There is Music in Us - Jack Gilbert

Our heart wanders lost in the dark woods.
Our dream wrestles in the castle of doubt.
But there's music in us.  Hope is pushed down
but the angel flies up again taking us with her.

The summer mornings begin inch by inch
while we sleep, and walk with us later
as long-legged beauty through
the dirty streets.  It is no surprise
that danger and suffering surround us.

What astonishes is the singing.
We know the horses are there in the dark
meadow because we can smell them,

can hear them breathing.

Our spirit persists like a man struggling
through the frozen valley
who suddenly smells the flowers
and realizes the snow is melting
out of sight on top of the mountain,
knows that spring has begun.

Jack Gilbert, 1925-2012
Horses at Midnight Without a Moon

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Photo - Me on path into the woods

 

A Deeper Rhythm...

I've heard a deeper Rhythm....
Composed of cello, viola and oboe, I think.
I heard it when I was in the kitchen
cooking dinner one night,
many years ago,
and every other night after that,

for several weeks,
until it stopped...
when the noise of my life
became too loud - again,
and the weight of my weary heart
drowned it out -
like now...

There was no music playing on the stereo,
just the sound of the meal cooking,
and the sounds of daily living
outside the window:
children playing,
dogs barking,
lawn mowers,
power saws,
and birds -

chirping...

Underneath it all was a Rhythm
so melodious I could even hum it;
forgotten now...

I just listened, and hummed, with wonder...
Where was this coming from -
this music -
this slow, deep melodic rhythm,
drawing me into itself...

I didn't even have to try to listen,
it was just there
soft - in the distance,
barely audible,
as if in another room,
through another door,
maybe even in another realm;
a cosmic rhythm

I knew then, somehow, that my own life rhythm
was hidden in this Deeper Rhythm...

But I no longer hear it now;
drowned out by the
noise of living
other people's
rhythms -
and the endless
cacophony
of daily
existence.

But I know it is there -
playing somewhere.
I listen for it -
this Deeper Rhythm,
that underlies
all other rhythms...
mysteriously playing
within...

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 5, 2015

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Your Own Peculiar Light - Fred LaMotte

 Perhaps you didn't notice how, when you awoke
this morning, you took your first breath
from the other world, the world inside this one,
where atoms are not shadows but fragrances of color,

and flesh is the music that vibrates the Law
that can never be written in books.

It doesn't matter anymore if you are on the Left or Right,
Christian or Muslim, a do-er or non-doer.
You need not wear a veil here in this softer daylight.
The glow of your essential oil anoints the meadow,
greening branches, thickening fur.  The hungry ones

who need your touch are no longer driven away
by the deafening thrum of your thoughts, but gather
toward your musky pollen like bees.  It matters not
what master you follow, what party you join,
but how deeply you rest in your body,
aligning your heart with a certain star,
dissolving that distance with each exhalation.

The formless flower of the void opening her golden cup,
pouring nectar down your darkest furrows, bittersweet,
the taste of death and joy.  Arise, come, begin your task.

Earth is thirsting for the flavor of your own peculiar light.
It rainbows through your face as through the prism
of no other tears.  Hear a new song, don't ask whether
the voice arises within you, or in the dust-atoms
on your path, transforming wounds into destinations:

Shivoham, Shivoham, Chit Ananda Rupam:

Pure truth I am, pure truth I am,
the very form of awakened beauty...

Neither ask what you must do.  From now on
your work is to keep listening, keep listening
for this music in the heart of every stranger.

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Morning Grace - W.S. Merwin

 It is at last any morning
not answering to a name
I wake before there is light
hearing once more that same
music without repetition
or beginning playing
away into itself
in silence like a wave
a union in its own
key that I seem
to have heard before I
was listening but by the time
I hear it now it is gone
as when on a morning
alive with sunlight
almost at the year's end
a feathered breath a bird
flies in at the open window
then vanishes leaving me
believing what I do not see

W.S. Merwin
From Shadow of Sirius
original title of poem - "Grace Note"

~

Photo taken by my brother in MA

A Quiet Spirit - Henry David Thoreau

 When I detect a beauty in any of the recesses of nature,
I am reminded by the serene and retired spirit in which it
requires to be contemplated, of the inexpressible privacy of life -
how silent and unambitious it is.
The beauty there in mosses will have to be considered from
the holiest, quietest nook.

My truest, serenest moments are too still for emotions...

~

To be calm, to be serene!
There is the calmness of the lake when there is not a breath
of wind; there is the calmness of a stagnant ditch.  So it is
with us.
Sometimes we are clarified and calmed healthily, as we never 
were before in our lives, not by an opiate, but by some 
unconscious obedience to the all-just laws,
so that we become like a still lake of purest crystal
and without an effort our depths are revealed to ourselves.

~

I awoke into a music which no one by me heard.
Whom shall I thank for it?  I feel it a blessing.
To the sane man the world is a musical instrument.
The very touch affords an exquisite pleasure.

Henry David Thoreau

taken from a journal entry, June 22, 1851

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Allow yourself to be used - Thomas Merton

You are fed up with words, I don't blame you.
I am nauseated by them sometimes.  I am also,
to tell the truth, nauseated by ideals and with causes.
This sounds like heresy, but I think you will understand
what I mean.  It is so easy to get engrossed with ideas
and slogans and myths that in the end one is left holding
the bag, empty, with no trace of meaning left in it.  And
then the temptation is to yell louder than ever in order to
make the meaning be there again by magic.  Going through
this kind of reaction helps you to guard against this.
Your system is complaining of too much verbalizing,
and it is right.

...The big results are not in your hands or mine, but they
suddenly happen, and we can share in them, but there is
no point in building our lives on personal satisfaction,
which may be denied us and which after all is not that
important.

The next step in the process is for you to see that your
even thinking about what you are doing is crucially
important.  You are probably striving to build yourself
an identity in your work, out of your work...  You are
using it, so to speak, to protect yourself against
nothingness, annihilation.  That is not the right use of
your work.  All the good that you will do will come,
not from you but from the fact that you have allowed
yourself to be used by Love [Grace].  Think of this
more and more and gradually you will be free from
the need to prove yourself, and you can be more
open to the power that will work through you
without your knowing it.

Thomas Merton

~

"We are an instrument of Grace...
We are being played...
Keep the instrument tuned so
that Grace can play the music."

Mitch Rosacker
Self Discovery Studio

~

Photo - "The Mystery" playing :)

Holy Helpers - Donna Iona Drozda

There is a deeper realm, there is an unseen world.
There is for each one of us.....unseen Holy Helpers
and Inner Guides - Mighty Companions...

...be still

See what arises to meet you when you listen with your
inner ears and see with your inner eyes.  See what
happens when you lift above the fray...

There is an aliveness, an alive world rich in beauty
flowering below the surface and beyond the horizon...
There is a softer, subtle music playing...

Donna Iona Drozda
Artist and Life Coach

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Fear - The Drug of Despair...

I keep trying to change the all-consuming music
running in my head ~ coronavirus ~
and listen for the soothing tones of
the deeper Inner Rhythm that will subdue
the fear of the body-mind in theses
stressful times...

But now the sun is almost past the eve,
and the collective shadow has overtaken me,
with thoughts of the state the world is in now...
Sometimes losing perspective, the bigger picture...
Unable to see beyond the maze mentality...
Losing touch with the deeper Music within...

Fearing my own vulnerability,
as well as that of humankind.
Startled by scarcity of necessities.
Shocked by man's unkindness to man -
hoarding...

Triggered by a virus...

Exposing man's darker side:

its selfishness, arrogance and greed;
its fear of the unknown,
and death;

Not Buddha Nature...
Not Compassion,

nor Christ Consciousness -
but the primal brain of fear and
survivalist consumption...

Fear - the drug of despair...

The new "normal"...

We have to change the music...

Mystic Meandering
March 15, 2020

Photo via The Beauty We Love

The Eternal Longing - John O'Donohue

As a human our daily experience is riven with fracture and
 fragmentation.  We wander like a nomad from event to event,
 from person to person, unable to settle anywhere for too long.
  The day is a chase after ghost duties; at evening we are exhausted.
  A day is over, and so much of it wasted on things that meant so
 little, duties and meetings from which our heart was absent.
  Months and years pass, and we fumble on still incapable of
 finding a foothold on the path of time we walk.  A large
portion of our activity distracts us from remembering
 that we are a guest of the universe to whom on life has been
 given.  We mistake the insistent pressure of daily demands
 for reality and our more delicate intuitive nature wilts...

Our longing is numbed, and our belonging becomes merely
 external; an external attachment to people, places and things.
 Our way of life has so little to do with what we feel and love
 because of the many demands on us and responsibilities we have.
  We are dragged in so many directions away  from true belonging:
 the living and passionate intimacy with the soul. [Heart]

True belonging is not ownership.  True belonging comes from within,
from the harmony between the outer forms of belonging and the inner
 music of the soul.  We have forgotten the true depth and spiritual nature
 of intimate belonging.  We have become exiled from the intimacy of
 true unity with ourselves, each other and creation.  We have fallen out
 of rhythm with life. We need to rediscover ascetical tranquility
 [Silence].  It is our minds that make our lives so homeless...

There is a resonant heart in the depth of Silence that responds to our
 longing. When your true Heart speaks, the echo will return to assure
 you that every moment of your presence happens in the shelter of an
invisible circle. There is a divine restlessness in the human heart...
 This restlessness will never be  finally stilled by any person, project
 or place.  The Longing is eternal. All our longing is but an eternal
 echo of the Divine Longing...

Excerpt from Eternal Echoes
by John O'Donohue

The Temple of the Prairie...

Wanted to share this beautiful scenery from the prairie we visited yesterday, just after a storm passed through.  There was nothing but Pure Quiet, as if one had entered a sacred temple...  The air was pungent with sage and sweet grass - Nature's Incense! :) - delighting the senses, igniting the spirit of Life within.  The words under the photos are the words of Kabir.  Many of us know the "secret sound" that he refers to as the Primordial Silence within...  At the end I have added a quote from a person named Christina Harris that I found years ago...

If you want the truth...

Listen to the secret sound,

the real sound,

which is inside you...

The music from the strings
no one touches...

~ ~ ~

What remains is the child I was...
All other images once living here
have stepped away.
With each leave taking
the view is simplified.

Christina Harris

The Second Music - Annie Lighthart

Now I understand that there are two melodies playing,

one below the other, one easier to hear, the other

lower, steady, perhaps more faithful for being less heard

yet always present.

When alll other things seem lively and real

this one fades.  Yet the notes of it

touch as gently as fingertips, as the sound

of the names laid over each child at birth.

I want to stay in that music without striving or cover.

If the truth of our lives is what it is playing,

the telling is so soft

that this mortal time, this irrevocable change,

becomes beautiful.  I stop and stop again

to hear the second music.

I hear the children in the yard, a train, then birds.

All this is in it and will be gone.

I set my ear to it as I would

to a heart.

Annie Lighthart

~*~

Also see my post A Deeper Rhythm

~*~

Photo - The inside of a seashell 

A Deeper Rhythm...

I’ve been hearing a deeper rhythm lately…
Composed of cello, viola and oboe.
I heard it when I was in the kitchen
cooking dinner one night,
a few weeks back,
and every other night after that
until recently
when the noise of my life
became too loud.

There was no music on the stereo,
just the sound of the meal cooking,
and the sounds of daily living
outside the window:
children playing,
dogs barking,
lawn mowers,
power saws,
and birds -
chirping…

Underneath it all was a Rhythm
so melodious I could even hum it,
but I just listened, with wonder…
Where is this coming from -
this music -
this slow, deep, melodious rhythm,
drawing me in…

I didn’t even have to try to listen,
it was just there
soft – in the distance,
barely audible,
as if in another room,
through another door,
maybe even in another realm…

I knew somehow that my own life rhythm
 is hidden in this deeper Rhythm…
But I keep losing it,
drowned out by the
*noise* of living
other people’s
rhythms -
and
the external
rhythms
of
life

But now I know it is there -
somewhere,
in an experiential way,
and I listen for it -
this deeper Rhythm,
that underlies
all rhythms..

The Rhythm behind the rhythm…

Mysteriously playing…

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 5, 2015

~*~

“The real music happens between the notes…”
Louis Armstrong

~*~

Photo: Mandala Art
Original: Winter’s Jewel Mandala
radially blurred

The Remember Rock...

Rumi wrote a poem that says we should open the door to whatever “visitor” knocks, as it has been sent as messenger… Well, okay, drama keeps knocking at my door, so maybe I’m not getting the message here. I really feel like I *need* to shut the door on all this drama, to not get entangled in it, to not let it drag me down, to drain me – and it is terribly draining, emotionally and physically. And as I mentioned in a previous blog post about this, it is very addictive. The mind just loves it! And so I am guilty in this latest drama of indulging in the mind-loop of stories *about* this drama and the people in it, of telling myself all the different scenarios about what we can do about it, and what the reactions might be - drowning in the sweet, poisonous drivel of drama – intoxicating myself.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to step out into our backyard for a few minutes. It seems like it’s been ages since I’ve actually spent time there. I’ve been on the inside looking out. (Or is that on the outside looking in. :) There has been one drama crisis after another since February, so I have been a little preoccupied. But when I stepped out into the cool rainy morning with a thin layer of new fallen snow on the grass (Yes, northerners, we are still getting snow here in the “southwest” Yippie!) I was intoxicated by the experience. I automatically took in the peace with a deep breath. The smell of moisture in the crisp, cool Spring air with lilacs in bloom and little pale green leaves on the trees barely making their appearance, the grass greener than ever with this wet Spring, and a soft mantel of white on top of everything for accent tugged at my Heart to come play. Nature inhaled me. And I thought, boy, just look what I’ve been missing out here caught up in all these dramas: Missed moments being in the moment of each drama.

Life has been kind of like going to a restaurant everyday and ordering different dishes but no matter what meal is on the menu, there is the goopy syrup of drama layered over it. And maybe that’s just the way life is – dribbles of drama all over everything that I keep trying to push out of the way with my fork. It just doesn’t work. We don’t always get to pick and choose the storyline of the drama because the storylines are entangled and enmeshed with other storylines – in one big gooey mess.

I went out to the back yard to take a picture of this little lighthouse under the Spruce tree and Lilac bush. It has a small natural garden stone next to it that says: “Remember” - the Remember rock. We placed it there when our cat died last August. But today it had a broader meaning.

Drama has a way of entangling me *with* another in an emotional hook up. And I feel like I’m walking a path of entanglement on so many levels these days, with so many people! I’ve danced this dance so many times you’d think I would know better, would remember the music. But drama makes you forget the *inner* music, and each new drama brings a little different tune and I get carried away by the music. As I bent over to adjust the “Remember rock” I disturbed a bird that was nesting in the tree and heard it flutter its wings past my head, as if to warn me I was too close. I apologized for disturbing its nesting place as it winged its way by, stepped away and turned back toward the house. But with just that one flutter of a bird I felt just a tad bit closer to what is really real, to the essence of Life and living – the space where there is no drama. Such peace is tangible.

Being out under the Lilac bush I began to remember that there really is a space where there is no dramas, no stories, no entanglements. I’ve been missing that space, not experiencing it! And I want it back! I want to remember (for the umpteenth time) who I really am underneath all the drama and stories and entanglements – underneath the rock – the simplicity of untethered and unfettered Being dancing to the inner music. I do miss her. She disappears often and I have to go looking for her – under rocks.

After I went inside, I looked back out the window. And with that turn came the realization that Nature is just always there, of course, right there waiting in stillness - just living, breathing, growing, flying, being, untouched by all the dramas that swirl through it – inviting me to participate.

So I’m going to peak underneath the Remember rock more often and spend more time in Nature, reconnecting with the inner music, drinking in the Essence of Life. I cant’ get rid of the drama that unfolds in my life or others, as drama is just part of living. But I no longer wish to open the door every time. Maybe it can just whisper its message through the door.

Knock-knock – who’s there… Remember…

~*~