Listening at the level of the Soul - Danna Faulds

I'm trying to listen
at the level of the Soul,
to hear the liquid gold
that flows in from Source,
to receive the mystery
with all my inner senses.
I can't tell you how I
do this exactly.  It's a
matter of attuning and
also choosing to receive.

It isn't so much a practice
as a way of life --

opting for quiet so I don't 
miss the gifts that come
from who knows where...

I'm not sure why
inner listening means so
much to me, but I think
it's why I'm here. Today,
what the universe has to
say to me is this:
By being yourself without shame
or excuses, you add your 
small puzzle piece to the
infinite frame of the unknown.

Danna Faulds

with thanks to No Minds Land

This is why I sit at the window at night,
to hear the Quiet of my Soul...

MM

~

Beyond the "cloak of spirituality" that we wear,
in its many guises, is the unconditional Nature
of our own Being - the" Genuine Self",
the "Authentic Self" at the depths of Beingness;
not the super-imposed conditioning of belief systems,
but the pure state of Being from deep within the
Quietness of the Soul
that has no "belief", no conditioned *idea* of
"spirituality" - just pure Being,
living as we are...

Mystic Meandering
May 2019

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Overwhelmed...

Tired of being"on top of things"
"putting out fires", making decisions
for others who aren't available to themselves.

I'm going to hang a shingle out -

"Not Available Today
Taking Care of Myself
And Don't ask me about tomorrow..."

We'll see how far I get with that.

I'm finally being honest with myself,
and everybody else...

Is this unloving, uncompassionate;
to save one's own sanity;
to not put others first;
to not be self-sacrificing...

I finally "let go" of having to be emotionally available,
trying to be constantly available.
I finally just stopped...

We'll see how long that lasts,
as life as it is still requires me to be...
- available...
I can't just stop - caring,
being kind..

However I can't engage in
 life as it is anymore.

A change is needed.

I "accept what is",
but my Soul needs something more...

Life as it is, as I'm living it, is a spirit killer
and I can't apply more "spiritual band aids"
- I bleed right through them.

I take a deep breath
Tension drains from the body ...

I'm not able to attend to life, 
I need Life to attend to me!
(Oh I forgot, there is no "me",
 or so some say..)
Is this self-centered, narcissistic,

indulging in my dark side?
Or - LIFE-centered...
I'm not sure anymore...

Although the "spiritual pundits" will
tell me the "I"  that I Am can't be broken;
that somewhere within there is an
"Unbrokenness" -
once found, not lost;

I evidently can't access it.
I carry too many burdens...

So I'm embracing my brokenness
and letting it be real,
letting it be seen - no longer hidden
behind "spirituality."

~

There are so many of us broken - fractured
in some way...

And non-duality tells us that can't be so;
that there is no 'self/me" to be broken.

I'd rather be broken, than an obnoxious
pretender spouting cliches to the masses
of broken people who want to believe in
their unbrokenness -
but who secretly wish
to put out a sign:

"Not Available"

Mystic Meandering

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

self-abandonment - April Tierney

Anger is a teacher
so let her teach you.

Let her point out all of the places
where you abandoned your sincerity [integrity]
along the side of the road

simply to appease
someone else-

Where you stopped following
the great arch of your mythic life.

Let her show you where you have
held yourself silent when the world

needed you to speak:
where your fierce wisdom
was cut off at the knees.

Our shadows have grown so grotesque,
we've mistaken them for culture,

but now is the time to re-member
what has been deliberately suppressed;
to prepare a grand feast for all the 
ghosts who've been starved by neglect.

Do not apologize when feathers fall
like nighthawks from your fiery eyes.

April Tierney
from Memory Keeper
note: I could not find the original title to this poem

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

I found this poem on January 8th,
the second day of "The Pause."
I titled it "self-abandonment"
because that is what I've been doing
for the last 15 months - becoming a shadow
of myself - becoming angry about "the visitor"
living in my house...

The poem reminded me that I don't have to sacrifice myself,
that I need to reclaim my authentic self that has been lost
for over a year, and embrace my humanity as part of my wholeness.

It feels good to refocus - not sacrificing myself just to appease
"the visitor"

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

A Single Leaf Falls...

Leaning back on the soft, stuffed chair back cushion
I sink into myself, and rest there...

I hold my hands over my chest, as if holding 
a tiny infant against my heart.

I realize I am actually holding my self, my own
heart in my hands - cradling and nurturing
my "little heart". as of it were a child;
reassuring it that it's alright;

loving it...

All these burdens that it's been carrying for so 
long, lurking in the dark shadows, in need
of embrace and release.

A deep cry would be good - but the tears don't come.

I breathe deeply into the painful wounds of the heart -

feeling empathy and compassion for the "burden carrier",
as she has carried the angry, shadowy baggage of a 
painful family dynamic far too long.

I'm looking for IN-spiration that I can't seem to find.
Within I only find sadness and tears wanting to emerge,
to be felt - but are held back, as if dammed by a
learned facade -

waiting to explode - and be set free.
Like a river frozen in deep archaic woods,
embedded there for centuries; locked in time,
encoded in the body and mind - needing to flow
through and be released, not left hidden behind a
silent spirituality,
always "up", always "strong", holding it "together."

The facade starts to crumble, being replaced by authenticity,
and a different strength - a "speaker of truth" - her own truth,
that must be spoken,

not drowned in other people's words and ways...

A single leaf falls from a tree outside the window,
a poignant moment in her reflection.
Soon the tree will be bare, naked - and exposed...

Vulnerable without her covering...

Mystic Meandering
Sept. 15, 2023

~

With thanks to Sarah Carlson and her own healing process
for the inspiration for this poem...

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Solace...

What remains...
When all surface identities,
all beliefs and facades of truth have
proven to be untrue,
and the mental constructs begin to fail...
is a more authentic, softened, innocent perspective;
a simplified view of reality...

One begins to feel more,
viscerally,
the finer, subtler vibration
of the Ineffable;
which was here long before we were born...

There is no need to remember...

The mind and body may fail in their functions,
may still contract
around old thought and feeling impulses
of the brain...
But trust that the Ineffable in you
Remembers Its Origins...

So Rest...

Let the mind float...

Be still, aware...

Keep feeling...
Keep listening inwardly,
for the Music,
The Divine Rhythm,
the pulse of the Universe

playing subtly,
the original Rhythm of your pre-conceived life...

Find solace in the Rhythm
that plays you;

the Breath within the breath
that breathes you;
the Rhythm of
That which is
eternally Present in you;
That to which you have
devoted your
Heart...

Mystic Meandering
April 22, 2016

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Choosing What Is - Ivan Granger Commentary

I vow to choose what is...

You would think the unavoidable nature of "what is" makes a
statement like this meaningless, but the human mind is not
entirely sane.  It often chooses fantasy and imaginings,
shoulds and coulds, possibilities and even impossibilities over
what is.  Very few of us truly dwell in reality.  Rarely do we
fully experience the moments of our lives.

What is it that we are straining for as we constantly lean away
from "what is"?  What do we think is missing that we need?  We
don't need someone else's life.  We don't need a perfect marriage,
better finances, or a better place in society.  We don't even need
to be a saint living in the mountains.  What's missing is ourselves.
What we really need is to stand in our own shoes, to be utterly
ourselves.  We need that missing ingredient - being present.
We need to live, with honesty and an open heart, the life that
already moves through us.

[.....]

The power of a practice like Zen is that it defines the human 
journey, not as escape, but as coming home, of settling into
ourselves and being present with the present.  It challenges us
to actually live the moment that continuously arrives and
passes and renews itself.

By making this journey to "what is," we finally meet ourselves
and learn what this amazing thing is that we call life, with all
its rich, joyful, painful, and transitory beauty.

Excerpt from a commentary by Ivan Granger
on a poem of vows by Hogen Bays
you can read the full poem and commentary here

~

Personal Note:  As some of you know, I'm being challenged to
 accept and be present to "what is"in my daily life experiences.
My ability to accept what is fluctuates from day to day.

~

Swirls with Craypas Oils
done with fingers
Mystic Meandering
2011

 

Inner Listening - Danna Faulds

I'm trying to listen
at the level of the soul,
to hear the liquid gold
that flows in from Source,
to receive the mystery
with all my inner senses.

I can't tell you how I
do this exactly.  It's a
matter of attuning and
also choosing to receive.
It isn't so much a practice
as a way of life --
opting for quiet so I don't
miss the gifts that come
from who knows where
to keep me focused on
the truth.  I'm not sure why
inner listening means so
much to me, but I think
it's why I'm here.  Today,
what the universe has to
say to me is this: There is
only one consciousness
shining through the whole.
Open to it.  Breathe it in.
Receive it fully.  By being
yourself without shame
or excuses, you add your
small puzzle piece to the
infinite frame of the unknown.

Danna Faulds

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

"Spiritual Practice" - Frank Ostaseski

Authentic "spiritual practice" is not about maintaining high
altered states, transcending the body, bypassing difficult emotions,
or healing all that remains unresolved within us.  "Spiritual
practice" helps us settle into the utter simplicity of being ourselves...
The healing happens when we bring awareness to the places
that have been hardened in us through the conditioned habits
of grasping, resistance and avoidance.

Mindfulness [awareness] is the deconditioning [of those habits].
Then things are free to be as they are.  We allow the difficult,
dark and dense.  We become more intimate with our full humanity
and discover an ever-deeper, vast sense of wholeness.

Being who you are can only arise from
accepting where you are.

Frank Ostaseski
The Five Invitations

~

Photo from the internet

 

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

 

 

Broken...

I'm going to hang a shingle out -

"Not Available Today
Taking Care of Myself.
And don't ask me about tomorrow..."

We'll see how far I get with that.

I'm finally being honest with myself,
and everybody else - well almost...

Is this unloving, uncompassionate;
to save one's sanity;
to not put others first;
to not be self-sacrificing...

I finally "let go" of having to be available,
trying to be available
I finally just stopped...

No more clenched teeth,
no tight jaw -
well almost
Tension drains from the body...
I stare into nothing

But it didn't last...
The "hungry ghosts" kept gnawing at me
with their crises...

~

Numbing sleep is wearing off...
And the ache in the stomach is
coming back, or maybe it's hunger -
or maybe I just can't stomach life the way it is anymore...

I cannot engage in life "as it is" anymore.
"Acceptance" of it is only cursory, momentary.
There are no "magic keys."

A change is needed...

Life as it is, as I'm living it, is a spirit killer
and I can't apply more "spiritual band aids"
- I bleed right through them.

~

So here I am in bed - waiting
for a different life to rise up within me;
one that nurtures and sustains me...

I'm  not able to attend to life,
I need Life to attend to me...
Is this self-centered, narcissistic,
indulging in my dark side?

Or Life-centered...
I don't know...

I only know I'm broken...
Coming face to face with my brokenness...

Although the "spiritual pundits" will
tell me "I" can't be broken;
that somewhere within there is an
"unbrokenness" that can't be broken;
once found, never lost.

But the broken pieces are still there...

So I'm embracing my brokenness
and letting it be real,
letting it be seen - no longer hidden
behind "spiritual words."

"Not Available"
"Broken"

Mystic Meandering

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

LIVE!

LIVE!

Let go...

Let it all go:
Hopes for the future.
Regret for the past.
Expectations for the present.

LIVE!

Embraced in the space of
your Aliveness,
at the still point of
your Being.

With no conceptual scaffolding of belief
to hold "you" together...

LIVE!

Disappear in the Excitement
of the Infinite Dancing Heart...

LIVE!

Without requiring yourself to be
different,
without wanting to change
who you ARE...

LIVE!

Authentically...  Genuinely...

Emptied out of the way your
conditioned mind tells you
what your life must be...

LIVE!

Free yourself from your facades
and the attachments to
your patterns of perspective
that keep you safe, but confined...

LIVE!

Let go into the Cosmic Stream

that already carries you...

LIVE!

Trust the unfolding of the Fire in your Soul...

Mystic Meandering
Aug. 13, 2022

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Dare To Be Imperfect - Fred LaMotte

A life-coach told me,
"you're perfect right now."
So I went home and tried it,
but found it boring.

Who would be Me
if I didn't keep

[messing] things up
in my own peculiar way?
Blemishes delight me,
define me, jagged edges,
the letters of my true name.
Call me Broken Buddha,
the Half-Awake.
This universe just wouldn't
be the same without
my sins.
I am more priceless uncut,
like a ruby in the mud
that looks like a fallen berry.
What is the sign of progress?
I'm even less
perfect than I was
yesterday.
I dedicate this poem
to you, dear, who discovered
the hot mess of your body
on the kitchen floor
slobbering tears
into the linoleum
with Good Morning
America bleeding out
in the living room.
I honor the unconditional
catastrophe of your hair,
your crow's feet, the
droop of udder destruction,
the spreading warmth
of your wounded
mysterious smile
in the compost of uprooted
plans and scattered
possibilities,
when you finally realize
that no matter
how deeply you fall,
you are caught,
you have plunged
into the hug
that was always
there.

Fred LaMotte

Uradiance

~

Photo from the Internet

 

Break Into Freedom - David Whyte

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"

~

Inside this new love, die...
Your way begins on the other side.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone born into color.
Do it now...

Rumi

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

A Mysterious Engagement - Terence McKenna

Do not dwell in the mistakes of the past.  Do not lose yourself
in the castles of the future and do not give your authenticity
away to experts, gurus, government commissions, bosses,
wives, mates - take back your mind and body and begin to
engage with the fact that you are alive, you are going to die.
Nobody knows what being alive is and nobody knows what
dying is.  You're involved in a mysterious engagement where
every living moment presents you with mystery, opportunity,
and wonder.  There is no mundane dimension, really.  If you
have the eyes to see it, it's all transcendental. 

Terence McKenna

with thanks to Whiskey River

~

Photo by Cate Kerr
Beyond the Fields We Know

 

The Beginning of Love - Thomas Merton

The beginning of love
is to let those we love be perfectly themselves,
and not to twist them to fit our own image.

Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves

we find in them.

Thomas Merton

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo from pixabay.com

 

The Explosion of the Superficial - Eric Baret

As long as one carries within oneself
the capacity to be appeased by a car,
a house, a woman, a dog, a profession,
a future, a past, a knowledge, a spirituality,
a teaching, there is not yet this ardor indispensable
to the bursting of what must burst.
This total madness of dissatisfaction
is the energy necessary for
the explosion of what is superficial in us.

Eric Baret

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

FunQi Art - Mystic Meandering
2012

 

The Art of "selving" - Fred LaMotte

I offer a new verb: 'to selve.'

It means to finally be You.  To be what you love, and love
what needs doing, and dot it as no one else can.

No guru teaches you to selve, just as no parent taught you to
walk.  To selve, you must abandon the notion that the universe
expects you to act in accordance with somebody else's rules.
Selvers follow no role model or mythic archetype.  They 
abandon the words "as" and "like."

You cannot selve "as" anyone who came before you: neither
Sakyamuni, nor Mohammad, nor the Guru, or Jesus.  In fact,
the great way-showers all selved.  Then they taught, "If you
want to know God, you too must selve.  But you cannot selve
as me.  You must selve as you."

Only in the present moment can you selve, and only in a state
of wonder.  When you do something beautiful and say, "I have
no idea how this happened!  I didn't do it!" you have selved.

Selvers do not seek the "Self."  If the verb of selving ever came
to rest in the noun of Self, you would be dead.  Selving is energy.
Self is an abstraction.  You are not here to attain a state of being:
you are here to be.

Selve a chef, a carpenter, a yoga teacher, a janitor, a warrior,
a nurse, or an investment banker. In the art of selving, there is
no superior or inferior status, no better or worse.  There is but
authenticity.

No one selves cruelty.  No one selves dishonesty.  No one selves
selfishness.  Those are malfunctions...  When you truly selve,
you only love.

As for Christ, Krishna, Buddha, Guru: these are just names we
give to people who have selved with wild abandonment.  Every
moment they lived, they were bewildered by themselves.

Fred LaMotte
Urandiance

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Inter-Spiritual Heart - Mirabai Starr

For decades I was conditioned to believe that to engage a mature
spiritual life I needed to "pick one tradition and go deep," which
implied that my attraction to the teachings and practices at the
heart of all religions was superficial and indolent.  Also, that the
path of non-dualism - with its affirmation of undifferentiated
consciousness - was superior to my devotional disposition.  Also,
that my experience of longing for God was an illusion - some
kind of unconscious blend of unresolved childhood abandonment
and magical thinking.  In other words, the energy that fueled my
journey was predicated on a perfect storm of delusional inclinations.

It was only when the fire of loss swept into my life and burned the
scaffolding to the ground that all conceptual constructs came
tumbling down and these insidious messages revealed themselves
as 1) unkind, and 2) untrue.  From the ashes of grief a transfigured,
more authentic self began to arise, and she felt no obligation to
choose sides.  She was a Jew and a Sufi, a believer and an agnostic.
She practiced Vipassana and Centering Prayer, observed Shabbat
and received communion.  She rested in blessed moments of
unitive consciousness and sang the praises of Lord Krishna.

I am not alone.  A 'tribe" of people is coalescing around the world
to celebrate a reorientation from religious separation to inter-
spiritual connection.  While many of us have been pilgrims on this
path for decades - sometimes feeling alone in the wilderness,
sometimes gathering with others who are similarly drawn to the
sacred in every single holy house we encounter - now, at last, our
numbers seem to be reaching a tipping point and what was a
fringe phenomenon is become a global movement.

The inter-spiritual path is characterized as much by what it is not
as what it is.  It is not a new religion; in fact many of its most
enthusiastic adherents consider themselves "spiritual but not
religious."  It has no creed or dogma, no tenets or prohibitions. No
special attire sets it apart and so single symbol represents its core
philosophy.  It's "membership" is as diverse as the full spectrum
of humanity.  It is not about belief...

Mystical poetry transcends theological distinctions and neutralizes
ideological ultimatums.  Love poems to God do not describe 
Ultimate Reality: they evoke it.  The poems of the mystics slip
past the thought-guardians and batter down the gates of the heart.
In crying out to the Holy One, the ecstatic poets offer us a direct
connection with the object of our Soul's deepest desire, and ours.

Mystical poetry generates a sacred field, and invites us to step in.

It is here, in the center of the perennial paradox, that it becomes
obvious all spiritual paths emanate from and return to the same
Universal Heart.

Mirabai Starr

read full article here

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

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 Golden Silence within;
careful not to get lost in the shadowy caverns
 of the unconscious along the way...

In the space of Deep Silence she hears:

Just be still and wait...

Observe the metamorphosis
that is taking place inside you
through
your internal "wranglings"
and your unbearable struggle to be free;
like a butterfly trying to break through
its hard chrysalis - wanting to fly...

Be patient - no resistance to 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 there...

Unscathed...

Mystic Meandering

May 31, 2021

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Keep Peace With Your Soul - Max Ehrmann

 Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.

Be yourself.
Especially do not feign affection.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,

no less than the trees and the stars...

And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

...whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life
keep peace with your soul...

excerpt from - Desiderata
by Max Ehrmann - 1927

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering