Time is Limited - Steve Jobs

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living
someone else's life. Don't be trapped by
dogma. which is living the results of other
people's thinking.  Don't let the noise of others'
opinions drown out your inner voice.  And 
most importantly, have the courage to follow
your heart and intuition.  They somehow
already know what you truly want...

Steve Jobs

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

The Journey - Henri Bergson

Fortunately, some are born with spiritual immune systems that
sooner or later give rejection to the illusory worldview grafted
upon them from birth through social conditioning.  They begin
sensing that something is amiss, and start looking for answers.
Inner knowledge and anomalous outer experiences show them
a side of reality others are oblivious to, and so begins their 
journey of awakening.  Each step of the journey is made by
following the heart instead of following the crowd and by
choosing [inner] knowledge over the veils of ignorance.

Henri Bergson
Daily Zen

with thanks to Whiskey River

~

Photo Mystic Meandering

 

Follow Your Genuine Self - Eric Baret

Fear, rage, love, sadness or any other emotion
with no apparent cause are bursting bubbles in a
boiling magma back to the heart of what is essential.

Lacking in clarity, we link the emotion to a situation,
and allow it to disturb our peace.  In reality, emotion
points to the heart.  When we refuse an emotion we are
simply postponing life.  Emotion is inherently free of
thought or knowledge.  If we remain present to our
emotions, the habit of attributing them to an external
cause will, sooner or later, fall away.

If you meet someone who is at peace, you can feel peace
in their presence.  The important thing is to realize that this
peace you feel is your own emotion as well.....experience
this openness that you experience in the so-called other.
Stay present to it...  What you feel in the other is also
your experience...

You might occasionally go to listen to [a spiritual teacher],
but you realize what you hear to be true on his lips is
your own truth.... 

You must follow yourself when you feel a true emotion.
You might be reading a text by Meister Eckhart and an
emotion arises in you.  Close the book; the text will fall away.
The important thing is the tear sliding down your cheek.  This
is your treasure, your direction, your teaching.  It is what
you must follow, must listen to....

Eric Baret

Via - No Mind's Land

~

There is something that waits and listens for the sound of
the genuine in yourself.  Can you find a way to hear the
sound of the genuine in yourself?  Do you know who you
genuinely are?

Howard Thurman

Sacred Outrage - Rupert Spira

...look behind the resistance you feel to what is happening.
See if the resistance comes from Love of Truth...  If it does then
 it is not an egoic resistance to what is.
It is Sacred Outrage because you know that things are
not in line with Love.

Love is God's Being [Pure Beingness] shining through us.
We are the modulation of that Infinite Being...
Everyone has something unique to offer...
Each person will be motivated to express Love and understanding
in different ways - some as activists, some as teachers, writers,
artists, poets, doctors, nurses, etc...
Don't inhibit your action with pseudo non-dual reasoning.
Resistance at the relative level of existence is necessary.
Ask: What is my resistance motivated by - fear and neuroses,
or Love and Intelligence...
Act from the place of Love and understanding.
Engage...
 from the Heart.

Rupert Spira

~

We weep when light does not reach our hearts.
We wither like fields if someone doesn't
rain their kindness upon us.

Meister Eckhart

~

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

Adyashanti


Act from Love...

We need to discern how to live life with peace
and equanimity in our current culture of hatred
and violence; not creating and "resisting" an "enemy"
in the "other", but finding compassionate courage to
work for that which is aligned with the Truth of our Being,
who we really are in our Heart, as individuals and as a country.
The first step is to meet and acknowledge our own
prejudices, hatred, and violence within ourselves,
that gets expressed in subtle and not so subtle ways
in our day-to-day lives - our indifference to another's suffering
 under the guise of  "spirituality."

_/\_

Follow Your Own Footsteps - Mark Nepo

Every time we talk to someone, there comes back to us a map
 of expectation as to how we should respond...

We share a confusion:
we are often given direction.

We share a pain;
we are often given instruction.

We share a desire;
we are often given a plan.

The power of these unspoken maps should not be underestimated.
For the endless gravities of expectation we move in and out of
govern most of our thinking and summons most of our energy
in denying them or complying with them.

In actuality, underneath all the plans, pressures, and expectations,
underneath all the subtle guidance and nudging, the next step
is truly unknown...

Thus, our spiritual charge is to maintain the wonder of the
singular explorer that each of us is...

The freshest step has always come when we are brave
enough to land at the end of what little we know,
breathing in new air, in reaction to no one, in wonder at
what is...

Mark Nepo

From: The Book of Awakening

(Mark's words, my format)

Guru Cat says...

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

Slow Down...
Listen to your Inner Being...
Lighten your burdens...
Create the environment that you need
to be whole, to be fully Alive in your Being -
from the core of your Being...

This requires you to be in touch with
the "Untouched Silence" within - she said...

I listened...

Step off the treadmill of life...
Be intuitive...  Be creative...
Release the entanglements
that keep you bound to the treadmill
going nowhere...

Just Stop!
Rest!

Just Be!

Yes, Guru Cat, I said - sheepishly...

Re-align with your own Rhythm of Being...
Don't live up to anyone's expectations of who you are
supposed to be;
the roles they gave you to play,
the identities they projected onto you to wear,
just to please them...

Yes, Guru Cat, I said - feeling dejected...

Quit pushing so hard - she said stoically...
Retire your overactive mind with its
mental gyrations of thoughts and stories
*about* you;
your obligations, your duties,
and do what makes your Heart smile.
What makes your Heart smile?

I don't know, Guru Cat, I said - sadly...

Find out, before it's too late, Guru Cat said...

Yes, Guru Cat...  I knew she meant business...

Guru Cat sat - reading my troubled heart,
as if seeing right through me - and said:

The darkness, the fear, the stress, the weight,
*everything* that you carry will dissolve
when you're doing what your *Heart* wants to do.
Do you know what your Heart wants?

No, Guru Cat, I said - but I will know it when I
 *feel* it... right?

Guru Cat sat staring at me,
then said:

Love what you love - it's that simple.
Be what/who you are in your Heart.
Relax...  Breathe...
Open...

She lowered here eyes, turned away,
jumped down off the table
and disappeared.

Mystic Meandering

June 16, 2018

Happiness - Hermann Hesse

As long as you chase happiness,
you are not ready to be happy,
even if you owned everything.

As long as you lament a loss,
run after prizes in restless races,
you have not yet known peace.

But when you have moved beyond desire,
become a stranger to your goals and longings
and call no longer on happiness by name,

then your heart rises calmly
above the ebb and flow of action
and peace has reached your soul.

Hermann Hesse
translation by Ludwig Max Fischer

via: The Beauty We Love

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

Love In Its Own Way...

You pine for Love all your life,
seeking the Essence,
the purity of Love.
Your heart cries out for this Love so many times,
it seems endless - and unheard...

And then - when you least expect it -

Love reveals itself...
Not in big ways -
but in the little things.
Not in romantic ways -
but in the kindness of others.

The clerk at the grocery store and
the smile of a stranger
whose eyes tell you
they know -
they feel it too...

The voice of an estranged friend,
or loved one connecting once again.
Your heart sighs...

The sight of a bright yellow butterfly
playfully bouncing through your
backyard in pure delight of being alive.
The big, loving, black pool eyes of a puppy
eliciting your hidden love in return.
The trill of a Robin
singing for hours out your window
showing you the way out of
your self-imposed struggle.
Your heart lightens,
and sings its own song again.
Free...

You read a poem or story that inspires you to look deeper,
feel deeper, and open the heart - more...
You follow the heart's opening...

And one morning you unexpectedly wake up "happy."
Your heart dances for no reason -
except you know that somehow Love has visited you
when you weren't looking for it...

You find the spot of grace
that lets you know that
everything is deeply okay -
despite life's heartbreaks and tragedies,
yours and others...

You suddenly realize that your fear
has dissolved...
Your heart giggles like a child,
never really knowing why
or where it went -
or why it comes and goes...
You only know that, for today, there is
a new openness,
and softness of Love...

You bask in the bliss...

How this all happens, I don't know.
Life and Love ebb and flow
in their own natural way...
Darkness and Light dance
in and out of time as one movement,
touching us in ways we cannot understand,
revealing Love - in its own way...

The Mystery of Existence:
Pure Love
Inexplicable Love
Unexpected Love
that has its own way of
Loving ~

Mystic Meandering
July 15, 2016

~

Love to all!

  

Wilderness Wanderers...

The following poem was created from an email dialogue I had with
  Chuck Surface last month.

Most of the words are his, some are mine, and some a synthesis of
 the essence of the dialogue. I was so inspired by his message
 that I couldn’t help putting the words together in poem form.

  I merely played with the words as they sang to my Heart…

 He has kindly given his permission for me to post it here…

Wilderness Wanderers

We, of the Wanderers Tribe,
wander The Vastness

of
The Unknown…

instinctually
 seeking the warmth
and shelter of a council fire.

Wandering from encampment
to encampment
we recognize the gifts of each;
we learn and are blessed,
but find ourselves
riding on once again
into

The

 Wilderness…

As is our human nature,
we seek again and again
for the comfort and shelter
of an encampment
with which our Heart resonates

 and our Being finds affinity.

But time and again
the constraints of
the “known” and “accepted”
descriptions of
”reality’ and “truth”
are more than we can bear,
and The Vastness
calls to us…

Wilderness Wanderers
will never be at
Peace or Illumined
within the constraints of
 any council fire

Vagabonds of the Heart,

we are not aimless,
but seek only the Heart’s Truth,
beyond  tradition,
beyond definition

We know that however much our
human nature craves
comfort
warmth
nourishment
and
fellowship,
these
will not be satisfied
in the encampments…

For we are Wilderness Wanderers
wandering the
Immeasurable
V a s t n e s s
of
The Great Mystery

And
 if we are Graced,
we find there
ones such as ourselves…

Wandering…

Together,
yet in solitude,
we band of Vagrants
sit…

…within and as the Great Mystery…

Unsheltered by
concepts
theories
and
conjecture

Nomads by Nature
We are blessed to be

simple
Wanderers

Mystic Meandering
January 29, 2015

With Gratitude to Chuck…

~*~

I am going to be wandering in the Inner Wilderness
 for a while,
taking a break from blogging,
refocusing inward again toward the Silence and Love

 of the Great Mystery, the Inner Cosmos; playing

 in the delight and Joy of just Being – Just living
Dancing with the Universe -
intuitively moving *with* Life…

Maybe I will find you wandering there too
in the Inner Wilderness… J

Namaste

~*~

comments off

Photo: Northern Lights in Yellow Knife Canada
in the Northwest Territories…

Unconfined...

"We have not come here to take prisoners

but to surrender evere more deeply
to freedom and joy… 

We have not come into this exquisite world

to hold ourselves hostage from love.

  

Run, my dear, from anything

that may not strengthen
your precious budding wings.

  

 Run like hell, my dear,

from anyone likely to put a sharp knife
into the sacred, tender vision
of your beautiful heart.

We have a duty to befriend

those aspects…..
that stand outside of our house
and shout to our reason,
”oh please, oh please,
come out to play.”

  

 For we have not come here to take prisoners,

or to confine our wondrous spirits,
but to experience ever and ever more deeply
our divine courage, freedom and Light!"

  

Hafiz

Hafiz poem from Love Is A Place

A Moment of Beauty...

 “The path takes one into the depths of the heart,

into the abyss and endless love that one finds there.
It leads you from the known to the unknown,
and then further,
into the unknowable,
into a darkness brighter than any light.

Nothing can prepare you for the heart’s journey,
for the places it can take you,
the depths and the heights,
that are within you.

One awakens to the simple
fundamental truth
that there is nothing but
God.

Even the idea of the path
is an illusion:
there is nowhere to go
and nothing to realize,
because everything is God.”

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Sufi Mystic

“What is form in the presence of reality?

Very feeble.
Reality keeps the sky turned over
like a cup above us, revolving.
Who turns the sky wheel?
The universal intelligence.

There is no reality but God,
says the surrendered…
who is an ocean for all beings.”

Rumi

~*~

Photo #1: taken by my husband tonight as he left work.

Photo #2: Different sunset, different night.

Mary Oliver - "The Journey"

One day you finally knew
what you had to do,
and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice…
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.

“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible
it was already late enough,
and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.

But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do…
determined to save
the only life you could save…

Mary Oliver

The Open Path...

It may be that when we no longer
know what to do
we have come to our real work…

And when we no longer know
which way to go
we have come to our real journey…

Wendell Berry

~

We’re all just walking each other home.

Ram Dass

~

If you don’t write the things
deep inside your own heart
what’s the use of churning
out so many words…?

Ryokin

~

I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me,
so that what [I have not] dared …
may for once spring clear
without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing to you as no one ever has,
streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.

Rainer Maria Rilke
Rilke’s Book of Hours

Finding a Heart...

No, I’m not talking about the Tin Man following the road to Oz, hoping the Wizard would give him a heart. :) Although, after spending a week in the family vortex I thought I might need to find my way there…

I found this heart leaf lying on the kitchen floor in *exactly* this position on Friday afternoon.

I got back from my mother’s around 2pm, found the computer wasn’t connected to the server for some unknown reason, made a couple of phone calls trying to figure that out and couldn’t; put a load of laundry in, and went out to prune a few branches off the ailing River Birch in the front yard. Did another errand around 3pm, and when I came back found this heart leaf on the floor. It was as if I had been left a little gift of love, an enchantment from the “Wizard” Herself – without even looking for it…

How the heart got there I really did not know, until later when I saw the shoes I had been wearing out in the yard. They were caked with dead leaves on their bottoms from walking around in the damp dirt at the base of the Birch tree. Evidently one dropped off in the kitchen – just one – and just this one – the heart one… Whoa…

It really speaks for itself, don’t you think…

Love…

Just Love…

You are Loved…

Follow the Heart…

Open to the Heart…

You ARE Love…

Send Love…

BE Love…

♥


~*~


“Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man,
that he didn’t already have…”

A line from the song “Tin Man” - by America
1974

~*~

May we all *know* that we are Loved,
and that we are LOVE!