Dancing With Shadow and Light...

I’ve been reading The Practice of Contemplative Photography: Seeing the World with Fresh Eyes.  It has inspired me to be more aware of the world around me, to pay attention to what I am actually seeing, whether through the lens of my own eyes, or through the lens of the camera.  According to the authors, Andy Karr and Michael Wood, contemplative photography is about the immediate direct experience of pure seeing without the overlay of conceptual thinking – without labeling what we are seeing.  They say that “labeling things as beautiful or ugly masks what they really look like.”  According to them, “artistic living” – or living artistically - has more to do with HOW we see than trying to be creative.   It has to do with “resting in an innate intelligence, that some call Awareness, and allowing the basic qualities of form to be recognized by this innate, nonconceptual intelligence…..allowing things to emerge, rather than trying to interpret the nature of the perception…”    Seems this applies to our spiritual practice, and life, as well!  Are we seeing with the HEART of Awareness, or with the conceptual mind that wants to figure things out, to analyze and interpret…  So I am experimenting with “seeing” and how I see what I see – and from where am I really seeing - WHO/WHAT is really seeing…  In most non-dual spiritual practices, this is really what it all comes down to – seeing WHO is really seeing…  Abstract, I know :)

One morning I became aware of the dance of shadow and light that was going on in the den, as the morning sun managed to find its way through the slits in the closed blinds that let the light in anyway.  I snapped the photos below that show this interplay of light and dark – the interplay of life really.  The shadow does not obscure what is really there.  It’s all a matter of how we see it.

I also included some meditative writings under the photos that I wrote several years ago (2004) while meditating that have to do with the dance of shadow and light that we participate in every day in our minds – some know it as the shadow self.

 

It’s all just a dance,
a playful dance of light and dark.
Allow the dance of shadow to play itself out in your life,
and be grateful for the dance.

  

The shadow self is just a consciousness.

It is the consciousness spawned by the *belief* in separation from Infinite Consciousness…

A *belief* in separateness creates a consciousness of darkness and fear…

For the most part humanity functions from this consciousness.

A consciousness of separation dominates the mind – creating suffering.

The fear feeds on fear, creating more darkness.

It manifests a consciousness of darkness
that you *believe* to be real.

But the shadow self is just a mist, an illusion…
It is not “darkness” in the negative sense…
The consciousness of darkness is only a thin layer, a thin veil.
It creates much dysfunction, but really has no power to sustain.
It gives the illusion of power to seemingly rob you of your
True Consciousness…

You have become caught in the net of fear,
*thinking* it is real.

You can emerge through this layer of darkness by becoming aware of the
Consciousness of Infinite Beingness/Awareness.

This creates a new reality,
a new consciousness.
Whatever your consciousness is,

that is your reality.
Shift the *identity* with the consciousness of shadow self
and you create a whole new reality…

The gift of the shadow is the Light of Awareness,
the call to awareness of the Light
that we are...

Not Settling...

My mind wants to tell me that ‘just sitting’
 – sitting meditation - is not enough.

  But my Heart knows that ‘just sitting’
 is exquisitely enough…

 It is communion with the Infinite Beingness of all life.

It is the “medicine” for every ailment…

It is the Light that brings awareness
to all hidden places…

It is the Spaciousness from which all knowing
and all needed action arises
with clarity…

Heart says:

Spend as much time as possible
’just sitting’
in the depths of Silence
communing
with the Tao of life -
the inner movement of Beingness -
experiencing the embrace
and intelligence
of what lives us;
not resigned to
”just being human…”
not settling…

Being aware
of Humanness and Infiniteness -
as One Rhythm…
The Infinite manifest in the finite

The Truth of Existence…

Humanness infused with
such Suchness
that we are enlivened with a Life
much vaster
than “just” our humanness…

Can we embrace
that
Life
as
who
we
are

The
Pure
Conscious
Awareness

that
breathes
us
into
existence
as
ItSelf.

Do we want to remember
who we are, what we are,
beyond
disturbances of the mind,
our insecurities,
our thoughts,
our feelings,
our beliefs,
and
impairments
of whatever kind…

Can we allow ourselves
to see/sense/know

The Infinite Presence
that
we
really

are
behind
these eyes,
this persona,
and
that which animates
this
body

That Heart of Being that we have longed for all our lives…

and not settle…

Can we quit pretending
that “we’re only human”
that we can’t know,
and take off the shadowy masks
that blind us
and see
the
pure

Light
of
Being
that
is
Here

You don’t have to wait lifetimes…
It’s right here, right now -
everywhere…

Just be still
and look…

Open the inner eyes of the Heart
and
see
with
the Heart

It has always been here…

Feel it.
Experience it.

Don’t settle…

Mystic Meandering
August 3, 1012

Art: Infinite Light

“We have been raised to fear…our deepest cravings [longings/passion].
And the fear of our deepest cravings [longings/passion] keeps them suspect,
keeps us docile and loyal and obedient,
and leads us to settle…”

Audre Lourde

From Finding True Refuge Blog
Tara Brach

Shift and Change = Flow ~

Last Friday morning all angst about life and living lifted – for the moment.  I know it doesn't look it by this photo. ;)  

I usually know I am going through some kind of internal shift when I need to start moving things around – like things in rooms around, or rooms themselves.  We had decided long ago to use the rooms of our home unconventionally.  We have a cookie cutter 35 year old home with Living Room, Dining Room, Den, and Kitchen with eating area.  You know the usual burb floor plan. We turned the formal dining room into a “reading room” with bookshelves, which is actually an “L” off the living room, so is very spacious and open, but out of the way and quiet. We could actually do without a living room or den, but they came with the house. J  We have used bedrooms as office/work/creative space for the two of us and there’s a small room, which is off the Den on the ground floor, that I used when I was doing therapeutic massage from home on a regular basis over 10 years ago, which became my meditation space.

But the meditation space has been feeling like a dark cave lately and I end up not meditating as regularly.  I realized Friday that I wanted a space that is more open and spacious feeling – allowing the light and air in.  And – I thought it would help to have the computer further away, less accessible, so I can hopefully break the computer – er cyberspace addiction - and not go there first thing in the morning to “check” for messages – but to patter down the hall and meditate – checking for messages there instead. J

So – Friday a new movement began to stir within, envisioning the two spaces and how I could switch them out – my office/creative space and my meditation space.  I had to get creative.  What I ended up with is making an “office” out of the meditation space (the cave) - with computer desk, computer, side table and printer cabinet in the small meditation room – leaving the massage table there up against the wall as a kind of day bed with pillows.  And bring my meditation space into what I now call my “creative space” which had been across the room from my “office” space, which is only a matter of about 5 feet from my creative work table.  Although it is a nice size room, we’re not talking huge space here. It’s not like a “STUDIO.” J  However, this room is more open and spacious (especially without desk and assorted office furniture) and has two archway openings on one side that overlook the den that has a skylight, almost like a loft, allowing more light in.  The idea was to create space to incubate creativity and bring more flow to meditation. J  Brilliant don’t you think.  Although am sure I’m not the first one to think of that one! LOL.

I am anticipating starting a 5 week online intuitive art course called Brave Intuitive You - True Bloom Art e-course, in September, and have wanted to create a “studio” since July 1^st, but could not see how this would happen in the space that we have.  I wrote “Create Studio” on a sticky note and put in on the kitchen counter. The idea was to remind myself to clean up and organize my then existing “creative/office” space in preparation for the course – so I would actually have space to work in. J  I did not intend that I would create a “studio.”  And yet… a creative “studio” of sorts is emerging…  You can see in the photo below that I’m not quite finished with the “creative studio” side of the room.  J

DH and I spent Saturday rearranging space. Oh my, the bod isn’t what it used to be, lugging stuff up and down two flights of stairs.  That “meditation” chair was a little tricky to maneuver.  I can no longer sit on a cushion on the floor.  But am lovin’ my little meditation corner. J   And my office is cozy and quiet, out of the way, and not on the way to the kitchen in the morning - tempting me. J   

Voila:  New Space! New Flow ~ ~ ~

"Allow" - by Danna Faulds

“There is no controlling life…
Try corralling a lightning bolt,
containing a tornado.
Dam a stream
and it will create
a new channel.

Resist, and the tide will sweep you off your feet.

Allow, and grace will carry you to higher ground.

The only safety lies in letting it all in…

The wild and the weak;
fear, fantasies, failure and success.

When loss rips off the doors of
the heart,
and sadness
 veils your vision
with despair,
practice becomes
simply bearing the truth…

In the choice to let go of your known
way of being,
the whole world
is revealed
to your new eyes.”

Danna Faulds
From: Prayers to the Infinite

Danna Faulds’ poetry comes from the heart of her spiritual practice – Kripalu Yoga and meditation.

She writes: “…I had long since given up any rigid notion of an
 anthropomorphic, judging God,  yet here I was
 in intimate dialogue with something bigger than myself.

Over time I uncovered a remarkable fact:
 the very act of personally addressing
the Infinite opened me to a different experience of self and other,
one in which I sensed divinity as an interior part of all things.”
(A woman after my own Heart! J)

*

Art – “The Infinite”

Mystic Meandering

*

For an exquisite poem see
Uma’s “Flow”
Secret Notebooks…Wild Pages

From Fear To Stillness...

Yesterday I was perusing the internet with its plethora of “spiritual teachers” looking for YouTube videos that might give me insight on this deep-seated anxiety that I’ve been experiencing…  I don’t know what made me look up Mooji, as I sometimes do– a big gentle Jamaican (www.mooji.org).  There were several videos with the word “fear” in the title.  I picked two.  I found Truth in his words, bringing me back to the Truth in myself.  Sometimes that’s all it takes, someone to point you back to the Truth of your Self – your True Nature.

The following words are excerpts from the two videos.  I have put Mooji's words in poetic form, but they are not meant to be a poem.

“The mind fears…

What is the message in the fear?

Find the message in the fear…

Fear empties itself as soon as there is revelation…

YOU (the True Self) *are* before the movement of fear that arises…
Realize your Self that is before time, before phenomenon…

Wake up to the recognition of your Eternal Self.

[That is] the Awareness in which fear occurs.

Just keep quiet.

Don’t identify the reactions and interactions,

just *feel* your Existence

and

let the fear burn off…

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

There is Stillness in that space of fear…

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

There is an intuitive sense that you and the spaciousness
of Stillness are one.
There *is* no separation…

In this place your mind of fear will not have much power
because you’re in your

Natural State of Awareness…”
Mooji

I have a long way to go on this adventure of meeting this life-long anxiety and its message, but I am committed to the journey.  As Mooji has also said – “Stay in the Heart.  Only keep your eyes on ‘The Beloved’” – meaning the inner spaciousness of Stillness, Awareness, Self, or Buddha Nature, or Christ Consciousness – however you know that to be.  Home…

These are the links for Mooji’s videos.

From Fear To Stillness
Attacks of Fear

There are of course many other “teachers” with videos and books who address such issues.
It just happened that I found these…

Free Floating Anxiety...

How interesting that July started out with a new “Passion for Life” and is ending up in deep underground pools of free floating anxiety.  I hadn’t realized that these underground pools were still there, waiting to pull me under and nearly drown me.  And it wasn’t the “big event” of the shooting in the movie theatre that triggered it.  No, it was the little things that sent me head long back into contraction… 

The week started off with breaking off a professional relationship with someone when I realized we were not on the same wave length spiritually, nor did we share the same vision - for me. Instead she had her own agenda, and my red flags kicked in to full gear when I realized this was not going to be a beneficial relationship.  It triggered anxiety to intuitively step out and do what was “right” for me.  The old message that it isn’t okay to be “real”/honest/authentic – to say “no” – to pay attention to my intuition and not just follow the path of another – taking on their perspective.  Strangely, stepping out, following my inner Voice, was the trigger for a week long episode of familiar disabling anxiety.

I am aware that this is a deeply engrained, life long, neuronal pathway that is like a constant stimulus in the brain that says, danger, danger, life is dangerous – being who you are is dangerous…  And there is evidently a remembered response of anxiety in the body-mind.  By Tuesday I was beginning to slip away into the pull of its currents.    

“We”, well actually DH decided that it was also time to take our car in for transmission repair the same week that we also had some preventative plumbing issues taken care of…  It was a week of over stimulation, and by Friday I was drowning in the cesspools of anxiety unable to come up for air.  I was paralyzed by what others would consider to be a small series of life events.  I know I was primed for this in childhood.  It has been my modus operandi through life.  But through the mind muck I *was* able to realize that life was really only reflecting back to me the hidden trauma and anxiety that was already there, residing in the underground pools – waiting for me to notice - again. 

It’s interesting to me how some people can go through life barely scathed by life events, not disabled by anxiety, and others, like me, are sensitive to the external stimuli of trying to juggle life... Some are just better jugglers.   Even if I know it is only the mind mechanism at play here – it’s debilitating.  It’s my blind spot, so-to-speak, where I am not fully aware…

It was also interesting to watch how this feeling escalated out of control, even knowing that all I had to do was return my awareness to the ever-present Primal Beingness that holds it all.  It became clear that I was still identified with this anxious, fear mongering mind within – not the Essential Being that we are.  But no amount of meditation, or trying to switch perspectives would allow my mind to ‘let go.’ Believe me, if I could have found the perception switch I would have changed to a different channel!  So I rode the waves, and free floated in the experience of anxiety as treacherous as it felt at times.  And I still feel it creeping up on me, as car issues have not been resolved.  There have been other issues created by messin’ with the transmission that we were not prepared for.  Apparently there is a deeper awareness to be discovered here… No, not about the car.   So I surf the waves once again – free floating – holding on to the life raft of awareness that there is something present here beyond the fear, that is untouched by any life experience.

It is challenging to practice deep acceptance, to keep turning my awareness towards Primordial Presence and remember the Primal Message of life – that there is only Beingness – the vast field of Aware Consciousness - in which all of life occurs – including its anxieties. It is challenging to remember that this Primal Being is at the Heart of every experience of life, no matter how painful.  And to remember that everything that happens in life, and our reaction to it, is to bring us to greater awareness of our True Nature – to wake us up to our True Nature.  Evidently I’m still waking up, expanding awareness *through* the experience of anxiety…

From a non-dual perspective there is *nothing* that can affect this Primal, Essential Beingness that we are.  And yet, the body-mind tells us differently.  Through our beliefs *about* life, and how it should be happening; about how we see our self, or how we believe we should be, and what we identify ourselves with - the mind-identified person - anxiety arises.  Instead, when we identify with the Vastness of Being, it is the life raft that allows us to float on the sea of life… 

Just writing about this has brought perspective again ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Beyond The Yellow Brick Road...

I wasn’t sure I was going to write about the most recent violent tragedy here. I’ve been attempting to find the words all week.  My heart feels a deep compassion for those who *survived* this most recent act of violence; for the ones who are traumatized deep in their psyche, that will carry this wounding for life.  My heart aches for their brokenness.  May their hearts and minds find solace and healing. 

~

We all live in “The Matrix” of a sometimes painful world – a name coined by the title of a famous movie of the same name – a world apparently gone mad.  As many of you know, “we” experienced yet another traumatic, violent event a week ago - one of many violent outbursts from “The Matrix” that continually occurs all over the world everyday.  But when they happen in America, or very close to us, we tend to be shocked – as if we feel we are immune to such happenings.  Then we get focused and fixated on the event – on the drama - and “the evil one” with 24/7 TV coverage.  But what if the “evil one” is a messenger – of sorts?  What if these tragic events are a cosmic wake-up call to come out of “The Matrix”: our dramas, our characters, our illusions and delusions of comfort and entitlement, safety, security and conformity – a call out of our dualistic “spiritual” ignorance.

What if the “evil one” isn’t – well – “evil”? What if he is just like us – experiencing deep pain, confusion, anger, mis-identifying with his character, experiencing mental illness due to the circumstances and events in his own life – and then acted out of that deep pain.  I’m assuming, like me, you have known people who have acted out of deep pain and despair.  Even if they haven’t become delusional and killed anyone, or themselves, they still wreak havoc in other people’s lives – emotionally, and sometimes physically.  But are we not also supposed to try to understand and have compassion for these so-called “dark ones”?  It’s much easier to throw people into black and white categories – and dark dungeons – finding self-righteous dualistic explanations of good and evil for the tragedies that play themselves out in life – like a movie. 

Isn’t it ironic that in a country where the majority *watch* violence, in the movies and on TV, or video games, or read it in books, or even write the books, that we are appalled when it actually happens *to* us.  Just *watching* the violence from a distance allows us to be unaware of the consequences of violence, the trauma that is experienced for the rest of one’s life, whether it be soldiers with PTSD, or the consequences of domestic violence, world terrorism, or domestic terrorism, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, child abuse – and every other kind of abuse that man does to man in its ignorance of its own True Nature – our Eternal Beingness -  not to sound too abstract, too esoteric, or too simplistic here.  Isn’t that why some of us are on the “spiritual paths” that we are on – to discover and *know* this Heart of Beingness that we are – some call it Enlightenment.  And isn’t that what ignorance really is – the *not* knowing this Beingness that we really are - which then creates all this havoc and suffering; duality, separateness and drama; the need to separate black and white, good and evil; the need to separate ourselves from life’s darkness, out of fear – as if we could.  I’d like to think that simply living more deeply *aware* of our True Beingness is enough… But maybe that’s a delusion as well…

“Spiritual teachings” say that whatever happens is all part of experience of “The Matrix” we live in – the result of the deeply grooved habituated matrix of the unawakened mind – AND – that it all happens *within* the greater context of Non-Dual Beingness/Consciousness; Beingness seamlessly experiencing ItSelf…  In other words, Beingness/Consciousness experiences and is inseparable from the totality of human experience.  There are not two separate entities called Beingness and human, or “good” and “evil”, or dark and light, opposing each other, independent from Beingness.  It’s hard to accept that the dark and the light are of the same Beingness, especially in times like these.  Almost sounds blasphemous doesn’t it…  We want to separate them out, and say no, that can’t be right!   It should be all light! – all “good” – all “peace.”  This *shouldn’t* be happening.  But it is…  Can’t we *do* something about these people!? (As my mother exclaimed.)

Some spiritual teachings say that the Pure Beingness (Consciousness) that we essentially are allows life to be exactly as it is, experiencing it all, embracing it all with deep compassion and love for humanity’s brokenness and the unfolding of life as it does. We share our humanity – and – a universal compassionate Beingness beyond the sometimes villainous characters we meet on the yellow brick road…  But are we able to see that Beingness from the open, aware, compassionate Heart of Being - no matter how clouded in darkness that may be…

There is only
Grace and Love…

~

“It is time to wake up from the dream of non-duality,
with its clichés like: “there is no me”, or
”there is only Oneness”,
and truly meet each other.
For it is our sons, our daughters, our mothers and fathers
and husbands, and beloved friends that have just dropped dead.
No formulas about reincarnation,
karma, soul journeys and the existence or non-existence
of the afterlife will hold up here…

[It is the] furnace of intimacy – the intimacy
of the broken heart…”

JeffFoster

Wonders From the Depths of Being...

Bask in the passion of Truth – of Life;
the passionate Truth of Being.
Let yourself deepen into the
Depths

of the
Nameless Ocean of Being,
and become aware
of the
Truth of Being
that you are…

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
July 2012

Wonder of wonders, I may have discovered my reason to get up in the morning. J  It seems it is to *experience* the Adventure of Being – whether one calls it Being, Awareness, Consciousness, Existence, Essential Nature, True Nature, Buddha Nature, Christ Consciousness, The Beloved, The Great Msytery, Emptiness, Love, etc.  Any name we give it is merely a description, a characteristic, a quality, an attribute.  But what is this Presence – this Ubiquitous Presence that just IS, that we *feel* as the very basis of our being, of life, of living?  I recently experienced it as the primal passion of Being, the Passion of Being for living ItSelf - here… There’s an Aliveness that wells up, that wants to know ItSelf and be known – intimately - to be acknowledged, experienced, and to be expressed.  Beingness Itself, beyond the mask of “me”, wanting to experience and express ItSelf – as life – as us.  Have you felt it…

I listen to and experience the depths of Being through sitting meditation, through becoming intimately *aware* of Beingness at the depths of Silence, aware of what is Aware of every experience, every thought, every feeling.  Aware of the fluidity, the movement and the tangible depth of Being.  It is Being, expressing ItSelf *as* life.  There is a subtle tingling, a “vibration” of “livingness” going on continuously – unendingly – at the depths of Being… It’s wondrously amazing. The “Emptiness” of Existence is alive and constantly generating Itself in the vibration called life.  There is a deep resonance within the depths of Being – a deep primordial hum of “livingness” – the silent hum of the Universe that vibrates all life into Existence – OM.  It is a deep Aliveness that cannot be interpreted or labeled.  It is not even really “Joy.”  It’s not even “Awareness”.  I can only describe it as a natural, ongoing, all pervasive “Knowingness” – Omniscience – “Omness” (is that a word?) J  But that’s just my experience…  How do you experience the depths of Being – if you care to share…

And in truth, what wants to *be* and just *is* cannot be put into words! Even though we try :) Being has to be experienced – felt – known internally.  It requires complete openness to and immersion in the depths of Being, without agenda - untethered; a willingness to dive deep, to be still, to be aware, to ask to know the Truth of Existence, to listen at the depths of Being and go beyond everything that we *think* we know conceptually - and just know intuitively with the Heart…

Are we willing to *know* with child-like wonder that we *are* the living, breathing Om of the Universe, that we *are* Beingness itself – reverberating through time and timelessness…

Now that’s a reason to get up in the morning! J

Photo
Cloud cover tinted blue
and “radial blurred.”

Just Breathing...

I am soothed by the sound of my husband’s rhythmic breathing
while I lay next to him at the edge of sleep,
waiting to slip off…

I feel gratitude for this moment,
this breathing,
this man,
his being,
the sheets,
the pillow,
the bed…
the silence,
the awareness,
just Being…

and fall into rhythm with my own breath…

Just breathing…

The silence outside the window late at night
is pungent,
leaving me rapt,
sinking more deeply
into timelessness beyond time,
letting go of thought,
just awareing the night,
being breathed by the Silence of the Unknown…

I hear the sound of the ceiling fan
breathing its own whirling rhythm…
feeling the breeze of its breath
gently move the strands of my hair…

Just breathing…

And I am suddenly gone…
slipped off the edge
into slumber
until
just
before
rising
the
next
morning

Again finding myself
at the space at the edge,
before awakening,
before rising…

Aware of just Being…
Conscious of
the Stillness
before thought

Just Breathing…

Mystic Meandering
© July 15, 2012

Photo
Inside a Sea Shell

Outside the Box...

Life/Awareness/Existence/Consciousness
*delights* in expressing ItSelf,
delights in ItSelf, in Living ItSelf…

 *How* It expresses ItSelf really doesn’t matter to IT.

 Aware Consciousness has no concept of “non-dual awareness,”
 or “spiritual” language,
 or the concept of “spirituality”,
or religion…
 IT *sees* everything as ItSelf,
 and therefore not separate from ItSelf.

 The idea that Consciousness is “non-dual” does not even occur to IT.
IT just IS…

 It doesn’t *see* dualistically,
but apparently expresses ItSelf dualistically;
a paradox…
 It does not see the self, the me, as a problem to overcome,
 to get rid of, or merge with.
 The whole “me/no-me,” “self/no-self” dualistic concept doesn’t exist to IT.

 I constrained Beingness
 by subtly making those dualistic delineations,
 splitting Existence in two – in the mind – through thought;
 instead of just Being what I already knew myself to be.
 My SELF!
That is -

BEingness being ItSelf…
Consciousness aware of Itself as “me” – as ItSelf -
seamlessly and fluidly one Beingness…

What a relief!
 Such freedom!
 I can just BE!

 Living from the Heart of Being
 and not the framework, the mental scaffolding,
the “spiritual” self-image, the self-construct.

The Aliveness that wants to express here
was muted
 *through* constraining myself
 to the frameworks and scaffoldings of
 *conceptual* ideas,
 interpretations,
and beliefs…
trying to fit myself into a nice neat “spiritual” box,
with an appropriate label for future delivery.

 Evidently life is about
 *experiencing* that Aliveness now,
 aware of the Life that already lives me – “outside the box.”

Our Eternal Beingness experiences ItSelf through
all experiences,
all expressions,
whether happiness or unhappiness,
joy or sorrow,
as experienced through
this “me-mechanism.”

Beingness experiences ItSelf as everything…
and No-thing…
No distinction…

Bliss,
and beyond Bliss…
 

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
July 2011
Revised July 2012

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Collapse the Scaffolding

Photo:

This affect is created by
using the “Invert” function
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Taking a mediocre photo
and giving it life! -
looking as if lit from within :)

The Sacred Adventure...

“True adventures start with an inclination to enter the unknown.”

Sarah Ban Breathnach

Life is asking me to redefine “the path,” – again - to deepen into a new adventure – a new way of seeing, being, and living.  I am embarking on what feels like a “Sacred Adventure” – a new step into the unknown, opening to new directions, new perspectives, new attitudes, new awareness. Being open to what is really living this Life called “me” – and – at the same time, allowing myself to just be who I am.  As Ramana Maharshi said to those who were searching for the Truth – “Be as you are…”   I didn’t realize how freeing it was to allow myself to just be myself…  I don’t have to strive to know the Truth, to be “spiritual” or “non-dual” – or “enlightened.”  I can just be who I am – as that is who Beingness IS.  Imagine that! :)  I don’t have to be self-conscious about using words like “I”, “me”, “my” – in pseudo non-dual awareness – because it’s all just Awareness, all Consciousness expressing Itself – no distinction needed.  Imagine that :)  I don’t need to worry about whether I’m coming from the ego-self (“little me self”).  I only need to BE and let BEingness reveal ItSelf, express ItSelf, live ItSelf – through “me.”  


I continue to gradually shed the conceptual frameworks that have defined and informed my life so far – the boxes of life that have tended to constrain this authentic expression of Being; extricating my sense of self from the life dramas as well.  This shift in consciousness may take some time.  But some days it feels like I am waking up to a new adventure of Life in which I am finding an incredible sense of Aliveness, peace, adventure, laughter, lightness and boldness – a new passion for Life living Itself through this mechanism called “me.”   Realizing that Life truly IS a Sacred Adventure of Being…  Hope you come along…

“You’ve got to make a conscious choice every day to shed the old -
whatever ‘the old’ means for you -
old issues
old guilt
old patterns
old responses
old resentments
old rivalries
[old beliefs]

We no longer have the luxury of wallowing
in what’s held us back;
the emotional baggage…
[spiritual labels and definitions]
[misconceptions, mis-identifications]

Both authenticity and adventure require
the willingness to shed what’s safe
and predictable
in order to
embrace
a new
passion,
your authentic life…”

Sarah Ban Breathnach
Something More
Excavating the Authentic Self

And so I have been asking myself: what is it that allows this Beingness that I am to come Alive within?  What is it that allows this Passion of Being to come alive and really live ItSelf here, *through* this vehicle called “me” – and what I have called the “me-mechanism.”?  What allows me to experience this Aliveness that is inherently my Inner Being?  I didn’t *try* to experience it. I can’t explain it.  It is just there!

And how about you?  What inspires you to walk *toward* Life?; to walk into the unknown?; to *live* the  Passion and Aliveness of your Being? 

“…question and quest beyond the distracting entanglements…towards the pure light of understanding.”

Uma – Secret Notebooks – WildPages

Passion for Life...

I am re-posting this piece of prose poetry from Friday’s post (with a little different ending) because it really sets the tone for July - Passion!  I am feeling an emergence of passion for Life again - something I haven't felt in a long time.  I'm turning a page, leaving old dramas behind, and returning to a passion for living again.   I know it’s full of “I wants” but it's not about this "little self wanting." There is something welling up deep inside that wants to express, to live, to BE.  So just know that those “wants” come from the deepest yearnings of this Heart and a deep passion for what is True…

I want to walk through life
truly *seeing* - truly Aware…
 *Awake* to the Truth of Eternal Being…

Open to Life –
 not with mental judgments, opinions, and interpretations
 of what is happening,
 or what should be happening,
 or what I wish would happen,
  but with receptivity,
 openness,
 acceptance,
 allowing.

I want to See *everything* as Living Beingness;
 every leaf that drops,
 or snowflake that falls,
every being -
 with the same innocent wonder and amazement as I did as a child
as if seeing Life living for the first time…

  I want to be in Love with Life again –
 if I ever was…
  Maybe Loving Life in new ways –

I want to Hear
the laughter
in my
Heart

I want to Experience
everything
with curiosity
and equanimity

I want to Notice…
every thought,

expression,
and feeling
as it arises
without
trying to confine it,
or suppress it
before it is expressed;
or correct others
in their expression.

Save me from the arrogance of
thinking that I know what others need,
or how to “help” or “fix” them;
allowing others to be who they are,
trusting that Life is taking
them where they need to go,
just as It is me…

Let me be free from the entanglements
of the mind
that keep me compliant,
and complicit,
with the world’s ways…

Life is a paradigm of endless pathways,
and I want to risk not following the rules,
the well-worn paths.
Instead - rising above
the familiarity
of “the path”
to see what’s *really* here…

I want to live
in
the simplicity
of
the
ever-unfolding
luminosity
of

Truth.

And may I have the courage
to speak with fierce grace
to those who would try to
quell this passion,
to strip this enthusiasm,
and suffocate this spontaneity
for
the radiance
and
clarity
of


the


Passion


of 


Life

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
January 1, 2011
revised July 1, 2012