Twilight...

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

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

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

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

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

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

This Light we are...

Mystic Meandering
Dec. 21, 2012

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
January 6, 2012

 

Blessing for the Interim Time - John O'Donohue

When near the end of day, life has drained
Out of light, and it is too soon
For the mind of night to have darkened things,

No place looks like itself, loss of outline
Makes everything look strangely in-between,
Unsure of what has been, or what might come.

In this wan light, even trees seem groundless.
In a while it will be night, but nothing
Here seems to believe the relief of darkness.

You are in this time of the interim
Where everything seems withheld.

The path you took to get here has washed out;
The way forward is still concealed from you.

The old is not old enough to have died away;
The new is still too young to be born.

You cannot lay claim to anything;

In this place of dusk,
Your eyes are blurred;
And there is no mirror.

Everyone else has lost sight of your heart
And you can see nowhere to put your trust;
You know you have to make your own way through.

As far as you can, hold your confidence.
Do not allow confusion to squander
This call which is loosening
Your roots in the false ground,
That you might come free
From all you have outgrown.

What is being transfigured here [is] your mind,
And it is difficult and slow to become new.
The more faithfully you can endure here,
The more refined your heart will become
For your arrival in the new dawn.

John O'Donohue

from - To Bless the Space Between Us

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Deep Space...

Molten golden light
splays itself out within a fathomless darkness,
like a million jewels tumbled out into the stillness of space;
dancing particles of Divine Illumination...

The shutter of Infinity opens and the light
imprints its glittering image within Divine Darkness.
In a moment of stillness, a moment of no breath,
a moment in the timelessness of deep space,
the Light and the Darkness merge - like twilight...

In this place of Primordial Existence,
the Darkness and Light intermingle
in the purity of cosmic fusion;
forever "blended",
neither the enemy of the other,
neither opposed to the other,
both expressing the same Source...

In the depths of The Deep
there is a dance of Life -
an inexpressible expression of
the Aliveness of the Absolute -

revealed in time as a movement of creation,
a movement of birth,
a movement and a breath of
Light and Darkness
forever merging...

In "Deep Space"
the Light and the Dark
exist together within the wholeness of
the Infinite Mystery...

Mystic Meandering
April 2001

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
A street light through tree branches
digitally altered...

 

For One Who Is Exhausted - John O'Donohue

Photo by Martin Stranka

When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
The 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 your 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 gently with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed of 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 the heart
And joy that dwells far within slow time.

John O'Donohue

~

Photo - via No Mind's Land

Twilight...

There is s seamless "edge" when twilight comes...

And a twinge of longing when the
light wanes into twilight,
the edge of the veil;
the threshold between
light and dark...

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

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

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

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

At twilight we stand at the edge of time.
and timelessness beyond time...

peering through
for a glimpse

of the Infinite Light
that knows no dimming
and no night;
only Its own Eternal Radiance
of
Being...

This Light we are...

Mystic Meandering
Dec. 21, 2012

Into The Twilight - Winter Solstice

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

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

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

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

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

This night we stand at the edge of time,
and timelessness beyond time...

peering through
for a glimpse
of the
Infinite Light
that knows no dimming
and no night;
only Its own Eternal Radiance
of
Being...

This Light we are...

Mystic Meandering
Winter Solstice
Dec. 21, 2012

How the Day Keeps Us - John O'Donohue

No one knew the name of this day;
Born quietly from deepest night.
It hid its face in light,
Demanded nothing for itself,
opened out to offer each of us
A field of brightness that traveled ahead,
Providing in time, ground to hold our footsteps
And the light of thought to show the way.

The mind of the day draws attention;
It dwells within the silence with elegance
To create a space for all our words,
Drawing us to listen inward and outward.

We seldom notice now each day is a holy place
Where the Eucharist of the ordinary happens,
Transforming our broken fragments
into an eternal continuity that keeps us.

Somewhere in us a dignity presides
That is more gracious than the smallness
That fuels us with fear and force,
A dignity that trusts the form a day takes.

So at the end of this day, we give thanks
For being betrothed to the unknown
And for the secret work
Through which the mind of the day
And wisdom of the soul become one.

John O'Donohue
Original Title: The Inner History of a Day
From: To Bless the Space Between Us:
A Book of Blessings

For Light - John O'Donohue

[.....]

In the glare of neon times,
Let our eyes not be worn
By 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 might 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
Upon the waters.

As we grow old, that twilight
Would illuminate treasure
In the fields of memory.

And when we come to search for God,
Let us first be robed in night,
Put on the mind of morning
To feel the rush of light
Spread slowly inside
The color and stillness
of a found word.

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

~

Photo - Mandala Art

"Deep Space"...

Molten golden light
splays itself out within a fathomless darkness,

like a million jewels tumbled out into the stillness of space;
dancing particles of Divine Illumination...

The shutter of Infinity opens and the light
imprints its glittering image within Divine Darkness.
In a moment of stillness, a moment of no breath,
a moment in the timelessness of deep space,
the Light and the Darkness merge - like twilight...

In this place of Primordial Existence,
the Darkness and Light intermingle
in the purity of cosmic fusion;
forever "blended",
neither the enemy of the other,
neither opposed to the other,
both expressing the same Source...

In the depths of The Deep
there is a dance of Life -
an inexpressible expression of
the Aliveness of the Absolute -
revealed in time as a movement of creation,
a movement of birth,
a movement and a breath of
Light and Darkness
forever merging...

In "Deep Space"
the Light and the Dark
exist together within the wholeness of
The Infinite Mystery...

Mystic Meandering
April 2001

~

Photo - a street light through tree branches
digitally altered to create this affect...

An Unseen Hand...

I took these pictures of the "mittens" over a period of weeks
on my "twilight walks" from January to February 2012.

I first found them on the ground behind a bench.
I picked them up and laid them out on the bench
hoping their owner would see them...

The next time they had been only slightly moved
and covered with a light dusting of snow...

Then ~

neatly laid together
at one end of the bench;
one holding the other
as if content to wait
for their owner to
retrieve them...

I left them as they were...

On the next visit one was on the bench,
delicately laid out
in this dainty hand position,
almost as if an invitation to sit...

and the other on the ground
in the shape of the peace sign,
as if to say everything is okay...

Once again I left them as they were,
wondering what unseen hand
was sculpting them...

After two large snow falls
and a couple of weeks of
60 mile an hour winds
I found one here

sculpted into the ice...

And finally, out of curiosity,
I made a quick trip back to the park
that March to see if I could find them again...

And there they were on another bench,
flattened and weather-worn...

So I did a little sculpting of my own
in a funky finger mudra :)

We are all each other's "unseen hand",
appearing and disappearing when needed,
lifting each other's spirits,
unknowingly shaping,
influencing and rearranging
life perspectives
in slight and subtle ways,
through our presence...
Each offering something
in our own way,
inviting each other to sit a while;
offering signs of encouragement
and inspiration,
lending each other
a hand
to extricate each other
from the frozen constructs of our minds;
melting away the outmoded concepts that
keep us frozen
with the warmth of a
loving "unseen hand"...

Thank you to the "unseen hands"
in my life
who have inspired and opened
this Heart...

_/\_

Step Off the Edge...

There’s an “edge” when twilight comes…

A twinge of longing when the
light wanes into twilight,
the edge of the veil;
that opening between
light and dark,
into Reality…

and remembrance
of the Light beyond…

A knowing that this life
is waning into twilight too,
from one state into another,
forever reforming Itself…

Tree branches wave in the wind
in hommage to the light
dimming in the West…

Owls hoo – calling the night
into existence
from the East;
prophets of the twilight
standing at the edge
where ending meets beginning
and beginning ending…

Twilight,
the inbetween,
as Life cycles through time,
through light and dark,
through living
and dying.

This night we stand at the edge of time
and timelesseness beyond time…
peering through
for a glimpse
of the
Beyond -
The Infinite Light
that knows no dimming
and no night;
only its own eternal radiance
of
Being

This Light we are…

Surrender…

Step off the edge…

Written

Dec. 21, 2012

Winter Solstice

©Mystic Meandering

Light Movement...

I thought it would be interesting to post this sequence of a sunset that I took last week to show the changes in the light and color as the sun slipped behind the mountains…

To be witness to the movement of Light as it crosses an imaginary threshold is amazing. I never noticed before that the light becomes more brilliant *before* it diffuses; changing color and hue as the light bounces off the clouds. I know there is a scientific explanation for why this happens :) But I am a mystic – I see things poetically and metaphorically - so bear with me…

In watching the light wane into its brilliance before twilight, (interesting paradox) I begin to understand that the Light never *really* leaves. The Light is always there – lighting someone else’s day. My evening becomes someone else’s morning; returning again to make a new day… But actually everything is one continuous movement of Light - always… And I’m not talking about the sun here…

This wondrous movement of Light reminds me that “Reality” and “phenomena” are never separate. You cannot separate phenomena, such as a sun setting, *from* the movement of Reality ItSelf. It is an illusion to say that one is an illusion and the other is not. There are no illusory objects appearing separately from Reality. There is no line between light and dark, formless and form, day and night. In fact, it is the separation that is illusory. There is nothing that *isn’t* Light. Everything is one and the same Light, or you could say, one and the same Life. The Absolute and the Relative are the same. It’s all the breath and movement of Light/Life, in and as everything. We are the brilliance of unlit Light… What matters is what opens us to the awareness of that unlit Light in the Heart that is always there…

Heart Stones...

Some of you may remember that I am doing a month of
“small stones.”
It’s a practice in awareness, noticing life,
both inner and outer,
as it happens…
Click here to read more about it.

~~

The homey smell of
a cooked meal
that lingers
in the house,
smelled again
upon entering…

Memories of the smell of
my grandmother’s home…

The smell of love and warmth…

Warm fuzzies…

Snowing like soft white rain
melting as it hits the ground,
leaving shiny black pavement
and the swish sound of wetness
from the tires..

Lovely lyrical violin music
on the car radio

The Heart’s delights…

Loving the sounds of the house
the sounds of a day…

The washing machine
the dryer
the furnace
the creaking

A plane overhead
A dog barking

The sound of peace
The sound of silence
behind the noise

Contentment…

Experiencing the gap
of twilight

a transition…

an opening of the heart…

an awareness
of life
so complete
my heart quakes
like the leaves
with its sweetness…

Twilight Owls...

I wish I had a better picture for you, to show my two very enchanting experiences this week with two different owls in our neighborhood, but you’ll just have to trust me. All I have to show for it is this silhouetted picture of a small owl. That would be the little dark blob in the photo of the tree. :) The other one was a huge Great Horned Owl perched in our next door neighbor’s tree, very close to our house. There is such a sacred feeling to be able to view wildlife in a residential neighborhood like this (besides rabbits, squirrels and hawks). And if I hadn’t been out on my walk I would not have seen the smaller owl. In fact I nearly missed it…

As I walked down the sidewalk my husband approached from the opposite direction in the car, as he was coming back from errands. He stopped, we briefly spoke, and I continued on my walk. However, I realized I had the garage door opener, and turned around and headed back. I waved to him to show that I had it, and he started walking towards me. Suddenly he started running towards me, which I found strange. I thought maybe we were going to have one of those magical romantic moments in slow motion that you only see in the movies. And I waited – but no – my mistake…

As he reached me and I handed off the opener he said to me – “Have I got a surprise for you” – peaking my intrigue – a surprise?! And he couldn’t wait until I got home?! After all we had just talked. But he just had to run to tell me now?! With a look of innocent wonder on his face, he pointed up at a tree across the street and said - “There’s your owl” – as if presenting me with a gift. He was - the gift of awareness, the gift of seeing what I had previously missed, and the gift of childlike amazement seen in his eyes. Priceless. He meant it was the owl we thought we had been looking for since hearing it last Summer.

I am hard of hearing and hadn’t heard the soft, gentle hoo-ing when I passed by this owl just a moment before. We both stood in amazement, and of course I whipped out the camera, and managed to get a few shots before it spotted us and suddenly flew off – which I almost missed because I had the camera in front of my face! We stood together for a moment marveling. My husband turned and walked back to the house, and I turned and continued on my twilight walk – in joyful wonderment at such a “romantic” moment -with the owl that is. As I walked, I marveled at the Mystery of Life living ItSelf all around me, in sunsets, and moon risings, on the ground, in the trees, and the winged ones that perch in them…

After I got back from my twilight walk the next evening, where you can be sure I was searching the trees for another view, my husband heard an owl hoo-ing close by. So we went out to look for it and followed the sound. We knew it was very close. It was dusk, but light enough to see the image against the liminally-lit sky. And with binoculars I could tell it was a Great Horned Owl, with its characteristic ear tufts, and a white neck ruffle – like a wise old judge from the Forest. It hooed a few more times from his perch high up in a cottonwood, seemingly unaware of our presence, and then quietly flew off with its elegant and swooping wide wing span. I do believe it was the Great Horned Owl that we heard last Summer and Fall. And maybe the smaller owl we saw the other night was the female version, as this is the beginning of their mating season. Ah ha! Romance *is* in the air! I am falling in love with Nature!

I am strangely comforted knowing that this incredible world of nature is just outside my door, teeming with Life. I am enamored with the idea that I may be living in Winnie the Pooh’s Hundred Acre Wood and haven’t even realized it – till now. So much goes on in nature all the time that we’re never really aware of, unless we put ourselves in a position and frame of mind to really *see* it… And to think that I don’t have to go off into the wilderness somewhere and wait for hours to spot it! I can’t imagine that I’ve missed all this beauty all these years by not paying attention and not being out at this time of day – the liminal time, where the subtleties of Life reveal themselves.

Last October we recorded and posted the mysterious sound of the owl that had been visiting so often at night. I thought I’d post it again here. Enjoy the lullaby :)

“small stone”

Small hoo-ing, coo-ing owl
sitting in gnarly branches
silhouetted in dusky light…

Swoops off to other perches,
other haunts,
leaving the echo of
her mysterious hooes
behind…

Awakens imagination…

Neither Snow, nor Sleet, nor...

We’ve been getting more snow this winter than we have in many years. Wednesday night we had another small snowfall – about 3 inches. That day it had been 70 degrees. So when it started to snow after midnight with a 50+ degree drop in temperature, it melted when it hit the pavement and froze.

I should have known better than to go for my usual twilight walk the next evening, when I stepped out the front door and saw the stairs and shoveled driveway covered in ice. I figured the snow covered sidewalk would be okay, if I could get to it. I was determined to make my twilight rounds. WHAT was I thinking!

I hadn’t gone far when my left foot slipped off the edge of the sidewalk, because I couldn’t really tell *where* the sidewalk was, and I fell onto my right knee – thunk. *&%$@. I felt the jolt go through my body. I felt like Pooh Bear who “stepped on a piece of the Forest which had been left out by mistake.” The sidewalk had just disappeared. I heard the neighbor lady out shoveling across the street gasp as I clunked to the ground, but she never said a word. Or maybe it was just the echo of my own grunt as I landed. :) I quickly popped up, brushed myself off, and continued on. Nothing hurt – surprisingly. But I didn’t go far – didn’t finish my self-appointed rounds. It was cold and my knee started to “bother.” I cut my “expotition” short, as Winnie the Pooh called them, and skipped a couple of twilight walks. My knee is fine. But I feel like a “bear of little brain”, and I’m not a spring chicken anymore, or Eskimo either for that matter. So I will have to employ a little common sense before going off on my twilight “expotitions” – if I still have any of that left - common sense that is...

Here are a few pictures from other twilight walks, in between snowfalls, that I didn’t want to have “slip” into the archives :)

~~

“The gift of Silence allows true listening to emerge.”


Joan Ruvinsky
Pathless Yoga

(see the little bird in the tree top!)



There is just being.
There is nothing else.
Being is totally whole just being.
It is the aliveness
that’s in the body;
pure beingness,
pure aliveness.

Tony Parsons
The Open Secret

Don’t ask what the world needs.
Ask what makes you come alive
and go do it.
Because what the world needs
is people who have come alive.

Howard Thurman

"Embrace the full measure of your life at any cost.
Bare your heart to the unknown
and never look back..."

“...awaken to yourself
as the radiant emptiness of spirit
...turn your attention inward
to the awake silence that you are.”


Adyashanti

Snowy Evening Walk...

“At the edge of restful darkness…the sacred life force calls to us,
asking us to remember…

We feel the longing to go home to what we are…

It is the impulse of the life force within us…

Surrender…”


Oriah
Quotes from: The Call



“We are probably never more true to ourselves,
or more in tune with our fundamental nature,
and our inner light than when we are engaging
in the liminal…”

Cate Kerr
Beyond the Fields We Know

“Discover the light that is already within you.
It’s a discovery of Being,
revealed in your inner Reality.

We have always already been this light -
always been full of light.
Go within and see what’s there.
See the Truth of who you already are.

Just close your eyes and look in…”

Osho

"We try to grasp something strange and mysterious
because we believe that happiness lies elsewhere…

The Self is all pervading.
Our real nature is liberation,
but we imagine that we are bound,
and make strenuous efforts to become free,
although all the while we are free.

All that is required to realize the Self
is to be still.

Your true nature is that of infinite spirit."

Ramana Maharshi

The ineffable Mystery calls to us from within…
Come Home…

~


Photos - my twilight walk Saturday evening...

Twilight Walks - December

In December I started taking walks at twilight through the neighborhood. Something I haven’t done in the 15 years we have lived here; finally getting to know where I live… ‘Bout time, don’t you think :) Walking in this liminal light, life seems more alive to me. In this in-between space something awakens in me. The spirit of Life becomes more apparent as life goes through its daily transition from light to dark. I seem to become more *aware* of the Mystery behind it all, driving it all, compelling me to seek it out. Twilight becomes a threshold of heightened awareness of Life being lived: the sounds of birds bedding down in the pines and spruces; the sight of a flock of geese flying; the crunching of snow and ice beneath my feet; the smell of dinners being prepared; the sound of a man chipping ice from the gutter so the snow melt can flow; the sun splaying its light out in a final flare of color in the clouds just before the light disappears completely.

In all this noticing I become aware of the vast spaciousness of the sky. And in that noticing - the awareness that I am really *not* on solid ground – but suspended on a small spinning globe that looks like a marble *within* this vastness of space. It is not Earth *and* Sky – as if two separate entities meeting at the horizon - but Earth enveloped by Sky – enveloped by the vast eternal spaciousness of Being. Ironically, the twilight walks help me to *see*…

One evening in particular I felt a deep heart ache, a deep longing in my heart. Maybe you have felt it too sometimes - that deep longing or ache in your being for that felt sense of the Sacred, that sense of Presence; that felt “connection” with the Essence of all Life; for the Truth of Existence; a longing for a deeper intimacy with the Nature of Being. A *deep* unexplainable gratitude arose from this longing, for the experience of this vastness and intimacy with the Nature of all things, through nature. It was a gratitude that was beyond comprehension. This gratitude for Existence and the vastness of Being opened up a larger context of awareness that cannot be fully described, or grasped, allowing me to *see* the *beauty* and *aliveness* of the natural world, and our essential Nature - *as* all one Beingness, one Aliveness. Beingness ItSelf living ItSelf here, intimately alive – as this – as us… What a wonderful alive Mystery!

As I walked in the crispness of the winter air, feeling a deeper kinship with the Nature of all things, I began to feel as if I was really *meeting* Life for the first time. And I liked it. I liked this new exploration of my environment, the new felt connection to the natural world, and my new re-discovery of the vastness of Being - and what it stirred inside.

As the sun moved further down behind the mountains, house lights began to give off their warm glow. My focus went to wondering about the people who live in them. Neighbors, yet strangers – and all Beingness too. I noticed a cat viewing the sunset in one window, and a dog barking at me from another as I passed by. Beingness being too…

Enthralled by my inner discoveries and the dimming light of twilight, I startled when a neighbor greeted me from her driveway. We don’t know each other well, except the exchanged pleasantries of neighbor-strangers over the years. We had a brief encounter as she thanked me for the card I sent her over a year ago when she was first diagnosed with cancer, and tells me that her cancer has come back, even though treated for a year. She seems undisturbed by the news. I, on the other hand, in my vulnerable, open state, felt saddened by the awareness of another threshold occurring right across the street; another in-between space as life continues its natural cycles. None of us is immune. We’re always at a threshold of the unknown. And I’m beginning to allow myself to be there and deeply *feel* that in-between space; to be deeply touched by the unknown spaces of Life. I crossed the street, comforted by the sight of the familiar light of home at twilight – feeling a new openness to the vastness and essence of Life as I crossed the threshold…

What Lies at the Bottom of the Barrel...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rumi


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

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

Rumi


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

(I don’t remember where I got this :)