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

 

The Broken Can Blossom - Sarah Carlson

My gaze drifts out
the kitchen window
as I ponder an issue
I have been grappling with
for quite some time.
My body is a bit tense,
but my eyes are soft
as my focus is actually within.
Slowly, ever so slowly,
my attention is captured
by a plant on the windowsill.
Not just any plant, though.
An orchid that had been cherished
by my mother
and hasn't bloomed since
her death almost two years ago.
There's a stem with several buds
and a branch, almost fully separated,
that bends around the back of the pot.
I turn it slowly,
breathe in deeply
as my eyes focus
on a blossom that had been
quietly seeking the sun
without my knowing.
A slow smile extends
throughout my being.
Ah yes,
the broken can blossom.
And when they do,
there is beauty that is
intricate and profound
and deeply genuine.
What a gift for all
who choose to see.

Sarah Carlson
Meanderings of the Heart

Posted with permission from the author

Photo by Sarah Carlson

 

Because We Are Human - Dr. Jacqui Lewis

I think grief puts us in touch with our vulnerabilities.
I think the feeling of grief lets us know the power of wounds
to shape our stories.  I think it lets us know how capable we
are of having our hearts broken and our feelings hurt.

I think it lets us know the link that we each have because we're
human.  Because we're human, we hurt.  Because we're human,
we have tears to cry.  Because we're human, our hearts are
broken.  Because we're human, we understand that loss is a
universal language.  Everybody grieves.

All humanity grieves,  All of us have setbacks, broken dreams.
All of us have broken relationships or unrealized possibilities.
All of us have bodies that just don't do what they used to do.
Though grief is personal, every person grieves.

Dr. Jacqui Lewis

With thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Wounds are the Windows - Fred LaMotte

 A broken heart lets light in.  If it breaks wide open, the
beam has no end: it flows through to other hearts.

Wounds are our windows into each other.
Don't be hasty to heal and close.  Don't be a knower.
Be an opening.

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

~

Open to a deeper part/layer of yourself, as if
your Soul is about to speak to you.

Matt Licata

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

This beautiful creature was on our patio Thursday night.
One of its wings was "wounded" and it couldn't fly.
If anyone knows what it is please let me know...

Never Not Broken - Gina Puorro

 These are strange times, sitting in this liminal space between
what was and what will be, a crossroads within both the micro -
and macrocosms.  I have been feeling a deep internal shakeup in
a way that I always do when met with something much greater than
me,  bringing lessons of my insignificance and an opportunity to
shapeshift.  There's  been less than glamorous insights into self;
meeting places of deep tension between my compassion and
intolerance, my flexibility and rigid worldview, my humility and
my desire to be right, my longing for and resistance to change,
where I remain open and where I shut down...  so much friction
between what feels like split personalities living in this body.
And, in the way that friction does, it's making many little fires
in me that need tending, so as not to be snuffed out, or burn me
right down to the ground.

I hear the call of many wise teachers and elders singing similar 
instructions; slow down, get quiet, be still, listen.

What if slowing down and finding stillness has nothing to do with
movement or speed and has everything to do with being completely
broken and not trying to pick up the pieces too quickly.  Rather
than striving for a greater capacity to hold more, aiming for total
incapacitation and surrender instead.  Perhaps it's a good time to
venerate Akhilandeshvari, Goddess of Never Not Broken; I hear
her asking us to sit with the wreckage and feel the sharp pangs of
loss and grief.  No expectations of the future, no instructions for
how to move forward.  A time to hospice ourselves through a good
death, and a long slow process of composting our former selves.

What if getting quiet has nothing to do with turning down the volume,
and more to do with a subtle attunement towards finding the sacred
amidst the noise and chaos.....

Invite the power of disruption that shakes us up and disorients us,
that opens portals, seducing us towards the in-between spaces and
to dance in the wild unknown.  To see creation and destruction as
necessary to each other's survival, and the inherent violence in
what we have named nature.  Let us be students of alchemy and
mischief, and to think and act in unorthodox ways as the wise fool.

Perhaps it is time for deep remembering and reclamation.  To sit
with the many troubles of being alive, to let go of reaching towards
any sort of arrival, victory, or stability, and meet each other in our
differences.  Let's stay shattered a while, and let ourselves spill up
and out of the many containers we have confined ourselves to; never
certain, never permanent, never alone, never not broken.

Gina Puorro

posted May 19, 2020

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Grief as passageway of the Soul - Matt Licata

Grief is not something we "get over" by following pre-prescribed
stages, but a partner that we dance, play, honor, argue and weep
with as the cycles unfold.  It's appearance and the ways it longs
to be tended are unique for each psyche, heart, and nervous
system.

The timeline for this voyage is not knowable by the psychiatric
community, nor by insurance panels, or teachers of spirituality,
but is birthed in the heavens.  To rush, force, or pathologize
the experience of grief is to work against nature.

The grieving process [for all forms of loss] may not have an
endpoint or state of completion in which we come to some final
resolution, where we "finish" and land in some untouchable [more
spiritual] place, free from our embodied vulnerability, somatic
aliveness, and from falling apart and breaking open yet again.

While some may hold this fantasied end state as a goal which
comes about as we "master" [or "spiritualize"] life, the heart is
not interested in mastery.  But in entering the mystery in more
subtle and sensitive ways.

The heart itself is endless, and the visitors of grief may companion
us in their various forms for a lifetime.  Not come to harm, but
to reveal a portal into depth.  Shifting shapes, circulating, and
rotating, as they open and close passageways in the landscape of
the soul.

Grief is not so much a process that we "make it through", but a non-
linear unfolding, shepherd and emissary of the unknown.  It moves
not by way of straight line, but by that of circle and spiral.

Matt Licata

~

It is not an error
that you have been born
 a sensitive human being,
with a tender nervous system
and a heart that is sometimes
broken.

The tenderness there,
the shakiness, the grief...

not an error
to be remedied

or cured...

[or spiritually bypassed]

But a doorway to Essence,
a portal to Life.

Matt Licata

Loss after Loss - Mark Nepo

...Somehow we go on
loss after loss, like seeds
drowning in their possibilities
under all that snow.

From a distance, stars
are pins of light
pushing back the dark. 

But inside, each
is a world of light.

And the Spirit we carry -
that carries us - flares like a
star, everywhere we go pushing
back the pain and loss.

Still, a star can't be seen
without its covering of night,
nor a soul without its
human skin.

I don't know why -
It has nothing to do with
optimism or pessimism
or with triumph and defeat.

More, the impressible reach
of a beam of light entering the
darkest place it can find,
because that is how it
fulfills itself.

Mark Nepo
Excerpt from "Still"
From: Inside the Miracle

~

...[when the heart] is ripped apart
nothing makes sense while
in this re-arranging pain.
Nothing.
No matter what others say,
nothing is of comfort while
the heart is reforged in
the furnace no one asks for.

...Against our will, our heart
is remade by the angel of grief
who grips the center of our life,
shaking everything dead within us
from our branches, until
the heart condenses into a diamond.

Hard as this is to endure,
this too is a miracle.

Mark Nepo

Excerpts from: "After Mira"

From: Inside the Miracle.

~

Photo: Mystic Meandering

Blessing in the Chaos - Jan Richardson

To all that is chaotic
in you,
let there come silence.

Let there be
a calming
of the clamoring,
a stilling
of the voices that
have laid their claim
on you,
that have made their
home in you,

that go with you
even to the
holy places
but will not
let you rest,
will not let you
hear your life
with wholeness
or feel the grace
that fashioned you.

Let what distracts you
cease.
Let what divides you
cease.
Let there come an end
to what diminishes
and demeans,
and let depart
all that keeps you
in its cage.

Let there be
an opening
into the quiet
that lies beneath
the chaos,
where you find
the peace
you did not think
possible
and see what shimmers
within the storm.

The human heart continues to dream of a state of wholeness,
a place where everything comes together,
where loss will be made good, where blindness will transform
into vision, where damage will be made whole,
where the clenched question will open in the house of surprise,
where the travails of a life's journey will enjoy a homecoming.
To invoke a blessing is to call some of that wholeness upon a
person now.

Jan Richardson

With thanks to  The Beauty We Love

~

Photo taken at Keukenhof Tulip Garden in Holland
by Ellen Ratmeyer

No Greater Temple - Matt Licata

At times the visitor of melancholy will appear,
arriving from the night world, from the moon,
[the feeling world], not to harm, but to reveal.
A tenderness, a disappointment, a raw achy
uncertainty.  The guide has appeared but wasn't
quite what we thought.  Such is the way of the
heart.  As we are made into dust, the fire is tended.

While it may be tempting to replace the burning
with bliss, the sadhana of disappointment demands
that we listen, to the stories and feelings and whispers,
and longings, and place the shattered pieces on the
altar in front of us.

Even if we cannot love, accept, or transform what has
come, we can always bow.  What this bowing looks
like for each of us will never conform to other's
fantasies and ways; for the map is weaved deep into
our soul alone.

We can fall to the ground and bear empathic witness to
the broken wholeness, to the wisdom shining out of
the human heart, for there is no greater temple.

Matt Licata

The Unbroken - Rashani Rea

There is a brokenness
out of which comes the unbroken,
a shatteredness
out of which blooms the unshatterable.
There is a sorrow
beyond all grief which leads to joy
and a fragility
out of whose depths emerges strength.

There is a hollow space
too vast for words
through which we pass with each loss,
out of whose darkness
we are sanctioned into being.

There is a cry deeper than all sound
whose serrated edges cut the heart
as we break open to the place inside
which is unbreakable and whole,
while learning to sing.

Rashani Rea

The Unbroken Space - Rashani

There is a brokenness
out of which comes the unbroken,
a shatteredness
out of which blooms the unshatterable.
There is a sorrow
beyond all grief which leads to joy
and a fragility
out of whose depths emerges strength.

There is a hollow space
too vast for words
through which we pass with each loss,
out of whose darkness
we are sanctioned into being.

There is a cry deeper than all sound
whose serrated edges cut the heart
as we break open to the place inside
which is unbreakable and whole,
while learning to sing.

Original title: "The Unbroken"
by Rashani
1991

~

Photo - Craypas oils done with fingers
2010

By Way of Broken Places - Matt Licata

No matter how many profound insights we have,
how many amazingly powerful awakening experiences
we collect, or how convinced we become that we have it all
together, we will always be at risk of further heartbreak,
deflation, and crushing [self]revelation.

In the bedroom of The Beloved, there is always more humbling
to come, as we are all beginners there.  No experts, no masters,
and no final resolved landing place where we are guaranteed a
life without vulnerability and deepening exposure...
for The Beloved has no interest in all of that.

It is by way of the broken places that he or she is able to reach
you, to fill you from within.  In that crucible where the opposites
are at play, the rug is being pulled out from underneath us in an
ongoing way, with our personas falling away one by one as they
burn up in the fire of pure seeing.

Out of this highly-charged and creative field, it is revealed once
and for all that your shaky raw vulnerable heart is not weakness,
and your tender sensitive body is not something to be transcended
or "healed", but are portals through which the sacred can come
 into form.

Though at times it may seem as if the world has gone mad - as the
dreams of separation play out within the collective, things are not
always as they seem.  You are the vessel through which Love
can come alive here...

Matt Licata

Walk The Divine Life - Clare Blanchflower

What will it take
to rest
all your weight on to the foot
that walks the divine life?

What will it take
to saturate the
fear of living
With the peace
of loving presence?
To dance in
the freedom of reality

Dive deeper
than this surface
of mind that thinks
it knows something
Stop questioning
the grace that life
is spilling out
and rest
Listen
Be

What will it take
to feel,
to truly feel
it all
Right down to the
transparent
bones of clarity
And admit
you know not
what to do
Know not how to
live
Crack open

Rest your forehead
to the ground
Bow at the feet of life
In the glory of
your personal
disempowerment
Meet the true power
that you are
The richness
of love
that swoons in the
heart of Being

Allow praise
to dance on the
tip of your tongue
Allow gratitude to tumble
from your lips
Trust that
the idiosyncrasies
of life
are happening
for you
by you
are you

Fall into the silence that is
roaring with aliveness
Drowning out
the voice in
your head that wants you
to dance a small dance
in a circle
around and around

What will it take
to recognize
that life is
blessing you with
the honour
of unfolding
from your smallness
into the largesse of Being
Whole

Allow awe to take up residence
Be taken
by your unknowing
May the tears of surrender
swirl into a river of flowing love
that carries you
right to the heart of your
inner most Being

Clare Blanchflower
Original title: "Fierce Grace"

~

Photo - Incredible contemporary art piece
that the photo does not do justice to...

My interpretation?:

One standing single-pointed
helping the other to take the step...

What Remains - Danna Faulds and Rashani

Despite illness of body or mind,
in spite of blinding despair or
habitual belief, who you are
is whole...

Let nothing keep you separate from that truth.

The soul, illuminated from within
longs to be known for what it is.
Undying, untouched by fire or storms of life,
there is a place inside where stillness
and abiding peace reside.

You can ride the breath to go there.

Despite doubt or hopeless turns of mind,
you are not broken.
Spirit surrounds you, embraces, fills you
from the inside out.

Release everything that isn't your true nature.

What's left...

the fullness -
light, and shadow,
claim all that as your
birthright.

Danna Faulds
Yoga Practitioner and Poet
the Poem: "Birthright"
From: Go In and In

~*~

There is a brokenness
out of which comes the unbroken,
a shatteredness
out of which blooms the unshatterable.
There is a sorrow
beyond all grief which leads to joy
and a fragility
out of whose depths emerges strength.

There is a hollow space
too vast for words
through which we pass with each loss,
out of whose darkness
we are sanctioned into being.

There is a cry deeper than all sound
whose serrated edges cut the heart
as we break open to the place inside
which is unbreakable and whole,
while learning to sing.

Rashani Rea

Life Breaks Through...

“There is a brokenness
out of which comes the unbroken,
a shatteredness
out of which blooms the unshatterable.
There is a sorrow
beyond all grief which leads to joy
and a fragility
out of whose depths emerges strength.

There is a hollow space
too vast for words
through which we pass with each loss,
out of whose darkness
we are sanctioned into being.

There is a cry deeper than all sound
whose serrated edges cut the heart
as we break open to the place inside
which is unbreakable and whole,
while learning to sing.”

Rashani Rae – 1991

Grace...

"There is a secret medicine
given only to those who
hurt so hard
they can’t hope…

Give up to Grace.

The Ocean takes care
of each wave
till it gets to shore…"

Rumi

May Love and Grace
hold us all
in the cradle of
the Heart…

Also see this beautiful post Light in the Darkness

by fellow blogger Uma at
Secret Notebooks and Wild Pages

Posted in remembrance of the Sandy Hook School massacre...

Do I *Really* Want To Love...?

That was the surprising question that arose as I was watching a documentary called “Cultivating Loving Awareness” on video the day after Thanksgiving.  The question for me means:  Am I willing to surrender to what Love asks of me?  I *say* I want to be a presence of Love, but I continue to *react* with frustration to the challenges of family dynamics and living life – wanting it to be different than it is.

The video is essentially about unconditional love.  And while watching it, after the usual frustrating Thanksgiving family experience, it hit me that I really am unable to love in that way – unconditionally; not able to see very clearly with the eyes of the Heart. There wasn’t a lot of that growing up.  We were wired to be critical, to judge, to be opinionated, to correct others we deem wrong, to defend our sense of self, to want things to be the way we want them, to get *others* to be the way we want them to be, to hold ourselves separate from “others”- and to fight others to maintain that sense of separateness.  You know, the typical American family, which sounds a lot like the world we see right now. J  Our minds and hearts have been wired by fear, not open-hearted unconditional love – mainly because most of us didn’t receive that kind of love growing up, but were raised by fearful beings who had no clue what unconditional love was like themselves!  But it occurred to me that my family dynamic, as it is now, has become the vehicle for unconditional love to be learned, for this crusty shell of a heart to break open – by being presented with challenging family/life situations – and - being *willing* to be opened by them.  It means giving up my mental images and expectations of how I want “family” (or the world) to be.

But do I really *want* to love unconditionally - to allow Love to open me?  Or - do I just want to continue to complain about how it is, and play my role in the drama – which is much easier to do… Loving unconditionally takes awareness and consciousness, a break in the personality patterns, a willingness to want to step out of the usual dynamic of relating.  And I am at a point where I am really looking at this, as it doesn’t appear that “unconditional love” is suddenly bestowed like fairy dust just because one *wants* to be loving, or because one is on a “spiritual path” – even though I know that’s where it leads.  For now, it seems that *opportunities* are being presented to open the heart *through* navigating the difficult dynamics of family and life.  At least that’s how I see it this week J

Recently I caught myself in this little mind game of wanting someone else to *do* something *about* her life situation, so the rest of us don’t have to suffer the consequences of her choices.  I have not been able to just love this person unconditionally, just allowing her to be who she is, but want her to conform to what *I* want her to be, or to do – so that her life doesn’t impact me (and others) in a negative way; a self-centered motivation that only keeps me spinning my wheels - and suffering.  And of course, I am getting nowhere with her either in this way.  She continues to be who she is, to do life the way she does, and I continue to want her to be something other than that.  And nothing is happening.

It also occurred to me, after watching the film, that maybe all she really needs is to be loved as she is…  Isn’t that what we are really looking for – this unconditional love – this all embracing acceptance for who we are – warts and all – being seen, and loved anyway; the full monty of open-hearted LOVE!!!   But opening the heart fully to another in this way feels scary and vulnerable when one is used to hiding their heart…  But that *is* the path…

So I guess the real question is:  Am I willing to surrender and let go into Love?  Am I willing to be opened to that Love… What if I knew my Self as loving awareness?  What would that feel like?  I don’t know… But maybe it’s worth finding out…

“We affect others by loving them.”

Ram Dass

Photo: Yes, those are little heart leaves :)
Cottonwood tree leaves are heart shaped...

For Those Who Suffer...

Experiencing anxiety over life changes lately
pales in comparison
to the loss and grief being experienced around the world,
through war, tragedy and natural disaster,
especially in Japan at this time.

This post is to remember all those
who cry out from
the pain of their heart.


I pray that the cries of the
brokenhearted are heard
and that all will *feel*
cradled in the Heart
of The Beloved.


~*~


There is a brokenness
out of which comes the unbroken,
a shatteredness
out of which blooms the unshatterable.

There is a sorrow
beyond all grief which leads to joy
and a fragility
out of whose depths emerges
strength.

There is a hollow space
too vast for words
through which we pass
with each loss,
out of whose darkness
we are sanctioned into being.

There is a cry deeper than all sound
whose serrated edges cut the heart
as we break open to the place inside
which is unbreakable and whole,
while learning to sing.

Rashani – 1991


~*~

Trust that a thread of love
operates in everything
and listen deeply
for this Love…

Adyashanti


~*~

And someone from Japan wrote
on their Facebook page:

“Land moves, heart is still.”


~*~


Blessings to all…

"Broken"

“I” am “broken” – like the innards of a clock

that have worn down with time & ticking…

”I” am “broken” – the body/mind worn thin,

like thread-bare clothes – almost transparent…

”I” am “broken” – not fractured or fragmented,

the defenses merely decaying from too much use…

”I” am “broken” – scattered to the wind,

like the sand from a mandala – as if it were never there…

”I” am “broken” – like a shadow that is pierced by the light,

melting its darkness…

”I” am “broken” – beyond “fixing” – nothing to fix really,

being emptied…

”I” am “broken” – being broken – ongoing,

seeing beyond the “I” to what is really here…

Broken open…

Christine

March 31, 2010

Photo - Christine