Twilight...

There is a seamless "edge" when twilight comes...
And a twinge of melancholy when the
light wanes into twilight,
the edge of the veil;
the threshold between
light and dark...

A knowing that this life
is waning into twilight too,
from one state into another,
forever re-forming Itself...

Tree branches wave in the wind
in homage to the light
dimming in the West...

Owls hoo - calling the night
into existence;
prophets of twilight
standing at the edge
where ending meets beginning
and beginning, ending...

Twilight
the in-between
as Life cycles through time,
through light and dark,
through living
and dying.

At twilight we stand at the edge of time,
and timelessness beyond time...
peering through
for a glimpse
of the Infinite Light
that knows no dimming
and no night;
only Its own Eternal Radiance
of 
Being...

This Light we are...

Mystic Meandering
Dec. 21, 2012

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
January 6, 2012

 

Melancholy - Fred LaMotte

 Even on the most radiant days, there is a sorrow at the heart
of life.  When we deny it, the day becomes a desperate quest
for happiness, and the night is long.  But when we absorb the
trough into our rhythm, like the shadow of the breath, that
benign negation infuses all things with spaciousness, tinges
creation with golden poignancy, like Autumn itself.
What is heavy is not sadness, but the denial of sadness.

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance
original title - "Autumn"

~

For all those tasting the sadness of these
unimaginable strange times that we are living through -
not only the losses from COVID, but
from the devastating fires on the West Coast, and the
hurricanes on the Gulf Coast affecting so many lives,
as well as the racial unrest, and the political upheaval
across this country.
May we all find the deep Quiet within..

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Sunset Heart Leaves

Back to the Bare Bones...

Lately I’ve been feeling a need to get back to the basics in my “spiritual practice” – back to the bare bones. There is a sense of needing to clear the plate of old paradigms to make way for a clearer way of seeing and being. And - I’ve also been experiencing what I have been calling “depression” off and on for the last few weeks, or as the “Advaitin and contemporary non-dualists” say – depressing is happening… Probably as part of this clearing away…

“Depression” is a strange bedfellow, it can be many things. And I don’t treat this lightly. Sometimes I know her as melancholy, sometimes as heartache, and sometimes an overwhelming oppressive wave of molasses that pulls me under. I never know when she’s going to arrive, or in what costume, or when she’ll leave, nor specifically what it is about. Mostly it’s just kind of this nebulous feeling of deep sadness and longing in the heart. It shows up unexpectedly and stays a while, much like the other feelings that just show up – but I don’t notice them so much when it’s joy or happiness – only the “troubling” ones stand out and grab my attention. When I feel joy or happiness, or peace, I don’t think. Gee this is odd, I must do something about this! No, I am delighted that they came to call and think all must be right with the world or with myself *because* I *feel* “happy”… They reinforce the illusion that this personal “me” has done something “right” and is therefore happy – and therefore I feel the pressure to always be “happy“, to be optimistic – to get rid of “depression” so I can live up to my “happiness” , and start to believe I *deserve* to be “happy” all the time. When the Buddha said that the goal of life is to be “happy” I don’t believe he was talking about head over heels in love kind of happy, but internal “contentment” with life, which is a state of Being that never changes – that doesn’t come and go…

But – depression - well, it comes and goes – like all the other feelings do. It makes “me” (this little me) feel all wrong with the world and myself – unhappy, alone, sad. It’s quite dense actually – like a heavy hand gripping the heart with a pressing pressure – causing a heartache. But what is this heart aching *for*? You’d think with my husband’s new job there would be a sense of peace, optimism, even happiness. But no, a heaviness of heart pulls me deeply inward like a weight… I suspect it has something more to do with an internal orientation to life and being, than the externals of life circumstances – although that’s some of it too - clearing the underbrush of some heavy emotional burdens and beliefs that I’ve been unconsciously carrying for so many years around our life circumstances… And just maybe my husband’s recent return to work allowed all this to emerge…

“Non-dualisms” didn’t work - like: “There is no one here to be depressed.” Okay - so then why am “i” depressing, “i” asked my Self. Or - “i” do not exist – according to non-dualists - so how could “i” be depressed? So “*who* is depressed” then, who is depressing? Non-dual conundrums that keep me in my mind. Ahhh - maybe it is the mind, I thought… So I tried to convince the mind that it was only its thoughts, its beliefs, it stories that were causing this depressing feeling. The mind bought it for a while and then went back to its job – “depressing” – pulling me more deeply in… Even though I *know* intellectually that it is the *personality* of the mind that depresses, and that behind the little me-self personality that feels empty, full of insecurities, doubts, and depression is the Truth – the bare bones Truth of authentic Beingness that we are at the core… But the intellectual knowing didn’t help either… It has to be deeply *known* at the core…

So I sat, journal in hand, as is my style, and said – okay – here I am – show me who you are, show me where you want to go. I followed her inwardly, to see what she would reveal. I saw that she was a thread that ran all the way through my life that I hadn’t seen before– well more that I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge before. She was a golden river that ran through every phase and chapter of my life that held a familiar deep longing in the heart at every turn and bend – a longing for the Truth, somehow misconstrued as “depression”... Interesting that it was golden, not something dark and sinister…. There was no monster lurking under the surface. She took me down the rabbit hole, in a good way, allowing me to come face to face with my delusions… She helped me to see that my life has been a fantasy of distorted characters, stories and feelings that I have become attached to, and have gotten lost in, confused between what is Real and what is fantasy. I recognized that I had identified with the *feeling*, with the *personality* who *feels* depressed, empty, lost, wounded, separate from ones true identity.

Following the thread, I realized that “depression” was really my Heart calling. It was an invitation to follow the lifeline of the feeling all the way back to the Truth that lies beyond the feeling - all the way back to the bare bones Truth at the Heart of Being; which does not mean that by seeing this that “depression” left. Oh no. She’s still a companion, shadowing me on the road here. But it was seen that she’s not who I am. I had mis-identified myself *as* the shadow. In truth, she is a thread of love clearing an opening in my heart, calling me back to a direct encounter with the bare bones Truth…

What Lies at the Bottom of the Barrel...

I’ve been experiencing more of the “Winter Blues” lately. Have been feeling a bit melancholy, especially at twilight. I thought I hit the bottom of the barrel a week ago, but no, there was more, and it’s been very intense. So I had to look into the bottom of the barrel. There was something unexpected waiting.

Her visit wasn’t convenient; this being the Holiday Season and all where one is not supposed to be melancholy, dark, and sad – but joyous and cheerful. It’s not a switch one can just turn on, or off. Ho-Ho-Ho. I didn’t intend to feel this way. She just showed up unexpected one evening and stayed 5 days.

Sometimes she was felt as heartache – a longing for love; sometimes a wrenching gut feeling of the pain and grief of an undefined loss that felt like a crushing pressure. She was every memory of sadness as a child – that usually occurred at twilight - and losses of loved ones over the years – remembered at twilight. It was as if I was being emptied out of every painful feeling and experience from the past. As uncomfortable as it was, I stayed open to her. I knew deep inside she was a “guide from beyond”, as Rumi calls it, and so I welcomed her in each day, sat with her and listened.

It was revealed that “Melancholy” – this Divine Miss M - was really a deep longing for *living;* for engaging fully with Life!; for connecting with and experiencing love for life, communing with life *in* the living of it, and allowing myself to be *absorbed* by Life living me.

I reflected that life has primarily been a series of events, people, drama, crises that I have reacted to, struggled with, and against, and felt threatened by over the years – consequently missing opportunities to love; withdrawing sometimes instead from the harshness and difficulties of living, thinking there was something “better” in being on a “spiritual path.” But I recognized that I never fully engaged with Life! And now there is this impulse to fully engage – to creatively engage. There is a sense of urgency to *feel* life happening, to pay attention to life – in the waning years of life… The “how” has yet to be revealed.

After these insights, in sitting meditation, I relaxed and dropped into the Silence within, as I usually do. And in a fleeting moment I became inwardly aware of what lies at the bottom of the barrel. It was/ is “love.” I know that sounds trite. It’s not “love” as we have come to know it. It’s not the “in love” kind of love that oscillates and changes; or the sweet ooey-gooey kind of love that is just words that drop from the tongue and onto the floor, missing the heart. It’s “The Beloved’s Love” – a steady, equanimous, sustaining love that is always present, never wavering. This “love” that lies at the bottom of every experience, thought, feeling, emotion, physical function etc., can only be described as a spacious openness in which everything occurs. Love enfolds life within Itself; is in a sense, “in love” with ItSelf – how could it not be. And we are the animation of that Love - loving. It turns out that “melancholy” (as with any feeling) is a portal, a gateway to - Love.

I only touched on this love briefly, fleetingly. In trying to capture it with my mind it escaped from view. But for a brief moment I was aware that Love resides in the depths of living – feelings and all. And what a surprise it was one morning to cut into a tomatoe and find this heart deep inside! The “gift” from beyond. :)

Melancholy stayed 4 more days – emptying me out and opening me up. And Love merely *allowed* melancholy to be here, embracing her - until she melted away into the twilight - the space between the light and the dark…

The twilight keeps calling to me to open to the space where Love abides – to keep recognizing it. Now I go outside and walk at twilight - not with melancholy – but *feeling* life living. And in experiencing life intimately, I experience the spaciousness of Love that lies at the bottom of everything!

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival…

A joy, a depression, a meanness.
Some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all,
even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture.

Still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Rumi


“the longing you feel for this love
comes from inside you…”

“Love is the cure.
For your pain will keep giving birth
to more pain
until your eyes constantly exhale love
as effortlessly as you body
yields to its scent.”

Rumi


“Rumi tells us that the supreme secret of
the inner journey is the path of love.
If we can possess our whole heart
with contemplation of ‘The Beloved’
we will experience the wonders
and beauty of the universe.”

(I don’t remember where I got this :)