Winter Whammy!

Sometimes life is just "magical"!

With Winter's Whimsies arriving in April

Joy Rising...

And calm Rest...

Offering a weekend "Sabbatical"...

:)

Sabbatical...

Deeply hidden within is a longed for “sabbatical life.”

Tired of "the journey", I am in need of respite - Primordial Rest.

– but life, it seems, has its demands...

  Still, I try to carve out some semblance of “sabbatical living” daily –

 despite the roller coaster ride of distractions and preoccupations;
 the daily requirements of life, health, family and relationship -
bowing to the inevitable and the Ineffable -
submitting to both...

  Spending time in Meditative Silence
is an infrequent refuge lately...

  But even in that Stillness I bobble on the surface of life,

 challenged by an aging body, the crises that others create,

 navigating the maze of family dynamics –
whirling havoc in my mind...

But a Deeper Rhythm calls from within...

"Sabbatical"

The Primordial Rhythm of Rest

"Sabbatical" is a very deep and vital need – like breathing -
 and requires Silence and Solitude,

like the Holy Quiet of a Natural Sanctuary;
  a lily pond found in the deep woods...
where only the Ineffable moves,
and converses in an
unspeakable language
that only Silence can hear...

I linger here - drawn into the depths of Silence
until I'm ready to move again
into life's currents,
  facing into the present realities of living,
 – and just live -

Listening...

 for the Deeper Rhythm within...
The Inner Sabbatical;
not its outward form.

 Opening to the hush of The Mystery
 revealing Itself through the every-day-ness of living...

Just Living...

Mystic Meandering
April 14, 2016

The Unseen Current - Ivan Granger

We have this idea…..that the strong individual must aggressively forge his or her path through life; that it is a fight that only the strong will succeed, and unhappiness is a sign of weakness and inaction.  It is the idea that fulfillment comes through force of will. [But] if we are pushing for a life that is not ours, and feeling frustration because it is not happening, that is a sign that we are still serving the [personal will.].

Most of us imagine that we have to somehow *do* life.  [But] life itself is not something we do or make for ourselves.  It flows through us and is not of our making. The soul has a path that naturally unfolds as we move through life.  When we understand life this way, there is an immense sense of relief - and rest.  …..what is required is not…..willpower, not some total life revolution, but simply…..to feel the deep currents flowing through our lives, and then to fully live the life that naturally emerges....  In this way, we stop obstructing divine will with our endless frustrated efforts and, instead, we allow ourselves to become [an] expression of that heavenly flow that has always been eager to pour through us.  All we really need do is ride the great current flowing through us unseen...

Ivan Granger
Poetry Chaikhana

The Second Music - Annie Lighthart

Now I understand that there are two melodies playing,

one below the other, one easier to hear, the other

lower, steady, perhaps more faithful for being less heard

yet always present.

When alll other things seem lively and real

this one fades.  Yet the notes of it

touch as gently as fingertips, as the sound

of the names laid over each child at birth.

I want to stay in that music without striving or cover.

If the truth of our lives is what it is playing,

the telling is so soft

that this mortal time, this irrevocable change,

becomes beautiful.  I stop and stop again

to hear the second music.

I hear the children in the yard, a train, then birds.

All this is in it and will be gone.

I set my ear to it as I would

to a heart.

Annie Lighthart

~*~

Also see my post A Deeper Rhythm

~*~

Photo - The inside of a seashell 

Melted - Mary McGovern

Something just melted in the story of me.

Like a warm balm, the softness spread

over muscles and bone and fascia.

Whispering - "It's okay, it's okay..."

The mantle of knowing slipping

off shoulders, the sweet relief

of no judgment, no opinion, no idea.

What is good or wrong?

I cannot say, not even for "me."

And this is the deep solace of emptiness.

Full of tender sigh, deep breath,

grateful tear.

I cannot know.

 I cannot know. 

And gratitude explodes silently again...

Mary Mc Govern

Grace Is Now

The Pathless Path is Endless...

As I move through my “elder years” the more I want to experience the Ineffable – directly - leaving the many trodden “spiritual paths” that I’ve been on all my life behind – actually I already have.  I have been on a pathless path for many years now.  

As a child I had an innocent longing to “know God” – directly – a child’s understanding of a religious “God” figure - and pursued that longing through many “spiritual paths” over many years.  Then the path evolved into the search for “Awakening” and “Enlightenment”  They are all the same “path” really, Longing for what is Ineffable in different disguises.  And now, after all these many paths, I finally stopped pursuing; not because I had finally “found” anything – but because The Ineffable is not a “thing” to be “found” –  It only and always just IS.  Everywhere… simultaneously.  One only needs to turn within, feel The Silence, and intuitively listen to and experience the movement of The Ineffable within – the inherent inner Reality - directly.  And yet, there is still a Longing for what I call the “Supreme Reality” beyond the surface of daily living – that which illumines everyday reality…

Being on a “spiritual path” implies that one is going somewhere, seeking some thing at the end of the journey - like retirement after a life of working, or the magical pot of gold at the end of the mythical rainbow, or even the mystical “Holy Grail.”  Or maybe one is even seeking an end to something, like suffering, pain, ignorance, their humanness, or the end of seeking itself.  But what if there was no need for seeking the illusive big “Some-thing” that spiritual seekers are seeking?   I know, I have been down the “seeking road” – many times. 

The pursuit of “Enlightenment”/”Awakening”/”Self-Realization” has lost its luster, its pull, its certainty of an end for me – much like the other paths I have taken throughout my life.  They are just constructs.  And I found they did not take me where my Heart longed to go…  And – I finally noticed that the energy of “pursuit” has a quality of trying to get something, or somewhere – to arrive; striving, struggling to find; grasping after an illusive thing that I called “Enlightenment”, “Awakening” (or God). Pursuing had become a burden that I must find what I was pursuing – like a game of hide and seek.

Not pursuing has relieved that burden.  It relieved the burden of feeling responsible for finding some thing - forever seeking.  Instead remaining open to The Ineffable allows the Ineffable to reveal ItSelf – like a treasure that has always been there, but suddenly reveals its brilliance in the every-day-ness of life, when we aren’t looking.

Years of seeking and pursuing brought me to the realization that as we “evolve” the “path” dissolves.  What we think we “know” about The Ineffable, God, life, spirituality changes, and we find ourselves in a place of not needing to seek, not needing to know anything about The Ineffable, but only wanting to experience The Ineffable; to experience that which can’t be truly “known” with the mind – but through a more intimate, intuitive “knowing” with the whole of our being.  Discovering (or rediscovering) the Ineffable for ourselves through an awareness of and deep intimacy with the Silence of this Grand Mystery, through continually coming back to the timeless space of Silent Awareness of what is always there – the space of The Ineffable Mystery of Being.

Meditative Silence and Awareness opens the door to what I experience as a “Supreme Reality.”  But it’s not a “place.”  The “spiritual path” doesn’t go anywhere.  It doesn’t end, but endlessly unfolds, and deepens, and therefore continues as an inner pathless path of openness and direct experience; experiencing the feeling of the Ineffable, the felt sense of the underlying Mystery of Existence – the Breath within the breath –the underlying Rhythm of Life – however that manifests for each of us – until we are re-absorbed into the Ineffable, timeless Great Mystery ItSelf…

“…all the activity (seeking) eventually leads us to a giving up.

  And in this surrender what is revealed is seen to be what has always been here

 – before the searching began…

  The task turns out to be ceding to stillness…

Falling back and resting.

   Amidst life itself we find our self sinking back into what is underneath the surface,

 recognizing our true fundamental nature…”

Joan Ruvinsky

Pathless Yoga

In memory of Joan Ruvinsky

who was reabsorbed into the endless

 Ineffable Mystery 

March 21, 2016

~*~

Photo: My father’s footsteps in the snow

taken by my father c. 1952/53

If I Appear Lost - Mark Nepo

[If  it appears that] I am lost,

[It means] that the few maps I’ve found or made up

have brought me to the edge of the unknown…

When I can’t speak at all

I don’t mean anything.

It’s just that I’ve unstitched the words

and have slipped into the

silence they contain…

Mark Nepo

Excerpt from the poem: “Entering Our Tenth Year”

From: Inside The Miracle

Unique Lunatics - Chuck Surface

[.....]

There are only a few lunatics,

who through no choice of their own,

have minds consumed with Wonder,

Hearts Aching with Longing,

who are, in a unique way...

Troubled.

It's a Blessing, not a curse,

to be thus consumed, thus distracted,

so that even amidst life's joys and sorrows

one cannot escape the ever present Question

spoken wordlessly, in the Heart of Being...

What is this...

This... being alive...

This experience of existing...

And... What am I?

A kind of Madness,

there in each breath, and heartbeat,

filling us, in the same instant,

with Unbearable Longing,

and Longing's Fulfillment.

A Longing born of that which is Longed for.

Containing, like a seed nurtured in the Heart,

the Fulfillment of the Heart's Desire.

Longing and Fulfillment, impossibly...

Present, both at once.

I find these fellow lunatics, occasionally.

And over tea we chat of the Great Mystery,

of Her inexpressible Beauty.

Words spoken in Love and Wonder,

of that which cannot be spoken.

[.....]

Chuck Surface

Excerpt from the poem: "Troubled"

Chuck's poems can be found on

In the Garden of the Beloved

and Facebook

~*~

Tea Anyone?

Prosetry on "Reality"...

There is a “Deep Reality”
that pulls us beyond our beliefs,
 religions & philosophies;
the maps of reality
 that we have created for ourselves…
A “Supreme Reality” that does not depend on
one’s beliefs, one’s maps,
but on a deep Heart-longing for
the Truth of Existence
and
Love for
what’s truly Real…

It’s not a “higher” reality,
but more
an energetic purity,
a clarity,
a refined reality…

It’s an Ineffable Reality
that transcends all our
ideas and concepts,
as well as materiality.

One could call it
The Ultimate Reality,
The Infinite Reality,
The Absolute Reality -
if there is such a thing…

These are only names
used to try to describe
what is felt experientially.

Some Mystics and Poets who experience
this “Deep Reality” within
 feel a visceral vibrational resonance with it,
and words just bubble up spontaneously
from “The Deep,” on their own.

Today I use
The “”Supreme Reality”
The “Ineffable Reality”
and “Deep Reality”
because that’s what
”bubbled up.”
But the words will change.
They are merely metaphors
for a Reality that cannot be named -
only experienced…

In “The Deep Reality”

we wait -
for the Ineffable Mystery to reveal ItSelf -
a rendezvous in the Sacred Silence -
without preconception of what “Reality”
will look like -
or how it will feel;
without concern for words…

In the waiting without words
Gratitude
wells up…

A deep Gratitude for
The Ineffable Mystery of Existence;
a sense of awe
at the magnitude, depth, and expanse of “The Mystery”

When we willinging succumb to
this Deep Ineffable Reality;
not just surrender -
but allow ourselves
to be dissolved into the
Cosmic Depths of the
Unknown…

We Rest

~*~

Mystic Meandering
March 13, 2016

~*~

All you need is a sincere longing for Reality -
the love of the Supreme…

Nisargardatta

~*~

Photo:  Light Waves

Reflection of Light on a wall
from a door knob!

Collapse the Scaffolding...

Allow everything to collapse…
All the structures that you have erected,
that you cling to;
beliefs, opinions, self-images, self-identities;
self-definitions;
what you *think* you are;
believe you are;
want life to be;
desire to have;
and feel about
your ‘self.’

Collapse everything
that you hold onto
as your ‘self.’

Collapse into the Ineffable Mystery of Being;
with no sense of I am this or that;
no sense of a separate ‘me’;
just pure Life
expressing
the
stream
of
Living
moving
in,
through,
and as
’you.’

Collapse into the Fullness
of
Emptiness,

of
Silence,

of
Stillness…

Experience what’s
beyond the structures
that you’ve tried
to hold in place for so long
with your scaffolding:
your “ego”,
your “personality”…

Feel the Vastness of Being when there’s
nothing to cling to…

No identity
No self-image
No plan
No concept of life
No belief
No opinion
No judgment
No *sense* of 
’self’
to hold
’you’
up.

When the false scaffolding collapses

What is “behind” this “you”
that you *think* you are?

Nothing but the Ineffable Mystery of Life ItSelf…

~ ♥ ~

Mystic Meandering

Meditative Writings

July 2011

Losing The Maps - Mark Nepo

Just when we’re softened by the years,
when we have enough experience to see
for ourselves, our maps are torn from us.
This can be frightening, but there’s
divine timing in the dissolution of a
stubborn mind, the way an inlet waits
on the last rock to crumble so it can
find its destiny in the sea.  Losing the
way set out by others is necessary so we
can discover for ourselves what it means
to be alive.  Now we can burn the clothes
others have laid out for us, [other’s maps of reality]
 not in anger but to light our way.  Now we can let the
soul spill its honey on the unleavened life
we’ve been carrying.  Now we can rise.

Mark Nepo

Poem from: Inside the Miracle

Postcards From the Heart...

Remember the Essence of Love
from which you came,
and which you are.
This is your truth
and your substance…

~*~

Do not be afraid of where Love might take you
or how it will change you.
Allow the stream of Love to carry you,
to flow you through life with its
winding turns, over rapids, through eddies, and around obstacles.
Be at peace in the flow and fluidity of Love’s Presence.
Each day step into the channel of Love’s music.
The music of Life is Love…

~*~

The deep change you desire comes through/from
the confluence of Love within yourself.
Pay attention to its flow, its music, its message.
Look beyond the surface irritations,
the surface constrictions
that seem to
suffocate you.
That is only the surface.
Your True Life is hidden
deep within
the Heart

~*~

Be at peace…
Even in the midst of chaos there is Love.
Even in the midst of collapse there is Love.
Even in the midst of confusion there is Love.

The energy of Creation is Love...

Absorb the truth of this,
the wisdom of this.

In this is healing.

Love is your sanctuary.
You reside in the Great Heart of Love.

~*~

See life through the Innocence of Love -
through the eyes of the Heart,
despite the pains and frustrations,
wounds and traumas that are emerging
through the physical and emotional body -
and the collective body.
Embrace it all in Innocence.
Let your Innocence carry you to
the still Heart of Love.

This is the lesson:
To see Love in everything.
It is the Divine Truth of all things.

~*~

It is your destiny to be Love – to be a presence of Love.
The only “purpose” is to BE Love.

Let the ripples of luminescent Love
form and expand in your Heart
It is already there…

~*~

May your journey to be a journey of Love,
for all is Grace and Love…

~*~

Namaste
_/\_

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
2004-2006

Be Silently Drawn...

I am being silently drawn by the stronger pull
of what I love -
Ineffable Silence,
the Essence of Life,
the Cosmic Breath,
the Infinite Rhythm
of ceaseless Love,
 Loving.

Deep Silence is “Home,”
the Primordial Womb,
which is not the absence
of thought or thinking,
or “doing”,
or creativity,
but a deep space
of Inner Quiet -
that thrives
with Aliveness

My greatest delight
is Immersion in
This - Pure Silence
Pure Awareness
Pure Aliveness
Pure Isness
of Being.

My greatest
JOY
is living
 in the Rhythm
 of this Sacred Silence of Life…

Life is calling me to This -
to experience the Essence of Life;
the Silent Presence of the Ineffable;

to know intimately
this all-pervasive Infinite Aliveness
that breathes everything…

The Living Breath…

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
Feb. 8, 2016

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull
of what you really love…
It will not lead you astray…”

Rumi

~

Photo - Vortex Art
2011

Deeply Listen - Mark Nepo

Deep listening is meeting experience openly
so we can discover the coherent whole of life that connects us.
The task is to slow down enough and be present enough
to listen to each moment that calls…

Each enlivened moment is a thread in the fabric of the Universe -
each embued with spirit and wisdom.
We must learn to see through to the essential realm
that underlies everything, to listen below the surface of things
for what’s hidden…

The task is to be humble enough and attentive enough to
 pull the threads until the threads unravel the cocoon
 of our own making that shrouds us from the mystery
 that is always present.

At the deepest level, the most essential level,
listening entails a constant effort to *feel* that moment where
 everything touches, so that we might be touched by
 the Life Force in all things,
tuning to the mystery that surrounds us…

Life is a river… all we are left with is to find that current
 and join it…
listen for the water as it opens your gills,
feel the wind of truth,
receive the ancient rain of insight as it softens the mind…

When our individual sense of being merges with
 the ongoing stream of being
 that is the heartbeat of the Universe -
breathing the Breath of the Universe…

If stilled enough our breath can join the Breath of the Universe -
our deepest Home.

Mark Nepo

Excerpts From: Seven Thousand Ways to Listen

Hold The Silence - Danna Faulds

Hold the silence like
a mother holds her child.

Focus on the still point
…until you are filled with light,

 until

Spirit speaks to you in
words you understand,

until

 the love in your
heart grows…

Excerpt From the poem: “Instructions”

From the book: Prayers to the Infinite
Danna Faulds
Copyright 2004
No website found

~*~

Technically I know “we” do not literally “hold” the Silence,
as it cannot be grasped…
It would be like trying to hold air...
We are, in essence, held in the Vastness of “Silence.”
But I liked Danna’s imagery and where she was taking the poem:
that, in essence, we are in tender relationship with The Silence
at the “still point” of our Being, and that to “hold” the Silence means, for me,
to bring my awareness to that Ineffable Silence.
And, by “holding” (being aware) of the Sacred Silence,
we are in essence deeply listening to that Silence,
until we hear what we need to hear, and
 experience an opening of the Heart.

My interpretation of course…

Stop Running on the Surface...

Stop…
You must come to a complete stop…
To the still point and stop…

Stop everything – everything - until you feel the still point within…
Until you find the well of deep Quiet at the core of your Being…

Stop running on the surface of life
trying to keep up with life – gasping for air -
grinding away in the world’s chaos…

Divest yourself of life’s complexities,
and the emotional investments
that unsettle your heart…

Just stop…

Come to the place of deep Stillness,
from which all life unfolds…
Quiet the voice of the mind that conflicts you,
that stifles your own inner knowing,
and listen...

Stop…
Listen…

Wait for the movement that comes from deeply resting
in the Ineffable Silence within…

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
Jan. 31, 2016

Out Beyond - Rumi

Out beyond the ideas of right-doing and wrongdoing
there is a field…
I will meet you there…

Rumi

~

Beyond all polarities, mental concepts,
and the shadowy forms of beliefs about

 “God” or “no-God”,
duality or non-duality,
or the language we use for what we call “God”,
or “Oneness”,
there is an Ineffable, untouched
Mystery of Being
  within us…
A stillness...
where we can lay our “self” down in the Sacred Silence
and rest -

Meet me there,
no matter what your beliefs…

MM

Utterly Absorbed - Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

“We have become conditioned to think that God
is something other than ourself -
but there is no separate identity.
We are utterly dissolved in God -
in a state of deepening absorption.

There is nothing but God...
Everything is illumined with Divine Presence...

The Beloved is present,
not as a personal God or Creator,
but as something both
inexpressible and intimate,
and is recognized as something
inseparable from the self.

In moments of absorption
only The Beloved exists.
This primal awareness
of the Heart is the foundation.

Immerse the self in the heart
allowing the energy of love
to slow down the mind
and its thoughts, until
eventually we arrive
at a state of receptivity,
in which we patiently wait
within the heart
for the words
of our
Beloved;
experience
Divine Presence;
and merge deeper into
the Silence that belongs
to Love…”

Words of LLewllyn Vaughan-Lee

Sufi Mystic
From: The Prayer of the Heart

I have taken his words from the book
and put them in prose poetry form.

~

Photo of sky and clouds color inverted

The Ineffable Breath...

Beyond the concepts of duality and n0n-duality
there is only The Breath of Sacred Silence...
Here is neither oneness or two-ness,
only The Rhythm of the
Ineffable Breath
of Silence
IN
which
Existence exists

In this space
everything falls away -
even our own breath –

 all  breathing falls into the
the Rhythm of the
Ineffable – breathing
the essential Life that

underlies everything.

The Ineffable Breath is always
 here - and "we" -
 are always being breathed
by the Ineffable Breath...

A mystery...

The inhale and exhale
of the Cosmos,
one Rhythm.
No longer aware of
a separate "me,"
only the Ineffable Silence
breathing…

The mind tries to keep the personal
sense of "me" alive through
thought patterns,
thought processes,
an automated mechanism
that just runs,
creating scenarios of I/me
BUT
There is only The Breath
of The Ineffable,

Breathing -
breathing Existence.

There is no sense of
union,
or dissolution,
or surrender
of a thing
called
"me"

One is simply - absorbed -
 subtly by/into The Ineffable.

A natural, organic absorption of the whole being

 taking place IN the Ineffable Breath -
 the ongoing stream of
 Pure Beingness –

Ecstasy…

The mystery of Existence
 all takes place
IN

The Ineffable Breath of Silence

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
January 18, 2016

~*~

This poem triggered a mass exodus from my blog.
Maybe it is too "esoteric", too confusing, as a "Friend" suggested.
And yet, this was/is my experience of the Ineffable, the Mystery of
Existence, during times of meditative Silence -
 lost in the Ineffable Breath.
But how does one express the inexpressible in
 "understandable" ways?

One doesn't  - that is why it is "ineffable" - i.e. beyond expression,
unspeakable.  And yet I felt compelled to write,
 to share the experience
through the only vehicle I know - words -
in hopes that it would inspire...

Namaste