The Playground of Life...

We are "The Mystery" come into being...
Consciousness awakened...
Self replicating ItSelf;
or whatever word you give
"The Mystery"...

"The Mystery" dressed up as "me."
Formless as form,
Form as formlessness.
"Divine" and human intertwined...

Opening to "The Mystery"
we are free to be our unique selves,
however defined...

When we know this
"something" wakes up inside
and comes Alive -
it hums...

Everything is
~ humming ~

playing in the play of Life;
a multitude of expressions
all playing together
in this virtual reality...

"The Mystery" playing you, playing me,
each a reflection of the other...
both "The Mystery" playing ItSelf...

When we let go of conceptual words
and frameworks of belief and interpretations
we are just FREE...

Letting go of the non-dual concepts of
i/I, me and "no me", Self/no-self,
we are just Life living ItSelf here...
We are being LIVED

as we are.

There is something authentic
in allowing myself to be
just as i am...

Life is met from a different space -
the space of vast openness
to "The Mystery" of Life ItSelf,
where everything is embraced
as it is...

The deep grief and sadness of loss,
the laughter and joy of new birth,
the physical pain and psychological drama
of being human...

All dancing together in the playground of Life...

Mystic Meandering
2019/2024

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

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

 

The Basket - Robin Wall Kimmerer

The marvel of a basket is in its transformation, its journey
from wholeness as a living plant to fragmented strands
and back to wholeness again as a basket.  A basket knows
the dual powers of destruction and reaction that shape the
world.  Strands once separated are woven into a new whole.
The journey of a basket is also a journey of a people.

Robin Wall Kimmerer

from: Braiding Sweetgrass

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Lessons of Life - Philip Jacobs

There are several lessons that I have learnt from my observations
of life, that I wished I had known from the very start.  The first
is that you can trust the process of life and it's unfolding.
So many times in my life journey, I have experienced deeply
traumatic events that I could not see the purpose of at the time.
These events have ranged from chronic illness and the loss of
those I love, and loss of home. Yet when I look back on the
events from a fuller perspective, I always see how they led to
deeper insight and creativity that I could not foresee at the time
and they also pushed me into where I needed to be in life.  It
was as if I had been seeing the world just through a letter box
and could not see the whole picture.  I have observed this so
often in life, which is why I now trust life's unfolding, even if
I cannot see or understand it at the time.

That leads to my second insight, which is that things never 
turned out the way I anticipate them.  When the future prospects
have looked very grim, at a certain point there has always been
an unforeseen intervention that makes the outcome quite
different from what I would have expected.

The third and most important of my life lessons, is quite
simply that I'm not who I think I am.  It's as if there are two
of me.  One identity I call "Philip." [my identity in time.]
  Philip is a man and an artist and does Philip things, like
designing textiles and looking for dinosaurs and Hiroshige
paintings. But behind Philip there is another identity that
quietly observes the ever changing drama of life, all without
comment. It was there when I was five and it's exactly
the same when I'm sixty five.  Compared to Philip,
this other identity is like the still depths of the ocean.  Like
the ocean it is totally still, even when a life storm rages on the
surface.  This other identity is also always unconditionally
happy.  Almost like happiness just shines out of it, and it takes
great delight in everything it encounters: people, nature, art,
animals, etc.  The art of life I've discovered is knowing that
your true identity is this much deeper unchanging sense of self.
It is necessary in life to play the "Philip" role, but at the same
time to have the background awareness that what you really
are is this great ocean of stillness, which in a strange way also
includes everybody and everything.

Sometimes when life is very difficult it is as if the curtain of
time parts and we become aware of the underlying mystery
that has been there all along.  This can also happen with great
beauty, such as when we look up at the night sky at the
vastness of the night sky.  It is as if the boundary between
"self" and "other" dissolves and we see that we are the whole
universe.

So when you are in the middle of the life dance and it seems
overwhelming, remember your real identity that is always
present as your safe place and true home and that is always
beyond trauma and illness.  It is even beyond birth and death.

Philip Jacobs
Sufi

with thanks to No Mind's Land

and photo too...

 

The Sandbox of Life - Joan Ruvinsky

 "Embodied liberation" means fully experiencing life as it
passes through us: Celebrations, catastrophes and all the
boring bits in between.  "This"- the Unspeakable - is
wholly present throughout the ups and downs, joys and
tribulations, work life, love life, whether monk or householder.

Thoughts do not have to cease, likes and dislikes do not
have to disappear, dress code, name and personality do not
have to change.  There is no particular image to which the one
who is "liberated' need conform.  Cultural trappings are not
necessary.  The West has often been impressed by the outward
image or appearance  of the co-called "enlightened being",
but had often judged its homegrown saints by false criteria.
Jeans and sneakers are fine.  Orange robes are fine. A business
suit is fine.  Who is to judge?  Who is to compare?  Even
saints eat ice cream.

The behavior of someone who is "liberated" in this lifetime 
is often unpredictable.  Consciousness, of her own inherent
spontaneity, manifests variously.  Personality characteristics
such as joy, warmth, compassion, and sympathy are not
necessarily foolproof markers of "enlightenment."

This bliss/joy of Consciousness is simply resting in what is.
It may not be obvious to an onlooker, as it is at a vibrational
level far above the ordinary perception through the five senses.
This bliss/joy abides regardless of what we are doing or
thinking...  It is unconditioned and ever-present.

We can play all we want in the sandbox [of life], but we
always know where home is.  Even at play, we are at home.

Joan Ruvinsky
From: The Recognition of Our Own Heart

~

Personal Note:  In my new found sense of  playful "freedom"
I do not feel "liberated" from anything, in the traditional
sense of the word, nor was it a goal that I was trying to 
achieve.  It just happened spontaneously, uncontrived, when
I started tapping into my Child-like Nature, aka our Natural State,
 - internally feeling "liberated" from the inner struggle
 to "figure it all out" - this "spiritual" thing that I've been
 doing for the past 37 years or more...

There is a new sense of "freedom" to just be myself in this new
found playful attitude with life; accepting myself as I am, 
as I express my Natural Nature; tapping into the "magic" or
"mystical" side of life through playfulness - spontaneously
navigating my way through life as it is...

~

The bliss/joy of our Natural State allows us to feel "liberated."

Mitch Rosacker
Self Discovery Studio

~

Life is a playground.....
We must play, retiring at night
empty-handed and tired...

Ari Hanarvar

From: Rumi's Gifts

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Cosmic Light...

 Sadness gives way to spontaneity...
The inner child of the Cosmos
has come to play...

There's a hidden joy inside that shimmers up
- playful,
tickling the heart...

Subtle joy turns into Love for the whole experience of
LIFE
knowing it's all the "Play" of the Cosmos...

The Light of the Cosmos
hidden within myself
begins to glow -
an unlit light.

It is the rhythm of the Cosmos that moves me,
taking my breath away,
making my heart skip;
and the realization that

I am Cosmic Light -
lit from within!

I am the Cosmos!

I am the Joy of the Universe...

It's all the Play of Cosmic Light!

Mystic Meandering
Sept 21, 2020

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

~

71 years around the Sun-star today!

Hard to believe...

More playful, "light-hearted", and unencumbered...
Intuitively listening to where she wants to spend her
heart beats in these waning years....

_/\_

Namaste

A Playful Journey Has Begun...

 A playful journey has begun...

The idea of "enlightenment"
no longer captures her mind.

In her child-like-ness she knows
she is free -
through the innocence and spontaneity of divine play.
Playing in the vast cosmos
liberates her - from the inside -
unburdens her heart...

No "spiritual" image to live up to...
No dogma or doctrine or belief system to follow...

She now spontaneously moves and expresses
the rhythm of her Original Nature in her playfulness;
expressing herself in a language whose origins
she vaguely remembers,

calling to her in playful tunes...

Others may think her eccentric now,
but she is who she always was,
an authentic expression of her Natural Innocence,
at play in the Vast Mystery of the Universe...

Mystic Meandering

Oct. 2, 2020

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Swing Girl and Swing Boy :)

What Calls the Eye to See - Adyashanti

What calls the ear to listen or the eye to see
more than the surface facade that shrouds our essential spirit?
Parting the strata and dross, what is essential picks its way
through the manicured narrative of endless lives.  In each
moment of every day, Truth is not lacking or held in
abeyance for some later date; it is given in full measure,
and abundantly so.  Do not be afraid of what appears to be
chaos or dissolution - embrace the full measure of your life
at any cost.  Bare your heart to the Unknown and never
look back.  What you are stands content, invisible,
and everlasting.  All means have been provided for our
endless folly to split open into eternal delight.

Adyashanti
2012

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Storm Cloud at Sunset

I will not hear my mother's voice again...

I will not hear my mother's voice again - or see the recognition
in her eyes when she was surprised to see me at her bedside;
or see her lift her head up from the pillow, her index finger
pointed into the air, as I was on my way out her bedroom door,
saying "I love you" - as if to remind me for the last time.
And my reply: "I love you too!" - pausing to look back...

I will not "know" my mother anymore - in form - although her
Spirit Essence lives on somewhere now; a comforting feeling,
no matter what one's beliefs are about what happens after death.

That's the thing I learned through my mother's 3 month "death
experience" - only Love remains - not your spiritual beliefs, or
ideologies, or philosophies about life; your pain or childhood
wounds.  Only Love...  All the left-over parent/child issues
dissolved as I watched her lay vulnerable and weak, speaking in
whispers as her body declined; eventually unable to speak, or
eat, or drink...  Only compassion and sorrow arose as her body
struggled to let go of, or hang on to, life - and she became fearful.
It was not an easy death the last few days.  It became more like
hard labor, giving birth to something unseen...

In the weeks before her passing, as she deteriorated, she saw
things in the invisible world: elves outside her window in the
trees, and people from the spirit world she did not know standing
near her bed.  And what she called a "beautiful woman" whom
she said had come to "help her on her journey."  I surely hope so...

There were no "religious" or "spiritual" overtones to any of it.
No talk of "God", which surprised me from what I knew of my
mother; a sometimes very pious Christian.  There was only this
idea of a playful fantasy of going on a "journey" with "spirit
people" to help her.  Maybe life isn't as serious as we think,
maybe life is a playful journey.

Mom, you are safe now.
May you feel the Love on the other side of the veil...
For there is only Love and Grace at the end of the "journey."

I love you again and again - we all do...

~

Mom breathed her last breath this morning
March 21, 2019
at 10:21 am

6 days before her 91st birthday

~

Written March 10, 2019