The Energy of Life - Naomi Stone

There is something wonderful
working in the world
and in the natural flow
of life...
an energy
that moves this existence
moment to moment...

Trying to name it or trying
to control it changes
the inner wisdom
and steals the wonder
of discovery...

Watch a child exploring
his world.
Touching...tasting...squealing
with delight starting
at the beginning

We are seldom taught
to trust it
because someone
wants to pay you to live
their ideas and answers...
or charge you for learning
them by luring you away,
away from the gift
of your own gloriously
divine heritage...

Suddenly...
you are entrapped...
doubting who you are
in a world where
everyone seems
to think they have the answers...

Live the awareness of the flow
and infinite portals
ever opening
around and within you...

Naomi Stone
Original title: "Spiraling Energies of Creation"

~

Art - Craypas oils
done with fingers
2012

Spontaneous Dancing Light...

This was a lovely spontaneous moment of Seeing.  As I walked down the hall I noticed the color that reflected on the wall coming from a cut glass crystal orb sitting in the window in our bedroom from the other end of the hall.  In that instant of seeing I ran for the camera because I knew the specter wouldn’t last long as the sun set quickly.  The dance of light was only but a moment…

Enjoy The Dance!

When through realization we come to understand
the divine energy that causes us to exist,
we cease to impede its natural flow
in and through ourselves…

Existence is really a patterned
flowing movement of the real;
a motion in space;
a flowing of all life…

Realization then is the conscious understanding of the unity
[ fluid seamlessness]
of life
and the unity [seamlessness]
of the living Self…

Manly P. Hall
Metaphysician

1940’s

Passion for Life...

I am re-posting this piece of prose poetry from Friday’s post (with a little different ending) because it really sets the tone for July - Passion!  I am feeling an emergence of passion for Life again - something I haven't felt in a long time.  I'm turning a page, leaving old dramas behind, and returning to a passion for living again.   I know it’s full of “I wants” but it's not about this "little self wanting." There is something welling up deep inside that wants to express, to live, to BE.  So just know that those “wants” come from the deepest yearnings of this Heart and a deep passion for what is True…

I want to walk through life
truly *seeing* - truly Aware…
 *Awake* to the Truth of Eternal Being…

Open to Life –
 not with mental judgments, opinions, and interpretations
 of what is happening,
 or what should be happening,
 or what I wish would happen,
  but with receptivity,
 openness,
 acceptance,
 allowing.

I want to See *everything* as Living Beingness;
 every leaf that drops,
 or snowflake that falls,
every being -
 with the same innocent wonder and amazement as I did as a child
as if seeing Life living for the first time…

  I want to be in Love with Life again –
 if I ever was…
  Maybe Loving Life in new ways –

I want to Hear
the laughter
in my
Heart

I want to Experience
everything
with curiosity
and equanimity

I want to Notice…
every thought,

expression,
and feeling
as it arises
without
trying to confine it,
or suppress it
before it is expressed;
or correct others
in their expression.

Save me from the arrogance of
thinking that I know what others need,
or how to “help” or “fix” them;
allowing others to be who they are,
trusting that Life is taking
them where they need to go,
just as It is me…

Let me be free from the entanglements
of the mind
that keep me compliant,
and complicit,
with the world’s ways…

Life is a paradigm of endless pathways,
and I want to risk not following the rules,
the well-worn paths.
Instead - rising above
the familiarity
of “the path”
to see what’s *really* here…

I want to live
in
the simplicity
of
the
ever-unfolding
luminosity
of

Truth.

And may I have the courage
to speak with fierce grace
to those who would try to
quell this passion,
to strip this enthusiasm,
and suffocate this spontaneity
for
the radiance
and
clarity
of


the


Passion


of 


Life

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
January 1, 2011
revised July 1, 2012

Remembering Who "I" is...

“I” is a silent stream of Liquid Life,
a silent stream of Cosmic Light

~ reverberating unendingly ~

”I” is the golden thread
that weaves ItSelf
into the fabric
of Reality…

~ fluidly ~

~ timelessly ~

through
time,
and
space
beyond
time


“I” is the Cosmic Heart,
beating Its Rhythm of Love
through Its own Vastness…

~ undulating ~

“I” is the wave ~ and ~ the ocean,
the manifest ~ and ~ un-manifest,
thought ~ and ~ pre-thought…
“I” is the ebb ~ and ~ flow
of life being lived

~ freely ~


“I” is

The

N
a
m
e
l
e
s
s

The

U
n
k
n
o
w
n

just Ising…

~

Just listen…

Can you hear It?

The silent sound
pulsing
through
life
like a silent stream
whispering ~

Remember Me…

“I” is “You” ~


~*~

Mystic Meandering
copyright
April 2011


istock photo

Finding Peace in the Practical

I started de-cluttering, cleaning and organizing the house this week. This is going to take a while, with so much clutter accumulated – I’m ashamed to say. It’s a bit daunting when I *think* about what needs to be done here, because of what *hasn’t* been done here. But I am re-reading Byron Katie’s A Thousand Names for Joy before I go to bed each night, which is reminding me again of how my mind is creating my stress about it, because I am once again *believing* my thoughts. I have known this and forgotten this a thousand times. So now I’m aware when those dangerous thoughts arise that tend to send me into overwhelm, when I look at the basement, the garage, the garden, and my work space. I started in my work space Monday, then today for some reason I spontaneously moved to the garden, even though the work space is not finished – just allowing myself to spontaneously move to the next task at hand. And this afternoon went back to the work space again for a couple of hours.

I am finding a strange sense of peace in the mundane. Monday I was working at the mess at the desk when I suddenly awared that even as a myriad of thoughts passed through this mental mechanism, I was at peace and internally still. What a delight it was to realize the sound of internal quiet and peace. I was simultaneously aware of an internal flow and rhythm that I knew had been there all along, but had been crowded out by the mind. The mundane gives my mind something to focus on. Being busy keeps me from clinging to the thoughts and getting totally lost in the “what ifs.” I just keep going with what life requires at the moment, and in doing so I find a sense of peace. I’m being in the moment, wherever the moment takes me. And no matter where that is, it’s always this moment; living moment-to-moment, seamlessly. Sweet peace.

I had this selfish idea that I would get my chance to live a “contemplative life” while hubby was away – a self-centered craving to live monastically, meditating a lot, reading, maybe get back to something creative, doing contemplative photography, spending time in nature – you know, life as a continual retreat – trying to find internal peace. But life isn’t unfolding that way. There are a lot of very practical, mundane things that are required at the moment. And I am surprised to find peace in the practical. I’m enjoying the solitude and beginning to find my stride actually.

I’ve always been the kind of person that wants to get the practical out of the way so I can enjoy life. Eeeeuuu – even that didn’t sound good to me – but that seems to be the pattern. Just get-r-done so that you can do what you want to do – like having to eat your peas and carrots before you can have dessert. (Although I love peas and carrots :) But now I’m discovering that life is not a la carte. There’s no separating life into different courses, no dividing life into time for mundane, time for meditation, but living life as a continuous fluid movement – Liquid Life. Somehow being genuinely busy (not creating busyness just to be busy, or avoid anything) has allowed me to see the fluidity and seamlessness of the day, of the moment, of one moment sliding into another – not just getting through the main course so I can get to the sweet dessert at the end…

I’ve also tried living life the other way – more contemplatively – avoiding the practical as much as possible, retreating into my familiar forms of “spirituality”, which is why there is so much clutter and cleaning to tend to now. So now I’m learning to live life on Life’s terms - the ebb and flow of living - doing what’s required – contemplatively – in silence and solitude – allowing my mind to go where it wants to go, while awareing the delight of the deep Silence within, whether meditating or not. Finding that I don’t need to meditate to “find” IT – as IT is ever-present, I just need to turn within and experience it – feel it, sense it, aware it.

This morning I awoke “knowing” that it’s all OM (why that particular word I have no idea). OM is everything and everywhere. Life is OM – the Divine Energy. Everything is IT and IT is everything. IT just is.

This is going to be an interesting experience…

“I am the experience of the eternal…
When you don’t believe your thoughts…
there’s no separation.
You’re everything.
Only the unquestioned mind
would believe that you’re an I
living inside a body.
…there’s no I to identify as…
take it all in as Being…
…the universe is wherever you are,
and it’s everywhere…”

Byron Katie
A Thousand Names For Joy


~*~

0-60

I don’t understand how this happens really, how I can go from O-6O so quickly. I had 3 wonderful days of Liquid Life, “Nirvana”, profound Peace, Bliss – Zero point – suspended in the Womb of the Heart last week. The tangible, expansive, felt sense of “The Beloved” was so deep and undeniable that I thought, wow, *this* is what all the spiritual teachers are talking about – the deep, incredible profound space of Absolute Awareness and the Peace that passes understanding. And now I’m steeping in anxiety again… Go figure.

I could feel it begin to rev up again uncontrollably a couple of days ago – life stuff you know – the usual stories – the mind latching onto them. And before I knew it my mind was like a race car speeding around that same old track – fixating on form once again – and everything blurred. Darn. I thought once one had slipped into that nirvanic womb all the old patterns just magically washed away. That happens to some I hear, everything just drops away – depression, fear, anxiety – whatever has ailed them dissolves into the liquid womb, and “they” are forever changed. That does not seem to be the case here – at least not permanently - which always leaves me feeling lacking, adding to the pain of separation – that strange mind malady; the pool of separateness that the mind likes to bathe in – the mud bath, which makes that speedway thought track a little messy…

So it’s back to “the chair” for extended R&R at the pool of Awareness again. Actually I’ve been sneaking away to “the chair” more lately – resting, deeply relaxing, turning my awareness to “The Beloved” as much as possible, basking in the deep Womb of the Heart – until Ms. Anxiety arrived. So now I will invite Ms. Anxiety to join me – she’s here anyway – idling her engines, raring to go. So I’ll take a look under the hood and see what her issues are this time. It’s always somethin’…

In the mean time I have my little reminders posted on the kitchen cabinet door for the forgetting times like these; reminders that underneath the blur of anxiety is still a peaceful depth of pure Silence that flows...

~*~

Top Photo - Blown glass ball radially blurred

The Womb of the Beloved

Every sound is Your vibration…
Every heart is Yours beating…
Every experience is Your experience,

felt in the Womb of Your Heart…

Every heartache is Your heartache…
Every pain is Your pain,

felt intimately in the Womb of Your Heart…

Every gesture of kindness and compassion
is Yours as well…

Every awareness is Your Awareing
from the Womb of Your Heart…

The Womb of Your Heart
is the liquid pool of Life
from which you
morph YourSelf
into form…

Liquid
Life



Mystic Meandering
copyright
Feb. 17, 2011


~*~

Photo – a clear glass sphere
sitting in a bed of glass pebbles


~*~

“The Beloved” that I speak of is not an “It”,
not an object, a persona, or
some-thing to be objectified,
achieved, grasped or owned.
It could also be called:
The Unknown, The Mystery, Emptiness,
Isness, Beingness, Formlessness,
True Nature, True Mind, Deep Mind,
Awareness,
The Heart,
Life ItSelf,
That which lives this body,
the Nameless “I”


~*~

Fixated on Form

This week I have been fixated on the body, which has been in pain. Last week it was emotional pain. As I discovered there’s no difference really. Both are very visceral experiences actually.

I tweaked my back on Sunday and by Wednesday I was unable to find a comfortable position. Laying on my left side for 24 hours seemed to bring the most temporary relief. I felt like a wounded animal in survival mode, needing to find a safe place to heal. In the pain it was noticed that both emotionally and physically I felt a sense of “disconnect” from my “core” – by that I mean that I felt unable to be in the “core” of Self. I became fixated on the pain – both emotionally and physically. Although I was conscious that I didn’t want to wallow in the experience of pain, admittedly I got sucked in by the vortex of pain and there was “suffering.” No real drama, no spiraling out of control, just an experience of pain and suffering – in form.

Yesterday I found respite sitting in my “meditation chair” in “the Cave” (my meditation space). It is a small, old swivel-rocker chair that I can tilt back with the help of a foot stool, which allows my back to be fully supported so that the muscles can relax. Ahhhh – sweet relief. This became my healing space yesterday and today – my “womb cave” while I was held captive by my predicament of pain.

As I deeply relaxed, an “opening” occurred in body, mind and spirit, and it became apparent that in both cases – with emotional pain and physical pain – there was a fixation on form; especially with physical pain. The emotional pain was able to slip through this realization last week. But they are both the same really. When there is pain of any kind it is difficult to be aware of anything else. The mind fixates, awareness fixates on the pain, the discomfort, and needs to find relief, which is obviously part of the body-mind mechanism. But I was surprised at how quickly I lost awareness of the context of Spaciousness and became narrowly fixated on form; how easily I began to feel separate from the Space of Awareness (the “core”). And in *feeling* separate I fixated more on the pain, the body, the feeling, etc., which kept me solidified in a separate sense of self – hurt and wounded.

As I sat there, my back fully supported by the chair, hot pack at my back, I found myself experiencing a sense of fluidity, a sense of the “liquidity” of Life: every sound I heard was liquid, every thought and feeling were liquid-like vibrations – ripples of liquid; even the pain and the body had become quivery liquid gel. And no, I was not taking pain medication. :) In a sense, once the *fixation* with pain, with form, had subsided, I could remember that this life, this experience of pain is just an occurrence *within* the Liquid Pool of Existence; that Liquid Life morphs itself into these forms we call body-minds with its pains and frustrations, physically, mentally and emotionally. This sense of me is really Liquid Life from which I cannot separate. This “me” arises as a liquid story that occurs in the Liquid Womb of The Beloved. We arise, have form, and melt back into Liquid Life again and again… Our thoughts and feelings and pain are liquid as well – gelatinous “mutations” if you will, suspended in a Womb of Living Liquid… Yet we take ownership of the thoughts, the feelings, the lives that we live and fixate on them as if they exist independently of the Liquid Life from which they arise – but from which they can never be “disconnected…”

And in this liquid story the pain becomes a messenger. Like the little brown duck in the photo above, pain comes and disturbs our idea of what form is supposed to look like and how we are supposed to experience it, reminding us not to fall back to sleep in form. In her own way, pain wakes us up from our fixations on form and calls us back to the fluid liquidness of Life…

In deep gratitude to the “pain ducks"…

~*~