This Moment in Time - Jorie Graham

What I tell my students, when they feel singularly unfortunate to
be born in this moment, is this is your moment, the moment your
soul showed up incarnate.  In this world.  It is an astonishing moment
to be alive.  You could have been born into a lull - instead you were
born into a tipping point. It's your one life and you've entered it at
a flexion point - a point when everything you do matters.  How
often in history does a soul get to live in such an era?  Don't waste it.
Show up for it.  With everything you've got.  Some will invent,
some will organize, some will witness, some will grieve, some
will console.  Live this life now.  Even if in fury and grief, live it.

You don't want to die not having lived.  It's incredibly easy to find
a way around experience rather than through it.  But you will have
cheated yourself out of ..... your life.  You are
here now.  Now is the time to live fully, not hide, not escape.

Jorie Graham

With thanks to Whiskey River

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

A Philosophy of Suffering - Etty Hillesum

Most of us in the West don't understand the art of suffering
and experience a thousand fears instead.  Man suffers most
through the idea of suffering, through his fear of suffering.
We cease to be alive, being full of fear, bitterness, hatred and
despair.  Don't we live an entire life each one of our days,
and does it really matter if we live  few days more or less?
There is room for everything in a single life.

When I say I have come to terms with life, I don't mean I
have lost hope.  It is a question of living life from minute to
minute and taking suffering into the bargain.  But does it
matter if it is the Inquisition that causes people to suffer in
one century, and war and pogroms in another?

Suffering has always been with us, does it really matter in
what form it comes?  All that matters is how we bear it
and how we fit it into our lives.

I can sit for hours and know everything and bear everything
and grow stronger in the bearing of it.  And at the same time
feel sure that life is [still] beautiful and meaningful.  Despite
everything.  But that does not mean that I am always filled with
joy and exaltation [about life and its circumstances].  I am
often dog-tired after standing in queues, but I know that this too
is part of life, and I know something inside me will never
desert me...

We carry everything within us.  God and Heaven and Hell and
Earth and Life and Death and all of history.  The externals are
simply so many props; everything we need is within us.  And
we have to take everything that comes; the bad with the good,
which does not mean we cannot devote our life to curing the
bad. [or helping those who suffer].  But we must know what
motives inspire our struggle [against] and we must begin
with ourselves.

Living and dying, sorrow and joy, the blisters on my feet and
the jasmine behind the house, the persecution, the unspeakable
horrors - it is all as one to me, and I accept it all as one mighty
whole and begin to grasp it better, if only for myself, without
being able to explain to anyone else how it all hangs together.

If you destroy the ideas behind [suffering] which life lies
imprisoned within, you liberate your true life - and then you
will have strength to bear real suffering... [the reality of suffering].

Etty Hillesum
Jewish Mystic of the Holocaust

from: An Interrupted Life
She died in Auschwitz at age 28 or 29

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

 

"Choice"/No-Choice - a meandering...

"... it is not necessary to accept the choices handed
down to you by life as you know it.  There is more
to it than that - no one HAS to do something he
doesn't want to do for the rest of his life."

Hunter S. Thompson

The Proud Highway

from Whiskey River

~

A Meandering...

While I would like to agree with the above quote,
from my own personal experience, there are times
when you are placed in a position of "no choice" in an
"untenable" (impossible) situation; some call it the
"choiceless choice."

That happened to us a year ago - because we couldn't just
turn our backs on a family member and send her out to
be homeless on the streets (as some suggested we do),
where she obviously wouldn't survive;  nor drop her off
at Rehab, where she refused to go.  We were told we
couldn't put her in a Nursing Home/Care Facility against
her will, as she was still capable of making her own
decisions - and made it clear she wouldn't go!
You can't force someone to go where they don't want to
go, as much as we would have liked to.  We felt we had
no other choice but to take her in, while looking for
alternative places for her to stay, that never worked out.

We were always told we were in an "untenable situation" -
because there was no other choice, no other workable option...

It is what it is - I know...  What's so is what's so - yes...

Accept and Navigate... okay

So we navigate the rough waters daily, struggling to keep
from drowning in an ongoing impossible situation..

~ 

Beware of simplistic answers to sometimes complex
situations that Life hands you...

MM

Blessings to all who are dealing with "untenable"
life situations and challenges...

_/\_

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Foliage Mosaic

 

I learn by going where I have to go - Roethke

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling.  What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady.  I should know.
What falls away is always.  And is near.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I learn by going where I have to go.

Theodore Roethke

Original title - "The Waking"

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Notes to myself...

.....everything you've ever known is nothing but an
infinitely small blip in the middle of a yawning
expanse of infinity...

You are a loosely associated cloud of cells swirling around
for a short time in inseparable interplay with the ecosystem
which birthed it on a tiny planet in the outer periphery of a
galaxy...  You're a little eddie twirling in the  middle of the
ocean for a single instant...

Each big bang in every universe unleashes a new dance of
swirling energy which turns into increasingly complex
iterations of matter as it expands...into peaks of dazzling
beauty, then it grows old and collapses in on itself again.
Infinite universes birth into existence, they bloom and die
with me like flowers in the illusory appearance of time.

Love doesn't seek to dominate or control.  Real love loves
everything just as it is, however it shows up.  They are all
parts of the swirling ongoing explosions of this universe.
They're all little curlicues in the movement of energy.
No part of the cosmic dance is rejected.
Every part is embraced.

Caitlin Johnstone

~

...you have been afraid to break down, I know.  You have
been carrying so much.  But do not fear the terrible ache of
existence.  You will be breathed through the abyss and carried
lovingly by nameless forces through the voided voids and out
again into the awe and shock and vastness of living.

Breathe,my love, breathe.  Do not fear the oblivion, it is the
only place where you will find your true freedom...

Jeff Foster

~

Photo from the Internet 

 

Broken...

I'm going to hang a shingle out -

"Not Available Today
Taking Care of Myself.
And don't ask me about tomorrow..."

We'll see how far I get with that.

I'm finally being honest with myself,
and everybody else - well almost...

Is this unloving, uncompassionate;
to save one's sanity;
to not put others first;
to not be self-sacrificing...

I finally "let go" of having to be available,
trying to be available
I finally just stopped...

No more clenched teeth,
no tight jaw -
well almost
Tension drains from the body...
I stare into nothing

But it didn't last...
The "hungry ghosts" kept gnawing at me
with their crises...

~

Numbing sleep is wearing off...
And the ache in the stomach is
coming back, or maybe it's hunger -
or maybe I just can't stomach life the way it is anymore...

I cannot engage in life "as it is" anymore.
"Acceptance" of it is only cursory, momentary.
There are no "magic keys."

A change is needed...

Life as it is, as I'm living it, is a spirit killer
and I can't apply more "spiritual band aids"
- I bleed right through them.

~

So here I am in bed - waiting
for a different life to rise up within me;
one that nurtures and sustains me...

I'm  not able to attend to life,
I need Life to attend to me...
Is this self-centered, narcissistic,
indulging in my dark side?

Or Life-centered...
I don't know...

I only know I'm broken...
Coming face to face with my brokenness...

Although the "spiritual pundits" will
tell me "I" can't be broken;
that somewhere within there is an
"unbrokenness" that can't be broken;
once found, never lost.

But the broken pieces are still there...

So I'm embracing my brokenness
and letting it be real,
letting it be seen - no longer hidden
behind "spiritual words."

"Not Available"
"Broken"

Mystic Meandering

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Acceptance - Werner Erhard

The thought that there is something wrong is an illusion;
there is nothing wrong, there is only what's so.  Notice when
you're comparing what's so to some fantasy about how it
should be.  Bring yourself back to what's so and it will be O.K.
Ask yourself what's so, and align with that.  Align with what's so
and it will not matter.  That is the foundation of transformation...
Not aligning with what's so is the only thing that will ever 
bring you hardship or suffering.  Life in what's so will bring you
harmony and grace and balance...

Werner Erhard

~

"acceptance is the compass"
Mitch Rosacker

~

Acceptance for what is, is not resignation.  It does not
mean one doesn't do anything about their life situation.
It's the acceptance of the way life is - and you use 
acceptance to navigate through life - to see
what actions need to be taken, or not taken, at any
given moment.

Acceptance is the key

MM

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering 

Sometimes your life is just full of weeds :)

 

 

Keep Turning the Page...

Life is always as it is:
the tragedy, the heartbreak,
illness and death...
Joy and sorrow,
the politics, and the 
games that they play - oye...

I am like an old house now,
not yet abandoned
by its inhabitant,
but creaking and
falling apart...

Yet, I'm not ready to
pack up my life and
move out...
But I grieve the loss
of health and energy,
motivation and strength,
dexterity and nimbleness,
mental acuity, and emotional
bandwidth - and -
a sense of "Aliveness."
Fatigued by constant
distractions on the superficial surface
of life, creating chaos and agitation
that weigh heavy on my heart...

And so I pause
at the Inner Gate,
entrusting myself to,
and communing with the
deep Inner Silence of Being,
breathing me,
until my time here is up,
while life keeps turning its
pages, going from one chapter
to the next...

I bow to Grace...

Mystic Meandering

Aug 18, 2022

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

From Grit to Pearl - a meandering

Sitting in the Silence, the image of a pearl arose and I
remembered that a pearl is formed through irritation.
A piece of sand or grit gets in the oyster and the oyster
starts making a pearl around the irritant with layers and
layers of pearl-essence, turning and turning the grit until
it's covered with a beautiful, shiny sheen.

And of course, loving metaphor as I do, I saw the
association with the grit of life, the irritations of life, the
aggravating, challenging circumstances of life that create
multiple layers of irritation - and - the creation of a pearl.
The oyster seemingly takes this grit, without complaining,
and makes something beautiful of it...  Or is it that something
beautiful emerges from the grit of life, if we work with it,
sit with it, roll it around, not spewing it out, but allowing
it to be what it is, seeing it for what it is - the potential for
beauty...  The beauty of the pearl is a result of these layers
of irritations and aggravations of life in a seeming process of
metamorphosis...

What is revealed through the irritations is this living essence
of the pearl that in some ways created itself because of the
irritations, through the rubbing and chaffing of the grit of life...
As in - the irritation, the challenges of living are still the 
Essence, revealing Its beauty.  The irritations and challenges
of living are the living Presence emerging, or unfolding Itself,
in and through what our minds and bodies find irritating and
uncomfortable - if we give it a chance, if we stay with it,
engaging in the experiences rather than running from them.
If we learn to see the way the oyster sees :)  Ah - grit,
let's see what I can do with that...  

And what is seen is that the beauty and wisdom of the
irritations emerge over "time" it seems - or what appears
to be time - waiting to be discovered within the shell of what I
know to be "my life."  It is realized that the pearl is the culmination
of many layers of realized wisdom that are formed along the way,
from the nitty-gritty of living life as it is.

Even if we've had spontaneous awakenings to the Truth or our
Essence, it seems life continues to give us experiences that
expand the expression of that ever-unfolding Essence, of
Consciousness ItSelf, through the irritations and challenges
we face on a daily basis.  It's an ongoing emergence, realizing
that the totality of the experiences of life expands our awareness
 until it is ultimately realized that we are the Wholeness of Being
that we've been seeking - as we are - gritty as that may be...

It's a shift in perspective from grit to Pearl...

Mystic Meandering

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Place of Rest - Frank Ostaseski

We often think of rest as something that will come to us
when everything else in our lives is complete: at the end of
the day, when we go on holiday, or get through our to-do
lists.  We imagine that we can only find rest by changing our
circumstances.  [But] we can find a place of rest within us,
without having to alter the conditions of our lives.

This place of rest is always available to us.  We need only 
turn toward it.  It is experienced when we bring full attention,
without distraction, to this moment, to this activity.  After
some time of doing this, we can come to know this
spaciousness as a regular part of our lives.  It manifests
as an aspect of us that is never sick, is not born, and does
not die...

When we are caught in a time driven mentality or tumbling
unconsciously from one moment to the next, we become a
prisoner of our thoughts.  We get trapped in a jail of our own
construction. We want to spin plates, juggle balls, and live
two dreams at once.  We end up being addicted to busy.  We
confuse rest with non-productivity, and laziness.  We race 
from one activity to the next.  Yet we do it all in a continuous
 state of partial attention, imagining we are accomplishing
more, when in reality we are living less.

Rest is found when we are present instead of letting our
minds wander through the hallways of fear, worry and
anxiousness.  Rest comes when we become more by doing
less, when we don't allow the urgent crowd out the important.
It is the result of a decluttering of the mind and decoupling
from fixed views.

If we drop beneath the surface of our minds, we encounter
a vast, serene calmness.  We don't need to be swept away
by the surface currents.  We can find a natural place of rest...

Surface mind reacts.  When you travel into the calm depths,
the place of rest, you can act from a place of wisdom and
compassion, allowing whatever needs to happen, happen...
We surrender our strategies and resistance and open to
what is unfolding...

We come to rest in the depth of our Essential Nature.

Frank Ostaseski
From: The Five Invitations

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

A Delicate Dance - Gina Puorro

 I am feeling stretched, fingertips reaching wide towards the
sharp contrasts of joy and deep grief.  I feel weathered, open,
tired, curious, grateful, regretful, raw.  My body is going from
being an open channel for highly activated sensations to shut
down and hardened, sometimes within seconds of each other.
There have recently been blissful and ecstatic moments, and
moments that tear me apart.  Deep connections and penetrating
aloneness.  I've got a whole bunch of unanswered emails and
texts.  I feel a heightened awareness of the parts of me that feel
deeply wounded..., and all the stories that come along with them.
I'm trying to stay present to what is.  I feel like I am in a state of
unraveling, a grand coming undone that feels both wildly un-
comfortable and buoyant all at once, and I have been fighting
the urge to dig my heels in with defiance and resistance.

It feels as though we are deeply immersed in a season of death,
on the personal and collective levels.  So much dying - systems,
beliefs, ways of being, bodies, all being laid to rest in the cosmic
compost pile.  The phrase 'quality of life' has been coming up
a lot, and I wonder what that truly means - for the living and
the dying...  How does a society that is both grief-illiterate and
death phobic learn to die a good death?  Humans are such
curious creatures, and I fear we too often place ourselves at the
center, forgetting the much wider web we exist in.

I have been finding myself struggling to be open to views
starkly different than my own (sometimes I'm downright
judgmental and angry), which feels at odds with my idea of
who I am and my capacity to be compassionate and
understanding.   I feel like a fraud, like my membership card
 to the 'woke folk' club should be revoked.  I want answers,
 as we all do, and at times my mind spirals into a state of
desperate grasping for them when my body knows they don't
exist, at least not in some static and  definitive way.

I don't know what will happen and where we are all headed...
It feels like a delicate dance...

I feel far from my best right now. 

I pray for the softness required to take each step forward

with grace and humility, and for the bravery to 
dance this life...

Gina Puorro

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

We awoke to snow this morning and saw this leaf caught
in the snow on the front steps - blowing in the wind...

Life is a Stream of Events...

While lying in bed late one night recently, talking to my
husband about "life events", groping for perspective,
recognizing how I continue to live from habituated
patterns, reacting to life events, swimming up stream,
trying to keep my head above water, feeling drowned
by the stream of life - he made this statement:

"Life is a stream of events.  Events will always happen.
Events come and go."  The context of his statement was
to say - if we see that life is always a stream of events,
then we won't feel so overwhelmed by them, they won't
trip us up as much because we can adapt and adjust and
manage them.  Sounds a little like the Tao to me - to see
that no matter what happens Life is a Flow, and we are in
that Flow as well.  It was helpful to begin to see a way to
re-orient my way of going down stream...

In essence, he told me, what this is about is meeting life
as it comes by plugging in to the Cosmic Flow of the
Universe - meeting the "events" of life through seeing
the Cosmic Flow of all things, and through all things;
flowing with life as it happens, not getting focused on
the obstacles/events, or seeing the events as obstacles.
  He said by seeing that everything is the Cosmic Flow,
we can be assured that it is flowing the way it is supposed
 to - no matter what happens... When you don't fight it, you
 can begin to experience the harmony of Flow.

B knows nothing of Taoism, but he intuitively "tapped in"
to "the Tao" - The Flow...

Empty yourself of everything.
Let the mind rest at peace.
The ten thousand things rise and fall
while the Self watches their return.
They grow and flourish
and then return to the Source.
Returning to the Source is stillness,
which is the way of nature.

If you are willing to be lived by it,
you will see [the Tao] everywhere,
even in the most ordinary things.

Lao Tzu

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

The Challenge of Illness - John O'Donohue

We never value or even see some things in our lives until we
are just about to lose them.  This is particularly true of health.
When we are in good health, we are so busy in the world
that we never even notice how well we are.  Illness comes
and challenges everything about us.  It unmasks all pretense.
When you are really ill, you cannot mask it.

Illness also tests the inner fiber and luminosity of the soul.
It is very difficult to take illness well.  Yet it seems that if
we treat illness as something external that has singled us
out, and we battle and resist it, the illness will refuse to leave.
On the other hand, we must not identify ourselves with our
illness. .....very ill people are often more alive to life's
possibilities than the medical verdict would ever allow or
imagine.

When we learn to see our illness as a companion or friend,
it really does change the way the illness is present.  The
illness changes from a horrible intruder to a companion
who has something to teach us.

...Sometimes, when you see a thing as the enemy, you
only reinforce its presence and power over you...

Held openly, as a friend, this bit of unknown aliveness
may take you on an amazing journey to places you may
never have anticipated.  Such attention enriches and
deepens genuineness and presence.

Illness also focuses us onto our "inner landscape", into
resting deeply in the inner silence of the "Soul."  It is a
remedial silence that allows us to endure, to move through,
but not necessarily getting rid of the illness.  We can't have
an agenda - only deep acceptance of the companion - and
learn to navigate it.

John O'Donohue
From Eternal Echoes

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Patience - Walker and Lamb

Have patience:
What life so rudely strips away
May soon reveal a deeper current
of life and love that lies
beneath.

Diane Walker

~

Patience isn't the denial of anything,
but the willingness to be
with everything.

Jasmine Lamb
All Is Listening

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

What's So - Werner Erhard

What's so is always just what's so.  What's so doesn't care what
you think, feel, intend or wish; it will not bend.  You can be
freaked out or driven over what's so, and it won't change what's
so.  If you're late for an appointment, getting freaked out about
it won't have you arrive any earlier.  If you're having a bad day,
being freaked out won't change what's so.  That which you seek
will not bring you satisfaction - aligning with what's so will.
When you're upset, you're never upset over what's so.
What's so is just what's so.

If your house burns down and you get upset, does it bring your
house back?  What's so doesn't care if you're upset; it's up to
you how you handle what's so.  There is no confusion in
what's so.  When you don't know you just don't know - there is
no confusion there.  There's nothing right or wrong about
what's so.  What's so is always open to different interpretations.
There's always just what's so, and then you have an interpretation.
What scares you isn't what's so, it's your interpretation.  The
interpretation is never true; what's so is real, the interpretation
is not.

Who you're being is just who you're being, and what's so doesn't
care if you're happy with it or not, so why should you?  When
you're not being with what's so, that's also just what's so.  Why
should you concern yourself?  Other people should always be
the way they're being; if you think they shouldn't, that's your
interpretation.  Bring yourself back to what's so about them. Until
you can be with what's so, you can't be with anything or anyone.
You may have control over other people's what's so, but none
over their interpretation - give it up.

If you take action or not, it's still just what's so.  If it works out
well or not, it's still just what's so.  You can never make a right
or wrong decision, or take a right or wrong action.  Whatever
you do will always bring you more of what's so, and then you
have an interpretation about it.  Whatever you don't have, so
what?  Whatever you've done or thought in the past, again so
what?  Whatever happens in the future is not to be feared.  It's
just going to be more of what's so.  The challenge is to spend as
much time in what's so as you can.  The chatter in your head
is more interpretation, and it has nothing to do with what's so.
There is nothing wrong with chatter, it's just you listening to
a fantasy.

The thought that there is something wrong is an illusion; there
is nothing wrong, there is only what's so.  Notice when you're
comparing what's so to some fantasy of how it should be.  Bring
yourself back to what's so and it will be O.K.  Ask yourself
what's so, and align with that.  Align with what's so and it will
not matter.  That is the foundation of transformation and
satisfaction.  Not aligning with what's so is the only thing that
will ever bring you hardship or suffering.  Life in what's so will
bring you harmony and grace and balance [to face what's so :)].

Ask yourself - what's so about your situation?

Werner Erhard

via No Mind's Land

~

The opportunity to trust is never a given.
It isn't that life is testing us so much as offering us
the next chance to gain insight into what makes for
stability.

Donna Iona Drozda

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Arguing With Life - Jeff Foster

What is the point of arguing with life as it is?

The ego replies, "Yeah, but if I stop resisting the way things are,
change will never happen, things will stay the same, 

or get worse..."

You see, the ego does not  understand the ancient mysteries of
change and healing. It truly believes - in relationships, in career,
in life decisions, in global matters - that peace can only come
through war, that real change can only happen through hating
where we are and desperately wanting to be somewhere else.

Here is the paradox of change.  When we tire of the internal
violence, when we are no longer at war with the way things are,
when we no longer argue with the present scene in the movie
of our lives, we come to rest.  And then, from a place of rest,
new vistas open up, hitherto unexplored possibilities reveal
themselves.  New connections are made, new solutions emerge.
From a place of equanimity and acceptance, things that
seemed certain are now not so certain, blocks are no longer
blocks, old futures begin to collapse and new futures become
possible.  Energies that seemed intolerable a moment ago are
now allowed in, allowed to move, to express and release their
creativity and healing power.  Because our eyes are open, new
details are apparent in the present scene, details that we had
become blind to, in our rush to "a better future."

From a place of peace, we can more easily take the next step.
And sometimes the nest step means taking no step at all,
but falling deeply in love with where we are.  This is NOT

the same as giving up.  This is not passivity or toleration of the
'negative.'  This is not the same as abandoning all hope of a
better future.  There is no abandonment here.  This is not
stagnation.  This is not weakness.  This is true courage.  The
willingness to slow down, be present, drink in all the richness -
the joy and the sorrow, the doubt and the creativity - of the
present scene.

The movie has not been written yet; it writes itself as we go
along.  And in resisting the present scene, you are actually
resisting the entire movie.  Resistance can only breed
resistance.

Sometimes the point of arguing with life, is to get you to
a point where you are tired of arguing with life.  And then
you sink deeply into the present moment, resting in its
embrace, trusting the way of things, accepting your own
imperfections.  And then everything seems possible, and
everything feels alive as you feel alive, and fearless, and
real change can come.

Perhaps slowly, perhaps in a great tidal wave.  But you no
longer push for it.  You are letting it happen. You are
aligned at last, no longer part of the problem, but already
an expression of the solution.

Sometimes you need to stop trying to change the moment,
for the moment to change...  all by itself.

Everything you think is wrong with you, is actually right.
Spiritual enlightenment is already here, shining through
the simplicity of this moment, exactly as it is.

The divine perfection you've been seeking is actually contained
in the midst of your tender vulnerability and imperfections.
There is precious alchemical medicine hidden inside your pain,
and your deepest longings, aches, doubts, grief and heartache
are portals to joy and healing.

Jeff Foster

Breathe in Life - Jeff Foster & Mark Nepo

from tinybuddha.com

...in truth, nothing is lacking where you are,
nothing is missing from the present scene
of the movie of your life,
and you are forever full, and complete...

The day is just waiting to be lived.
So breathe in life, friend,
breathe in life...

Jeff Foster

~

We waste so much energy trying to cover up who we are
when beneath every attitude is the want to be loved,
and beneath every anger is a wound to be healed
and beneath every sadness is the fear that there
will not be enough time...

When we hesitate in being direct (authentic), we unknowingly
slip something on, some added layer of protection
that keeps us from feeling the world/life...

Our challenge every day is not to get dressed to
face the world, but to unglove ourselves so that
the doorknob feels cold, and the car handle
feels wet, and the kiss goodbye feels
the lips of another being...

Mark Nepo

From: The Book of Awakening

"Sabbatical Life" - A Reflection

Over the last few years I've reflected on the idea
that the life of a "mystic" was supposed to be about
"sabbatical" - you know, living a monk's life :) -
spending days in Silence, meditating, continuously
aware of the Pure Being that we are.  And yet,
in reality, I am continually pulled outward into the
requirements of daily living with its ups and downs,
preoccupations and distractions.  Of course!  Aren't we all! 
That's just how life is...

Sometimes I think I may be delusional to think that it is
possible to live according to the Inner Rhythm, focusing

on the Inner Life...

I also sometimes wonder if I'm being selfish, self-centered,
narcissistic to want to focus on the Inner Life...  Is this just
hidden ego? - rhetorical question. :)  I don't see this as an
escape from life, but a call to a way of being - and yet it
eludes me.  

When I ride the waves of this Inner Rhythm in meditative
Silence, I can feel the chaotic surface waves dissipate.  But
at times I also find myself making the distinction between
life as it is and the *idea* of the "sabbatical life" - creating
 a separation where there is none.  When in fact it is more
one's orientation towards life and living that matters - one's
relationship with life as it is - and - with "The Ineffable
Mystery" within...  I'm still working on that...

I know that ultimately it's not either/or, but both/and:
living in harmony with life as it is - surrendering to where
LIFE wants to flow - to the wholeness of Being;
living fully from a deep, abiding *awareness* of Pure
Beingness within - and - the awareness that it's really
all "The Mystery" living ITself here anyway...

I may have romanticized the "sabbatical life", but it still
calls to me, feels like a very deep and vital need - this
resting in the awareness of Pure Beingness - like breathing.
And at this point, for me, it requires Silence and Solitude,
which is why I post about it here :)  

The "key" seems to be - to be willing to face into the realities
of living, the requirements of daily living - while at the same
time being deeply aware of the deeper Rhythm within; not having
any preconceived ideas about what "sabbatical life" should look like,
 but being open to The Rhythm of the Inner Life - while learning to
ride the waves of daily life as they come.
.  They are not in opposition to each other, but flow together.

~

Mystics are people who quest for wisdom or for God,
[or the Truth of Existence, etc.], not in the world of
externals but in the microcosm of their own soul.  There
they follow themselves to be fully present to the experiences
of a deep-felt joy or sorrow, of beauty or suffering, of gain
or loss, so that these opposing poles might in time reconcile
and grow and ripen into a harmonious whole - which wells
up as peace that defies all rational explanation...

Anne Marie Kidder, Editor
 Etty Hillesum: Essential Writings

Guru Cat speaks again

Listen to me...

Just lay it all down - Guru Cat said.
Just let life beeee, for heaven's sake -
What is,
as it is...
There is no other way through
but acceptance - ya know,
sounding exasperated...

Do not pursue the esoteric "answers"
for what cannot be explained:
for your existential angst;
for the frustrations with the way life is;
for the weariness of existence that you feel...
Be at peace with it all,
as it is...

Could this really be the "answer"!? -

I asked... in my head...
Just acceptance of what is?!
Just letting each experience be what it is...?

Guru Cat's eyes just stared.
Life is an interfluidity of experiences.
In the acceptance of each experience
is peace, a deep relaxation, a release
of all tension.
and, an inner movement of fluidity
with the deeper Rhythm of Life...

It's not as complicated as your mind
makes it...

It's not rocket science...
It's just Life living ItSelf...

She gave me that look.

Just rest - Guru Cat went on, trying to soften her tone,
with less sarcasm, more feeling...
Rest in the deep Silence of Being,
not seeking solutions,
or efforting after resolutions,
but deeply relax
into the Unknown,
and the unknowable,
only Aware of the Silence
within you,
the silent Presence of Awareness.
Do you see this yet?
Can you feel it?

Guru Cat continued to stare with steely eyes...

Remain relaxed in
the simplicity of Being
that just IS -
the ISness of Being

as it is-
Only Aware...
Not concerned with anything
that arises
within
or
without

Just Aware...

Yes, Guru Cat - I said

Guru Cat just stared...

and there was only the silence
of being  - Aware.

Mystic Meandering
Sept. 23, 2018

"No More!"...

I heard the voice of a young child as I was waking from sleep one morning back in 2015.  It yelled - "No More!"  The voice came from inside.  How strange, I thought.  I wondered if this was some kind of  "message" for me, or, if it was me screaming from the inside - "No More!" - enduring a particularly stressful time in my experience of life at that moment.  Or, was it my inner psyche calling out to a world gone mad; witnessing a species apparently turning against itself, apparently trying to destroy itself in so many different ways - or so it seems at times.  And the rest of us - onlookers - enduring the dance of darkness that plays itself out here - forced to face the darkness within and without.  I pondered this all day, turning my awareness inward to the fear inside - repeating the phrase internally - "No More!"  At the end of the day's reflection was the sense that sometimes all we can do is endure the way life is - day to day.  And I wondered why - why that is true, why is it that we must "endure" such pain, such heartache, such suffering, both within and without...  But there was no answer...

Maybe the voice was from a dream I didn't realize I was having, as if looking through a blurred window.  And maybe that really is what life is - a dream we don't know we're having - that we must endure for as long as the dream lasts, until we are awakened from the dream by a voice saying "No More!"...?   I don't know...  I cannot presume to know anything anymore - either spiritually or temporally...  It's all a mystery - looking through a glass dimly...   

~~~

Mystic that I am, and usually focused on the inner "spiritual" world, looking for a "spiritual answer", I am frankly encouraged, and impressed, to see articulate, intelligent young people across this country, but especially those from Parkland, Florida, speaking up, rising up like waves out of the Ocean of Being ItSelf, to say "Enough!"  Taking passionate action that may possibly end a cycle of violence and suffering in this country.  This too is the Tao - the movement of Life.  This too is Infinite Beingness moving like a wave in the hearts of fearless young people to give voice to their passion and pain.  Everything is allowed - both passion and pain - and - the waves of passionate action.  We just never know HOW "The Infinite" is going to express ItSelf in each of us...  We do not have to squelch what arises in us, limiting our expression, hiding behind words of conceptual dogma, or lofty "spirituality."  Like the storms at sea, the Ocean is still, but the waves crash and churn in response to the chaos of the storm overhead...  It's all allowed...  The calm and the chaos, the beauty and the destruction, the light and the dark, all serving the unknown purposes of a greater Mystery... Or so I'd like to believe...

~

Oh, and one more thing... Pardon me as I seem to be tapping into my little "activist" here in my passionate self-expression. :)  It occurred to me that when the heart opens the mind, one can no longer detach oneself with abstract, conceptual ideas and forms of "spirituality" that shield us from the suffering of humanity in this manifest world; pretending it doesn't exist, taking the position that this existence is unreal, or even some saying that the person doesn't exist; even if on an Absolute level of Pure Being that may all be true...  The true measure of the Heart, it seems to me, is not intellectual or emotional detachment, but how we see and respond to another Being - turning inward to the Heart of our own True Being and responding authentically from there...

There is a famous saying that goes:

"Before people want to know what you know,
they want to know
that you care."

Namaste

_/\_

Infinite, Self-aware Consciousness (Awareness) is the unlimited, open,
 empty field in which all experience appears, and out of which all
 experiences arise.  Remaining established as the Infinite Being that
we are doesn't mean we don't deal appropriately with
whatever.....arises. We deal with whatever presents itself, at a
relative level, and remember to remain established in Infinite Being,
 which is our Self.
There is only Infinite Being... 
We are a modulation, a vibration of that Infinite Being.

Rupert Spira

Contemporary Non-Duality teacher

~

Photo - Shadows on a wall, color altered