The Soul's Rhythm - John O'Donohue

We should not force ourselves to change by hammering
our lives into any predetermined shape.  We do not need to
operate according to the idea of a predetermined program or
plan for our lives.  Rather we need to practice a new art of
attention to our inner rhythm...  This attention brings a new
awareness of our own human and divine presence.

It is far more creative to work with the idea of mindfulness
than with the idea of will.  Too often people try to change
their lives by using the will as a kind of hammer to beat their
life into proper shape.  The intellect identifies the goal of the
program, and the will accordingly forces the life into shape.
This way of approaching the sacredness of one's own
presence is externalistic and violent.  It brings you falsely
outside of your own self and you can spend years lost in the
wilderness of your own mechanical, spiritual programs.

You can perish in a famine of your own making.

If you work with a different rhythm, you will come easily and
naturally home to your self.  Your Soul knows the geography...
  Your Soul alone has a map..., therefore you can trust this
 indirect, oblique side of your self.  If you do, it will take you

  where you need to go, but more importantly, it will teach
you a kindness of rhythm in your journey. 
There are no general principles for this art of being.
Yet the signature of this unique journey is inscribed deeply in
each Soul. If you attend to your self and seek to come into
your own presence, you will find exactly the right rhythm
for your life.  The senses are generous pathways which can
bring you home.

John O'Donohue
from Anam Cara

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

....belong first in your own interiority.  If you are in rhythm
with your self and connected to that deep, unique source
within, then you will never be vulnerable.
  You will be able to stand....on the ground of your
Soul, where you are at home.

John O'Donohue
from Anam Cara

~

Art - Mystic Meandering
Craypas oils done with fingers
"Ocean Splash"
2012

 

The Speech of Rain - Thomas Merton

The rain.....fills the woods with an immense and confused sound.
It covers the flat roof of the cabin and its porch with inconsistent
and controlled rhythms.  And I listen, because it reminds me
again and again that the whole world runs by rhythms I have not
yet learned to recognize.

The rain [surrounds] the cabin with its enormous virginal myth,
a whole world of meaning, of secrecy, of silence, or rumor.
Think of it: all that speech pouring down, selling nothing,
judging nobody, drenching the thick mulch of dead leaves,
soaking the trees, filling the gullies and crannies of the wood
with water, washing out the places where men have stripped the
hillside!  What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone, in the forest
at night, cherished by this wonderful, unintelligible, perfectly
innocent speech, the most comforting speech in the world,
the talk that rain makes by itself all over the ridges, and the
talk of the water courses everywhere in the hollows!

.....It will talk as long as it wants, this rain.  As long as it talks
I am going to listen.

Thomas Merton
excerpt from Thomas Merton's essay:
The Rain and the Rhinoceros,
Raids on the Unspeakable 

With thanks to Heron Dance

~

Photo from the internet

 

The Rhythm behind the 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,
a few 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...

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
rhythms
of daily
existence.

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

The Rhythm behind the rhythm...

Mystic Meandering
Nov, 5, 2015

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Rhythm of Sadness...

A deep rhythm of sadness 
arises from my heart...
unexpectedly,
spontaneously...

It rises even though
I "know"
that before thought and feeling
"I" am Eternal Beingness...

The rhythm of sadness
is not assuaged
with the knowledge of
that "I am That"...

It will not be held back, suffocated, 
repressed by sand bags of knowledge of
"the teachings,"
from the caverns of the mind...

It matters not to
"The Eternal"
that sadness and grief
arise in this mechanism called
"me",

like the tides of the ocean
rising and falling
in a darkened harbor;
felt not seen...

It is held in the embrace of "The Eternal"
breathing me...

It just is - sadness,
rising and falling
through me...

I follow the rhythm of sadness
breathing into the Heart
where it meets
The Rhythm
of
"The Eternal"

and slowly
becomes
rivulets
of energy;
just energy,
decreasing in
intensity.

Only to rise again
on the next tide...

Mystic Meandering
Feb 3,2021

~

Sadness is not something you need to fix, cure or
transform.  It need not be "healed", but held.  You need
not shift the sadness into some "higher" state or apply
teachings so that it will yield into something else.  For
it is complete and pure on its own.

With the fire of awareness and the ally of your breath,
touch your heart...
Go on a journey into the core of the feeling, the sensation,
the images, and the raw, shaky life that is longing to be held.
And listen.

It is by way of this journey that sadness will be revealed to be
what it is, a bridge into the universal heart, a messenger
of power, mercy, and fierce compassion...

Matt Licata

 

The Loom of Weaving...

Withdraw from the Loom of Weaving;
the mind-made threads, the mind-made
rhythms, and find the Silent Thread
that weaves through all other threads.

The True Rhythm of Life.

Stay with this silent, organic Rhythm
that flows through you.

Put all other synthetic threads aside and
follow the Silent Thread...
Follow the deeper Rhythm...

Wait in Silence
until you feel the True Rhythm within...
The Rhythm of Silence.

Follow this Rhythm to the Source,
like a stream that flows to a River,
that flows to the Ocean.
Find the Source in the Rhythm...

Where does it take you?

Into the depths of yourSelf -
the depths of your Beingness,
the depths of Silence...

Attune to that Rhythm...

Mystic Meandering
Aug 27, 202

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Lay Low - John O'Donohue

This is the time to be slow.
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.

Try as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.

If you remain [low to the wall]
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning...

John O'Donohue
From: To Bless the Space Between Us

~

Art - Barbara Stone

"A Glimpse of the Larger Story"

Holy Rhythm - Stephen Jenkinson

People in our culture play the polyrhythms of their life,
but don't play or tell the Rhythm inside those rhythms.
They know it - but they don't play it, and they don't
tell it; that is the work of "the Gods", they say, to play
that simpler, steadier Rhythm...  That Holy Rhythm that
 is the signature of life itself.

As you get into the sway of that Rhythm, you realize
you've been playing everything around the Rhythm,
everything but the Rhythm itself, trying all the
possibilities you found until all that's left is to be
told and played by the simple, ragged syncopation of
your days.

That's when the Rhythm finally is able to have its way
with you.  It's like answering at last somebody who's
been calling your name for years.  You play the rhythms
and you learn the Rhythm, and you move accordingly...

Stephen Jenkinson
from: Die Wise

~

Vortex Art - Mystic Meandering
2012

Balance - Ursula Le Guin

Do you see how an act is not like a rock that one picks up
and throws, and it hits or misses, and that's the end of it.

When that rock is lifted, the earth is lighter; the hand that bears
it heavier.  When it is thrown, the circuits of the stars respond,
and where it strikes or falls, the universe is changed.
On every act the balance of the whole depends.
The winds and seas, the powers of water and earth and light,
all that these do, and all that the beasts and green things do,
is well done, and rightly done.  All these act within the
Equilibrium. From the hurricane and the great whale's
sounding, to the fall of a dry leaf and the gnat's flight,
all they do is done within the balance of the whole.

But we... we must learn to do what the leaf and the whale and
the wind do of their own nature.  We must learn to keep the
balance.  Having intelligence, we must not act in ignorance.
Having choice, we must not act without responsibility.

Ursula K. Le Guin
The Farthest Shore

via - Beyond the Fields We Know

~

Maybe we just need to keep learning how to live with each other
in a balanced way...

MM

~

The stars are like letters which inscribe themselves at every
moment in the sky.  All things depend on each other.
Everything breathes together.

Plotinus
CE 204/5-270

~

Photo - Funky art with "Scratch and Sketch Artist's Tile."
Represents balance, but also - how everything we do or
say reverberates out, affecting all beings...

The Rhythm behind the 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,
a few 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 a weary heart
drowned it out...

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.
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
rhythms
of daily
existence.

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

The Rhythm behind the rhythm...

Love mysteriously playing its song...

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 5, 2015

~

Photo - the inside of a sea shell

digitally altered

For One Who is Exhausted, A Blessing - John O'Donohue

When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight.

The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.

Weariness invades your spirit.

Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.

The tide you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.

You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken in the race of days.

At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.

John O'Donohue
"A Blessing For One Who is Exhausted"
From - To Bless the Space Between Us

~

Thank you Michel !
No Mind's Land

Who then is breathing? - Ilchi Lee

Observe your own body.  It breathes.
You breathe when you are asleep, when you are no longer
conscious of your own ideas of self-identity.
Who then is breathing?

The collection of information that you mistakenly think is you
is not the protagonist in this drama called the breath.  In fact,
you are not breathing; breath is naturally happening.

You can purposely end your own life, but you cannot
purposely keep your own life going.  The expression, 'my life'
is actually an oxymoron, a result of mistaken assumption...

You don't possess life; life expresses itself through you.
Your body is a flower that life let bloom,
a phenomenon created by Life.

Ilchi Lee

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 Art of Living - Henry Miller

The art of living is based on rhythm -
on give and take,
ebb and flow,
light and dark,
life and death.

By acceptance of all aspects of life,
good and bad,
right and wrong,
yours and mine,
the static, defensive life
which is what most people
are cursed with,
is converted into a dance,
'the dance of life,'
metamorphosis.

One can dance to sorrow or joy;
one can even dance abstractly.
But the point is that
by the mere act of dancing,
the elements which compose it are
transformed;
the dance is an end in itself,
just like life.

The acceptance of the situation,
any situation,

brings about flow,
a rhythmic impulse towards
self-expression.
To relax is the first thing
a dancer has to learn...
It is the first thing any one has to learn
in order to live.

It is extremely difficult,
because it means surrender,
full surrender.

Henry Miller
The Wisdom of the Heart
(Mr. Miller's words, my format)

via: No Mind's Land

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

Wilderness Wanderings...

“Illumined”

Mystic Meandering
March 4, 2015

I am still wandering daily in the Inner Wilderness of Silence and Solitude – as much as I can anyway… And no matter how much I tell myself, and others, that I am quitting blogging, I am compelled to write! J LOL…  It is what I do, what comes naturally - writing that is… So here I am - writing again!  Here’s the latest from my “wildnerness wanderings…”

~

This “wandering” in the Great Inner Wilderness – the Vastness of Being - is intentional. It is not floundering or aimlessness, but a deep resting in The Silence of The Mystery of Being… I am not renouncing anything, nor *seeking* to attain anything – like enlightenment – but only allowing myself to feel the deeper Rhythm of Life within - *through* Silence and Solitude - through moving *with* the movement of my Innermost Being that arises from the deep inner space of Silence… 

This is not an escape *from* the “world”, yet to some degree that is true.  It is leaving behind the “surface consciousness” of the world that so often drives us/me through life, and keeps us/me from “deepening” into The Inner Rhythm – until - I am able to intuitively and instinctively *feel* the Internal Rhythm of Being flowing in and through myself – naturally – usually through being in Silence…

This Rhythm is a fluid, open, movement of unending intimacy with “The Beloved” (The Formless Silence that animates all Life)…  I wander this Inner Wilderness bringing my Awareness and Attention to that internal movement of Inner Being – seeing how IT wants to move me.  At times I feel as if “The Beloved” is as much in my shoes as I am in “The Beloved’s” shoes - walking as one…

The Inner Wilderness is a space of remedial Silence that heals the Heart and Spirit.  It allows me to be “anonymous” – without identity, or function – just resting – allowing myself to be absorbed by the Silence – leaving everything else behind until I am fully Immersed…

The first week I experienced an unexplainable, unbidden, palpable, all-encompassing – as if held from within - Presence of Peace.   Standing in the grocery store one day – yes, I still have to tend to the mundane J  I am not in a cave somewhere J - I was acutely aware that I was surrounded and infused with a Great Peace in the midst of chaos… I stood in wonder realizing this as life played itself out around me…  I also realized that I was actually functioning *from* that place, even without being aware of it, until I became aware of it – if you know what I mean.;)  A sense of “me-ness” had dropped, to some degree, and “I” was just Peace – doing the groceries – living life…  But this was only a glimpse…a glimmer of Reality…

One day, in the second week of inner “wandering”, I felt myself fall more deeply into a felt sense of a deeper Inner Rhythm - a seamless fluidity within – that nothing could interrupt: not thought, thinking, the external distractions of life, nor the deeply engrained emotional and mental patterns that arose during the week as well – the Boogeymen In the Wildnerness J - which I may write about later… Once again I was losing a sense of “me.”  It was freeing as “I” was opened up to the deeper Rhythm of Life…

Another morning, as I was sitting, head tilted back resting on the back of the chair, eyes closed, face in the sun, I became aware of a dance of fluid color underneath my eyelids.  Colors were merging and blending with each other forming shapes and images – like paintings.  If I could only paint what I see!   This is not an uncommon phenomenon to see fluid colors when resting with closed eyes, but most of the time we aren’t aware of it, don’t even see it.  My sense of self got lost in the imagery and dance of color, as another layer of “surface consciousness” seemingly dropped away and I tuned into the deeper Rhythm again – a deeper Silence – a deeper Awareness.

I do not consider these merely “experiences”, but the *normal* play of the Formless in Form that we can encounter if we are paying attention… The Formless (“The Beloved”) dances within us, and comes to us in many Forms, gracing us with ITs touch… We only need to be aware…

“The Beloved falls in Love with ItSelf…
Inhabits ItSelf – as Form…
and loves the Form of ItSelf…”

MM

~*~

Transitions...

We are in the season of transition, both seasonally and personally.  My husband starts a new job on Monday, after 8 months of no work.  We are preparing for the adjustment to a new rhythm of life again, tentatively breathing a sigh of relief.  We’ve been through this several times in the last 10 years – these seemingly endless endings and beginnings, beginnings and endings - endless transitions, always “inbetween.”  We thought we’d be used to it by now, but each time it’s an adjustment after long periods of no work and the intensity of continuously trying to find work in a deteriorating economy – along with the antics of politics that take precedence over the “common wealth.” J But we won’t go there…

It was really sudden how it all unfolded – the job that is – not the decline of government. J  He received a phone call at 8pm on Thursday night from a recruiter for a company that had seen his resume and was interested in him - could he interview the next day...  There was literally no time to prepare!  He had a terrible head cold – but…   The interview was scheduled for Noon on Friday.  He was notified less than two hours later that he had gotten the job and would be starting on Monday! Wow!  Immediate transition!  We’re both still a little numb.

It is a 3 month contract-to-hire job.  We’re hoping for the “hire” part J…    This is how a lot of companies are employing their workers now - contract jobs through recruiters. That way they don’t have to provide healthcare or other benefits, or give a reason to let you go at the end of the contract period if it doesn’t work out for *them.*   Each time we go through this it is an adjustment – either beginning or ending – trying to find a new rhythm with life – and catching up financially…  There *is* no “retirement” on the horizon – only the continuous cycles of life being lived, season to season…  Cue Lion King music… J  Although this has been a “radical shift” in only a matter of days, B feels it will be a seamless flow ~ that we are always in the ongoing stream of new beginnings.  Just call him Rafiki – the wise monkey. J

And I too seamlessly transitioned this weekend into my 64^th season of life; the timeless, unborn Self moving through time.   The conceptual mind is relieved –  not that I'm 64 - about the job, yet still hoping it will go longer than 3 months.  The mind can get really preoccupied with uncertainty when in perceived “survival mode” J - challenging me to stay open to the larger Truth of Existence…  I told my husband several weeks ago, after so long without work, that the best birthday present would be for him to have a job by my birthday.  It was said off-handedly.  Talk about down to the wire!  I’m still gobsmacked that it all unfolded this way!   Maybe the Universe really does listen… J lol

So we press on into the unknown, cautiously embracing life that is turning once again, providing yet another new beginning and opportunities for expanded awareness of the Mystery of Being - knowing deep in our Being that all is infinitely well...

WooHoo! J