924
returned to formlessness - Nov. 4, 1985



My Beloved Maternal Grandmother
birthed into form - April 30, 1905
returned to formlessness - Nov. 2, 1998


The Journey of Return
By Dorothy Hunt

When The Beloved wants to take you Home,
extend  your hand to the welcoming
even though your body may be trembling
and your mind may want to flee;
even though those around you grieve,
and you yourself have mourned, even before they,
the changing form of your body.
Tears are not the final truth
though they will come and go
like stars that need a dark sky to be seen.

Death is not a failure of a mind
that is not strong enough,
or positive enough, or pure enough.
Those who hold such views are simply
masking fear with ideas of being in control.
We are being lived by the Creator of this life.
Do you really think a finite mind can change
the mind of God?  Jesus tried and failed.
”Please take this cup from me!” He begged,
as we all do in the midst of anguish.

But anguish, fear, or deepest grief
cannot alter Who you really are.
The beautiful Spirit that extended Itself
in space and time, and called Itself by your name,
is simply ready to return, unencumbered by a body,
to Its vast and spacious Unborn Self,
that kisses you at birth,
and holds your hand in death,
and never for a moment
forgets you are Itself.

The mind imagines you are leaving,
but where could you truly go?
You are Life Itself!  Unceasingly flowing,
moment to moment unfolding Yourself.
A body is born; a body dies; but you do not.
Deep within your heart, you know this Truth.
Rest there…
Rest in the knowing that opens your Heart
to all that IS,
that loves Itself in all that comes
and returns Itself in all that goes.



Zen Buddhist



Friday, September 27, 2013

"Canyon Spirits" - The Evolution of a Painting...

I started this painting nearly a year ago in a moment of frustration, thus the red color and hash marks all over the place, painting in circles.  I am an intuitive painter, so I do not have an “intention” for the painting when I start.  I like to just see what evolves and what emerges out of it… Painting this way is a “practice” in letting go, of not having expectations – hopefully J - in not being “in control” of where it goes; like life actually – not being “in control” of life, but allowing oneself to be open and vulnerable to how it unfolds.  It’s very challenging actually to live that way – as well as to paint that way…  There can be lots of frustration…  It originaly looked like this (below) and sat like this on the easel for 7-8 months.

Every time I looked at it I kept seeing the face of a Tiger, and wondered how I could make it *look* like a Tiger, not having the trained artistic experience or skill to do that.  (The Tiger is no longer apparent, as other things emerged.)  When I started painting again in May/June I was still trying to figure out how to make it look like the Tiger that I saw, thus the single painted in eye, as that is what my mind saw. 

And then a “voice” said: keep looking, look deeper.  I wasn’t hearing things, it was the voice of my husband actually, as I discussed my frustration with not being able to create what I saw in my head.  He said – don’t stay fixated on your idea of what it is supposed to look like, but keep looking and see what else is there.  Something we need to do in life as well – look deeper, beyond the surface, and see what is really there.  So I kept looking.  And suddenly *many* different faces started emerging!  (see close-up below). Initially I saw what looked like the outline of a man’s face in a window with closed eyes, and nose, (near the middle), blended into another partial face slightly under the first one.  A woman’s silhouette in a window appeared on the right, up against what appeared to be two back to back “caricature” profiles, with a flat hat.  And then an owl appeared on the far left, and blended into what looked like a coyote face with mouth open, which blended in with the man’s face, and so on…  There’s even a little fox face tucked in there somewhere… And some teepees too :)



 The whole painting took on a different look, a different feel.  It had transformed itself.  It became a terracotta desert canyon against a night sky – and another realm beyond.  Totally unintentional…  Amazing. 

In the lower right hand corner there appeared to be a grouping of hash marks standing around what appeared to be the glow of a hidden fire…  To me they were Native peoples standing around a fire as smoke rose into the canyon and beyond, where a Raven glides through firey skies…



In the lower left hand corner there was the clear outline of yet another fire, with two “figures” nearby.



And so goes the story and evolution of a painting that took on a life of its own, inviting me to look more deeply… Like life…



Thursday, July 4, 2013

Life As "Sabbatical"...

July 1st became the beginning of a refocus of life and direction, becoming clear that I must re-discover what is important for the Spirit within to thrive; what is important for this expression of Being to feel enlivened; getting clear on how IT wants to move through life.  I’m still “getting clear.”  It’s an imperative that I can no longer ignore.

The word that came up that day was “Sabbatical”, the theme: “life as sabbatical.”  Just the sense of this enlivens me!  Much like the word “Sanctuary” did back in April.  There is something pulling me towards “sabbatical” as a way of life. It has been all my life actually, and I must pay attention.  It’s like a deep need that *needs* to be met, like the body’s need for air and water.  Without it you shrivel and eventually die.  It’s like knowing that you were born a different gender than your true gender, and you also know you cannot thrive unless you allow the Truth of who you are to be lived.  The same thing is true for the life of Spirit: to live in a way that honors and expresses the Life of Spirit within, that otherwise would shrivel.

This does not mean that I am going to take a sabbatical *from* life, or go on an endless retreat, or live as a saddhu in a cave, as much as those ways of living appeal to me ;)  It is much deeper than that.  It is more being devoted to the Inner Life, contemplatively, creatively, and meditatively in a way that LIFE/Spirit/Being shows me, following the intuitive movement of Life lived as “sabbatical.”  Just as the wave does not move separately *from* the Ocean, but can only move as the Ocean moves *it* - that, to me, is “life as sabbatical.”  Not a sabbatical *from* life, but *within* life - *living* from the Inner Flow of Spirit within, from the Heart of the Infinite Abiding Spirit, or Lotus of the Heart…  I know that some of you are already living this way.

“Sabbatical” as I am using it here, for me, is really an “inner path”, an inner “sabbatical” – following the inner Truth of one’s True Being, one’s Essence, or True Nature – not one’s ego-needs, wants, or desires, or wranglings of the mind in constant philosophizing *about* the Truth.  It is about *living* the deeper inner Reality of Being – intentionally, experientially, consciously, which so far I have been distracted from – by life J, but which still deeply calls to my Heart.  It is a way of living that is vitally *aware* of the Abiding Inner Spirit – continuously.    It is about deepening *into* this Inner Abiding Spirit of Being.  And I have no idea how this will take shape, or what it will look like.

The dilemma is, how to live this “sabbatical life” *without* withdrawing from life to follow this inner Pull of Consciousness, but creating an environment and lifestyle conducive *to* a “sabbatical life” (contemplative life) within life – relieving the burden of daily obligations and external distractions; living the Truth of the Heart according to the Rhythm of the Infinite.  I believe this *is* the Heart “Calling.”  For me this means to deeply experience the Essence of Life, of Being, the Spirit of Life, in a contemplative way; to be meditatively devoted to the Infinite within; to recognize it, to feel it, to *know* it – intimately.  THIS – intimately communing with the Infinite that we *are* in the Eternal Now, and allowing That to live me is - “Sabbatical.”



Photo:  The camera went off by mistake
while “under the hood”
J leaving this blur of color.
I digitally enhanced it by adjusting the “levels”
on Adobe Fireworks.
To me it looks like a woman celebrating Life
with arms in the air.
But that is most likely my projection
as I move into a new way of Being
in the world.
J





Monday, May 6, 2013

Art Speaks "The Mystery"...


Art speaks in a language I cannot express, from a wordless place, through imagery and symbolism – whether abstract or the precision of a mandala - allowing entry into the Mystery of Being that we all are…  

Lately I have been running out of things to say (except now of course) :).  So I have been allowing the mandala art and photography to speak, and even that has gone silent for the moment. Sometimes I may feel inspired to add a few lines of words, whether mine or others, :) and at times add a few lines of explanation, or clarify something in a comment, as we all see art differently, assign different meanings, different interpretations, or significance, based on our conditioning, our unique view of Reality, and our level of awareness of the “the Mystery” within.    

Some have the “just here”, “just now”, “just this”, grounded view of life – for me, limiting the view to our humanity - projecting that onto the greater Reality.  But that is my interpretation – or possibly mis-interpretation.   Words like “cosmic” or “mystic” or “mystery” may seem “otherworldly” to some – and they may feel a need to ground the mystics in “reality.”  But whose reality?   Are we forgetting that earth is only part of a larger cosmos, a grand infinity; a tiny speck whirling in space, not the ground of Beingness ItSelf?  Have we become grounded in our perceived solidity and forgotten how impermanent it all is?

Reality (capital R), like art, is always as we see it, not as it really is.  Others, like me, are more cosmic in nature, oriented toward seeing “the Mystery” of Life, in and as everything; the spacious aliveness of living Being animating everything – projecting a cosmic view of “spirituality.”  Both views are true – the Eternal Mystery of Being *is* “just this”, “just now”, already here.  But I do not write to persuade, correct, or convince.   I write to clarify the View for myself.  We do not need to convince each other of our point of view, either directly or indirectly. We can leave that to the spiritual teachers, gurus and sages of old.  Reality is what it is, no matter what we *believe* about it, or what we project into it.  And the “point” of the “spiritual journey” (if there is only one point) is to let go of our “beliefs”, our personal point of view, and realize the essence of Reality for ourselves (or so I’ve been told), in whatever way IT reveals ItSelf to us, through whatever means.  For some through mediation, prayer, and a contemplative lifestyle; for others through time in nature; through art, creativity, writing poetry, music, or through spiritual teachings; ultimately, through listening to the “Spirit” of Life ItSelf – for the “Spirit” of Life within speaks to us in a language that is beyond words, much like art, a language that speaks to the Heart, a language that we can hear and receive, if we are open to it.

Whatever our personal mental understanding of “the Mystery” is, IT is still a wordless mystery, and IT speaks to each one of us differently. For we are all different wrinkles in time, unfolding uniquely in the cosmic fabric of Reality. 


Namaste…

~*~

Speaking of View :)

The pictures below were taken as I was lying on the couch
 for a few moments of needed rest last week.
My awareness was captured by the simplicity
of Life living ItSelf outside my window…
The images speak to me of the Stillness of just Being
which is probably what I needed
:)

Enjoy the View however It speaks to you…



“The timeless dimension of our being is awaiting realization.”
   Tara Brach – True Refuge




“Everything you see has its roots in the unseen world.
The forms may change,
yet the essence remains the same.”

Rumi





“…what is really true?
Is there something behind the appearances,
something boundless
and infinitely spacious,
in which the dance of change
and impermanence
take place?”

Sogyal Rinpoche




“The real world is beyond our thoughts and ideas.
We see it through a net of pleasure and pain,
right and wrong, inner and outer.
To see the universe as it is
you must step beyond the net.”

Nisargadatta




“Don’t expect anyone to understand your journey,
especially if they haven’t walked your path.”
Author Unknown

~

Photo: Cosmic Meditating Monks Mandala
Zoom Blurred