Stardust - Danna Faulds

 From a crowded firmament of
constellations, a galaxy reaches
out to stroke my cheek with a
single, spiral finger.  One star
speaks: "Life is not a test.
There is no key to find, or
door to open.  Self-improvement
is not the point.  There is only
awakening.  And one day you
will all awaken to the rapture
of the great lovemaking, when
the heart of everything is
revealed as you; when the myth
of separation is burned to ash
in the searing flame of truth."

A lifetime of forgetfulness
erased in an instant of 
remembering.  The Beloved
enters, takes me in a whirl
of tenderness and bliss.
In that moment, two are
one, and one is everything;
stars and souls are whole,
unbroken, flowing motions;
what is wrapped in skin or
cloaked in form has no birth
or death or destination.

The star speaks to me again:

"The seeds of love sown an
eternity ago are blooming now.
There has always been divinity,
and this, at last, is who we are -
love in endless consummation.
Love, not limitation, is the truth."

Then with a rush of wind like
countless wings, I am left to
sit in stillness, with the taste
of stardust sweet upon my lips.

Danna Faulds
From: Go In and In

2002

~

Photo from the Internet

Conflict - David Skitt

A Commentary on Krishnamurti's POV on the world

Conflict and violence Krishnamurti sees as issues of basic concern...
But in his view history shows there has been a repeated failure
of education, science, politics and organized religion to end them.
What is needed in our time therefore is to own up to that failure,
to make a clean sweep of all these past, defective endeavors,
and to adopt an entirely new approach.  It is hard to imagine taking
a more radical position than this: Put aside everything you have
 learned from others, ever read, and start your own inquiry into
what life is about, what really matters.  Stand on your own two
feet.  Stop being a second-hand human being.

He proposes that this means looking at what is actually
happening in life and in our consciousness - 'what is, not what
should be' - without condemning or justifying, without resisting
or wanting to change it, holding it instead 'like a precious jewel.'
In doing so, he says, we are looking at human consciousness,
not just our own.

A constant source of human confusion, in Krishnamurti's view,
is our rooted tendency to make images of ourselves, others, and
of life and death that are put together by thought based on memory,
on past experiences or hearsay.  Instead of looking afresh at what is
new in the now, being open to the unknown, and unpredictable, we
'translate the present into the past.'  He sees such images are
inevitably conflictual because they are time-bound and therefore
partial and inadequate.  Yet we frequently act as though we are
programmed by them.

Krishnamurti maintains that we fail to make the most of our
mind and our life while subject to latent or manifest anger and fear.
Also, our sense of self is usually experienced as inherently [separate]
from another's, whereas all human beings share far more
psychologically than separates them.  Not to see that is a huge error
of perception, because our sense of shared humanity is lost. This
feeling of psychological [separateness] breeds a fear of isolation
that leads, among other things, to a spurious sense of safety in
numbers, which is then, unfortunately and divisively, carried to
excess in nationalism, political ideology, and religious [fanaticism].
These provide a false cohesion held together by fear that there
are those 'outside' who threaten us and are in some way not as fully
human as we are.

Seeing the problems in our personal life and in the world with a
mind free from the dictates of the past, from faith, belief,
stereotyping, and fantasy, is to see that what goes wrong in the
world outside reflects what goes wrong in one's own mind.  This
is the share of all men, of all humanity, unless we all change,
each one of us, change to something that is not projected by thought.
Where there is insight into that, Krishnamurti says, there is a wholly
different way of living, in which an awakened awareness of what
causes human suffering also brings with it greater sensitivity to the
beauty and immensity of life.

David Skitt

KFT.org

via - No Mind's Land

Violence - J. Krishnamurti

We are trying to understand violence as a fact,
not as an idea, as a fact which exists in the human being,
and the human being is myself.  And to go into the
problem I must be completely vulnerable, open, to it.
I must expose myself to myself - not necessarily
expose myself to you because you may not be interested -
but I must be in a state of mind that demands to see this thing
right to the end...

Now it must be obvious to me that I am a violent human being.
I have experienced violence in anger, violence in hatred, creating
enmity, violence in jealousy and so on - I have experienced it, I
have known it, and I say to myself 'I want to understand this whole
 problem, not just one fragment of it expressed in war, but this
aggression in man that also exists in animals, of which I am a part.

Violence is not merely killing another.  It is violence when we use
a sharp word, when we make a gesture to brush away a person, when
we obey because of fear.  So violence isn't merely organized butchery
in the name of God, in the name of society or country.  Violence is
much more subtle, much deeper...

When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a
European, or anything else, you are being violent.  Do you see why
it is violent?  Because you are separating yourself from the rest of
mankind.  When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality,
by tradition, it breeds violence.  So a man who is seeking to
understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion,
to any political party or system; he is concerned with the
total understanding of mankind.

The moment you protect a belief, an idea, a dogma, the thing that
you demand or that you hold, that very protection indicates anger.
So can you look at anger without any explanation or justification...
Can you look at anger completely objectively?

To go beyond violence I cannot suppress it, I cannot deny it...
I have to look at it.  I must become intimate with it.  You have
to learn how to look at anger...  You have to learn why you are not
objective, why you condemn or justify.  You have to learn that you
condemn and justify because it is part of the social structure you live
in, your conditioning as a German or an Indian or a Negro
 or an American or whatever you happen to have been born with,
 all the dulling of the mind that this conditioning results in.

To live completely, fully, in the moment is to live with what is,
including the anger...  The face of violence is not only outside
you but inside you...

J. Krishnamurti
excerpt from: Freedom from the Known

via - The Beauty We Love

~

All violence begins with disconnection [a sense of separation].
All outward violence begins as inner loneliness [a sense of not belonging].

[We must] break the code of disconnection...

Glenn Doyle Melton

From the article:
One Teacher's Brilliant Strategy to Stop Future School Shootings

Multiplicity and Oneness - Kripal and Licata

Each human being is two, that is, each person is simultaneously
a conscious constructed self or socialized ego and a much larger
complexly conscious field that normally manifests only in
non-ordinary states of consciousness and energy, which the
religious traditions have historically objectified, mythologized,
and projected outward into the sky as divine, as "God", or
introjected inward into the human being as nirvana, brahman, or
located in some sort of experienced paradoxical state that is
neither inside or outside, as in the Chinese Dao...

Jeffrey J. Kripal
Professor of Philosophy and Religious Thought

via - Markings

~

We are neither "separate" nor "one", but the erupting holding
field in which the energies of "separate" and "one" interpenetrate
and dance the relative into being.  The allies of multiplicity are not
at war with oneness, but fellow travelers with them on a journey of
wholeness. While we may have a bias for oneness over multiplicity,
it would appear that Love does not share this bias and is ready at all
times to employ either equally as its envoy here.  The freedom we
 are longing for will never be found in the eradication of the
unwanted, but only in attunement to the Love
and the information it carries.

The goal is not to eliminate multiplicity and scramble to replace it
with oneness, but something a bit messier, more creative, more fertile,
more earthy.  A bit more risky, not as clean, white, solar, or safe.

When we become too literalized in our fantasies of unity and oneness
 - and also in those of multiplicity and separation - we lose touch with
the mystery that these concepts can only point to...

We can play in the mountain peaks of unity and oneness, and also
in the rich, lush generative meadows of separation and multiplicity,
without taking sides.  Willing to fully participate in each,
as equal expressions of the Beloved.

Matt Licata

~
photo - Face Reflection Mandala
2013

The Fire of Separation - Mirabai Starr

There is a longing that burns at the root of spiritual practice.
This is the fire that fuels your journey.  The romantic suffering
you pretend to have grown out of, that remains coiled like a
serpent beneath the veneer of maturity.  You have studied the
sacred texts.  You know that separation from your divine source
is an illusion.  You subscribe to the philosophy that there is
nowhere to go and nothing to attain, because you are already
there and you already possess it.

But what about this yearning?  What about the way a poem by
by Rilke or Rumi breaks open your heart and triggers a sorrow
that could consume you if you gave in to it?  You're pretty sure
this is not a matter of mere psychology.  It has little to do with
unresolved issues of childhood abandonment, or codependent
tendencies to falsely place the source of your wholeness outside
yourself.  The longing is your recognition of the deepest
 truth that God is love and that this is all you want.  Every
 lesser desire melts when it comes near the flame.

You realized that not every one experiences this.  For some
people, the spiritual journey is not so dramatic.  It's less about
the overwhelming desire for union with some invisible Beloved
than it is about quietly waking up.  It's about developing
compassion, rather than suffering passion.  There are people who
never doubt that God is with them, and so there is nothing to long
for.

But there are those, like you, who have felt the Divine move like
an ocean inside them, and, incapable of sustaining an unbroken
relationship with that vastness, feel they have been banished to
the desert when the wave recedes.  There is a tribe of holy lovers,
who have tasted the glorious sweetness that lies on the other side
of yearning, when the boundaries of the separate self momentarily
melt into the One, before the cold wind of ordinary consciousness
blows through again, and restores your individuality.  You would
risk everything to rekindle that annihilating fire.  You would leave
your shoes at the door and run after the cosmic flute player, if only
you could hear that music one more time.

You would give up everything for one glimpse of the Beloved's
face.  You sneak into his chamber in the middle of the night and
say "Here I am. Ravish me."  But when you awake the next morning,
swooning, and alone, you realize you missed the entire encounter.
You throw your clay cup on the cobblestones and it shatters.  You
thought you would marry, bear babies, make a career in broadcasting.
You wander city streets during siesta hour and wonder where He is
sleeping.  Your longing and your satisfaction are reciprocal.
The moan of separation is the cry of union...

Mirabai Starr

Excerpt from: Longing for the Beloved
posted in Parabola
via - No Mind's Land

The Deepest Acceptance - Jeff Foster & Rilke

True freedom is found not through escaping the present experience,
but by diving fearlessly into its hidden depths.  You must be willing
to see *through* the idea of separation from life, in all its forms, in
the midst of your current experience.  You must be open to exploring
suffering - how and why it manifests in you, where it originates.  

You must be willing to look at your pain, fears, sadness, longings.
They are part of the wholeness of life.  You must be willing to face
them head on and find deep acceptance for the seemingly
unacceptable aspects of yourself...  Beyond the personal story of my
own suffering, I discover that pain is not really my pain.  It's the
world's pain.  It's humanity's pain...

It's one thing to know who you really are when life is easy and things
are going well for you.  It's another thing to remember this in the heat
of the moment, when things fall apart, when life gets messy.  We find
another way of  looking at suffering, a radical new way of relating to
it.  We can see the messiness and beauty of day-to-day human
 existence as something to be avoided, or transcended, *or* we can
 see it for what what it really is: a secret and constant invitation to
 wake up - even if we believe we already woke up yesterday.
Life, in its infinite compassion, won't let us rest on our laurels.   It's
about finding out who you *really* are, beyond who you *think*
 you are, beyond who you've been taught you are, beyond your story
 about who you are, beyond all your concepts and images of
who you are.

If we are to be truly free - we must face reality with open eyes.
We must move away from denial, wishful thinking, and hoping,
 and tell the truth about life as it is.  Great freedom lies in admitting
 the truth of this  moment, however much it clashes with our dreams
 and plans - and self-image...  Acceptance is about seeing reality,
seeing things as they actually are, not as we wish them to be.
And from that place of alignment with what is, all creative, loving
 and intelligent actions flow naturally.

True freedom has nothing to do with being a better wave in the Ocean,
or perfecting our story of ourselves,  Freedom is about waking up from
the dream (illusion) that we are separate waves in the first place, and
embracing all that appears in the Ocean of our experience.  Maybe
the true calling in life is to accept present experience deeply - to let go
of how this moment should be - letting go of our false self-image.

Great freedom lies in fearlessly facing the darkness and finally coming
to see that the darkness is inseparable from light...  Life cannot
 be good or bad.  Life is simply life.
 It's about seeing the Mystery of Life
 that is already here.

Jeff Foster

Excerpts from: The Deepest Acceptance:
Radical Awakening in Ordinary Life

~*~

No experience has been too unimportant,
and the smallest event unfolds like fate,

and fate itself is like a wonderful, wide fabric
in which every thread is guided by an infinitely
tender hand

and is laid alongside another thread
and is held and supported by a hundred others.

Rainer Maria Rilke

~

Photo: I noticed the different patterns
in the sheer curtain from the play of light on it.
For me these patterns represent the
"fabric of life", the weave of life,
in all its variations...

Fully "ME" - Anna Wood & MM

One of the most valuable insights I've gained through yoga
and meditation is that I've lived most of my life estranged
from myself as a whole, compartmentalizing aspects of my
existence into heart/mind/instinct/left foot/daydreams/ love
handles.  Thus segmented "I" was (am) never fully "me,"
and I never had (have) to come to terms with the actual
density and simultaneous emptiness of being alive as a
human being on planet earth.
...it seems to me like we've collectively designed a global
system that prevents most of us from accomplishing it
even we had the will to.

Silence, by clarifying our senses, invites us to witness
ourselves as we are.

Anna Wood
From: A More Intricate Cup of Tea

~*~

What I seem to understand - what I have always known, but
have felt constrained by mental/conceptual frameworks - is
that Life/Existence/Awareness *delights* in expressing
 ItSelf, and *how* It expresses ItSelf really doesn't matter
 to It. Awareness has no concept of non-dual awareness,
 of non-dual language. It *sees* everything as ItSelf, and
 therefore as not  separate from ItSelf.  The idea that it is
 "non-dual" does not even occur to It.  It does not concern
 ItSelf  with "non-duality," or duality for that matter.
It doesn't *see* duality, the self, the me, as a problem to
 overcome, or be seen through, or merged with, as other than
 non-dual. The whole me/no-me, self/no-self concept
doesn't matter anymore.  I somehow had constrained my
 Self by subtly making those very linear delineations,
splitting Existence in two - creating duality; becoming more
 *self* conscious -  trying to fit this expression of Being into
 a "non-dual" conceptual framework instead of just Being what
 I already knew myself to be.  My SELF!
 Beingness being ItSelf - as me...

What a relief!  Such freedom!  I can just be ME! - living from
the Heart of Being, and not the framework, the scaffolding.  In
 a sense I muted this innate Aliveness that wants to express here
*through* constraining myself to the frameworks and scaffoldings
of *conceptual* "non-dual" ideas, interpretations, language and
beliefs - trying to fit myself into a nice neat "spiritual" box.
When all along it was about coming Alive again, rekindling the
Life that already lives here - "outside the box."

Infinite Beingness expresses Aliveness.
Its only purpose, evidently, is to express Life, in all its forms.
Aliveness expressing ItSelf as Life - all life, not just
"non-dual" life -
whatever that might mean...

Mystic Meandering

Meditative Writings
2011

Untitled Prose - Danna Faulds

Use your discontent, your longing, the sense that you are bereft
of connection, use everything around you to nudge you into
choosing joy.  Make the choice not because life is as you wish,
but because life is as it is.  Resist and you know suffering.
Jump in with both eyes open and you can drown in bliss.

It doesn't seem possible, I know.  You feel broken, disconnected,
less than whole.  Ask if Awareness shares your restlessness.
Ask if the Infinite cares that your emotional state is tenuous at
best.  Ask if your dreary thoughts should be believed and if
anything real stands between you and All That Is.  Use the
answers you receive to open a crack in the wall of separation.
Find a door and stick your foot in so it can't close even if your
doubts grow huge.

[.....]

Danna Faulds
From: Limitless
2009

Personal Note:  I know from personal experience that it is not
often possible to "choose joy" - still I like this piece.  It is
possible, however, to observe our feelings as they rise from
within, and just be with them, not resisting them, but allowing
them to speak to us just as they are, through inquiry, which
she seems to allude to in the second paragraph...

Illuminating the Way - Matt Licata

...there is something illuminating the way, but just what this is
cannot often be apprehended by ordinary means.
There is no external map here that you can rely on, only the
one that is written inside you.  While at times we sense the
presence of this inner guidance, it often comes by hidden
and symbolic means.  We must learn to listen for it in a
non-ordinary manner, not  just with our ears but with the
wisdom of the body, with the cells of the heart.

The mysteries of separation and union are already wired
into you... We are invited to meet them, in an inclusive embrace
of life -  the wholeness that we already are...

Matt Licata

~

Photo - Sunlight through a thinning cutting board...

"No Separate Thread" - Danna Faulds

The ordinary and the unified field
don't just co-exist, they coincide in
the same place, at the same time.
Divine and human can't be teased
apart - there is no separate thread
to pull heart from mind or soul.

There is only the unbroken chain of
wholeness forged link by link in a
continuum.  What is sacred and awake
is inextricably braided into the everyday,
but we forget that we can't dissect the
mundane from the radiant.

We lose ourselves in the rush to get
things done. Our memory grows dim
and there is such longing.  We desperately
seek something, anything, to plug us back
into what we've always been, forgetting
that the disconnect is only an illusion,
easily erased in the choice to see the truth.


Danna Faulds
"No Separate Thread"
From: Prayers to the Infinite

The Infinite is Everywhere - Danna Faulds

I am everywhere present
said the [Infinite.]

Seek me in the stately trees,
or the melodies of sparrows
and you will surely find me.

Look for me in the Buddha's smile,
the countenance of Christ,
the words of the Koran and Sanskrit prayers.
I am always there.

Turn your attention to the sky
where the movements of the moon and stars
trace my beauty...

Experience true emptiness
and my presence permeates the void.
Now bring your focus closer
to your heart.

Grow still and find me within you.

Separation dissolves like salt water
when you experience your true identity as me.

Practice devotion and let go into the ocean
of my love,
or be the open space from which all things arise.

One and two,
duality and union,
are both true.

So I say be jubilant
and be at peace,
for inside you is the seed and the fruit,
the tree and the root.

Choose to be in communion with me
and see the whole of this
creation infused with one energy...

Danna Faulds
Yoga Practitioner and Poet

Excerpt From:One and Two are Both True
From: Prayers to the Infinite

The Sacred Self - Bhagavad Gita

Creatures rise, creatures vanish;
I alone am real, Arjuna,
looking out, amused, from deep
within the eyes of every creature.

I am the object of all knowledge,
father of the world, its mother.
Source of all things, of impure and
Pure, of holiness and horror.

I am the goal, the root, the witness,
home and refuge, dearest friend,
creation and annihilation,
everlasting seed and treasure.

I am immortality and
death, am being and non-being.

I am the Self, Arjuna, seated
in the heart of every creature.
I am the origin, the middle,
and the end of that all must come to.

All your thoughts, all your actions,
all your fears and disappointments,
offer them to me, clear-hearted;
know them all as passing visions.

I am always with all beings;
I abandon no one.  And
however great your inner darkness,
you are never separate from me.

Let your thoughts flow past you, calmly:

keep near me, at every moment.
Trust me with your life, because I
am you, more than you yourself are.

Bhagavad Gita

~*~

This is Krishna talking to Arjuna according
 to the Hindu tradition.  In Hinduism Krishna
represents the Origin of the Universe,
the Unmanifest, the Eternal Being that is present
throughout all creation, looking out from deep within
the eyes of every being...

Inner Rhythms...

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything other than prose poetry.  But I’ve been thinking about “Inner Rhythms” lately; the Inner Rhythm of Being, and how that wants to move in and through me – and wanted to write about it.  I receive an on-line “newsletter” from a Nature Artist in northern Vermont by the name of Rod MacIver who has spent a lot of time alone in nature, getting in touch with his own life rhythm.  He reflects:

”A balanced life is based on its own rhythm.  If you don’t set your own rhythm, and have the discipline to follow it, your life will move at the speed of the culture around [you], which moves too fast.  The space we make for quiet time affects our thought patterns and, in turn, the quality of our lives.”  And, he asks: “To what extent is the rhythm of your life a result of…..adapting…..to the flow that surrounds [you].  Or I would even say, to the people around you. Have we entrained to the people around us – living their rhythm?  I  know I have…

I felt a resonance with his words, knowing that I needed to find that sense of the larger Inner Rhythm again, not just my own personal daily rhythm with life, but the Flow with the Inner Being, commonly called the Tao, the undercurrent flow of Life within – from which all movement arises.

The only way I know to do this is to turn within to The Silence where The Rhythm of the Inner Being is felt – the Rhythm of Silence ItSelf.  Being in The Sacred Silence is what brings me joy, and a felt sense of Presence.  Finding that Inner Rhythm, The Silence of Being, is “Divine Communion.”  This, for me, is the True Rhythm, the Rhythm of Pure Being ItSelf – the deep undercurrent of Life that animates all life – which is The Silence.  This is what calls to me – over and over again.

But the hypnosis of the world keeps me/us magnetized to the ways of the world and pulls me/us out of this deeper way of living and knowing.  We are conditioned to be drawn to the external drama of the world, to chew on it, teethe on it…  It’s the pablum of the matrix we live in.  But no one trains us to turn within to the Quiet Inner Presence of Silence.  And so we follow the rhythm of the world (the civilized, political, chaotic world), with its hypnosis of separation from our Inner Being, instead of turning  inward to the Awareness of the Inner Rhythm; to that interior space of The Rhythm of the “Great Mystery” that pulsates Its Aliveness within us, and does not depend on a name, label, or identity – or the world’s rhythms…   

I’m curious, before your innocent Heart was hypnotized by the rhythms of the world, what did you want deep in your Heart, not what you wanted to be when you grew up, but what did you really long for?  What called to you? Do you remember?  Do you know now?

Photo: Bliss Lotus Mandala
2013

May Winter & Danna Faulds...

“I am everywhere present.
Seek me in the stately trees
or the melodies of sparrows
and you will surely find me.

Look for me in the Buddha’s smile,
the countenance of Christ,
the words of the Koran and
Sanskrit prayers…

I am always there.

Turn your attention to the sky where the
movements of the moon and stars
trace my beauty.

Experience true emptiness
and my presence permeates the void.
Now bring your focus closer to your Heart.
Grow still and find me within you.

Separation dissolves like salt water
when you experience your true identity
as me…

From knower and perceived,
seer and seen,
from two comes One.

Practice devotion and let go into the ocean
of my love,
or be the open space from which all things arise.

One and two,
duality and union,
ARE BOTH TRUE…

So I say to you
be jubilant,
and be at peace,
for inside you is
the seed and fruit,
the tree and root,

Choose to be in communion with me
and see the whole of this creation
infused with one energy…”

From: Prayer to the Infinite
Danna Faulds

~*~*~*~

Yes, we had snow in MAY! J

It’s Spring in Colorado…

We’ve been having buckets of rain all week,

which has been delightful! – and very unusual.

Then Saturday night rain turned to snow!

Although not the best photos,
taken at night through the windows, but

I thought I’d share them anyway…

Our lovely River Birch was nearly flattened…

And the long tendrils of the Silver Maple bowed in respect….

Winter’s Magic just kept hanging on…

What once looked like this just a day before… 

Turned to this – bending under the burden she bore…

She has since bounced back up J

Mother Nature’s Beauty

 reminding us that we’re not in control here J
except digitally maybe… LOL

May your life be filled with Love and Magical Moments...

"Everything Is Deeply Okay..."

I awoke this morning to a 2 inch dusting of snow and joy in my heart. I ran outside to quickly snap these photos (the first two have been color inverted digitally). However, I was not joyful because of the snow and crisp winter morning air, but because I fell asleep and awoke finding myself repeating the phrase – “Everything is deeply okay” – and knew it in my bones.  I *felt* it deep in my Heart of Hearts that no matter how life *appears* on the surface, everything *is* deeply okay.  On a much larger level than just our little existence here, it is Cosmically okay, when seen from the Cosmic view of Reality.  How I *know* this, I don’t really know, except that I read it in Jeff Foster’s book – The Deepest Acceptance last year. J LOL… (which I wrote about here.)  Seriously - that’s not really why either, although it planted a seed.  We can’t just read it in a book.  It has to become a *felt experience* with life…  And it is, gradually becoming my *experience* – a way of *seeing* – little by little, day by day – well some days that is – yesterday the view was not so "cosmic." J

Despite the intensities of life and living, and believe me there are many at the moment, there is a lightness of Heart breaking through the fog here, a letting go of the personal drama orientation to life – hopefully - at least for today J  Mostly there is more awareness that it is the mind, my thoughts *about* what is happening, that creates my mental suffering, the *thinking* that there is something “wrong” with the way life is playing itself out here, that life should be different than it is, and that I need to *do* something to make it fit my idea of what it needs to be. Like digitally enhancing a photo. :)  Instead there appears to be a collapse occurring.  Those mental structures, beliefs, and concepts that life must fit my image of what I *believe* it should be are collapsing, to a degree.   And, a realization yesterday that I am still trying to hold onto those beliefs about life that keep me tied to those mental structures and ego constructs that filter my perceptions of the way things really are, and *its* deep “okayness.”    

Shall we Dance :)

~*~

“*You* don’t have to be okay with anything.  It’s not about the me-person being okay.  It’s that everything is *already* embraced by *Life* ItSelf.  It is a cosmic okayness that goes beyond ‘I’m okay’, and ‘I’m not okay.’  We are totally free to respond to life experience in authentic, honest, human ways.  We are free not to like our experiences, and - on a deeper level to experience a total, all-encompassing okayness with the entire situation.  Underneath everything is a cosmic okayness.  It’s not about telling yourself that you’re okay when you are not.  It’s not about pretending to be okay, trying to be spiritual, trying to be peaceful.  You don’t have to be anything other than you are in the moment.  It’s about radical honesty.  It’s about seeing reality as it is, acknowledging it, and discovering that the situation is fully admitted into Life – already.  There is simply Life, in all its mystery, wonder, and timeless simplicity.  And in this recognition the illusion of separation between us and Life falls away, and we are no longer at odds with life as it is.”

Jeff Foster
From: The Deepest Acceptance

~*~

“The treasure of deep Being is buried under the rubble of personality…”

Coleman Barks
The Soul of Rumi

~*~

The first two photos are color inverted.
It makes them look more magical :)

The Deepest Acceptance - Jeff Foster...

Excerpts from – The Deepest Acceptance:
 Radical Awakening in Ordinary Life
by Jeff Foster

"True freedom is found not through escaping the present experience, but by diving fearlessly into its hidden depths.  You must be willing to see *through* the idea of separation from life, in all its forms, in the midst of your present experience.  You must be open to exploring suffering – how and why it manifests in you, where it originates.  You must be willing to look at your pain, fears, sadness, longings.  They are part of the wholeness of life.  You must be willing to face them head on and find deep acceptance for the seemingly unacceptable aspects of yourself…  Beyond the personal story of my own suffering, I discover that pain is not really my pain.  It’s the world’s pain.  It’s humanity’s pain…

 It’s one thing to know who you really are when life is easy and things are going well for you.  It’s another thing to remember this in the heat of the moment, when things fall apart, when life gets messy.  We find another way of looking at suffering, a radical new way of relating to it.  We can see the messiness and beauty of day-to-day human existence as something to be avoided, or transcended, *or* we can see it for what it really is: a secret and constant invitation to wake up *now* - even if we believe we already woke up yesterday.  Life, in its infinite compassion. won’t let us rest on our laurels.  It’s about finding out who you *really* are, beyond who you *think* you are, beyond who you’ve been taught you are, beyond your story about who you are, beyond all your concepts and images of who you are.

 If we are to be truly free – we must face reality with open eyes.  We must move away from denial, wishful thinking, and hoping and tell the truth about life as it is.  Great freedom lies in admitting the truth of this moment, however much it clashes with our dreams and plans – and self-image…  Acceptance is about seeing reality, seeing things as they actually are, not as we wish them to be.  And from that place of alignment with what is, all creative, loving and intelligent action flows naturally.

 True freedom has nothing to do with being a better wave in the Ocean, or perfecting our story of ourselves. Freedom is about waking up from the dream (illusion) that we are separate waves in the first place, and embracing all that appears in the Ocean of our present experience.  Maybe the true calling in life is to accept present experience deeply – to let go of how this moment should be – letting go of our false self-image.

 Great freedom lies in fearlessly facing the darkness and finally coming to see that the darkness is inseparable from light… Life cannot be good or bad.  Life is simply life.  It’s about seeing the Mystery of Life that is already here.”

~*~

Photo: I noticed the different patterns
in this sheer curtain from the play of light on it.
For me these patterns represent the
”fabric of life”, the weave of life,
in all its variations…

On The Threshold of a "New" Journey...

Here we are again, at the turning of yet another wheel! J B started a new job in November - just 3 days before Thanksgiving!  Woo-Hoo!J  We were/are relieved and grateful, with a tinge of tentativeness; despite which I was doing my happy dance.  I *wanted* to share it here immediately, but felt it was too soon to announce it publicly, although I have already told some of you privately.  Of course we know that nothing is permanent, that life is always in flux, ebbing and flowing continually, but – he was hired as a “permanent” employee, not a “contract-to-hire” position.  So we breathe now with a little more “certainty” – knowing that even that is illusive.   And even though it still feels a little “new”, I felt that the Winter Solstice was an excellent time to bring it to Light… J  …the Solstice being symbolic of Light “returning” out of darkness, of new beginnings, and the turning of the wheel once again… 

As B embarks on this new stage in his career with confidence, passion and enthusiasm, we sense that we are on a threshold of a “new” journey…   After only 4 weeks he feels he has found his “dream job”, where he can shine and feel fulfilled.  Good thing at almost 62. J  And so we are settling into his work schedule, and I have been trying to use the last few weeks to find the internal Rhythm with Life once again, and gain some clarity on my life direction.  That is partly why such a deep need for solitude and silence – to get clear, to simplify internally, to become single-minded, although that is not quite working out as I intended, as there are still so many distractions pulling at me. But, I am managing each week to carve out blocks of time in silence and solitude, and beginning to feel The Rhythm of Silence within again, as I have been writing about recently.

I have known for a long time now that there is something innate within that compels me to explore and discover deeper layers of Truth, and Intimacy with the “Divine Nature” within - however one defines that for themselves.  And with that there is a sense of being at a threshold spiritually.  In many ways I feel like I am on the threshold of a “new” Light of Awareness, a “new” way of seeing and being; coming out of the *illusion* of separation *from* this “Infinite Nature” that we are.   These are only words, and they cannot accurately convey what I’m really experiencing.  All I can say is that it is profound.  And sometimes the less said the better - for the time being. J

I feel this new threshold calling me into even more solitude, and deeper layers of Silence, like the Christian “Desert Fathers”, or Buddhist Monks who went to live in the forests, and Hindu Sadhus who went to live in caves.  Except that I would need lots of windows in that cave! Lol…  It is in the metaphorical sense that I use these terms and images.  In reality it is more a turning inward, and entering the cave of the Spiritual Heart, withdrawing the mind from the world’s rhythms – not as an escape, but to become more deeply *Aware* of the Voice of “The Infinite” – that’s what Mystics do. J  I am neither a renunciate nor an ascetic.  I am still very much engaged in the requirements of daily living and family.  I simply want more time to sit in Infinite Silence – listening - finding the intuitive Rhythm of the Heart again – dropping the false veil of separation from the Ultimate Reality that we are.   It’s not really even about seeking “enlightenment” anymore, but a deep recognition that we are already lit from within.  Liberation…

At this new threshold, and after 4 1/2 years of blogging, I have no idea what direction this blog may take, or how often I will be blogging, as that too will be part of the new Flow.  The “blogging” experience has been an ever-evolving process reflecting my own spiritual unfolding.  I have lost some readers along the way, and gained some friends as well; the ebb and flow of relationships, touching each others lives – even momentarily.  For those who are still with me I have enjoyed your loving, supportive, and encouraging company on the road…  And if you are unknown to me out there reading this in cyberspace somewhere J I appreciate your silent Presence as well.  The invitation is always open to come along on this next phase of Life’s journey with me and see where I land.   I enjoy the company of Friends who help light the way… J

~♥~

“A baby pigeon on the edge of the nest hears the call
and begins her flight…

How can the soul/Heart
not fly
when a message arrives saying,
’…come, come back to me!’

What is the secret that opens the door?

The key is the flutter of the hearts wings
and its endless longing.

When the door opens,
walk on the path…
where everything old becomes new,
and never look back…”

Rumi

~

A warm and Light-filled Yuletide Season
to all…

~

Photo: Sunset from B’s building

The Fence...

Life, as it always does, afforded an opportunity for me to see things differently last weekend.  Who knew that a Fence would become fodder for awareness, and a blog post. :)

Our neighbor came to the door Friday evening wanting to know if he could take out the split rail fence on the property line between us, saying that the fence was not functional.  The real issue was that it kept him from easily accessing our side of his raised garden beds that abutted the fence, which meant he had to stand in our yard and lean over the fence to get to them. 

The fence belonged to neither of us, but had been put there by the developer many, many years ago.   My husband answered the door. I was preoccupied somewhere else in the house and missed the whole thing.  Anyway, B said – sure!    And then came to tell me what had transpired.

Enter drama…

My ego-mind immediately took over.  What does he mean that a fence is not “functional”, of course it’s functional, it sets boundaries! – I retorted.   It’s symbolic I argued.  It’s the principle of the thing, I snorted, feeling dismissed and disturbed that I had been left out of the decision. (No control issues there! :))  I felt myself go into resist mode.  My husband thought I was crazy and couldn’t believe I was making such a big deal about it.  He said to say no would have created uneccessary tension between the neighbor and us.  Maybe so – but still, I felt it necessary to defend my point. :)  Isn’t that the way the unawakened mind works… :)

It was obvious, even to me, that something in me had been triggered.  I suddenly felt vulnerable.  I watched as it took our neighbor about an hour to lift the fence posts out of the ground with a hydrolic car jack, and dismantle the fence.

For some crazy reason I felt sad, felt a sense of loss of what it symbolized – the letting down of boundaries, and a deeper fear of being more open; something that, from a spiritual perspective, I thought I really wanted anyway.  But now that it was really happening, in a symbolic way, it made me uncomfortable, feeling somehow unprotected and vulnerable.  Interesting how we are wired for safety and protection, and our egos become fearful of emancipation.

As Yoda said in a movie once – “You must unlearn what you have learned.”    

I am aware enough to know that a fence is only a symbol of a boundary.  That in reality there is no separation, no dividing line.  And yet, my mind *likes* the *idea* of separation, of yours and mine, of “other” who needs a reminder to keep from violating “my space.”  How un-enlightened of me. :)  Robert Frost, a New England poet, had a famous line in one of his poems, Mending Wall: “good fences make good neighbors.”  That has always seemed to work for me! :)  But an awakened view of the world requires a letting go of boundaries, of the sense of “other.”  I was being faced with that in real life, not in some idealistic spiritual concept.

Each day it became less and less of an issue as acceptance set in; cautionary acceptance, “what if” acceptance – like: what if his teenage son sees this as an invitation to come into our yard; not like the fence has kept him out before!  Once again, it’s only symbolic.  It doesn’t really keep anybody out.  It just makes *me* feel better that there is an *illusion* of a boundary that one must respect, providing a false sense of security and protection, an *illusion* of safe separateness.

Isn’t this how the world works too.  We create these false boundaries thinking it will keep us safe, like fences between countries.  We create tribes, communities, circles and in-groups.  Even beliefs and belief systems become fences that we create to keep us separate and safe.  But something always manages to get through – whether literally or symbolically.  Something crosses the boundary that we have created, disturbs our comfort zone, and forces us to awaken from our illusions of our separateness; our illusions of control; our illusions of safety.

Yet, there *is* something about a fence that I like. :) 

Mirabai Starr recently wrote about this sense of “other”, of separation, in her blog post “Otherizing.”   Here is an excerpt that struck me.  I highly recommend you read the whole post to get the context.

“The illusion of separation is what causes violence and oppression.  The minute we identify an individual or a group as being Other, we banish ourselves to a spiritual wasteland and justify treating someone else with anything less than loving kindness. [We] draw artificial boundaries to bisect a circle of our inter-connectedness with all beings.  [But] when we sit together and begin to peel back the layers…..it turns out that just about everyone everywhere affirms that Ultimate Reality is a unified field, and that no matter what names we ascribe to it…..it’s name is Love.”

Top Photo is not "the fence" at the property line :)
Unfortunately I didn't have a picture of that one.
It is another split rail fence from another place

in the neighborhood.
Sorry for the poor quality...

2nd photo - neighbor's garden beds
right up against the property line
where the fence used to be...