The Haunted Room - John O'Donohue

The way you think about your life can turn your soul into a 
haunted room.  You are afraid to risk going in there anymore.
Your fantasy peoples this room of the heart with sad presences,
which ultimately become disturbing and sinister.

The haunted room in the mind installs lonesomeness at the heart
of your life.  It would be devastating in the autumn of your life
to look back and recognize that you had created a series of
haunted rooms in your heart.

Fear and negativity are immense forces, which constantly tussle
with us.  They long to turn the mansions of the soul into a totally
haunted house.  These are the living conditions for which fear 
and negativity long, and in which they thrive.

We were sent here to live life to the full.  When you manage to be
generous in your passion and vulnerability, life always comes to
bless you.  Had you but the courage to acknowledge the haunted
inner room, turn the key, and enter, you would encounter nothing
strange or sinister there.

You would meet some vital self of yours that you had banished
during a time of pain and difficulty.  Sometimes, when life
squeezes you into lonely crevices, you may have to decide between
survival and breaking apart.  At such times, you can be harsh with
yourself and settle to be someone other than who you really long
to be.  At such a time, you can do nothing else; you have to survive.

But your soul always remains faithful to your longing to become
who you really are.  The banished self from an earlier time of life
remains within you waiting to be released and integrated.  The
soul has its own logic of loyalty and concealment.

Ironically, it is usually in its most awkward rooms that the special
blessings and healing are locked away.

Your thinking can also freeze and falsify the flow of your life's
continuity to make you a prisoner of routine and judgement.

John O'Donohue

from Eternal Echoes

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
image from light on the ceiling
through the top of a lamp shade...

 

The Mind of Fear - Mooji

The mind fears...

What is the message in the fear?
Find the message in the fear...

Fear empties itself as soon as there is revelation...

YOU [the Eternal Self] *are* before the movement of fear
that arises.  Realize your Beingness that is before time...

Wake up to the recognition of your Eternal Self.

[That is] the Awareness in which fear occurs.

Just keep quiet...

Don't identify yourself with the reactions,
just *feel* your Existence

and

let the fear burn off...

Identify the Presence that sees,
and stay with this Presence,
and you'll come to a place of
complete [internal] Stillness...

There is Stillness in that space of fear...

When fear is met
what expands is a sense of spaciousness...

There is an intuitive sense that you and the spaciousness
of Stillness are one...

In this place your mind of fear will not have much power

because you're in your
Natural State...

Mooji

excerpts taken from a talk

~

Art - Mystic Meandering
The Cave
CrayPas Oils
done with fingers
2010

 

Fleeting Whispers...

Her past fades away -
mere images in a dreamland -
forgotten...

Her world fades away - unbelonging now -
a foreigner on a strange planet
whirling through space.
Kabuki theater...

Her mind fades - not remembering
the things she needs to remember -
unable to articulate what she has forgotten...

Her body fades - unable to do the things she used to do - 

challenged keeping pace with life -
frustration...

Her life, paper thin, fades to a shadowy form
unable to hold its color -
losing its luster...

We are impermanent, fleeting whispers of spirit
on a temporary journey -
this life experience...

And sometimes that story doesn't go the way
we have in mind...

It all fades away - eventually...

That is the natural state of things...

So she turns her inner compass
toward "Home" - toward Source -
that lies within her...

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 26, 2023

 

The Mind's Dreamscape...

Dream images pass through the mind -

stories, events, experiences,
of past, present and yet to come,
weaving their memories through
the vast vault of the brain;
chemicals playing with the neurons
and synapses.

Dramas of the dreamscape
come and go daily.
Thoughts from the mental kingdom
come and go second by second,
like coded messages keyed out over the
wires by a clerk in an abandoned
ghost town - long gone - long dead.

They are merely images of the mind -
only thoughts - surface activities
moving through the mechanism of time
with the speed and feel of electricity,
disturbing a tranquil stillness within
with static thought waves
that we take to be real,
lost in the dreamscape of the world,
spinning on the wheel of life,
believing the abstract mind.

Mystic Meandering
Oct. 24, 2005

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Waiting for the War to End - Gangaji

Human beings have been making war in every culture for a very
long time.  Culture is a reflection of the individual mind, and the
individual mind is a reflection of the cultural mind.  Since you
are reading this, I assume you are interested in peace in your
own mind.  You are not waiting for "them" to make peace.  This
is good news, because war is fought to get others to do it our
way so that we can be at peace.  When you stop waiting for
them, instead shift your attention to your own mind, then you
can recognize the tendency toward war in your own mind, the
tendencies of totalitarianism, hate, revenge, and holding on.  
And you can recognize the suffering that those tendencies
continue to deliver.

Somehow, in the face of it all, you find you want peace.  You
are sick and tired of the war within your own mind. You only
need to accept the invitation of your own heart, regardless of
the outer or inner circumstances, and let yourself sink into the
peace of your innermost Being.

Unless all of us take responsibility for our own inner peace,
the wars will continue.  We cannot wait any longer for
someone else to change. We cannot wait for someone else to
forgive us so that we can forgive them.  We cannot wait for
 someone else to say they are sorry.  
Peace cannot be postponed.

Gangaji

From - The Diamond in Your Pocket

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

(Waiting for the Dr. in the exam room)

 

Dancing with Life...

In moments of Solitude and Quiet
the life "characters" I've assumed -
fall away...

The defense mechanisms, beliefs, roles and identities
drop into the Quiet -
and the Eternal Perspective emerges...

unthinking happens...

Embracing the mystery and paradox of life,
I accept the totality of life experience;
not just the pathways of 
light and bliss and peace -
but the darker pathways,
with their shadows of the psyche,
without "spiritualizing" them...
Accepting the shadow side of life
as part of the Whole...

In the Quietude I listen to the "Oracle" of the Soul
that has imagery, poetry and music all its own.

With the innocence of a child -
open and spontaneous -
my Heart, hidden by the many masks I've worn,
melts through - hearing the music...

Unencumbered... Unconstrained... Undefined...
And dances with the innate Rhythm of Life again -
The Natural Rhythm,
as the world plays out its darker side.

Mystic Meandering

Aug. 29, 2021

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

 

Emergence - Paul Levy, Betty Kovacs, & Andrew Harvey

 Humanity has become affiliated with a mysterious
psycho-spiritual disease of the Soul - the virus of the mind.
The very source of madness is to be found within the
unconscious psyche of humanity.  There is a fissure, a
primordial dissociation, a split deep within - a state of
fragmentation deep within the collective unconscious.

We are truly living in dark times where the darkness is
emerging from hiding in the shadows and is becoming
visible...  Confronting the darkness and viewing the
collective nightmare [requires looking] through the 
mystical lens of our intimate connection with the Divine.

We are currently living contrary to our innate creative
impulses, out of integrity with our Soul, [which has]
created a collective insanity/madness that we are
playing out.

What the world needs is for each of us to have the
courage to follow our calling, step into our true vocation
and share our creative gifts with the world such that we
co-inspire each other.

When intense darkness manifests within an individual's
process it can potentially lead to an emergence of an
unknown light within that person of which they are
previously unaware...

Paul Levy
from the Forward in Radical Regeneration by
Andrew Harvey

~

The first darkness we have to face, is the story we've
been telling ourselves about ourselves.  We have become
addicted to a story that now has the power to negate the
entire world.

Betty Kovacs
Merchants of Light

~

Because we may well be standing on the threshold of a new
story that is destined to emerge, we must open to the crisis
that makes its emergence possible.  Staying open and vulnerable
to exploding suffering and danger on every level demands
everything from us.  The industrial civilization has become
intoxicated with itself.

Andrew Harvey
from - Radical Regeneration

~

"Thinking" is the story we tell ourselves
about our world, about our experience,
about our existence, running scenarios in
the mind of the way it "should" be or
shouldn't be - how it will play out -
in our heads...

"If you touch one syllable of that story
you will suffer."

I touched the syllable
It's torture
I suffered

Mystic Meandering
April 18, 2021

With thanks to Mitch Rosacker
of Self Discovery Studio
for the quote: "If you touch one syllable
of that story you will suffer."

~

Art - Mystic Meandering
from a larger piece
2012

Step Into What You Are - Matt Licata

 At times, the most wise and soulful action is to establish a
boundary with another.  To stand up and assert what it is
that we need.  To move in an empowered and swift way to
maintain our integrity.  To privilege our autonomy.  To
meet narcissism, abuse, misattunement, and neglect with a
fierce embodied response.

This is not only the case with "external" others, but also
with the multitude of "internal" others as they emerge as
voices, figures, and images in the interior landscape.

As we wake in the morning, wander through the day, in
liminal states and at the entryway to sleep and dream...
we may notice their presence, arriving quietly in one
moment and as firestorm in the next - telling us:

"There is something wrong with you.  You have failed
again. You have done life wrong. You are unworthy of
mercy, of grace.  You are beyond redemption.  You are
unlovable and unwanted.  You do not belong here."

The images and voices of the past, shadow emanations
of authorities, cultures, and lineages of intergenerational
trauma and trance.  The voices of a realm that has forgotten
the holy, the sensitive, the eccentric, and raging uniqueness
of the heart.

But in a moment when perception is clear and a glimpse
is given from behind the veil, it is seen that the visitors
come not to harm, but to reveal.  But they, too, must be
met with boundaries of clear seeing.  To not accept what
they say at face value, but to enter into dialogue and to
find the way into what is most true.  To not merely accept
their conclusions, proposed tunnels of reality, and the
psychic lenses through which they have come to see...

But step into what you are.  To live in and from that as
your poetic offering to a weary world.  To take the risk
of telling a new story, dreaming a new dream, and
weaving new cloth.  And to allow yourself to be toned
and tuned by the great Weaver herself...
breathing and sensing and listening as a new vision is
unearthed.

Matt Licata, Ph.D.

~

Photo: Art - Mystic Meandering

The Ghostly Winds...

My Dear,

Be free of concern...
Be free of your mind, and be still.
Let the winds of agitation and despair
pass through you...

Just rest and wait for
the winds to pass through -
as they will...

The stripping winds of decline,
the ghostly winds of the mind,
they all pass through...
Be patient and wait.

All is cared for...
All will be well...

Just rest your mind
and let it all pass...

My Dear,

Be at peace with yourself.
It all passes through.

Mystic Meandering
Jan. 11, 2021

Personal Note:  These were the words that
came through in meditation after a particularly
stressful and restless evening and night,
getting caught in the mind by the winds of
craziness and hatred occurring in this country.

Peace
_/\_

~

Photo - hubby :)

 

 

The Guest - Rumi

 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 are 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 whatever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Rumi

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

The Real Virus...

In the first minutes of dawn,
at the edge of the dark night,
she awakes...

Inexplicable dread overtakes her...

... a dream?

...or the zeitgeist of our time...

~

In the dark hours of time,
a "virus" slipped in;
a failing, narcissistic system;
a divisive ideology,
resurrected from former shadow
minds of tribal hatred,
attempting to invade and isolate
through the power of greed and
self-interest...

Turning us
against ourselves with its myopic lens,
demeaning and deriding
"other" cultures,
"other" races,
"other" religions,
"other" peoples -
while pretending
to protect its own...

The "virus" imposes boundaries on a
boundaryless world,
polarizing unity into fragments
that shatter,
creating the current paradigm
of Ignorance,
Paranoia,
Protectionism,
Isolationism,
Narcissism,
Nationalism,
Racism,
Fear
 and
 Violence.

But those who know the beauty of
true Light,
endure the false light,
knowing that the mindless "virus"
cannot shatter the pristine Light of
a radiant Cosmos;
for it cannot be rent in two
by the darkness of ignorant minds
whose pretense and perniciousness
would even attempt to destroy
what cannot be destroyed:

The Eternal, Infinite Light and
movement of a Grand Cosmic Mystery
with its own Rhythms and Purposes
unknown
by
feeble, darkened minds
and the ineptness of
fake power.

Mystic Meandering
January 23, 2017

~

May the Infinite Spirit of Love heal our
wounded lives and help us endure what
is happening in our country and the world...

Namaste

_/\_

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

The Troll in the Mind - Mark Nepo

We spend so much time
anticipating what will happen next that we miss
the whisper of Heaven that unfolds wherever we are.

Though I have known and survived
many forms of pain,
fear is the troll in the mind
that anticipates more.

And just as a loud noise prevents us
from finding the peace in the center of silence,
fear prevents us from finding
the inch of Heaven in the center
of whatever moment we are in.

Yet, no matter how much I've been through
and how much I've learned,
I can't stop the wave of anticipation.
No one can.

It is part of being human.

Mark Nepo
(a cancer survivor)

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
 A dried rose petal with one eye
at the top and a big schnozz.
Looks like a troll to me :)

Fear - The Drug of Despair...

I keep trying to change the all-consuming music
running in my head ~ coronavirus ~
and listen for the soothing tones of
the deeper Inner Rhythm that will subdue
the fear of the body-mind in theses
stressful times...

But now the sun is almost past the eve,
and the collective shadow has overtaken me,
with thoughts of the state the world is in now...
Sometimes losing perspective, the bigger picture...
Unable to see beyond the maze mentality...
Losing touch with the deeper Music within...

Fearing my own vulnerability,
as well as that of humankind.
Startled by scarcity of necessities.
Shocked by man's unkindness to man -
hoarding...

Triggered by a virus...

Exposing man's darker side:

its selfishness, arrogance and greed;
its fear of the unknown,
and death;

Not Buddha Nature...
Not Compassion,

nor Christ Consciousness -
but the primal brain of fear and
survivalist consumption...

Fear - the drug of despair...

The new "normal"...

We have to change the music...

Mystic Meandering
March 15, 2020

Photo via The Beauty We Love

There Is Room in the Heart - Ameeta

What distresses you
my friend?

Isn't it mostly
what your mind says
should not be?

The mind says
it should not be
and yet it is.

There is room
you know
there is room
in the heart
for what the mind
won't allow.

There is room
in the heart
for what the mind
can't understand.

There is room
in the heart
for every
contradiction
and conflict
for every pair
of opposites
to co-exist.

No no
shouts the mind again
it is wrong
and I won't allow it.

There is room
in the heart
for all of
shouting mind.

There is room
in the heart
for reality
as it is.

Recognize
your open heart
my friend
and receive life here.
Receive life
in this home of love
and know your heart
as the birthplace
of everything.

Ameeta

2011

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Being Authentic - Elizabeth Lesser

The irony of hiding the dark side of our humanness is that our
secret is not really a secret at all.  How can it be when we're all
safeguarding the very same story?  That's why Rumi calls it an
Open Secret.  It's almost a joke - a laughable admission that each
one of us has a shadow self - a bumbling, bad-tempered twin.
Big surprise!  Just like you, I can be a jerk sometimes.  I do unkind,
cowardly things, harbor unmerciful thoughts, and mope around
when I should be doing something constructive.  Just like you,
I wonder if life has meaning;  I worry and fret over things that I
can't control; and I often feel overcome with a longing for
something that I cannot even name.  For all of my strengths and
gifts, I am also a vulnerable and insecure person, in need of
connection and reassurance.  This is the secret I try to keep from
you, and you from me, and in doing so, we do each other a grave
disservice.

Rumi tells us that the moment we accept what troubles we've been
given, the door will open.  Sounds easy, sounds attractive, but it is
difficult, and most of us pound on the door to freedom and happiness
with every manipulative ploy save the one that actually works.  If
you're interested in the door to the heavens opening, start with the
door to your own secret self.  See what happens when you offer to
another a glimpse of who you really are.  Start slowly.  Without
getting dramatic, share the simple dignity of yourself in each moment -
your triumphs and your failures, your satisfaction and your sorrow.
Face your embarrassment at being human, and you'll uncover a deep
well of passion and compassion.  It's a great power, your Open Secret.
When you heart is undefended you make it safe for whomever you
meet to put down his/her burden of hiding, and then you both can
walk through the open door.

Elizabeth Lesser
from: Broken Open

~

...the person you think of as "yourself" exists only in you, and
even you don't really know who that is.  Every person you meet,
have a relationship with, or make eye contact on the street with,
creates a version of "you" in their heads.  You're not the same
person to your mom, your dad, your siblings, [that] you are to
your coworkers, your neighbors, or your friends.  There are a
thousand different versions of yourself out there, in people's minds.
A "you" exists in each version, and your "you", "yourself", isn't really
"someone" at all.

Commentary on a chapter in a book called
One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand
by Luigi Pirandello

Shadow Life - Anais Nin

You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world,
and you believe you are living.  Then you read a
book... or take a trip... and you discover that you
are not living, that you are hibernating.  The symptoms
of hibernating are easily detectable: first restlessness.
The second symptom (when hibernating becomes
dangerous and might degenerate into death):
absence of pleasure.  That is all.  It appears like an
innocuous illness.  Monotony, boredom, death.
Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing
it.  They work in offices.  They drive a car.  They picnic
with their families.  They raise children.  And then some
shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song,
and it awakens them and saves them from death.
Some never awaken...

Anais Nin

A luminous middle place - Matt Licata

Let us not forget the descendant current, flowing into the unlit
places, the lower worlds, and the dark caverns of the psyche.
The invitation here is one of embodiment - into the vulnerability,
the chaos, and the deflation that the path of the heart will
inevitably present us with for holding.

There is a cultural fantasy that we are supposed to know what to
do with our lives, that things are supposed to be clear at all times.
But love is full-spectrum and will use the energies of not-knowing,
disappointment and uncertainty as part of its revelation here.  The
process of dissolution is non-negotiable...
For it is by way of this sacred washing of the known that new
 forms can find their way here.

Even in the darkness, the numbness, and in the appearance that
nothing is happening, there is birth, but the new can never fully come
into being without an honoring of re-organization and death
 [of the old]. The challenge is that there is no map for this territory
 as it is too alive, too creative, and too wild to be pinned down,
 controlled, and known ahead of time.  While this degree of openness
 may be disorienting to a mind seeking resolution, it is exhilarating
in the heart, in the body, and deep within the soul.

It is natural and easy to disconnect from this [descendant] current, as
we overly identify with the ascending, the upward, the light, and the
transcendent.  In the rush to exit immediate experience - for something
that is higher, purer, less messy, and less contradictory - we turn from
the waters of life and lose touch with essence.

While it is natural to have a bias for one current over another, let us
not do so at the expense of fragmentation.  In ways the mind may
never fully understand, there is a luminous middle place where the
currents intertwine.  It is buried in the secret chamber inside your
own heart.

Enter there...
Rest there...
Play there...
Dance there...

Matt Licata

~

Art - Shadowy Caverns
Craypas oils done with fingers
2011

In Dark Times - John O'Donohue

[.....]

In the glare of neon times,
Let your eyes not be worn
By the surfaces that shine
With hunger made attractive.

That our thoughts may be true light.
Finding their way into words

Which have the weight of shadow
To hold the layers of truth.

That we never place our trust
In minds claimed by empty light,
Where one-sided certainties
Are driven by false desire.

When we look into the heart,
May our eyes have the kindness
And reverence of candlelight.

That the searching of our minds
Be equal to the oblique
Crevices and corners where
The mystery continues to dwell.
Glimmering in fugitive light.

When we are confined inside
The dark house of suffering
That moonlight find a window.

When we become false and lost
That the severe noon-light
Would cast our shadow clear.

When we love, that dawn-light
 Would lighten our feet...

[.....]

Excerpt from: "For Light"

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

What's Your Echo? - Bram Levinson

Have you actually ever considered what you do right now,
like the next word that comes out of your mouth,
the next social media post that you put up, the next thought that
flutters across your mind...is actually contributing to your echo?
Your echo is the energy that someone is filled with when they talk
about you or think about you - your energy with them.
Your echo is the energy that trails behind you in your wake.
It's the energy that outlives you and out lasts your body, your life.
It's your impact, your imprint.
We emanate energy.  We are energy in a human body and that energy
is palpable, it's contagious.

What's your echo?

What's going on in the world has triggered a lot of opinion.
What you emanate into the world contributes.
It's your echo.
We are responsible for what we give off.
What is happening around the world right now is the sum total of
all our energies that are frenetic.  We are giving off a lot of chaos.
There is a rising wave of intolerance that is happening in our minds.
We get swept up into it...  [But] we are given life boats to navigate
those choppy waters if we are clear enough.
It's about getting out of our stories and beliefs that we walk around with
about who we *think* we are.

We are all energy, the energy that animates us into life...

What you do matters...

It takes presence...

What's your echo...? 

Bram Levinson
Yoga and Meditation Teacher

Excerpts from the video: "Echoes: What Remains of Us?"

To view the full video click HERE and scroll down to video

~

What we speak
becomes the house
we live in.

Who will want to sleep in your bed
if the roof leaks
right above it?

Hafiz

~

Photo - part of an arurora borealis

Phantoms of Beliefs - Federico Moramarco

Have you considered the possibility
that everything you believe is wrong,
not merely off a bit, but totally wrong,
nothing like things as they really are?

If you've done this, you know how durably fragile
those phantoms we hold in our heads are,
those wisps of thought that people die and kill for,
betray lovers for, give up lifelong friendships for.

If you've not done this, you probably don't understand this poem,
or think it's not even a poem, but a bit of opaque nonsense,
occupying too much of your day's time,
so you probably should stop reading it here, now.

But if you've arrived at this line,
maybe, just maybe, you're open to that possibility,
the possibility of being absolutely completely wrong,
about everything that matters.

How different the world seems then:
everyone who was your enemy is your friend,
everything you hated, you now love,
and everything you love slips through your fingers like sand.

Federico Moramarco
"One Hundred and Eighty Degrees"

~

Photo - Light Image on Wall