The Portal of Discovery...

If there is "Enlightenment" perhaps it is when we can
accept that we are ever on the portal of discovery -
recognizing that we only have a glimpse of a larger
Reality...

"The Quest" then, is never really over.
There is no finish line, just an ever expanding
awareness of and deepening into our
True Beingness within the context of
a vaster Reality we have yet to discover.

from a conversation with my husband
12-30-24

~

Photo from the internet

 

The Decline of My So-called life - a meandering...

The other day I got up as usual and did the usual morning routine
with my sister - I'm her caregiver...

I went upstairs to post a blog post - and needed to prepare
several photos for posting.

I sat in front of the computer, just staring at the screen,
not knowing what to do...

I had totally forgotten how to prepare a photo -
what the steps were.

I sat several minutes, blank, until I started to *try* to
 figure it out again...

I couldn't make my mind work!

I tried different things on the computer
until I began to recognize the steps...

It was a shock to me that my mind could do this! -
could go totally blank on something I've done
for 15 years!

I'll be honest, no amount of "spiritual practice" can

prepare you for the sudden, startling awareness of
your mind's (and body's ) decline -
"spirituality" will not save you
from the natural order of life and death...

It starts off slowly - forgetting this or that,
a memory here, a word or name there;
where you put this or that thing, finding it
eventually, but not in its usual place...

Nothing can prepare you for the frustration of
your decline...

When your legs don't want to work-
and you stumble and bumble across the floor;
Thoughts of wheelchair enter your mind -
or having to move to a one level home -
even worse - assisted living...

My once "got it all together", 
"I'm on top of things" life
is falling apart,
a little at a time -
has been for several years.

Then suddenly there's a cliff - and
Humpty Dumpty starts falling off the wall.
What's worse is I'm aware of it - and know

that: all the king's horses and all the king's men
will not be able to put "me" together again...

And so I breathe,
and try to remember 
that there is a Deeper Reality
beyond my experience,
and try to rest there...

But I wonder if I will forget that too...

Mystic Meandering
Dec. 8, 2024

At least I can still write -
writing is my "therapy"
when falling apart :)
although the poetry
doesn't emerge 
like it used to...

 

A Far Bigger Reality? - a meandering...

 

When "window sitting" in 2010 with only the bright moon lighting
the night, the non-dual concept of "me-no-me" (or self-no-self) arose...
I scratched some notes out on the windowsill in the moonlight:

"Window sitting", like meditation, takes the focus off the "me"
and puts the focus on what is Aware within me - The Silence -
at the Core of my Being - or some call it Consciousness...
This Silence (for me) unwinds the "me" - slows it down -
gives it space...

*

Pondering the non-dual concept of whether there's a "me" or no-me
is tedious, divisive, and not very helpful - a conundrum that keeps me
 focused on the "me" as if the "me" is arguing its own existence. 
The thought arose that the tree does not argue whether it is a tree
 or not...  It just bes the tree. (Yes, that is what I wrote.) :)

The so-called "me" is like a lens through which the Essence or Core
of my Beingness sees the world, sees life, how it engages with life...

*

Recently (2024), while sitting in The Silence, these words floated
through: "there is a far bigger Reality than 'spirituality', or 'religion',
or 'non-duality.  It is a Reality inclusive of our entire personal
human existence, and human experience - as "me."

*

The sense (back in 2010 window sitting) was that we have to open
the "aperture" of the "me" - to take in the larger view, to not fixate
on *things*, like thoughts, ideas, beliefs, feelings, circumstances,
people, etc.  We have to soften our gaze to see the bigger Reality....

I/me became aware in this moment, sitting at the window, that there
 is just a fluid sense of Beingness at my Core, (the only way I know
 to describe it) - that which is Aware within me, as me, call it the
Divine Consciousness - or Essential Nature - was I now "no-me?"
And other questions arose:  Is it true that there is no "me"?
"How can that be true" (as non-dualists would argue that there is
no me - and no tree...) (I no longer ask questions regarding such
unanswerable abstractions - or maybe I just don't understand the
concept).

The sense arose in me (back then) that there is a "me" function of
"Consciousness;" a practical function.  Like a thought function, or
body function, there is a "me" function... a "me" mechanism...
(Some call this the ego)

The "me" is a function of our Divine Nature/Consciousness - not
its enemy that needs to dissolve, as some teach.  It's a conditioned
function - by life's experiences - habituated to perform in certain
ways, but that also allows the Essential/Divine Nature to express
Itself through this "me" - this human - as me...

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 2024

~

Photo taken by my brother
on the coast of Gloucester, Mass

~

You don't possess Life, Life expresses itself through *you*.
Your body is a flower that Life let bloom; a phenomenon
created by Life.

Ilchi Lee

~

The "religion" of the future will be a cosmic religion.  It should
transcend a personal God and avoid dogmas and theology.

Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based
on a sense arising from the experience of all things, natural/human
and spiritual, as a meaningful unity.

Albert Einstein

Dissolving Illusions - Ivan Granger

We are going through a collective process of disillusionment,
whether we like it or not.  We are being required to drop
our illusions and witness unpleasant truths, about ourselves
[individually and as a nation], and about the world around us.
We may ask: What have we ignored that has allowed such
fear and hatred to fester?  How have our political and social
systems become so damaged that they are unresponsive to
the needs of society?  What cruelties are encoded in society
that I have ignored or made excuses for?  How did we
imagine things were solid, when they are so fragile?  How
can my neighbor [or family members] believe such things,
and what is their hurt that I was blind to?  These are the
questions we are forced to ask now.

Painful though it may be, we can only be strengthened by
the process of disillusionment.  We want to drop our
illusions.  We want to see things as they are..

As a meditative exercise we can look at the reality we see,
the terrible and the beautiful together, and just sit with it;
[just be with it internally, meditatively].  It may break our
hearts, but we can just sit with it.  It may overwhelm us with
its immensity, but we don't run, we don't seek to merely feel
good.  Instead we just sit [be] with it.  We allow ourselves to
see and feel fully.  We watch our reactions to it, but are not
hooked by them.  In this way, we begin to inhabit a bigger 
reality.  Our personal sense of reality becomes more 
integrated and a truer reflection of what actually is.  As we do
this, we become more capable of fashioning healthier
 lives and healthier societies.

When I stop trying to assert some idea of how reality should work,
and just really notice what is.....everything just opens up.  The
heart opens in unexpected ways, making healing possible where
only walls seemed to stand.  It's easy to think that reality is
somehow broken, but when we really look, we discover that we
inhabit an improbable wholeness instead.  It's not entirely logical
amidst the world's fear and suffering, but look for yourself and see.
Really see.  Seeing the full picture, our actions become more 
effective and lasting.  Looking honestly, we become capable of
compassion and connection, where there was only anger and hatred....

Ivan Granger
Excerpt from a commentary on a poem by May Sarton
at Poetry Chaikhana

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
taken from inside, reflecting objects in the room in the window -
giving the illusion of another reality...

 

The Journey of Divine Descent - a meandering...

I need to open to a different journey now,
to a Deeper Reality within...

It is a journey of Divine Descent into the deepest interiors of Myself,
into the interiority of the Soul, or Essence of Who I am...

It's a spiraling down, not into darkness necessarily, but to a
 Deeper Reality of Being, at least that's how it feels, although
 I'm sure I will encounter darkness along the way - I already have.
But it's not about going into the darkness, unless encountered:
The shadowlands of old traumas, old wounds, etc.,
even what are considered the dark emotions. 
 But in some ways it's a descent into the 

interior light - the Illumination of the Soul from within.

It's not an ascendant path, like I've been on, or a transcendent
"higher" path, but a descendant journey to the Interior Core of
Myself, my Essence, my Being - the unknown...

The key is just to let it happen.

All I can say is YES!

Mystic Meandering
May 2, 2024

~

Vortex Art
2011

 

A Non-Path Path :) - a meandering...

I am feeling the need to settle deeper into the interior, and 
rediscover a sense of the inner Truth of Myself; not by following
a particular external path - but by intuitively listening to the 
Inner Voice; by spending time in Quietude, and "The Silence"
(which I crave, but so easily avoid by getting distracted on
non-essential things.).

"The Quest" - for me then - is to discover the Deeper Reality of

Myself.  I have forgotten how to be ME!  In a sense, what I was
"designed" for; one could say my Soul's "calling"...   Some call it
the Self (or Higher Self), but I get hung up on those words, because
the big "S" Self is not another self hidden somewhere inside us with
a big S on it that we have to "become"/discover.  But it's the discovery
of, a remembering of, having a felt sense of, the authentic, natural
self, beyond mind, beyond religion, beyond "spirituality."  Who are
 we really?   What is the "Deeper Reality"? I thought maybe I knew, 
but I haven't really met Her - yet...  Hopefully I will find the Deep
Quiet of the Heart, and the Illuminating Light of the Soul.

The path of "Enlightenment"/"Awakening"/"Self-Realization",
particularly what is popularly known as "Non-Duality, wasn't
IT for me, with its attraction to the mind and its abstractions and
mind games. It is just another construct, a belief system.  I found
out that the "Emperor has no clothes!  And I'd rather not describe
Truth by a negative - with no-me, no-self, no other, no world - as
Truth  is all inclusive - including duality, me, self, other, humanity,
and the world.

Even if one follows a "spiritual path" (which can be any path), life
will not suddenly become easy or flowing with bliss, although there
may be little epiphanies and "awakenings" here and there. We won't
necessarily lose our personality with its quirks, and become an
emotionless automaton. We won't lose our conditioning, or our 
neuroses.  Our thoughts will not stop, neither will our surface
struggles, or our pain, or our stories.  Walking "a path" doesn't even
guarantee that we will actually *see* life differently, or suddenly
find our "purpose" - as if there is only one.  But no one tells you
this about "the path."  It has to be a self-discovery, even if we have
a "Teacher", a "Path", or use a "Teaching" to help point the way.

It is different for everyone, of course.  I'm only reflecting on my
own experience here...

Years of seeking, realization, recognition, and then forgetting, and
then seeking again, then remembering, and then forgetting again, etc.,
brought me to the realization that discovering (or rediscovering) the
Essence of who I am is, for me, through awareness of and deep
intimacy with "The Silence" within; through continually coming
back to "The Silence of Source" - the space of Stillness, and
innate Wisdom - which of course is wherever we are at the 
moment, not off in the distance somewhere.  It's not a place.
"The path" doesn't *go* anywhere.  There is no reward at the end.
It's an inner pathless path...  And that's my "path" - again :)
rediscovering the inner Silent Truth of Myself, directly;
experiencing the underlying Rhythm of Existence Itself, and
within that the Truth of Myself...

Mystic Meandering
April 2024

~

Wanderer, your footsteps are the road,
and nothing more;
Wanderer, there is no road.
The road is made by walking...

By walking one makes the road,
and upon glancing behind
one sees the path that will
never be trod again...

Wanderer, there is no road -
only wakes upon the sea..."

Antonio Machado

~

Empty yourself of everything.
Let the mind rest in peace.
The ten thousand things rise and fall
while the [inner] self watches their return.
They grow and flourish and then
return to the source.
Returning to the source is stillness,
which is the way of nature...

Returning is the motion of the Tao.

Lao Tzu

~~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
taken at the Denver Botanical Gardens

 

A Deeper Light...

One must dig deep
*through* the dark night
and mine the darkness
to find a Deeper Light -
within...

Aligning with the Breath of the
Inner Cosmos - the Rhythm of 
the Universe...

Releasing burdens and responsibilities
too heavy to carry - suffocating mind, body -
and dimming the light...

Breathe the Deeper Light
vibrating *inside* the darkness,

Shining through densified layers,
like a soft light shining through an
alabaster vase - a warm honey glow...

*This* Light - shone through stone -
lights the way to a Deeper Reality,
a deeper peace, and opens the body to
Deep Comfort...

Mystic Meandering
Jan. 13. 2024
Day 5 of "The Pause"

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

"The Eclipse" - a meandering...

One of the things that the recent eclipse of the sun
reminded me of was the larger Cosmos, of which
we are all a part.  And the Cosmos is working!
The planets and moons and suns align, then move
apart in their perpetual orbits, doing what they
were "designed" to do.  The Universe works -
it's humans who can't seem to do that, to align,
to "get it together" as they are "designed" (?)
Or maybe I just have an idealized perception
of how a human being is supposed to be...

Anyway - it - the eclipse - reminded me that there's
a greater intelligence at work in the Universe, a
Deeper Reality beyond what we experience on
earth as humans.  So the earth, moon and sun
were aligned - briefly.  I have no idea really what
the significance of that is - just that it reminded me
of a Deeper Reality behind what we know as reality -
working in the Cosmos...

~

And so - "The Quest" - for me - is to discover, or
re-discover, the Deeper Reality of myself - my Essence
of Being in the Greater scheme of things...

I have forgotten how to BE what I am!
In a sense what "I" was designed for;
one could say my "Soul's" task - or
even my Being's purpose - if there is one...

Some call it the Self, but I get hung up on that word,
because the big "S" Self is not another self
hidden somewhere inside us that we have to "become."
But it's a discovery, a remembering, having a felt sense
of, the Deeper Reality of one's very Being - the Essence
of one's Being; our Natural State of Being, beyond
personality, beyond conditioning, beyond mind, beyond
religion, beyond "spirituality." 

Who are we really?

I thought I knew, but...

I haven't really met "Her" yet... ;)
Well, maybe on occasion...

Now if I could only remember to learn to see and approach
life from that Essence of my very Beingness...

Ahhhh - Peace...

Mystic Meandering
Oct. 14 & 15, 2023

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Go Beyond - The Upanishads

We spend our days in the familiar world of our five senses,
but what lies beyond that, if anything - a vast world, perhaps,
waiting to be explored.  Most of us are happy to stay where we
are.  We may even be afraid to venture into the unknown.

Yet there are always a few who are not content...

Simply knowing there is something unknown beyond their
reach makes them acutely restless.  This is true of adventurers -
especially those who seek to explore Consciousness [Ultimate
Reality] itself.  They quietly slip out to see what lies beyond
 the topography of Consciousness itself [that] has an
illumination of its own...

We are meant to explore, to seek, to push the limits of our
potential as human beings.  The world of the senses is just the
base camp: we are meant to be as much at home in
[transcendent Reality] as in the world of physical reality.

It is our destiny as human beings to make this journey
ourselves.  Everything else is secondary...

Follow the path of the illumined ones...

...a familiar voice tugs at the edge of awareness...

~

The Upanishads are the recorded stories from Hindu sages
for whom the transcendent Reality called "God" was more
real than the world reported to them by their senses.  Their
purpose is not so much instruction, but inspiration -
an ecstatic snapshot of transcendent Reality.

The Upanishads tell us that there is a Reality underlying 
life which rituals cannot teach, next to which the things we
see and touch in everyday life are shadows (of the Real).

This Reality is the Essence of every created thing, and
the same Reality is our real self.  Each one of us is one
with the power that created and sustains the universe.  And
this oneness can be realized directly...  a Reality beyond
ordinary knowing...
It is the purpose for which each of us has been born...

From the Upanishads
Eknath Easwaran

excerpt from the Introduction

~

I had forgotten that I had already started this deeper
"exploration" :) back in 2019.  But there have been
so many distraction since then, that I feel called to
explore the depths of Reality again, although the
distractions weigh heavy.  Something deeper than
what I am living now calls to me - from the "edge of
awareness"...
There is always a "call" to deepen.

I want to live the true Essence of Life...

~

Photo - The Flammarion Engraving
from the internet

 

Aliveness - Joseph Campbell

People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life.
I don't think that's what we're really seeking.  I think what we're
seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life
experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance
with our own innermost Being and Reality, so that we actually
feel the rapture of being alive.

Joseph Campbell
from: The Power of Myth

Celebrating 74 years of "Aliveness" today.
Thank you all for taking the journey with me
on this blogspot in cyberspace :)

Blessings to all my fellow "meanderers" :)

MM

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The "Cosmic Mother Energy"...

Photo by John Hyde

Laying the burdens of this existence down,
for just a  moment - late last night...
Coming to rest in the "Mother Energy";
the "originating primal energy"
of the Cosmos...
Fluid, Unfettered, Unbuffeted energies,
Untouched by the strain of life circumstances...

Embraced, and tangibly Infused by
Primordial Source Energy
coursing through my body,
I relax...

Mental images and constructs of present life
circumstances, once holding reign on my mind,
now pass through, as I focus on the dance
of energies within.

Pathways of the Primal Energies
subtly leave their imprint...

The body tries to self-correct after a life-time of
walking the energetic History Trail of Family Dynamics
in physicality - core survival issues that have left
indelible scars - begin to release - a bit...

I experience the "Deeper Reality" of this exquisite
Primal Energy, and realize it experiences Itself
in many forms; morphing Itself into different expressions,
different life experiences, reshaped by life occurrences that
also shaped my perspective and perceptions -
even now...

Now finally experiencing the fluidity of the "Mother Energy"
that innately flows through me/us - like an Aurora Borealis -
streaming through this body, leaving its illumined
energetic signature...

Mystic Meandering
Sept. 19, 2023

~

Photo of Aurora Borealis
by John Hyde
Near Juneau, Alaska

 

Adi Shakti: The Primal Energy - Madhu

The [Cosmic] Mother's magic is ancient as life itself.
She existed before Gods and mortals, and She will
still exist even after the great dissolution.  Mother is
pure energy in subtle form...

The name Adi (or Adya) Shakti means 'primal power'
[or force], or 'primal energy' in Hinduism.  She is the
power/force/energy that permeates all creation, including
the animate, inanimate, and divine.  She is the [energy]
from which the universe is created and sustained, and
She is what everything will withdraw back into at the
end of their lives.

Shakti in the highest causal sense is God as Mother,
and in another sense it is the Universe that issues
from Her Womb.  She is the darkness from which light
issues, the unmanifest from which everything manifests.

She is no one particular form...but is generally manifested
in everything that we see in the universe, including the
life force that moves in it.  She is often described as
neither male or female, yet both male and female at the
same time - beyond descriptive categories of male and
female.

She IS Everything...

She is unbroken Reality...

She is pure Being Consciousness-Bliss,
existing in the form of Time and Space,
and all that is therein, and is the radiant
Illuminatrix in all beings...

From: The Primal Goddess
by Madhu

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Note:  I know I've posted this post (and photo) a couple of
 times already over the years, but it has become an important
piece in my exploration of the "Deeper Reality"...

 

 

A New "Quest" - a meandering...

I get excited when there is new movement in my life...

When I awoke this morning there was a sense of a 
new "Quest" - a new "journey."

Don't know why - just felt it...

I wrote in my journal:
"A new journal book today,
maybe a new way of 'seeing',
a new 'journey'? - A journey of
discovery...
The "Quest, as I see it, is really an Exploration of a 
'Deeper Reality' within, for lack of a better
term." (It's just how it came to me...)

I have to be open, aware, and curious
to take this journey.

When I checked our video camera pics from
the night and morning, there was one of a hummingbird -
stopped directly in front of the camera,
looking right into it, flapping its little wings.
And within milliseconds darted off and away.

I giggled and played it several times -
giggling like a little kid each time.

Something stirred within me
that I hadn't felt in a long time...

I was suddenly filled with the nectar of life,
the magic of living;  inebriated with the joy of life again...

(missing for so long, bogged down, and feeling
imprisoned by life).

Today I felt totally gifted...   free....  joyful...

Had "The Universe" heard the unshed tears of my Heart?

I'm excited to be on this new journey of discovery,
exploring the depths within...

The "Deeper Reality" includes Joy - in the simple things;
an Inner Quiet of Being, and
the excitement and the innocent laughter of a child.
It is playful...

I want to see where this goes!

Mystic Meandering
Sept. 17, 2023

 

A Deeper Reality ? - a meandering...

Photo by Johannes-Plenio on Unsplash
Johannes Plenio website

 "I turn everything over to 'The Universe'!
The Beautiful, Beautiful 'hidden' Universe..."

These were the words I wrote in my journal late one
night recently, listening to the Deep Quiet within...

I used the term "Universe" because it is free of
religious persona, identity, and association;
is free of concept...

then came:

In the "hidden" Universe everything is all OK!

But why did the word "hidden" emerge?

What is this "hidden" Universe?

More words came:

The "hidden" Universe is behind matter reality;
the spatial intelligence behind
manifest existence...

(Maybe some of you already know this...
But it felt new to me that night.)

I didn't get the sense it was the universe of microbes,
or DNA, or ghosts, or aliens, etc.  But the "Universe" that
is behind the manifest Universe;
an animating universe of Source Energy...

I felt a vibration in my body resonating with the words...

~

The thought arose that maybe I've been trying too hard 
to "spiritualize" everything -
that is - impose a certain "spirituality/or belief onto life
circumstances, which has caused stress in the system...
Like there's some kind of "spiritual" standard that I'm 
supposed to live up to, like self-sacrifice, duty, obligation,
being responsible, etc.  That I'm not being "spiritual" enough,
or doing it "right";  that it's something I have to earn by "doing"
something; but I am unable to live up to the "spiritual" standards
others have set.

~

So I, for some innate reason, turned that night to what I call
"The Universe"
- and gave it all up:
"spirituality";
the struggle about what I should "do",
about my current life circumstance;
my sense of obligation, and my fear-filled mind
about what might happen,
and started trusting that everything would be alright...

Again - a full body vibration...

My pen kept writing:

The "spirituality" that we practice is "flat."

(but what did that mean?)

With the introduction of the word "hidden" the "Universe"
became/felt dynamic and full.  And I had the sense that "worship",
or belief in one figure or religion is like - obsolete - because
that is an earthbound construct!  "Spirituality" is an earthbound
construct!  The Universe is much "fuller" and has no need for
"spiritual" constructs.  "Spirituality" keeps you constrained,
confined, limited.

What have I come across here!?

Can this be true?  - I wrote...

It was as if I suddenly realized that I had been focused on the
wrong things all these years.  "Spirituality", deities, personas,
and concepts like "enlightenment" and "awakening."
Flat concepts and constructs.

Somehow I *felt* that there is a much fuller range of Reality
...behind everything seen...

And with that I felt a vibration go through my body again...
And knew that my experience here is just a blip in a bigger
Universe, and maybe doesn't exist at all!

This reality, in some sense, is like living on a flat screen TV
with events taking place on the surface.  But there is depth to
"The Universe" that is multi-dimensional or more holographic;
and empty of anything contrived.

~

Maybe I was given a glimpse of a deeper Reality.

Maybe...

I don't know.

Mystic Meandering
Aug. 22, 2023

~

You are detaching, the old is over and the new
is yet to come.  The Soul has cast its moorings and
is sailing for distant places.

Remember the instruction:
Whatever you come across - go beyond.

Nisargadatta Maharaj

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Photo - Johannes-Plenio on Unsplash
website