Springtime?

 Our "Winter" snow here in Colorado often comes in March,
  The snowiest month of our Winter season that crosses into Spring.
 It did not disappoint this year.   Last week we got over a foot of snow
 with 3-4 foot drifts.  Today about 3 inches - clinging to the trees,
creating a winter wonderland, and tomorrow night another 2 inches maybe :)
  I love the snow, and this magical  season. 
  I grew up in New England and have missed the snowy winters.

Here's a short photo montage with a playful, artsy twist
at the end...

The picture above transformed into this, below, with the help of lunapic,
a photo editing website - looking like a folk art painting...

and into this - my favorite - a cosmic look...
Of course it all depends on your perspective... :)

Springtime is traditionally a time of renewal. 
but in the current zeitgeist, with yet another mass shooting, 
and the pandemic continuing, millions out of work, ongoing hatred
and racism etc., I don't see that happening until a mass shift in
human consciousness occurs which means a change in
perspective...

A Winter Morning - Joan Tollifson

 The pond is frozen over
the world is upside down.
In my old age,
I discover the magic
of childhood.

Without my glasses,
a softer world
blurs together.
Houses hide in the fog,
mountains drop out of the sky.

On naked branches
the last dry leaves
twirl in the cold wind,
leaves and sky indistinguishable.

It is the winter of my life
the great stripping away
the last leaves letting go,
falling into
the dazzling darkness

Joan Tollifson

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

The Invisible World - John O'Donohue

When you enter the world, you come to live on the threshold
between the visible and invisible.  You bring with you a sense
of belonging to the invisible that you can never lose or finally cancel.
There is always some magnet that draws your eyes to the horizon or
invites you to explore behind things and seek out the concealed
depths.  You know that the real nature of things is hidden deep
within them.

When you become aware of the invisible as a live background,
you notice how your own body is woven around your invisible
soul, how the invisible lives behind the face of those you love,
and how it is always there between you.  The invisible is one
of the most powerful forms of the unknown.  It envelopes our
every moment.  It is the region out of which we emerged and the
state we are destined for, yet we never see it...

John O'Donohue

Excerpt from: Eternal Echoes

~

Be sure to click on the full screen icon on the video
for the full effect.

Winter Whammy!

Sometimes life is just "magical"!

With Winter's Whimsies arriving in April

Joy Rising...

And calm Rest...

Offering a weekend "Sabbatical"...

:)

On the Threshold of Winter...

Well actually I think we’ve crossed it.

Winter arrived this morning in all its beauty...

At least 6-8 inches of snow covered everything.

The leaves still on the trees twittered in the wind.

Evidences of an invisible hand leaving its signature behind…

~

Excerpt from: Eternal Echoes
by John O’Donohue

“Within and around us there is an invisible [Formless] world; this is where each of us comes from.  Your relationship to the invisible influences so much of your life.  When you cross over from the invisible into the physical world, you bring with you a sense of belonging to the invisible that you can never lose or cancel.  Under the guise of emptiness, the invisible keeps its secrets to itself.  Yet the invisible remains the great background.  There is always some magnet that draws your eyes to [It] or invites you to explore behind things and seek out the concealed depths.  Your longing for the invisible is never stilled.  You know that the real nature of things is hidden deep within them.  When you enter the world, you come to live on the threshold between the visible and the invisible.  You are both artist and pilgrim of the threshold…”

May Winter & Danna Faulds...

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

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

I am always there.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From: Prayer to the Infinite
Danna Faulds

~*~*~*~

Yes, we had snow in MAY! J

It’s Spring in Colorado…

We’ve been having buckets of rain all week,

which has been delightful! – and very unusual.

Then Saturday night rain turned to snow!

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

I thought I’d share them anyway…

Our lovely River Birch was nearly flattened…

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

Winter’s Magic just kept hanging on…

What once looked like this just a day before… 

Turned to this – bending under the burden she bore…

She has since bounced back up J

Mother Nature’s Beauty

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

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

Strange Peace...

 A stranger arrived

this mid-winter day…

In Her presence

everything settled…

everything let go…
all resistance
all struggle

everything became still…
…inside…

everything within me rested,

not lifeless – just rested…

everything felt strangely

~ Peaceful ~

When She came

life was allowed to be as life is,

as I listened deeply to

Her whispers…

She felt ‘strange’ to me

only because She

came unexpectedly…

She is larger than life;

beyond mental understanding

or explanation…

Yet, I know that I know this “stranger.”

She is strangely familiar…

I’m sure we have met before…

I welcomed Her in...

She wrapped Her mantel of Peace

around my Heart…

The Fire-Light within began to brighten…

Love emerged…

 She was Home...

Mystic Meandering

 Feb 1, 2015

Winter's Light...

And yet, though we strain against the deadening grip
of daily necessity,
I sense there is this mystery:

All life is being lived.

Who is living it then?

Is it the things themselves,
or something waiting
inside them,
like an unplayed melody
in a flute?

Is it winds blowing over the waters?

Is it the branches that signal to each other?

Is it flowers
interweaving their fragrances,
or streets
as they wind through time…

Rainer Maria Rilke
from: Book of Hours

~*~

Yes, we are still in Winter here! J
March is our snowiest month,
along with temps in the 60’ and 70’s!

Top photo: Snow on Trees color inverted…

The photos below were taken by my husband the morning after,
out the back window...

  How magical the pristine beauty that emerged….

”The Mystery” is here,
everywhere,
in everything,

*as* everything…

In looking into “The Mystery”
there is a sense of intimacy.
There is only
deep, deep Love

reflected back…

In the deep Womb of the Heart
there is a song…
It is sung with tenderness
for every heart that aches
from its imagined separateness
from The Beloved…

Sit in deep Quiet and listen
until you hear It…

~

Verses under photos
Mystic Meandering

The Deep 'F'...

Winter is definitely upon us.  All the other snowfalls so far this season were only teasing us with their beauty.  We are now in the clutches of winter’s cold fingers - the deep freeze...

We’ve been in the deep freeze since Tuesday night when the temps suddenly dropped 45 degrees escorted by a 4” snowfall.  We’ve been below zero every night.  Day-time highs in the single digits mostly, so nothing is melting. And Mr. Sun has only made a few short-lived appearances.

Anxiety seems to have me in its clutches as well – the deep fear - constantly worried and vigilant.  Will the pipes freeze?  Will the furnace keep running?  And – it’s running constantly!  Ka-ching$, Ka-ching.$  Will the garage door open?  Will the car start?  It’s been an interesting lesson on how easily the mind and surface self with its fears and worries can take over and veil the beauty that is here, getting entangled in hyper-vigilance, as if that would stop something from “going wrong.”  And of course the mind is convinced that something will go wrong…  What a set up that is!   I became aware of how easily the mind and fear can inhabit the moment – the day – the body… And it’s not a pretty picture! The mind needed to be refocused and reoriented to what is ultimately Real.  I told myself: Refocus on the breath, don’t follow the mind, instead, give the mind something to do – journal, write, read, create - and turn your awareness to the deeper space of Silence within – the ultimate reality.  Not happenin.’ J  It surprised me to find that the voice of the Infinite was drowned out by the sirens of fear…

My husband swears I *look* for things to go wrong – maybe so.  I was conditioned well.  They are very old and deep fears, from childhood I think – being given responsibility too soon, needing to be a “grown up” too soon, and now I feel *responsible* for *everything* anticipating what *might* happen, leading to a need to control what cannot be controlled.  I’ve been in denial about all this, although my husband reminds me of it all the time. J  I’m surprised actually at how quickly this old conditioning arose.  To my chagrin, I am apparently still a product of my DNA, both physically and emotionally.  The body easily re-addicted itself to the feeling of fear/anxiety.  It remembers it all too well.  In moments of awareness I thought to myself – well, isn’t this interesting - if you think you’re enlightened spend a week in the deep freeze! – worrying.  I think I’ve given up that illusive “enlightened” self-image!  And realized there’s a child inside who’s still afraid of the big bad wolf that’s huffing and puffing – even though I know it is pure fantasy…  It’s interesting to me that we can be aware of how the mind functions on fear and still follow it down that rabbit hole of delusion.

Maybe the gift of the deep freeze is to see all this about myself, to actually *see* these places within myself where I am still frozen with fear, and where I am still deluded…  It certainly has done its job! J  I’m *aware*!  But awareness is only the beginning of real change…

I managed to lose my-self (and the grip of anxiety), for a few moments, in a few photo shots this week so far.  They say we won’t thaw out til Tuesday when temps go above freezing *in the afternoon* - hopefully a “warming trend” – outside AND within… J LOL

“We are constantly ‘waking up’ in every moment that confronts us,
to remember *what* we really are:
Consciousness before form.
Otherwise our ‘spirituality’ can become just another layer
in our armour.”

Dear Hubby J

Snow Melt...

I am maybe one of the only ones I know that is sad to see winter leave. I am a winter lover.  In a mere 10 days it will be Spring *on the calendar.* J  Fortunately here in Colorado we continue to get snow through the month of March, and if we’re lucky into April; this year to make up for the severe drought we have been in.  We got a snow fall Saturday that was magical. I wish I had gotten pictures.  The pictures below are of the snow melt today.  Sigh…  Reminders that all things pass away; all things transition, transform into their essential nature, and the never ending cycles of life continue. J

 “I would like to live like the river flows,

carried by the surprise of my own unfolding.”

John O’Donohue

 “The same stream of life that runs through the world

runs through my veins night and day

in rhythmic measure.

It is the same life that shoots in joy

through the dust of the earth
into numberless waves…”

Rabindranath Tagore

There is a sacredness in tears.
They are not the mark of weakness,
but of power.

They speak more eloquently than
ten thousand tongues.

They are messengers….
inseparable from love…”

Washington Irving

The Somber Tones Of Winter...

Sometimes my Heart sings the somber tones

that have lain dormant

needing expression…

An Adagio emerges

as if someone has died;

maybe that someone is “me,”

the false me… the mask of “me”

that keeps falling off,

leaving something more real exposed…

The grief begins

to sing, to play her strings,

feeling the loss.

I have heard her tune before.

I allow her to play her strings,

until she is played out,

listening to her deeply…

I know that

even the Somber tones are

an expression of the One.

There is no separateness,

no good or bad tones,

just the authentic expression

of what Lives here…

The Somber tones and shades are

Life ItSelf,

inviting me to look deeper,

to find the richness that lives within them…

Their song has to be sung as well.

Even they are the Heart’s language of Love,

calling me to more authentic Living...

©Mystic Meandering

January 27, 2011

Winter's Whimsies...

“Regard everything as transparent.
See through everything.

See that everything is in transition.

Liberate your concepts and beliefs.

Let go of the need for an “answer”,
a solution, a resolution…

Rest in the nature of Essence ~
The Primordial State of everything.

Be a child of fantasy.
Be curious instead of afraid…”


Quotes from Pema Chodron

When you can let yourself
really be
who and how
you are…
No one else
will have much
problem with it…

Practice letting yourself just BE!



Robyn Posin
For The Little Ones Inside

All life moves in cycles…

What has been
must often come apart
before what is to be
can come together…

Remember to honor
your courage
in the midst
of the
coming apart times.


Robyn Posin
For The Little Ones Inside

“What if we could really see the world
without a sense of separateness?

We must see what lies beyond
the perception of polarities…

Individuals are indivisible...
We are all “connected” through
our spacious Awareness…

Awareness is not about labeling different
”takes” on reality.
Awareness allows all ways of seeing to exist...
If you are rooted quietly in Awareness
you are fully aware of
the whole picture…”

Ram Dass
Be Love Now

“…..the deepest level of communication
is not communication, but communion.

It is wordless…

It is beyond words,
and it is beyond speech,
and it is beyond concept.

We discover we are already one.
But we imagine that we are not.

What we have to be
is what we already are…”


Thomas Merton

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