The "Real Journey"? - a meandering...

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

Wendell Berry

I find myself facing major life changes these days, in my 70's,
living with the questions, waiting for the way to become clear.
Watching the mysterious signposts along the way.  It's not a
crossroads exactly, nor a threshold.  It's more like limbo: all
questions, few clues, no answers.  With a timing all its own.

Berry's quote is a reminder for me in this busy-ness, work-identified
realm we live in - living under pressure to "produce", to get things
done, to "fix" yourself, physically, spiritually, psychologically,
that it takes courage to not have answers, to just slow down, to
set out on an inner journey I cannot see...

In my elder years perspectives have changed, the body has less
stamina and endurance to live the way the world lives: the hurried,
cacophony of living.  And so a "new journey" has begun, both
spiritually and physically - a slower paced interior journey -
and not necessarily meditation, but just more silence and solitude
and inner listening, when I can.  Maybe this *is* the "real journey" 
that Berry speaks of.  I'll let you know :)

~

I was journaling about this "shift" I seem to be going through
when the Inner Voice whispered:

"It's all a story" -

"You're a story within the 'Greater Story' of Existence."

I somehow felt relieved to hear this - and the recognition
that I am (my life is) only a story - as if I hadn't heard this before,
in different, more "spiritualized" words :)

Life is like a novel, the main story is your entire life,
with different chapters in it - different stories,
within a larger Story - a larger Reality.

The Inner Voice went on to say: Most people think they are in
control of their lives.  They don't realize they're just living a
story.  And the story doesn't dissolve until we die.  We are all
living the stories of our lives within a bigger context.  We are
all unique stories/expressions of the "Greater Story of Existence."
Which doesn't mean that we aren't "real", but like the wave of
the Ocean, we are each a unique expression of a greater Reality.
(And I like to think of it as a Cosmic Ocean - we are waves,
vibrations of a Cosmic Ocean that we can't see.  We are infinite
beings living a story.)

It kinda took the air out of the "self-importance" balloon; nothing
special, just a story, like everyone else, a blip in the ocean of
eternity...  It was like a burden had been lifted...  I could just
relax, internally, with no more striving after "enlightenment", or
perfection, or identifying with the "I Am"...  The story of "me" dies 
with us at death, unless "the story" is written down somewhere,
in a time bound obituary: a story of my life story...

Sigh - such relief to know I'm only a story...

BTW - if this perspective changes I'll be sure to 
write about it :) LOLOL

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Paradox of the Journey - Andrew Harvey

All major mystical traditions have recognized that there is a
paradox at the heart of the journey of return to Origin.

Put simply, this is that we are already what we seek, and that
what we are looking for on the Path with such intensity of
striving and passion and discipline is already within and
around us at all moments.  The journey and all its different
ordeals are all emanations of the One Spirit that is
manifesting everything in all dimensions; every rung of the
ladder we climb toward final awareness is made of the
divine stuff of Awareness itself...

Divine Consciousness is at once creating and manifesting
all things and acting in and as all things in various states of
self-disguise throughout all the different levels and
dimensions of the universe.

Andrew Harvey
teacher of mystical traditions

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

There slumbers in every human being faculties by means
of which he can acquire for himself a knowledge of higher
worlds.  Mystics, Gnostics, Theosophists - all speak of a
world of soul and spirit which for them is just as real as
the world we see with our physical eyes and touch with our
physical hands.

[...] Just as in the body, eye and ear develop as organs of
perception, as senses for bodily processes, so does a man
develop in himself soul and spiritual organs of perception

through which the soul and spiritual worlds are opened to him.

Rudolf Steiner

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Art - Mystic Meandering

 

 

The Basket - Robin Wall Kimmerer

The marvel of a basket is in its transformation, its journey
from wholeness as a living plant to fragmented strands
and back to wholeness again as a basket.  A basket knows
the dual powers of destruction and reaction that shape the
world.  Strands once separated are woven into a new whole.
The journey of a basket is also a journey of a people.

Robin Wall Kimmerer

from: Braiding Sweetgrass

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Journey - Henri Bergson

Fortunately, some are born with spiritual immune systems that
sooner or later give rejection to the illusory worldview grafted
upon them from birth through social conditioning.  They begin
sensing that something is amiss, and start looking for answers.
Inner knowledge and anomalous outer experiences show them
a side of reality others are oblivious to, and so begins their 
journey of awakening.  Each step of the journey is made by
following the heart instead of following the crowd and by
choosing [inner] knowledge over the veils of ignorance.

Henri Bergson
Daily Zen

with thanks to Whiskey River

~

Photo Mystic Meandering

 

Treading The Gate - Cate Kerr

Approach the gate as a pilgrim, a seeker,
wear sturdy boots for the craggy trail beyond.
Go cloaked and hooded against the wind,
blackthorn staff and lantern in your hand,
an abundance of candles in your pack
for the dusky nightfall hours ahead.

Bring the gifts and votive offerings for those who
dwell beyond the ancient threshold, bundles of sage,
clear water, kindling, earth and seaborn salt.
Bring flasks of tea, incense and bread,
tales and laughter to share around the fire
with those you meet along the way.

Travel light and make your journey by the moon,
taking the owls, true kindred, as your fierce
and tender companions.  Feel their soft breath
along your own wings, share in their dark
and watchful wisdom as you go.

Let the songs you sing as you are questing
be your own sweet music, and the stories
you spin by the fire in the nights ahead be the
narratives of your own wild and shining life,
this journey into an unknown land.

Listen to the night and be content, for you are not alone -
around you is a vast and singing throng.
The very stars are singing with you as you go.

Catherine Kerr
Beyond the Fields We Know

With thanks to Cate for her photo as well!

 

Haunted...

A kind of 'grief' has hit me again...
I'm beginning to feel haunted with memories of my mother's death,
how she looked the last few days, with eyes glazed over, struggling,
unable to make a connection.  I wasn't there to see her the last
morning when "she" died...  the person, the persona, the body...

But the "pictures" of the days before that I hold in my mind are
beginning to flash back.

I don't understand why she didn't go peacefully, even before
those last few days, when she lost her ability to speak,
her tongue swollen, unable to eat or drink without choking;
she had lost her ability to swallow.
She couldn't move her arms or turn in bed - as if paralyzed.
It must have been scary for her.

In those last few days I couldn't offer any solace or comfort.
It frightened me to see her this way,
because I felt helpless to do anything for her...
The body mechanism was dying...
The circuits of her brain were shutting down.

All we could do was wait, and watch over a period of days
as she slowly passed - still conscious, then semi-conscious,
then unconscious, then gone...

She would look up at the ceiling as if there was something
there, but she could not communicate what she saw.
And she'd look out the window as if to look for something
'out there.'  Maybe the beautiful woman that she said she
saw on the fence, when she could speak, who told her that
she was going to help her on her "Journey."

"Journey" well Mom...

So those are the memories I have of Mom on this
Memorial Day, trying to find better memories
in my mind.

Strange how the grief comes back to haunt you...

I can't overlay it with some nice "spiritual" belief;
It is what it is.  I feel what I feel.
Accepting everything as it is...

~

Photo - Mom in the hospital Dec. 27, 2018
less than 3 months before she passed at home
on March 21, 2019

I will not hear my mother's voice again...

I will not hear my mother's voice again - or see the recognition
in her eyes when she was surprised to see me at her bedside;
or see her lift her head up from the pillow, her index finger
pointed into the air, as I was on my way out her bedroom door,
saying "I love you" - as if to remind me for the last time.
And my reply: "I love you too!" - pausing to look back...

I will not "know" my mother anymore - in form - although her
Spirit Essence lives on somewhere now; a comforting feeling,
no matter what one's beliefs are about what happens after death.

That's the thing I learned through my mother's 3 month "death
experience" - only Love remains - not your spiritual beliefs, or
ideologies, or philosophies about life; your pain or childhood
wounds.  Only Love...  All the left-over parent/child issues
dissolved as I watched her lay vulnerable and weak, speaking in
whispers as her body declined; eventually unable to speak, or
eat, or drink...  Only compassion and sorrow arose as her body
struggled to let go of, or hang on to, life - and she became fearful.
It was not an easy death the last few days.  It became more like
hard labor, giving birth to something unseen...

In the weeks before her passing, as she deteriorated, she saw
things in the invisible world: elves outside her window in the
trees, and people from the spirit world she did not know standing
near her bed.  And what she called a "beautiful woman" whom
she said had come to "help her on her journey."  I surely hope so...

There were no "religious" or "spiritual" overtones to any of it.
No talk of "God", which surprised me from what I knew of my
mother; a sometimes very pious Christian.  There was only this
idea of a playful fantasy of going on a "journey" with "spirit
people" to help her.  Maybe life isn't as serious as we think,
maybe life is a playful journey.

Mom, you are safe now.
May you feel the Love on the other side of the veil...
For there is only Love and Grace at the end of the "journey."

I love you again and again - we all do...

~

Mom breathed her last breath this morning
March 21, 2019
at 10:21 am

6 days before her 91st birthday

~

Written March 10, 2019

True Center - Ivan Granger

Sages of all lands keep reminding us that the spiritual journey
is a journey of awareness, and specifically Self-awareness.
It is not a journey of acquisition.
Or intellect.
Or adherence to rules.

It is not a matter of how many books we're read.
Or how many times we've read them.
The only question of any value is whether we've yet
recognized their truths... within ourselves.

It is not a matter of how often we pray.
Or how perfectly we enunciate each prescribed word.
The question is, have we discovered how true prayer
wells up within us of its own accord.

We may not approach the spiritual path as a matter of
superficial actions or brittle creeds,
but we also can become swept up in endless new ideas,
new flashes of insight, new pathways, new teachers.
This can lead to a culture of lifelong seeking that becomes
our comfort zone;
a culture that takes on the form of religion (or spirituality)
without actually discovering the true center...
What we seek is found only and always
in the Heart of the heart...

Ivan Granger
Poetry Chaikhana

(Ivan's words, my format)

~

Photo - Mandala Art digitally altered

The Way to the Woods - Wendell Berry & Ivan Granger

Sabbaths 1985, V

[…..]

“What is the way to the woods, how do you go there?

By climbing through the six days’ field,
kept in all the body’s years, the body’s
sorrow, weariness, and joy.
By passing through the narrow gate
on the far side of that field
where the pasture grass
of the body’s life
gives way
to
the high, original
standing of the trees.
By coming into the shadow,
the shadow of the grace of the strait
way’s ending, the shadow of the mercy
of light…

Why must the gate be narrow?
Because you cannot pass beyond it burdened.
To come in among these trees you must leave behind
the six days’ world,
all of it,
all of its plans
and hopes.
You must come without weapon or tool,
alone,
expecting nothing,
remembering nothing…”

Wendell Berry
Excerpt from: A Timbered Choir

Something so healing, so earthly — in the most sanctified sense — in this Sabbath meditation by Wendell Berry.

His phrases of the “six days’ world” and the “six day’s field” are references to how we see the world and interact with the world on all the other days of the week, the non-Sabbath days. In the “six days’ world” we work, we do, we accomplish, we acquire. Often it is a world of control and burdens, “plans and hopes.” It is a world of objects and tools to manipulate those objects. Too often it is a world of domination and separation.

An essential reason for the Sabbath is to remind us that that “six days’ world” is not the real world nor is it the whole world, it is only one way of interacting with the world. When we take a true day of rest, and enter a majestic space not made by men — like the ancient, silent woods — we remember that we participate in a larger life, eternal, eternally recycling itself. We are reminded that there is a wholeness to the world we live in, something we can’t segment and sell without harm to ourselves. The Sabbath, the woods, the wilds, these remind us of the sacred, whole, eternal spaces within the human spirit. In true rest and quiet awe, we return to ourselves.

Ivan Granger at Poetry Chaikhana


http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/

For The Traveler - John O'Donohue...

Thought I’d share some photos of a little trip down the road we took today to open country to get away from the hectic life stream that surrounds us here in the burbs - to be in the unattached quietness of Nature…   Smelling the fragrances of earth blowing on the prairie wind across the prairie grasses, sitting in the utter silence of life under the expansiveness of the open sky opened me to inspiration again… In our travels we even found a little pond with croaking frogs hidden among the marshy grass.  Under each photo is an excerpt of a poem by John O’Donohue, called “For The Traveler”…

"Every time you leave home,
another road takes you
into a world you were never in."

"When you travel, you find yourself
alone in a different way,
more attentive now
to the self you bring along;
and how what meets you
touches that part of the heart
that lies low at home."

"A journey can become a sacred thing.
…free your heart of ballast
so that the compass of your soul
might direct you toward
the territories of spirit
where you will discover
more of your hidden life
and the urgencies
that deserve to claim you."

"When you travel,
a new silence
goes with you,
and if you listen,
you will hear
what your heart would
Love to say."

Excerpts from the poem: “For The Traveler”
by John O’Donohue

From the book: To Bless The Space Between Us

Confusion - Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

“There is no end to this dynamic mystical journey

that leads to the beyond…

The wayfarer has to learn to leave behind the old understanding
and allow what is new to become known…

The journey Home has another dimension,
a deeper direction.
I have had to face the illusion of my own journey,
how I was caught in certain convictions,
especially spiritual convictions.

Now I sense something else,
a swirling quality
that carries
confusion,
chaos,
and
freedom

Always the journey, [&] the path changes.
Always we are thrown into something
beyond what we might have expected.

Now I sense something else,
something that was always at the borders
of consciousness…
and yet avoided in its intensity.
A quality of chaos envelopes me from within…
the chaos of life
and what is beyond life…

Where does the path go,
what strange byways does it follow?
Always we look for a sense of direction.
Are we going Home?

Is this the right path?
Are we in tune?

But the path is much deeper
and more ancient than any sense of direction.
It belongs to the timeless inner dimension…

~

There is a choice…
We can follow the ego
with all its subtleties of
self-defense.

We can walk away from our heart’s call…
And so the path dissolves,
its urgency hidden,
its demand neglected….

But how can the path ever be lost?

The path is a strange creature,
full of the unexpected,
born from the unexpected,
attempting to take us into the
unknown,
into the unknowable.

And always we want the security
of knowing,
and so our fear of the dark
betrays us...

What is this path,
this empty way?

There is a heartache,
a call,
and a sigh that comes from
the depth.

These are the signs,
but where do they lead?

Why do we expect something
tangible…?

Why do we look for
reassurance
when we stand at the water’s edge?

Follow your heart’s call – but where?

Deep within we sense the terror of an endless night
and will make sure that our path skirts around this
desolate place.
We may hear the phrase
”to die before you die,”
but what do we know of this ultimate desolation?

The path will take us to the water’s edge,
and may even provide us with the illusion
of a boat, with the fantasy of a further shore,
but really these are just mind games and
psychological gimmicks.
There is no spiritual board game,
no path to enlightenment,
because “The Beloved”
comes “like a thief in the night”…

~

Why do we look for answers?
Why do we try to dress with the right clothes
for the journey, the correct spiritual attitude,
when we need to be unprotected?

So many stories have been told,
books written, pictures painted,
and always we skirt around the edge,
frightened of facing the depth
of our longing….

Sorrow, endless sorrow is what we are given to work with,
to open us, to take us, to silence us…
This endless sorrow has oceans of joy
hidden within it, the joy that is life itself,
the hidden face of creation.

This joy is not a flimsy alternative to life,
not life skating on the surface,
but the intensity of emptiness
pouring into form,
“The Beloved”
manifesting.

Hungry for what is Real,
we know neither our self
nor the chaos that awaits us.
We like to think we are spiritual seekers,
lovers, wayfarers…

But what is there to name?

Those who remain behind carry names;
they carry banners of their own inner development,
their spiritual or worldly success.
They know who they are, and are
resplendit in their own recognition.

The lost are not like this;

all they have known is emptiness
and a hunger.

Maybe they have had experiences,
glimpses of the beyond.
But the real journey is beyond
any such knowing,
is too simple to be explained,

too ordinary to be noticed,
and far too intense to be talked about.

There are things that can never be said,
perhaps because they are too intimate,
too painful, too bewildering, or just
unspeakable…

It is not someone else’s experience,
but a vortex of undoing
into which I am drawn
or thrown.”

Excerpts from: Fragments of a Love Story

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Sufi Mystic



Please Note: I have taken excerpts from various pages
in the book, putting them together in the form of this prose poem.


Photo: Vortex Art