The Mysterious Virtue - Tao Te Ching

Nurture the darkness of your soul
until you become whole.
Can you do this and not fail?

Can you focus your life-breath until you become
supple as a newborn child?

While you cleanse your inner vision
will you be found without fault?

Can you love people and lead them
without forcing your will on them?

When Heaven gives and takes away
can you be content with the outcome?

When you understand all things
can you step back from your own understanding?

~

Giving birth and nourishing,
making without possessing,
expecting nothing in return.

To grow, yet not to control:

This is the mysterious virtue.

Tao Te Ching
translation by j.h. mcdonald

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Fire of the Magdalene - Fred LaMotte

What is the mission of Mary Magdalene?  Is she just another
archetype of "the divine feminine."?  Are we called to abstract
her, with all the other Gods and Goddesses, into the faceless
hegemony of the One?

Perhaps she is yet another two-dimensional icon, a window,
into a numb impersonal nonduality.  Or does her feral
astonishing bittersweet gaze call us toward something quite
unheard-of and outrageous in the annals of spiritual teaching?

Her darshan is a droplet of terrible fire that consumes us,
burns us up and down with such accurate alchemy that our 
dross turns to gold, annihilating all that is not ourselves.
Nothing remains but our uniqueness.

The eyes of the Magdalene behold us, and we are held.  We
are held in the most severe and lethal demand: the demand
of bhakti.  Her gaze is not the fire of anger or judgment, but
passionate devotion.

Mary is devotion.  That is what bhakti means, Devotion - to
God? To Jesus? To Sophia? To attaining Gnosis? [To Brahma?
To Allah?]  Dear friend, she burns with deeper bhakti, purer
bhakti: devotion to becoming herself.

When the drop merges with the ocean, it is our spiritual work.
When the ocean merges with the drop, it is our spiritual play,
and our anointing. 

Mary's olive-eyed glance pierces the heart and calls both you
and me to the work, the play, of the great transformation:
be yourself!

Mary Magdalene is She who refuses to be an archetype or a 
symbol, refuses to signify any truth other than her own jagged
broken perfect wholeness, the ineluctable suchness of
Personhood.

Fred LaMotte
Interfaith Minister
Uradiance

~

Vortex Art
Mystic Meandering
2011

 

The path of reality - Nathalie Delay

The path of reality is a non-path, because it is above all
an exploration of life int its wholeness... without falling
back on our models and our repetitive, comfortable
pat-terns.  It's a non-path.....because we recognize in
real time how we negotiate with reality, how we 
cling to a belief or to our need for control, and how this
outlook keeps us from being in tune with the moment 
and creates our suffering...

The path of reality does not require us to conform to any
model, because it is not attached to what we do, think or
feel.  It invites us to see how we behave with our opinions,
our emotions, and with living beings.

The path of reality is more than anything a path of self-
knowledge, not in the psychological sense but in the
most essential and profound sense there is.  It helps
us rediscover our absolute aspect while incorporating
the most human part of us. It brings us back to the
roots of our being, making a complete humanity
possible...

Nathalie Delay

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Mysterious Creative Unknown - a meandering...

Recently I watched a series called "Creative Energy Levels on
video by Donna Iona Drozda - artist/writer, and fellow blogger.
I watched the Intro and "0" (zero) videos, (there are 9 levels).
During the "0" video she talked of the zero being a symbol of
wholeness.  That was my Aha moment, and wrote in my journal -
"I need to come back to wholeness, come back to my Authentic
Being-Self!  My Natural State of Being.  I need to reclaim my
wholeness again.  So I started engaging in creating vortexes
with CrayPas oils.

~

Twenty years ago I worked with an artist/"spiritual teacher"
of the Kashmir Shaivism tradition who had a studio called:
"Art Iza Way."  He used creativity/art as a way of remembering
your True Self.  Now, I'm not an "artist", but I started drawing/
painting "vortexes" (top down) back then on pieces of poster
board with CrayPas oil sticks.  During sessions he would show
me how oftentimes figures would unexpectedly emerge in and
through the"art", depending on how you *looked* at it -
The Mysterious Creative Unknown.

He showed me how to *look* at art (life) from different angles,
turning it, or looking sideways at it, etc., and see what revealed
itself.  Interestingly my earlier vortexes didn't reveal anything
"mystical" :)  He was trying to show me through art, that
everything is a matter of perspective, which of course depends
on how you *see*, and from *where* you see. He would say:
"life is a play of perspectives."

He has since moved his studio, and calls it "Self Discovery Studio,"
and no longer offers "art" as part of his sessions, but uses
different styles of Self-inquiry through relaxed conversation, as
well as meditation, and sometimes chanting.

~

One night after listening to the "0" video in the Creative Energy
Levels series with Donna Iona Drozda, I decided I wanted to
revive doing vortexes.  So pulled some poster board from under
the bed, cut out an 11x11 piece, got the CrayPas oil sticks, picked 
the colors I was drawn to (usually 2 complimentary colors), used a
large piece of cardboard, which just happened to under the bed as
well, and just started rubbing the oil sticks in circles, one by one,
on a piece of poster board.  I worked on the floor on the piece of
cardboard.  It was 11:30pm.

It was exhilarating and calming at the same time - freeing, just going
round and round, creating circles with my fingers and thumb.  Then
I started blending the oils on the poster board with fingers and thumb,

also going in a circular motion.  The corrugated cardboard made
imprints as well, as I worked the oils together.

Working in this way there really was no intention.  There was no
expectation of what it will look like, other than a vortex, but
sometimes it surprised me.  It is the Creative Unknown that sometimes
emerges.  In the photo above a "figure" emerged.  It appeared to be a
hooded figure at first, then it seemed to be a cap with possibly a long
beard. I clearly saw a face with two eyes looking out at me.  I gasped,
and was excited.  I get excited when there is movement from
within; when "The Mystery" reveals Itself in some way, whether
through art, poems, or life itself...

The "far away" view here in the photo gives the overall look of this
mysterious figure.  In closer views the figure got lost, blended back
into the vortex.  It is seen better in person than what the camera can
capture, and you may not see anything at all, or you may see
something different.

It'z magical :)

Creativity can bring a new sense of wholeness and balance back into
life again;  and can "reconnect" me with my "Inner Life" - my Inner
Beingness - waiting to reveal Itself...

Mystic Meandering
Feb. 11, 2024

~

Art - Mystic Meandering
Vortex Art
Red Vortex with Figure
Feb 2024

 

The Story of Akhilandeshwari - Laura Amazzone

Art: Peter Weltevrede

Akhilandeshwari is a South Asian Goddess figure in the Shakta
Tantric Tradition. According to that tradition She is a vast field of
 Consciousness - a force of Ultimate Reality - the Great Mother
Herself. 
 Her name means "Never not broken."

It is hard not to feel the brokenness of the world with all the
man-made crises, conflict, disasters and devastation happening in
the world; not to mention the personal dramas that play out in
 our lives.  We are all impacted by the global crises of these times.

What is needed to help find our way through?  How can our
breakdowns lead to breakthroughs? How do we approach the
challenges, pain and difficulty that overwhelm some of us? 
How do we transform our  own fears and personal  sense of
 impotence into something meaningful,
empowering and liberating?

[It is believed that] Akhilandeshwari can help us move through
the very challenges and difficulties in life.  She helps us to find
that  light of our Essence  through the cracks of the chaos.  She is
the power of the Sri Yantra, an ancient Hindu symbol of Union
 [with] Divine  Consciousness.

Brokenness seems to suggest separation, but if we look closely
 we can see  the felt sense of what is ever-present beneath the
cracks that  can lead to our own sense of internal balance and
union within.

One of Her many gifts is to remind us of the power to be
found in our brokenness.  From the Shakta Tantric perspective
 Akhilandeshwari brings and removes the pain and suffering that
 break  us down. She guards over all those experiences in life that
can knock  the wind out of us and send us reeling, crashing down,
 wondering how we will ever get up.  She brings and removes the
 deep sense  of brokenness, the crushing pressure on one's heart,
the endless mental anguish, to  remember what's Real.  Our
"Never not broken" experience  can be a fierce and painful
 process.  However, She gives us courage to face the many little
 deaths that happen repeatedly in  our life.  If we surrender and allow
 ourselves to go to the heart of our pain, we can find refuge in our
 vulnerability  and in our imperfections.

Spiritual growth and freedom can be gained through difficult
experiences and in the invaluable lessons they provide there is
always a gift in the pain we experience.

Akhilandeshwari is depicted as riding a crocodile, which represents
 our primal instincts, especially fear, and our false pretenses and roles
 we play to appear "perfect" and "whole."  She destroys all illusions
 and delusions, so we can come back to our Essence. The intensity
of our experience is to disorient our egos so that we drop our
attachments  and come into our authentic nature.

When we remember the unlimited Space behind our brokenness we
form new patterns and ways of being.  The journey that unfolds is
deep, mysterious, soul affirming and often intensely creative.

Akhilandeshwari breaks us down and from the depths of despair,
we come back to fullness and wholeness - our Essence.

Laura Amazzone

Excerpt from an article
Published Dec 2015 in the Sutra Journal

 

"Spiritual Practice" - Frank Ostaseski

Authentic "spiritual practice" is not about maintaining high
altered states, transcending the body, bypassing difficult emotions,
or healing all that remains unresolved within us.  "Spiritual
practice" helps us settle into the utter simplicity of being ourselves...
The healing happens when we bring awareness to the places
that have been hardened in us through the conditioned habits
of grasping, resistance and avoidance.

Mindfulness [awareness] is the deconditioning [of those habits].
Then things are free to be as they are.  We allow the difficult,
dark and dense.  We become more intimate with our full humanity
and discover an ever-deeper, vast sense of wholeness.

Being who you are can only arise from
accepting where you are.

Frank Ostaseski
The Five Invitations

~

Photo from the internet

 

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

 

Embracing Your Wholeness - Oriah

Embracing your wholeness is the greatest gift you can give...

Christine Wushke
Freely Human

~

All things are made of the same sacred presence - stillness...

All things emanate from and return to and are never
separated from a vast sacred wholeness...

This spaciousness that we are is not indifferent to the
suffering that we feel when we have forgotten what we are.
It reaches out to us, calls to us...

It is the Great Mystery.
It is what we are made of, and what everything and everyone
is made of.  It is what we participate in with every breath...

We will never be happy or truly be able to live and love fully
until we find our way of living from an awareness of the deep
stillness at the center of what we are... 
- Our Essential Nature -
which is wakefulness, awareness, love, peace, truth , beauty...

Look at your own life from within, that sense of quiet stillness
that you are.  You will see this inner essence, this innocence,
like a bright thread woven throughout the center of your life.

Living it consciously is why you are here...

Oriah Mountain Dreamer
From: The Call

~

Photo from a greeting card

 

What I Must Tell Myself - David Whyte

[.....]

I have only this breath
and this presence
for my wings
and they carry me
in my body
whatever I do
from one hushed moment
to another.

I know my innocence
and I know my unknowing
but for all my successes
I go through life
like a blind child
who cannot see,
arms outstretched
trying to put together
a world.

[.....]

Watching the geese
go south I find
that
even in silence
and
even in my home
alone
without a thought
or a movement
I am part
of a great migration
that will take me to another place.

[.....]

When one things dies all things
die together, and must live again
in a different way,
when one thing
is missing everything is missing,
and must be found again
in a new whole
and everything wants to be complete,
everything wants to go home
and the geese travelling south
are like the shadow of my breath
flying into the darkness
on great heart-beats
to an unknown land where I belong.

David Whyte
Excerpts from - "What I Must Tell Myself"
From: The House of Belonging

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

From Grit to Pearl - a meandering

Sitting in the Silence, the image of a pearl arose and I
remembered that a pearl is formed through irritation.
A piece of sand or grit gets in the oyster and the oyster
starts making a pearl around the irritant with layers and
layers of pearl-essence, turning and turning the grit until
it's covered with a beautiful, shiny sheen.

And of course, loving metaphor as I do, I saw the
association with the grit of life, the irritations of life, the
aggravating, challenging circumstances of life that create
multiple layers of irritation - and - the creation of a pearl.
The oyster seemingly takes this grit, without complaining,
and makes something beautiful of it...  Or is it that something
beautiful emerges from the grit of life, if we work with it,
sit with it, roll it around, not spewing it out, but allowing
it to be what it is, seeing it for what it is - the potential for
beauty...  The beauty of the pearl is a result of these layers
of irritations and aggravations of life in a seeming process of
metamorphosis...

What is revealed through the irritations is this living essence
of the pearl that in some ways created itself because of the
irritations, through the rubbing and chaffing of the grit of life...
As in - the irritation, the challenges of living are still the 
Essence, revealing Its beauty.  The irritations and challenges
of living are the living Presence emerging, or unfolding Itself,
in and through what our minds and bodies find irritating and
uncomfortable - if we give it a chance, if we stay with it,
engaging in the experiences rather than running from them.
If we learn to see the way the oyster sees :)  Ah - grit,
let's see what I can do with that...  

And what is seen is that the beauty and wisdom of the
irritations emerge over "time" it seems - or what appears
to be time - waiting to be discovered within the shell of what I
know to be "my life."  It is realized that the pearl is the culmination
of many layers of realized wisdom that are formed along the way,
from the nitty-gritty of living life as it is.

Even if we've had spontaneous awakenings to the Truth or our
Essence, it seems life continues to give us experiences that
expand the expression of that ever-unfolding Essence, of
Consciousness ItSelf, through the irritations and challenges
we face on a daily basis.  It's an ongoing emergence, realizing
that the totality of the experiences of life expands our awareness
 until it is ultimately realized that we are the Wholeness of Being
that we've been seeking - as we are - gritty as that may be...

It's a shift in perspective from grit to Pearl...

Mystic Meandering

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Innately...

 Everything lives according to
its Innate Rhythm:
The flowers know when to bloom -
innately...

The leaves leaf out of the trees -
innately...

die and go dormant
innately...

So too our own body lives and dies
in sacred cycles of opening, unfolding, and
falling apart - innately; a lifespan...
Reorganizing its energy in different ways -
innately...

And "we", we continue our innate pull to Wholeness.

Dying is in the life of everything...

The Grand Mystery of Life living ItSelf...

...innately.

Mystic Meandering

Summer Solstice 2021

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Acceptance - Jeff Foster

 Freedom is found not through escaping the present experience,
but by diving fearlessly into its hidden depths.  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 the
pains 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 [your Beingness]
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 the 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... It's about finding out who you
really are, beyond who you think you are, beyond who you've
been taught you are, beyond the story about who you are,
beyond all your concepts and images of who you are.

...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.

Freedom is about 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.

Jeff Foster
Excerpts from - The Deepest Acceptance
published in 2012
Facebook

As many of you know Jeff has been dealing with a
severe debilitating illness for the past few years, 
having to come face to face with Acceptance...
He writes about his experience on his Facebook page...

~

Photo - taken by my brother
at Plum Cove, Gloucester, MA

Unfolding Spirals of Grief - Matt Licata

 Art by Joe Maccer at Deviant Art

Tending to grief is the essence of....providing a sanctuary and
safe passage for its unfolding - in the body, the psyche, and the
nervous system - which requires that we fall to the ground,
at times, and weep.

Weep for our shattering [collective and personal], for the dying
of a dream, for the  entirety of the unlived life.  For it is these tears
 that form the substance of the portal of joy. [Rebirth].

Grief is not something we "get over", but a partner we spin
with, honor at times, argue with at others, and lament with as
the cycles of our lives unfold.

We live in a world that has lost contact with the holy waters of
reorganization.  But to marginalize the experience of grief is
to work against nature.  Out in the natural world, the earth grieves
by way of her seasons.  We can feel that grief in a rain drop, if
we allow ourselves to be taken apart and put back together.

There is no endpoint to this restructuring, no final state of
resolution where we land in some untouchable place, free from
our embodied vulnerability, our somatic aliveness, and from
more burning.

Rather, we find ourselves in what the alchemists call the rotatio,
the holy rotation of vast cycles of rupture and repair that touch
and open the human soul.

The soul is endless and the visitors of grief may companion us
for a lifetime.  But the grieving, orphaned ones of the psyche
and soma come not to harm, but to reveal.  And to open a
doorway into wholeness, mercy, and light.

Grief is not so much a process that we "make it through" and 
come out the other side fully intact, but a non-linear transforming
midwife of the unknown.  It moves not by way of straight line,
but by that of circle and spiral.

Matt Licata, PhD

The Great Transition - Matt Licata

 In the current global environment.....as we navigate this
period of great transition, while we don't know exactly where
we're headed, we can slow down and prepare for what is 
coming next by deepening our wisdom and compassion,
both for ourselves and others.

By turning toward the Soul, the Heart, the Self, and attuning
to its intelligence and guidance, we can recommit to our
unique path of transformation, and remember what is
most important.

Each of us is called in our own way towards a life of
wholeness, purpose, and meaning, and we each have our
own hurt, pain, grief and wounding to tend to.

We affect, and are affected by, those around us.  We are
affected by life everywhere.  We come to this life with
unique gifts, and ways of engaging The Mystery.

We have all been wounded and the path of seeing our
wounds as initiation is one that is as old as recorded
history.  It is not an easy path, but one that is imbued
with mercy, grace, and a certain poetic beauty.  It is a
path of courage and kindness...

It is essential that we honor our unique sensitivities and
eccentricities and open to the possibility that even our
deepest wounding may be filled with guidance,
medicine and meaning.  [It is essential] to recommit
to the path of [the Soul], to embodied transformation
and healing, to participate consciously and access the
alchemical gold  at the core of our wounds as a gateway
to a life of deeper meaning, connection and aliveness.

Matt Licata, PhD

~

Photo from the internet

Insistent Grace - Stephen Levine & Ivan Granger

 There is a grace approaching
that we shun as much as death,
it is the completion of our birth.

It does not come in time,
but in timelessness
when the mind sinks into the heart
and we remember.

It is an insistent grace that draws us
to the edge and beckons us surrender
safe territory and enter our enormity.

We know we must pass
beyond knowing
and fear the shedding.

But we are pulled upward
none-the-less
through forgotten ghosts
and unexpected angels,
luminous.

And there is nothing left to say
but we are That.

Stephen Levine
Original title: "Millennium Blessing"

via Death Deconstructed

~

Commentary by Ivan Granger

Most of us spend our entire lives avoiding that inner opening.
Most of the time it is a quiet itch at the back of the awareness
we squirm and turn away from.  And when it really presses
on us, it can inspire terror, as if we were facing death.

It is the death of our old world view, the death of patterned
awareness, the death of our limited notion of who we are.  All
we thought ourselves to be stops - and so it is a sort of death.
To feel that grace approaching, to welcome it, requires a sort
of courage.

It requires courage, and surrender.  We have this idea that
spiritual opening is a terrible effort... No...  That unfolding
wants to occur within us.  The only effort is to let go of our
endless strategies to halt the process.  We all feel it, a gentle
prodding to let the heart open, to know ourselves truly, to be
present and radiate ourselves into the world.  It is insistent,
trying to happen within us.  Call it grace, if you like.  The
question presented to us: Do we courageously accept the
invitation or not?

For those of us who live in contemporary society, how hard
it is to stop the ticking of the clock?  From such an early age
we internalize the sense of time and progress and deadlines.
Yet, in doing so, we forget that these are all just concepts,
just one way to understand the unfolding of being and
experience.  That sense of time is a powerful tool for doing
and accomplishment, but it isn't inherently "real."  It doesn't
have much to do with who or what we are.  There is a flow of
days and months, but they are the surface current of a much
deeper timelessness.

It's fascinating how we use the hyperactivity of thought to
define the world, to frame our perception of the world, and
in some ways to limit our notion of the world.  The other
thing about thought:  It creates time.  When thought settles
down, we discover timelessness.  And as the poet says, the
mind comes to rest, not in the head, but in the heart.

And we remember.  It is not through intellection but through
stillness that we remember.  Look at the word "remember."
Re-member.  To remember is to finally see how apparently
separated reality actually fits together in a single body.
Discursive thought can only ever examine pieces of the whole.
To remember is to have the full vision of Wholeness, as
things actually are.  But this vision is found in timelessness
and stillness, through the quiet mind unfiltered.

Ivan Granger
Poetry Chaikhana

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

A Fractured Reality - Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Our contemporary consciousness seems so fractured.

Even the pandemic has constellated more fissures in our culture,
more tribalism, more discordant voices... 

It is as if the very fabric or our consciousness has become
distorted, that sees truth as a primal adversary, from a fractured
sense of reality. 

...in our present collective consciousness, we appear to have 
crossed over into a country where simple truths do not
reach us - there is no shared sense of reality...

I watch the stories swirl around and wonder if they are just
nightmares of a civilization that has lost its way -
patterns of denial to distract us from the failures of our
culture, with its increasing divisiveness...

There is a deep need to turn.....to the simplicity of what is...
to the true nature of everything...
We need to find a pathway that can return us to wholeness....

I find the only way to return, to embrace reality, is through
what is most simple, most ordinary.  By noticing what is
around me, the sound of the wind, the rain falling.  There is
a Cherokee practice that is similar to [Buddhist] mindfulness,
called, "the sound of the green forest humming"; the awareness
of the sound of the forest, the sound of the water and our breath.
When people are very well attuned they hear a certain sound 
and are mindful of that sound.  When they don't hear it they
realize they have stepped into a place where their thoughts
have become unbalanced.

Ordinary, everyday awareness can return us to a place of 
balance, where we are part of the living community;
a community not of internet bubbles, but of a primal
awareness [of nature]. Walking through this gate that is
always open, we can return to a quality of consciousness
beyond truth and lies, one that is more primal, spontaneous.
...we can leave behind a strange fractured world of distortions
 and breathe in air that is not toxic, walk on land that is
still singing.

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Sufi teacher

Excerpts from an article in
Emergence Magazine
called - A Ghost's Life

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Spiritual Teachers" - Jeff Foster

'Spiritual teachers' [of certain traditions] often talk of pure
Awareness that doesn't suffer, a formless consciousness
untouched by form...

They speak of a state in which anger, fear, confusion and doubt
do not arise.  Or if they do it's a 'sign' that we are 'not there yet.'

How ironic, a non-dual teaching that is deeply dualistic at its core,
and deeply shaming of our vulnerable humanity,
and deeply, deeply unconscious of this.

What kind of 'Oneness' does not radically include all of her forms?
What kind of ocean does not embrace, and infuse, every single one
of its precious waves?

'Spiritual teachers' tell us that there is no goal, nothing to attain,
and they are not special in any way.

Yet - in the same breath, they speak of the 'falling away' of the
'separate self'', the sudden or gradual 'death of the ego', the
silencing of their mind, and how they achieved states of
permanent bliss, peace and equanimity.

They speak of non-judgmental love, yet judge and guilt-trip
and correct their students for having fears, doubts, annoying
questions and... resistance!  They make their students doubt
their own experience.  They claim to be 'enlightened', yet
judge others as not being 'enlightened.'

They identify themselves as having lost their separate self,

yet speak of having no identity at all....

The mind is an addict.  It is desperate for somewhere to land.
Some certainty. Some dogma. Some 'true teaching'.  The mind
will addict itself to even the most beautiful, refined,
spiritual concepts:
'I am pure Awareness.'
'I am not the body.'
'There is no separate self.'
'It's all an illusion.'

Avoiding the tender, moment-by-moment embrace of our
fragile, fleshy, muddy, messy humanness.

Our confusion is clearly lovable.Our doubts are certainly sacred.
Our longings, aches and wounds are not signs that we haven't
 reached the correct state, or that we are far from the Promised Land.
They are holy sites in us themselves, expressions of the
One Life that cannot be uttered.

There are no experts, no 'enlightened' ones,
no authorities...

Just willingness to not know.
To begin again.  And again.
To soften into the grieving heart...

The broken heart is holy.

I reject any spirituality that cannot see the grace in that.

I reject any spirituality that doesn't allow us to be fully human.

If "spiritual teacher" means someone who sees the 'fierce grace'
in the pits of suffering, and the unspeakable beauty in our
wounded and tender places, and the non-duality shining brightly
in the damn chaos, and the ever-present existence of a Love so
vast, it cannot be understood by mind - a Love that loves our
imperfections and mistakes, and embraces them in loving
awareness in each and every moment of our lives -
then sign me up!

Jeff Foster
Former Non-Dual "Spiritual Teacher"
Excerpt from - "Why I Resigned As A "Spiritual Teacher"

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Blessing in the Chaos - Jan Richardson

To all that is chaotic
in you,
let there come silence.

Let there be
a calming
of the clamoring,
a stilling
of the voices that
have laid their claim
on you,
that have made their
home in you,

that go with you
even to the
holy places
but will not
let you rest,
will not let you
hear your life
with wholeness
or feel the grace
that fashioned you.

Let what distracts you
cease.
Let what divides you
cease.
Let there come an end
to what diminishes
and demeans,
and let depart
all that keeps you
in its cage.

Let there be
an opening
into the quiet
that lies beneath
the chaos,
where you find
the peace
you did not think
possible
and see what shimmers
within the storm.

The human heart continues to dream of a state of wholeness,
a place where everything comes together,
where loss will be made good, where blindness will transform
into vision, where damage will be made whole,
where the clenched question will open in the house of surprise,
where the travails of a life's journey will enjoy a homecoming.
To invoke a blessing is to call some of that wholeness upon a
person now.

Jan Richardson

With thanks to  The Beauty We Love

~

Photo taken at Keukenhof Tulip Garden in Holland
by Ellen Ratmeyer

Dance with the Darkness - Author Unknown

The realization of wholeness is simply recognizing that
wholeness is the essential state of reality,
regardless of whether it is being experienced that way.

From: The Natural Contemplative

~

Everything is embraced/held by Pure Consciousness
including what we experience as "darkness."

Nothing is excluded, even the "darkness",
however that manifests in our minds.

You have to be willing to dance with the "darkness,"
which only means that you are willing to meet it,
to be with it, and not try to push it away;
not resist it as something absent of Light, but seeing
that the "darkness" is not the opposite of Light.

Just dance with whatever shows up...

The "darkness" is also part of the dance.

Nothing is excluded.

Everything is embraced.

It is Love dancing with ItSelf...

Author Unknown

~

Photo - artistic depiction of the earth via Uradiance

What Remains - Danna Faulds

Despite illness of body and mind,
in spite of blinding despair
or habitual belief,
who you are is whole.

Let nothing separate you from the Truth.
The soul, illumined from within,
longs to be known...

Undying, untouched by fire, or
the storms of life,
there is a place inside
where stillness and abiding peace reside.

You can ride the breath to go there.

Despite doubt or hopeless turns of mind,
you are not broken.

Spirit surrounds, embraces,
fills you from the inside out.

Release everything
that isn't your true nature.
What's left?

the fullness of light...

Danna Faulds
Yoga Practitioner
From the poem" "Birthright"

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering