The Fire of the Magdalene - Fred LaMotte

What is the mission of Mary Magdalene?  Is she just another
archetype of "the divine feminine."?  Are we called to abstract
her, with all the other Gods and Goddesses, into the faceless
hegemony of the One?

Perhaps she is yet another two-dimensional icon, a window,
into a numb impersonal nonduality.  Or does her feral
astonishing bittersweet gaze call us toward something quite
unheard-of and outrageous in the annals of spiritual teaching?

Her darshan is a droplet of terrible fire that consumes us,
burns us up and down with such accurate alchemy that our 
dross turns to gold, annihilating all that is not ourselves.
Nothing remains but our uniqueness.

The eyes of the Magdalene behold us, and we are held.  We
are held in the most severe and lethal demand: the demand
of bhakti.  Her gaze is not the fire of anger or judgment, but
passionate devotion.

Mary is devotion.  That is what bhakti means, Devotion - to
God? To Jesus? To Sophia? To attaining Gnosis? [To Brahma?
To Allah?]  Dear friend, she burns with deeper bhakti, purer
bhakti: devotion to becoming herself.

When the drop merges with the ocean, it is our spiritual work.
When the ocean merges with the drop, it is our spiritual play,
and our anointing. 

Mary's olive-eyed glance pierces the heart and calls both you
and me to the work, the play, of the great transformation:
be yourself!

Mary Magdalene is She who refuses to be an archetype or a 
symbol, refuses to signify any truth other than her own jagged
broken perfect wholeness, the ineluctable suchness of
Personhood.

Fred LaMotte
Interfaith Minister
Uradiance

~

Vortex Art
Mystic Meandering
2011

 

A Thousand Ways to Pray - Fred LaMotte

Smiling we know
is a form of meditation.
Weeping is also a prayer.
Worry is beseeching
the Whirler of All
for the things you don't want.
When you are angry or bitter,
the purest devotion is your belly
without naming it.
Let the fire of outrage
burn a hold through your forehead.
This is profound samadhi.
Be the thole.
Yes, there are ten thousand
ways to pray.
Today is sacred
because the planets are ajar.

Your horoscope looks like
the web of a spider
who fell into a plastic
Starbuck's cup
and imbibed caffeine.
The little dipper spills
mad lukewarm light,
making your plans collapse.
Your mind says, "everything 
is going wrong,"
but your gut just savors
the bitter, the salt, the sweet,
the flavor of a rainy sidewalk.

Be patient with indigestion, friend.
It is the sum of all prime numbers
dissolving in the taste 
of silence.

Angels of dust sprinkle themselves
over your cauldron of moon-blood.
Your mind gives up its pasquinade,
the falsetto soliloquy of reason
which is only the echo
of a voice that stopped speaking
before you were born.
Finally you can fall
into this breath,
the breath of grieving,
sighing, murmuring "yes"

to the dark.

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

~

If you pray because
you believe it will
change the earth,
don't waste this
precious breath.
If you pray because
your mind is at war
with the way things are,
then solve your mind,
not the world.

Fred LaMotte

 

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 Ferocity of Your Own Being - Aisha Salem

Stop running from the ferocity of your own Being...
Burn off all your own games to that in you which is
Pure Intensity...
When you meet the very Core of your Being
become completely loyal to the deepest passion in you
and allow no more waste of time - find that devotion
to Reality [Truth] within yourself...

Aisha Salem

~

Photo - Reflection of sunlight from
fireplace insert on carpet :)

Devotion - Nirmala

...When devotion has claimed you for its own
no longer any chance to stray
a brief fling with illusion no longer satisfies.
The truth demands utter fidelity...

All pain must be faced
and embraced as the true countenance of
your beloved.

All fear must be met
and recognized as the thrill of tasting
the unknowable.

All joy must be surrendered
and acknowledged as a gift with
no giver.

This union only requires telling the truth
even when the truth shatters your dreams
even when the truth leaves you emptied out
even when the truth reveals your counterfeit
existence...

[.....]

Nirmala
Gift With No Giver

via: Being Silently Drawn