Trust the Presence that Holds it All - Amoda Maa

Be courageous enough to meet life from the unknown - without
a safety net, without hope, without past, and without future.

Without the hope of salvation - without running away from or
running toward anything in your mind - you are forced to fall into
an open space of Being-ness.

And in this openness, you fall out of time and out of imagination,
right into the present.

In other words, you become present - you become totally available 
to the essential Being-ness of life.

In presence, you and life have collapsed into each other - there is
no longer a "future life," it's all happening now.

In this eternal now, you and life are one - and when you are one
with what is, how can you possibly fear what is?

It's like fearing your self, and that's ridiculous - because your self,
the Being-ness that you already are, never leaves you.

Being-ness is totally dependable - it is always here.

Now you are in touch with a deeper kind of trust -  one that is 
not based on something.

It is no longer a conceptual trust, but one that is inherent in the
nature of presence.

It is inherent in the nature of life, because life is always what is
here in the present - it can't be anywhere else.

This deeper trust has no meaning to the mind, but complete
meaningfulness to your natural state [or Essence of Being].

And even if you fail, even if life leads you to a seeming dead-end,
even if you are handed an unwanted circumstance, even if you
don't get to you desired destination of perfect happiness, even
if you heart is broken open over and over again - you will still
trust the Presence that holds it all.

Amoda Maa

words I needed to hear - with thanks to Michel at 
No Minds's Land

~

Photo - Dorothea on the Beach at Sunrise

 

Hope - Frank Ostaseski

Hope is a subtle, sometimes unconscious attitude of the heart
and mind that is essential in this human life.  Experts differ
on whether hope is an emotion, a belief, a conscious choice,
or all three.  I think of hope as an innate quality of being, as
open, active trust in life that refuses to quit.

When hope is misunderstood, it can plunge us into delusion
and become a hindrance to facing the facts of life.  To discern
the real value of hope, we must draw a line between hope and
expectation.  Hope is an optimizing force and moves us and all
of life toward harmony.  It is an abiding state of being, a hidden
wellspring within us.  This version of hope is a basic human
need.

Yet our usual kind of hope is little more than wishful thinking.
It's frequently tied to an an almost childlike belief, sometimes
even blind faith, that an external agency or authority will bring
about what we desire.  Driven by our preference for a different
 set of conditions, this conventional view of hope is a rejection
of what is present for us in the here and now.

Ordinary hope disguised as expectation is fixated on specific
outcomes.  This hope gets conflated with the desire for a
certain future result.  Attaching our happiness to a specific
future result causes us all sorts of suffering..... attachment to
outcome posing as hope interferes with our ability to be present
to our experience of life as it is unfolding.

Mature hope takes us inside ourselves and toward finding the 
good in the experience.  Mature hope requires both a clear
intention and a simultaneous letting go.  This hope is not
dependent on outcome.  The hope is in the potential for our
awakened [or skillful] response, not in things turning out
a particular way - and we are no longer trapped by our
conventional view of hope.  We leave room for surprise.
The energizing quality of mature hope helps us to remain
open to the possibility that while life may not turn out the 
way we first thought, opportunities we never imagined may
also arise.

Frank Ostaseski
Buddhist Teacher

from: The Five Invitations

 

The Golden Silence...

The Deep Silence calls to her
in the waking moments;
the "remedy" for all that
disturbs, contracts and constricts,
that blinds her from the Way...

It whispers to her:

Loosen the robes of religion you have worn -
that bound you.
Untie the shoes of "spirituality" -
that don't fit now.
Lay down all the "apparel" - the outer garments -
that have burdened you.

Dare to be naked...

Laying in the early morning silence,
she brings her tattered self to the deeper
dimension of the Golden Silence within;
careful not to get lost in the shadowy caverns
of the unconscious mind along the way...

In the space of Deep Silence she hears:

Just be still and wait...
Trust the Flow of Life
Wait for the pieces to fall together.
Observe the metamorphosis
that is taking place inside you
through
your internal "wranglings"
and your unbearable struggles;
like a butterfly trying to break through
its hard chrysalis - wanting to be free...

Be patient - do not resist what is...

It will all be okay - is okay...

Cross the threshold of your troubled mind
and step into the still waters of the Golden Silence within,
your Primordial Home...

Rest here...

Unscathed...

Mystic Meandering
May 31, 2021

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

 

The Way It Is - William Stafford

Mostly you look back and say, 'Well, OK.  Things might have

been different, sure, and it's not too bad, but look - things
happen like that, and you did what you could.'  You go back
and pick up the pieces.  There's tomorrow.  There's that long
bend in the river on the way home.  Fluffy bursts of milkweed
are floating through shafts of sunlight or disappearing where
trees reach out from their deep dark roots.

Maybe people have to go in and out of shadows till they learn
that floating, that immensity of waiting to receive whatever
arrives with trust.  Maybe somebody has to explore what
happens when one of us wanders over near the edge and falls
for awhile.  Maybe it was your turn.

William Stafford

original title "Afterwards"
from The Way It Is

with thanks to Whiskey River

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Lessons of Life - Philip Jacobs

There are several lessons that I have learnt from my observations
of life, that I wished I had known from the very start.  The first
is that you can trust the process of life and it's unfolding.
So many times in my life journey, I have experienced deeply
traumatic events that I could not see the purpose of at the time.
These events have ranged from chronic illness and the loss of
those I love, and loss of home. Yet when I look back on the
events from a fuller perspective, I always see how they led to
deeper insight and creativity that I could not foresee at the time
and they also pushed me into where I needed to be in life.  It
was as if I had been seeing the world just through a letter box
and could not see the whole picture.  I have observed this so
often in life, which is why I now trust life's unfolding, even if
I cannot see or understand it at the time.

That leads to my second insight, which is that things never 
turned out the way I anticipate them.  When the future prospects
have looked very grim, at a certain point there has always been
an unforeseen intervention that makes the outcome quite
different from what I would have expected.

The third and most important of my life lessons, is quite
simply that I'm not who I think I am.  It's as if there are two
of me.  One identity I call "Philip." [my identity in time.]
  Philip is a man and an artist and does Philip things, like
designing textiles and looking for dinosaurs and Hiroshige
paintings. But behind Philip there is another identity that
quietly observes the ever changing drama of life, all without
comment. It was there when I was five and it's exactly
the same when I'm sixty five.  Compared to Philip,
this other identity is like the still depths of the ocean.  Like
the ocean it is totally still, even when a life storm rages on the
surface.  This other identity is also always unconditionally
happy.  Almost like happiness just shines out of it, and it takes
great delight in everything it encounters: people, nature, art,
animals, etc.  The art of life I've discovered is knowing that
your true identity is this much deeper unchanging sense of self.
It is necessary in life to play the "Philip" role, but at the same
time to have the background awareness that what you really
are is this great ocean of stillness, which in a strange way also
includes everybody and everything.

Sometimes when life is very difficult it is as if the curtain of
time parts and we become aware of the underlying mystery
that has been there all along.  This can also happen with great
beauty, such as when we look up at the night sky at the
vastness of the night sky.  It is as if the boundary between
"self" and "other" dissolves and we see that we are the whole
universe.

So when you are in the middle of the life dance and it seems
overwhelming, remember your real identity that is always
present as your safe place and true home and that is always
beyond trauma and illness.  It is even beyond birth and death.

Philip Jacobs
Sufi

with thanks to No Mind's Land

and photo too...

 

Trust - Truthless Truth

Underneath the surface,
deep inside the dugout,
a place of low light,
but sheltered from pain,
lies the hell of commonplaceness,
the wasteland of self-deception and struggle.

Above the surface,
out in the open,
a place of wonder and awe,
where the sun equally shines on joy and pain,
lies the promised land of unknowing,
the kingdom of self-acceptance and peace.

Allow vulnerability,
surrender your armor,
drop your mask,
come out into the world,
naked,
as you were born,
and every butterfly,
will awaken your inner child.

Trust...

at Truthless Truth

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

A Passing Show - Etty Hillesum

Understand that all outer appearances are a passing show...

People sometimes say: "you must try to make the best of things."
I find this such a feeble thing to say.
Everywhere things are both good and very bad at the same time.
The two are in balance, everywhere and always.  I never have
the feeling that I have got to make the best of things.
Everything is fine just as it is.
Every situation, however miserable, is complete in itself
and contains the good as well as the bad...
Things come and go in a deeper rhythm, and people must
learn to listen...

Etty Hillesum
Jewish Mystic of the Holocaust
From: Letters from Westerbork
Aug 1943

Etty died in Auschwitz Nov. 30, 1943
at the age of 29

~

"All shall be well, and all shall be well,
and every kind of thing shall be well."

Julian of Norwich
Christian Mystic
1342-1416

The Middle Way - Jack Kornfield

The Buddhist tradition is neither a path of denial or affirmation.
It shows us the paradox of the universe, within and beyond
the opposites.  It teaches us to be in the world, but not of the
world.  This realization is called the middle way.

The middle way describes the middle ground between
attachment and aversion, between being and non-being, between
form and emptiness, between free will and determinism.  The
more we delve into the middle way the more deeply we come to
rest between the play of opposites. 

Learning to rest in the middle way requires trust in life itself.

Trusting in the middle way, there is an ease and grace, a
cellular knowing that we, too, can float in the ever-changing
ocean of life which has always held us.

We come to rest in the reality of the present, where all the
opposites exist. T.S. Eliot calls this the "still point of the 

turning world, neither from nor towards, neither arrest or
movement, neither flesh or fleshless."

The middle path describes the presence of eternity.  In this
reality, life is clear, vivid, awake, empty and filled with
 possibility.  When we  discover the middle path.....we can
 be with all our experience in its complexity, with our own
 thoughts and feeling and drama as it is.  We learn to embrace
 tension, paradox, change. Instead of seeking resolution, waiting
 for the chord at the end of the song, we let ourselves open and
 relax in the middle. In the middle we discover that
 the world is workable...

Jack Kornfield
From: The Wise Heart

Full Spectrum Experience - Jeff Foster

Don't judge your sorrow too quickly or too harshly, friend.  Honouring
the darkness within is not the same as 'wallowing'.  And cultivating
deep trust in all of life's movements does not equate to self-indulgence
or a 'pity-party'.  Please don't misunderstand this.  Find a space in your
heart for the unwanted, the unloved, the rejected aspects of experience.

If we refuse to plumb the depths we are left only half alive, however
'enlightened' we claim to be.  Artists, musicians, poets of all cultures
throughout the ages have understood this.  See your life as an art
gallery.  Embrace the full spectrum of experience, from the light to
the dark. Hold it all in your prayers, illuminate it all with the light
of loving awareness.  Be that awareness!

Perhaps your frustration just wants to frustrate itself fully and be
felt, fully.  Perhaps this moment contains no mistake!  Perhaps the
relief you will feel in time will be infinitely sweeter for having
suffered so deeply.  Perhaps your suffering is teaching you humility,
gratitude, quietude, and compassion - and trust - unbreakable trust
in life's strange processes.

Don't judge your sadness, your depression, your feelings [your illness].
And don't judge the process of another, for you really don't know
what's best for anyone, and you really don't know more than life itself.
  That which you reject (in another or yourself) may actually be
much-needed medicine, a misunderstood teacher, inviting you to an
 awakening deeper than you ever thought possible.  It may be a
threshold guardian, a gatekeeper of a forgotten kingdom. 
The glory of a life fully felt!

And to your demons say -

Namaste!

Jeff Foster

Guru Cat...

Peering over the computer screen,
with piercing eyes, Guru Cat said to me:

Today
start to de-clutter your life
of that which does not serve the Heart,
or nourish the soul;
whether people, or
situations, or
beliefs, or
your immediate environment
would be good...
Look at this mess!

Create space for
LIFE
to enter, to flow
through you.

Yes, Guru Cat - I said.
I cannot contort myself to
the forms that others have created
any longer...

Guru Cat said:

Today
start to pick up the lost pieces
of your tattered psyche,
let go of the frayed and loose ends
in the fabric of your current reality,
and open to
"The Mystery" of being.

Be at peace with life;
not afraid of what life will bring.

Yes, Guru Cat - I said.

Guru Cat said:

So - Today,
reclaim your Self,
the Eternal Being
that inhabits your form,
that allows you to move on,
past the scatteredness, through
the overwhelm, and the inertia,
moving into pure Aliveness...

Let go... Relax...
Play more!

Do you see what I'm saying...

Yes, Guru Cat - I said.
Got it...

Today
I will start
writing a new life;
as soon as my computer comes back on line...

Seeing life in a new way...
Opening to curiosity...
Accepting the uncertainty of living...
Exploring my inner Resource...
Embracing change...
Experiencing life as it is...
Content to just be...

_/\_

purrrrrrr

Mystic Meandering
Dec. 17, 2017

The Courage to Trust Life - Jeff Carreira

To make no effort at all requires only trust; unbroken trust in life -
unguarded, undefended, and open.  ...making the profound effort
to do nothing at all, the only thing left is pure experience of being.
You are abiding at the very essence of what it means to be
alive and aware.

Underneath the fear, the pain, the worry and self-concern,
the living source of life is untarnished and pure.  The source of
our being is not the pain and suffering.  It is the expansive flow
of life.

When we are free of our compulsive concern with everything
that is wrong we discover that life truly is a miracle even if
bad things happen.  We are free to experience pain and suffering
without losing touch with the inherent goodness of life.  We
must find the courage to let go of our current sphere of [self]
concern so that we can discover a deep and profound trust in life...

Jeff Carreira

The Energy of Life - Naomi Stone

There is something wonderful
working in the world
and in the natural flow
of life...
an energy
that moves this existence
moment to moment...

Trying to name it or trying
to control it changes
the inner wisdom
and steals the wonder
of discovery...

Watch a child exploring
his world.
Touching...tasting...squealing
with delight starting
at the beginning

We are seldom taught
to trust it
because someone
wants to pay you to live
their ideas and answers...
or charge you for learning
them by luring you away,
away from the gift
of your own gloriously
divine heritage...

Suddenly...
you are entrapped...
doubting who you are
in a world where
everyone seems
to think they have the answers...

Live the awareness of the flow
and infinite portals
ever opening
around and within you...

Naomi Stone
Original title: "Spiraling Energies of Creation"

~

Art - Craypas oils
done with fingers
2012

Overwhelm - Jeff Foster

Oh sweet little boy, beloved little girl,
you are so overwhelmed by life,
I know,
by the enormity of it all,
by the myriad perspectives available to you.

You feel so pressed down sometimes,
by all the unresolved questions,
by all the information
you are supposed to process and hold,
by the urgency of things.

You are overcome by powerful emotions,
trying to control,
or at least influence,
everything and everyone around you,
trying to hold yourself together,
trying to make it all 'work out' somehow,
trying to get everything done 'on time',
trying to resolve things so fast,
even trying not to try at all.

You are exhausted, sweet one,
exhausted from all the trying
and the not trying,
and you are struggling to trust life again.
It's all too much for the poor organism, isn't it.
You are exhausted, you long to rest.
And that is not a failing of yours,
nor a horrible mistake,
but something wonderful to embrace!

For the exhaustion is pure intelligence,
and it says, let go, let go! Stop trying so hard!

Stop pushing for answers right now.
Allow everything to rest right now.
Take a sacred pause.

Allow questions to remain unanswered, for now.
Allow space for yourself to breathe today.
Allow everything to fall out of control today.
Allow yourself to not be able to hold it all up today.
Allow yourself to not know how, to not know at all.

Allow the heart to break, if it needs to,
and the body to ache, and the soul to wake.

Everything is okay, when you get down to it.

And know you are loved, little one.
Know you have always been loved,
long before you were named,
long before you were even born,
long before overwhelm came to show you the way.

Jeff Foster

Let Life Open You - Mark Nepo & MM

As you enter the day,
try not to reach for life...
Try to let life enter you.
Allow what touches you to
change your path...

Drop all reachings and simply open...
We have to settle into the wait
until we discover that there's
nowhere to go...

If we can survive the pain of being emptied,
a deeper place is cleared
in which the mystery can sing through us...
Each soul is a living flute
being carved by life to
a deeper and deeper song...

Uncover the mystery of strength by bringing
into focus a deeper sense of truth,
and your ability to step quite naturally,
with your heart...

Excerpts from Mark Nepo's book:
The Book of Awakening
(Mark's words, my format)

~

Trusting in the simplicity of Life,
let Life come to you...
Resting in simplicity,
Life will find you...

The more you trust Love
the more Life will
open up to you...

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
2004

~

Top Photo - digitally altered

For A New Beginning - John O'Donohue

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
where your thoughts never think to wander,
this beginning has been quietly forming,
waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
feeling the emptiness inside you,
noticing how you willed yourself on,
still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
and the gray promise that sameness whispered,
heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
and out you stepped onto new ground,
your eyes young again with energy and dream,
a path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear,
you can trust the promise of this opening;
unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
that is at one with your life's desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
for your soul senses the world that awaits you.

John O'Donohue
"For A New Beginning"

~

Photo - Portal Cloud

The Portal of Wholeness - Matt Licata

At times, you may be asked to travel into the very groundless and contradictory landscape of the emotional world, without any understanding of what is being asked of you.  It is so open here, but simultaneously disorienting to the mind that is longing for answers.  It is as if everything you were so sure about only days before has fallen away…

Unmetabolized feelings, orphaned sensations, and vivid images are surging in the somatic field, seeming disconnected and…..chaotic.  But things are not always as they seem as you approach the threshold of wholeness. The invitation has been made: trust in the process of disintegration and the intelligence of immediate experience.

Yes, it may always be disturbing to stay embodied to the burning feelings and sensations that appear alongside the dissolution of old dreams and the way you thought it was all going to turn out.  But in the commitment to meet what is appearing with presence, you may discover that this destruction is sacred, unbearably creative, and soaked with reorganizing wisdom.

Before you turn from the confusion and scramble to transform or heal it with learned process, open into the uncertainty, the hopelessness, and the breaking of your heart.  It is there you will find life, longing to erupt and shatter the dream of partiality [fragmentation].  For each visitor of the inner and outer worlds is unfolding in the radiant [moment] as an unprecedented portal of wholeness…

Matt Licata

~

Photo - reflection of the sky on the hood of a car
Photo upside down :)

The Way of Rest - Jeff Foster

"Oh, sweet little boy, beloved little girl,
 you are so overwhelmed by life,
 I know,
 by the enormity of it all,
 by the vastness of possibilities,
 by the myriad perspectives available to you.

 You feel so pressed down sometimes,
 by all the unresolved questions,
 by all the information
 you are supposed to process and hold,
 by the urgency of things.

 You are overcome by powerful emotions,
 trying to control,
 or at least influence,
 everything and everyone around you,
 trying to hold yourself together,
 trying to make it all ‘work out’ somehow,
 trying to get everything done ‘on time’,
 trying to resolve things so fast,
 even trying not to try at all.

You are exhausted, sweet one,
 exhausted from all the trying
 and the not trying,
 and you are struggling to trust life again.
 It’s all too much for the poor organism, isn’t it.
 You are exhausted, you long to rest.
 And that is not a failing of yours,
 nor a horrible mistake,
 but something wonderful to embrace!

 For the exhaustion is pure intelligence,
 and it says, let go, let go! Stop trying so hard!

Stop pushing for answers right now.
 Allow everything to rest right now.
 Take a sacred pause.

 Allow questions to remain unanswered, for now.
 Allow space for yourself to breathe today.
 Allow everything to fall out of control today.
 Allow yourself to not be able to hold it all up today.
 Allow yourself to not know how, to not know at all.
 Allow the heart to break, if it needs to,
 and the body to ache, and the soul to wake.

 Everything is so okay, when you get down to it.

And know you are loved, little one.
 Know you have always been loved,
 long before you were named,
 long before you were even born,
long before overwhelm came to show you the way."

Jeff Foster

~ ~ ~

Photo: Dry leaves on paper and table
color inverted…

Unbreakable Life...

“Everything is a gift on this unbreakable path
that you call your life -
the laughter,
the tears,
the times of great
sorrow,
the experience of

 profound
loss,
the pain,
the confusion,
the times you
believe
you’ll never make it,
even the overwhelming

heartbreak of love -
even if you forget that,
or cannot see that,
or lose faith.

But even the loss
of faith
in the show [life]
is part of the show.

Everything happens
for your awakening,
for your growth,
for your inspiration,
for your exploration -
even if you forget that
and fall
into
distraction
and
despair.

So you are always
exactly
where you
need
to
be

Life can be trusted absolutely,
even when trust seems
a million light-years away,
and life cannot go ‘wrong’,
for all is Life…

Understand this,
know it in your heart.
It is profoundly simple,
as simple as breathing,
as natural as gazing
up at the stars at night
and falling
into
silent
wonder.

The Universe is more beautiful
than you could
ever imagine.”

Jeff Foster

“God hugs you.
You are encircled by the arms
of The Mystery.”

Hildegard of Bingen

IN-spirations...

After two weeks I am finally breathing easier ~ ~ ~
Wanted to share these "in-spirations"
and the beautiful Amaryllis blossom
that bloomed while I was ill... ;)

The Miracle of Pure Existence – Fred LaMotte

“The greatest service I can perform is to inspire…
Gently shift your attention from what is happening
 to that space it happens in -
the SPACE of Existence…

Existence itself is a miracle!
Whatever happens in this Existence is insubstantial,
 ever changing,
never better or worse,
worth neither to be grasped or rejected…

The space in which this world is happening,
the air of pure Existence,
is complete,
overflowing with joy,
and utterly divine.
The space is without taint or boundary.
It is motionless, silent and self-luminous.

Usually our attention is absorbed by what is happening,
and so we lose the simple innocent awareness of
the Existence in which it happens.
Existence becomes the background to the play of forms
that rise and change and disappear.
But in the awakened view,
which is the clearest simplest view,
Existence becomes the foreground,
and the forms of the world sink into the background.

…into the still boundless space of

Existence…

The greatest miracle is
the gift of Existence.

At every moment,
the answer to any problem
is to just observe
the dance of
Existence”

Fred LaMotte

~*~

Trust In Life! – Jeff Foster

“Don’t judge your sorrow too quickly or too harshly, friend.
Honouring the darkness within is not the same as ‘wallowing’,
and cultivating deep trust in all of life’s movements does not
equate to self-indulgence or a ‘pity party.’

Please do not misunderstand this.

Find a space in your heart for the
unwanted,
the unloved,
the rejected
aspects of experience.

If we refuse to plumb the depths
we are left only half alive,
however ‘enlightened’ we claim to be.
Artists, musicians, poets
of all cultures throughout the ages
have understood this.

See your life as an art gallery, friend.
Embrace the full spectrum of experience,
from the light to the dark.
Hold it all in your prayers,
illuminate it all with the light of
loving awareness.

Be that awareness!

Perhaps your sorrow is there to remind you
of the joy that is about to burst forth.

Perhaps the contraction you feel
in your body is about to give way
to glorious expansion.
Perhaps your frustration
just wants to frustrate itself fully
and be felt, fully.

Perhaps this moment contains
no mistake!

Perhaps the relief you will feel
in time will be infinitely sweeter
for having suffered so deeply.
Perhaps your suffering is
teaching you
humility,
gratitude,
quietude,
and
compassion
- and trust -
unbreakable trust
 in life’s strange processes.

Don’t judge your sadness,
your depression,
your feelings,

[your illness]…

And don’t judge
the process of another,
for you really don’t know
what’s best for anyone,
and you really don’t know
more than life itself.

That which you reject
(in another or yourself)
may actually be
much-needed medicine,
a misunderstood teacher,
inviting you to an
awakening
deeper
than
you
ever
thought
possible.

It may be a threshold
guardian,
a gatekeeper
of a forgotten
kingdom.

Oh,
the glory of
a life
fully
felt!

And to your demons,
say –

Namaste!”

Jeff Foster

~*~

These quotes inspired me during
my recent illness.
As usual I put them in the form of a poem,
but they were not written as poetry,
although they seem like poetry to me  :)

Simplicity...

Trusting in the simplicity of Life,
let what comes, come to you…

Resting in simplicity,
all things will find you…

Trusting Life ~
The Heart will open…


journal notes 2004


Photo ~ glass lid in the morning light ~ 2010