Turn Your World Red - Danna Faulds

Cardinal calls me from the
railing of the deck.  "Turn
your world red," he says,
insistent, beckoning.  "Risk
life outside your hard-earned
walls and windows.  Cast
aside caution, propriety,
and your too small sense
of what you can and cannot do."

Fly!

I tell you that the
sky knows no constraints.
All your are or can be comes
clear in the near approach of clouds.

Fly!

That which you
fear the most holds your
deepest teaching.  Let your
spirit be the bridge between
safety and release.  Soar to
the far end of what is known
from dawn to twilight, then
throw yourself at the whim
of the wild night winds.
Turn your world red, and
live with no regrets.

Fly!

[.....]

Danna Faulds
From: Poems from the Heart of Yoga

~

Photo - Drip painting...
If you look real close you can
almost see a little red bird
sitting on the thick vertical line
in the middle near the top - very unintentional :)

Break for Freedom - David Whyte & Rumi

To remove ourselves entirely and absolutely,
abruptly and at times uncompromisingly is often
the real and radically courageous
break for freedom.
Unsticking ourselves from the mythical
Tar Baby, seemingly set up, just for us,
right in the middle of our path,
we start the process of losing our sense of falsity,
of ridding ourselves of illusions,
of letting go of our self-manufactured enemies,
and even our false friends,
and most especially the false sense of self
we have manufactured to live with them.

We make ourselves available for the simple seeing of ourselves
and our world more elementally and therefore more clearly again.
We withdraw, not to disappear, but to find another ground
from which to see; a solid ground from which to step,
 and from which to speak again, in a different way,
 a clear, rested, embodied voice we begin to remember
as our own...

David Whyte
Excerpt from an essay -"Withdrawal"

Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
Slide out the side.
Die, and be quiet.
Quietness is the surest sign that you've died.
Your old life was a frantic running from Silence.

Rumi
"Become the Sky"

~

Top Photo - Ceiling Abstract
taken looking up where several ceiling levels
come together, also a ceiling beam, and a rod
with a hanger on it :)  Color inverted.

Bottom photo - Through the glass of a greenhouse ceiling. 

Want Only What Is True - Jennifer Welwood & Licata

There will always be voices that promise you greatness and glory;
They call out from the worldly marketplace;
They call out from the spiritual marketplace;
They call out from the bigger-better-more marketplace.

Do not buy their false promises, or purchase their ephemeral wares;
What fulfills for a moment is not worth the price of your soul.
There are heights that will lift you,
 but not when you try to ascend them;
There are powers that will fill you,
 but not when you make them your own.
There are treasures, and there are imitations of treasures.
If you have lost your true gold, at least turn away from the glitter.

Want only what is true.
This will lead you to the well of your deepest sorrows.
Follow that passageway, all the way down;
Become the dark emptiness of your core.
Be still.  Don't measure the waiting.
Be still.  Let the waiting become a fire.
Be still.  Let the fire show you its secret heart;
A strand of clear light running through you.
Gather yourself there, and the luminous universe opens.
In the vast expanse, fathomless, infinite ocean of light,
lose yourself, and find yourself, and become what you already are.

Jennifer Welwood
"Renunciation"

~

We can descend into the fire of direct experience of our feelings.
It is within the very core of this holy fire, in the alchemical crucible
of the body where the naked, groundless somatic territory of
illumination occurs, where healing emerges, and a new pathway
of love, care and compassion unfolds and illuminates within you.

Matt Licata

~

Photo - Woman Whirling in the Fire
(looking from overhead)
Vortex Art with Craypas oils

Authentically You - V. Erickson, Nepo & MM

Often times, a person will think they know you by piecing together
tiny facts and arranging those pieces into  a puzzle that makes sense
to them.  If we don't know ourselves very well, we'll mistakenly believe
them, and drift toward where they tell us to swim,
only to drown in our own confusion.

Here's the truth:  It's important to take the necessary steps to find out
who You are [our True Beingness.] Because you hold endless depths
 below the surface of a few facts and pieces and past decisions.
You aren't only the ripples others can see.
You are made of Oceans...

Victoria Erickson
Author of: Edge of Wonder

~

What it really comes down to is the clearness of heart to stop
defining who you are by those who have hurt you
and to take up the risk to love:
to live at the vibrant edge
of being spirit in the world
exploring the intoxicating quandaries
of being alive,
accepting the grace of our
humanness...

Mark Nepo
The Exquisite Risk:
Daring to Live an Authentic Life

~

It's about being enlivened from within;
being fiercely true to the core of our Being:
Compassion, Love and Pure Aliveness...

Open to *how* That wants to express ItSelf as us -
allowing the Dynamic Mystery that we are
to express ItSelf from deep within...
Not needing to take a stand on anything,
but finely attuned to the Heart of Love -
discovering a deeper Wisdom...

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
Sept, 2016

_/\_

Photo: Craypas oils

done with fingers

The Golden Chain of "Spirituality" - Chogyam Trungpa

As long as we follow a spiritual approach promising salvation,
miracles, liberation, then we are bound by the
'golden chain of spirituality.'  Such a chain might be
beautiful to wear, with its inlaid jewels and intricate carvings,
but nevertheless, it imprisons us.

As long as one's approach to spirituality is based upon
enriching the ego, then it is spiritual materialism...

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Buddhist Meditation Master

Personal Note: Chogyam was evidently a controversial figure, as one can see with this provocative piece, which may seem a little harsh to some...  My personal experience is that "spirituality", in its many forms, can actually constrain and contain the natural expression of our True Beingness, because with any *form* of "spirituality", or religion, there is a certain conformity to that ideology/belief.  The expression of our Pure Beingness then, often becomes stifled by that ideology/belief, which then becomes an obstruction, or constriction, to the freedom of the Pure Being that is within; that wants to express ItSelf through this mechanism we call "me", because we try to fit into a conceptual mold of a particular form of "spirituality" that we have identified with.  The point, IMHO, is to remain open to how Pure Beingness, (aka The Mystery, Life) beyond belief, beyond form, wants to come alive in us and express ItSelf in, through and as us, which may not be what we *think*... :)  _/\_

Phantoms of Beliefs - Federico Moramarco

Have you considered the possibility
that everything you believe is wrong,
not merely off a bit, but totally wrong,
nothing like things as they really are?

If you've done this, you know how durably fragile
those phantoms we hold in our heads are,
those wisps of thought that people die and kill for,
betray lovers for, give up lifelong friendships for.

If you've not done this, you probably don't understand this poem,
or think it's not even a poem, but a bit of opaque nonsense,
occupying too much of your day's time,
so you probably should stop reading it here, now.

But if you've arrived at this line,
maybe, just maybe, you're open to that possibility,
the possibility of being absolutely completely wrong,
about everything that matters.

How different the world seems then:
everyone who was your enemy is your friend,
everything you hated, you now love,
and everything you love slips through your fingers like sand.

Federico Moramarco
"One Hundred and Eighty Degrees"

~

Photo - Light Image on Wall

The Pathless Path Unfolds Endlessly...

I know I posted a version of this earlier this year, but it was timely for me to post it again - with a few changes - to remind myself - as I find myself at another turning of the page to new awareness..  The original post was written in 2011... "The path" continues to unfold...  Somehow I just couldn't get this into a poem :)

As I move though my elder years the more I just want to rest in the Ineffable Space of Being, leaving the many trodden "spiritual paths" that I've been on all my life behind - actually - I already have.  I've 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 religions and "spiritual paths" over many years.  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.  After all these many paths, I recently stopped pursuing; not because I had finally "found" anything - but because I realized The Ineffable is not a "thing" to be "found."  It only and always just IS - Everywhere - simultaneously.  One only needs to turn within and intuitively listen to and experience the movement of The Ineffable within - the inherent Inner Being - that pure space of Love that knows no limit or condition...

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, spiritual 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 seek?  I know, I have been down the "seeking road" - many times.

"Spirituality" and the pursuit of "Enlightenment"/"Awakening" has lost its luster, its pull, its certainty and security - much like the other paths I have taken throughout 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* - trying to get some *thing*, or somewhere - to arrive; striving and struggling to find; grasping after an illusive thing that I called "Enlightenment", "Awakening", (or God).  Pursuing became a burden of *trying* to find - like a game of hide and seek.

Dropping the *pursuit* of all *ideas* of "spirituality" allows me to just rest. It relieved the burden of feeling *responsible* for finding some *thing* - forever seeking; as if it were up to me.  Instead, remaining open to the Ineffable in the every-day-ness of life allows *The Mystery* to reveal ItSelf - like a treasure that has always been there, but suddenly reveals its brilliance when we aren't *trying* to *see* it.  But, I often get caught in the pursuit again, in very subtle ways.  Wanting to really Know with certainty what cannot be known with certainty - because it is a mystery.

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 Rest in the Ineffable; to experience that which can't truly be "known" with the mind - but through a more intimate, intuitive "knowing" with the whole of our being.  Discovering (or rediscovering) the Ineffable within ourselves, through an awareness of and deep intimacy with The Mystery, through continually coming back to the timeless space of Silent Awareness of what is always within - the space of The Ineffable Mystery of Being - and resting there...

In Solitude - listening within, in times of Meditative Silence - listening within the space of Pure Awareness, and even listening to our deepest wounds, surrenders us and opens the door to experiencing The Mystery, of which there is no end...  It is 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, rest 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 "reabsorbed"/dissolved into the timeless, formless Mystery again, from which we came, at the death of our form...

"...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

Joan was reabsorbed into the
Ineffable Mystery
March 21, 2016

~*~

Instead of building a road to somewhere...
the life of spirit requires us to open doors
that wait before us and within us;
opening doors into the life we already have -
inhabiting the life we are given -
facing the very pulse of life that waits like a
kind mother at the edge of our exhaustion.

Mark Nepo

True Center - Ivan Granger

Sages of all lands keep reminding us that the spiritual journey
is a journey of awareness, and specifically Self-awareness.
It is not a journey of acquisition.
Or intellect.
Or adherence to rules.

It is not a matter of how many books we're read.
Or how many times we've read them.
The only question of any value is whether we've yet
recognized their truths... within ourselves.

It is not a matter of how often we pray.
Or how perfectly we enunciate each prescribed word.
The question is, have we discovered how true prayer
wells up within us of its own accord.

We may not approach the spiritual path as a matter of
superficial actions or brittle creeds,
but we also can become swept up in endless new ideas,
new flashes of insight, new pathways, new teachers.
This can lead to a culture of lifelong seeking that becomes
our comfort zone;
a culture that takes on the form of religion (or spirituality)
without actually discovering the true center...
What we seek is found only and always
in the Heart of the heart...

Ivan Granger
Poetry Chaikhana

(Ivan's words, my format)

~

Photo - Mandala Art digitally altered

There Is Always An Open Doorway - Licata

Perhaps Life has no interest in us living up to some image.
It doesn't need or want us to be "perfect", or "divine",
 or "awakened", or "healed."  Or manifesting all the things
 we think we want...
It is only ever offering its invitation to fall heart-first
into an immense field of not-knowing - not knowing how to live,
not knowing how to accept, not knowing how to "get awakened",
not knowing how to "heal," and not knowing how to resolve
the ways of love...
And in this not-knowing,
life is there waiting for us,
 revealing its mysteries...

You are so exhausted, so tired of chasing around some fantasy
of a "spiritual" life that you were told was the right one
by some teacher, author, or expert who has figured it out
and come to some fundamental resolution to love
and its untamed creative wildness.

You are longing for rest.
To rest in your True Being.

In the very center of your heart,
there is always an open doorway.

It has nothing to do with wiggling into some conditioned
state of consciousness, other than the pure one that is here,
or with seeking some mythical sustained transcendent experience,
or with any sort of movement beyond the messy world of intimacy,
confusing unresolvable love, and human vulnerability.
It wants so badly for you to walk through, to meet for the first time,
this unbearable longing to go home,
to behold for the first time the
miracle of this precious human body,
of *these* thoughts,
of *these* feelings,
of *these* passing states of consciousness,
exactly as they have been given by an unseen grace.

For in just one moment of caring enough -
of somehow resisting the call to exit this experience for another -
what you see is that it is all made of love,
crafted out of the substance of love,
all the way through,
from inside-out and outside-in.
And no matter what the details,
love has somehow configured itself
as your unique life,
and has offered itself as a gift...
waiting for you to enter inside and hold it,
exactly as it is...

Matt Licata

(Matt's words, my format)

An Empty Room - Mooji

There is an empty room,
come fully inside,
There are no stories here.
There is no past or future here.
No relatives.
No names, no forms, time, no self.
Don't be in your head now.
Listen from another place;
a holy place deep inside your being.

There is a room without walls.  No door.
Nothing lives here.
It is not dead space.
It's your true place and Being.
The mind will try to say something like:
"You cannot stay here," or

"There is nothing here for you,"

but this voice is also phenomenon,
while You are not.

Therefore, touch nothing.
Pay attention only to you unmixed self now,
not the personal sense of self.
Personality is only a garment worn by the Self
for a duration called a lifetime.
The body is also just a garment worn for the time being.
Rare is a human being who comes to this place
which cannot be divided;

that cannot die,
where there are no beginning or ends.

It is the most pure - immaculate.
From here ego and world arise as fleeting images,
but the Real does not arise.
It permeates all, yet nothing permeates it.

Leave everything.
Be here.

Mooji

Let Life Open You - Mark Nepo & MM

As you enter the day,
try not to reach for life...
Try to let life enter you.
Allow what touches you to
change your path...

Drop all reachings and simply open...
We have to settle into the wait
until we discover that there's
nowhere to go...

If we can survive the pain of being emptied,
a deeper place is cleared
in which the mystery can sing through us...
Each soul is a living flute
being carved by life to
a deeper and deeper song...

Uncover the mystery of strength by bringing
into focus a deeper sense of truth,
and your ability to step quite naturally,
with your heart...

Excerpts from Mark Nepo's book:
The Book of Awakening
(Mark's words, my format)

~

Trusting in the simplicity of Life,
let Life come to you...
Resting in simplicity,
Life will find you...

The more you trust Love
the more Life will
open up to you...

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
2004

~

Top Photo - digitally altered

Follow Your Own Footsteps - Nepo & Machado

Every time we talk to someone,
there comes back to us a map of expectation
as to how we should respond.

We share a confusion;
we are often given direction.

We share a pain;
we are often given an instruction.

We share a desire:
we are often given a plan.

The power of these unspoken maps
should not be underestimated.
For the endless gravities of expectation
we move in and out of govern most of our
thinking and summon most of our energy
in denying them or complying with them.

In actuality, underneath all the plans,
pressures, and expectations,
underneath all the subtle guidance and nudging,
the next step is truly unknown... [and our own].

Thus, our spiritual charge is
to maintain the wonder of the singular explorer
that each of us is...

The freshest step has always come when
we are brave enough to land at the end
of what little we know,
breathing in new air,
in reaction to no one,
in wonder at
  what is...

Mark Nepo
From: The Book of Awakening

(Mark's words, my format)

~*~

Wanderer, your footsteps are the road,
and nothing more...

Wanderer, there is no road,
the road is made by walking...

Antonio Machado

~

Photo - taken by my father
c. 1952/53
his own footsteps

For A New Beginning - John O'Donohue

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
where your thoughts never think to wander,
this beginning has been quietly forming,
waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
feeling the emptiness inside you,
noticing how you willed yourself on,
still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
and the gray promise that sameness whispered,
heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
and out you stepped onto new ground,
your eyes young again with energy and dream,
a path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear,
you can trust the promise of this opening;
unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
that is at one with your life's desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
for your soul senses the world that awaits you.

John O'Donohue
"For A New Beginning"

~

Photo - Portal Cloud

The Flow of Life - Matt Licata

We are always in the flow of life.

It is the idea that there is some "us" on one side
and something called "flow" in some other place,
that is a great trance that seems to be unique
to the human experience...

Usually when we talk of being
"in the flow,"
we mean that we like the feelings,
sensations, and experiences
which are arising in our experience.
If there are more
vulnerable, intense, groundless, unresolvible,
or unideal feelings,
then we this as clear evidence that we are
"out of the flow."

And so the war begins.
The dream of abandoning the non-flow
to return to the flow as quickly as possible.

Perhaps it is only in the willingness to fully participate
in our immediate experience, exactly as it is,
that the nature of the flow will be revealed.

It is not something you will get to one day,
as some sort of acquisition,"
when you line up all of the right experiences,
when you successfully abandon and replace
what is here for something else.

The flow is right here,
utterly inseparable from what you are,
and is revealed in your unconditional commitment
to the truth of your immediate experience.

When you are willing to bring your embodied curiosity,
openness, acceptance and presence
to whatever is arising in the immediacy of now,
the question of how to feel more flow ceases to arise.

In this embodied openness the path is everywhere,
even in those places we least expect.
What you are left with is what you are,
which is love itself.

Allow love to astonish you...
Allow it to craft you
as a vessel of aliveness,
in which it can pour out
into this world.
There is no flow separate from that.

Matt Licata

(Matt's words, my format)

Rest Your Heart In Love - Fred LaMotte

The purest meditation is just to rest in Love...

Our love is often toward what we know to be God.
The "toward" of love is like an in-coming or out-going breath.
Its flow may proceed from my heart toward the Divine,
or from the Divine toward my heart,
until the two tides equalize in one serenity;
the silence between breaths... inhalation kisses exhalation.

Words cease.
  Prayer becomes deep meditation,
 and there is no more "toward"...
It is effortless repose through love, as love...
Just be with the formless feeling.
The little thread of formless love expands to fill the cosmos,
because it has no boundary, no image.
In a moment, you have captured the ocean of love
in the cup of your heart.

The tiniest thread, the faintest impulse of love,
is a breath of the Cosmic Mother,
felt as a sense of the heart.
Surrender to that subtle intuitive sensation,
without attaching any picture or face.
This ripple of affection will lead you to the sea.
Depth calleth unto depth.
In the formless abyss of love, one depth touches another.
The depth of God merges with the depth of You.

If images of an Avatar or a Master appear, let them.
They are delightful bubbles playing on the surface of
love's formless ocean.
They are all facets of one diamond,
 the brilliance of your divine heart.
Your heart is a little hologram that contains the cosmos,
the forms of every Avatar, every God or Goddess.

Whatever sadhana we practice, just rest in the heart,
filling the empty silence where thought used to be.
This silent glory [of Love] is the substance of creation itself,
suffusing every cell of the body.
Then it pours out through our eyes, our words, and our hands
in blessing...


Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

Excerpts from a blog post.
Fred's words, my format.

What Remains After Death...

I seem to be drawn to the topic of "death" lately - especially after watching this creative you tube video called "The Life of Death", which really impacted me.  Not in a morbid way, but in opening the door to bring awareness to the reality of "my" mortality - the certainty of exiting life as "i" know it... It left me feeling that death is really always with us.  It's right here - part of life. We know this, but we often avoid the idea.  But what really happens when we die...  Does this thing we call "consciousness" really "go on"?  What's left, if anything...  Is there truly a Greater Cosmic Beingness in which we are absorbed after physicality is gone?

My personal belief has been that our personal identity as a human being does not "go on" - that is, the "ego"/personality does not...  My belief has been that this "i"-wave called "christine" does not go on as christine, but dissolves into the Greater Ocean of Beingness - that famous analogy of the wave receding back into the Ocean...  But do I believe that because I like that scenario over others?  And will "i" know this is happening?  Will there be awareness?  I don't know...  Who really knows...  Just meandering here...

My father died in the early morning hours before dawn - we think - sitting in his chair in the living room.  He evidently couldn't sleep and had gotten up sometime in the middle of the night to sit in his chair.  My mother was still asleep in bed, and told the story later that Dad had come to her in what she thought was a dream and said: "Skip, I just died."  When she awoke at 5 am, he was not in bed.  She got up and found him dead in his chair.  Now some may call this woo-woo stuff, but...  who knows! Was my father aware of his death?  How exciting!  Did his consciousness go on, able to communicate somehow with my mother? And if so, how long did his consciousness linger...  Is this "dissolving" a gradual thing...  The Buddhists believe that one goes through what they call a Bardo period of "traveling" after death for something like 30 days or more.  But how do they know this? My father had had a near death experience several years before his actual death, in which his heart stopped after open heart surgery and he was "clinically" dead for a few minutes...  But was *he* "gone"?  Evidently not, as "he" was revived, and reported to us that he was now not afraid of death because his experience of dying, which he believed to be real, was peaceful.  There was something there that experienced "peace."  Fascinating...

My grandmother died in the hospital, having fallen and hitting her head, creating a blood clot under her skull requiring surgery.  After several days the decision was made to remove all life support because she was not improving...  I was not present when she died, but upon entering the room a half hour later, or so, I was gifted with an intensely tangible presence of Love that I have never experienced before, nor since.  It was like a warm presence that absolutely engulfed the room...  What was this!?  It was not the love I had for my grandmother, nor her's for me, but a greater Love.  

I realize now that it is this Greater Love that absorbs us, is what remains and "goes on."  Whether "we" retain anything of consciousness or the personal self remains a mystery.

In death and beyond there is only Infinite Love...

~*~

Photo -Imprint of a bird and wings in the snow

A View of Death - Joan Ruvinsky

Below is a transcript of a conversation that Joan Ruvinsky had with one of her Friends that was sent out in a recent newsletter from Joan's organization: Pathless Yoga.  Joan knew she was facing death, as she had end stage lung cancer.

When this body goes, does THIS [our Beingness] go?

The body is here and THIS is here - both/and...  There is one alive-space of us, and the room, and the wall, and everything else...  If global sensing is primary, the experience of me will become non-localized.  In other words, who I am is being interpreted right now as if I am a body-mind.  But the experience after I die is that there isn't a localization, that essence (called me) is just another flavouring of pure, dimensionless being.

When this body goes, does THIS go?  I'm going to say it the way Jean [Klein] said it because perhaps his wording is better than anybody's: the body is an expression of THIS.  The ocean comes up and makes this Joan wave and then this Joan wave recedes back into the ocean.  If you are looking just from the surface, yes a body has died and that person no longer exists.  If you are looking from beneath the surface, you see that yes, there is no body, but THIS still exists.  Whether I am here or not, IT is still here. This expression of IT, this tip of the wave, has come back into the ocean...  Right now you relate to the tip of the wave as well as the ocean.  The big question now is: "What is going to happen?" In your outer experience there will not be a body, but is your outer experience the truth?  What will happen in your inner experience?

There may be grief because the expression of THIS is going to be gone.  THIS is not going to go away.  And when it happens that the expression goes away, let's see, let's see what's left.  It is an experiment!  We don't know...  This everythingness... this presence... what will happen to it?  When you just stop and just close your eyes and listen within, when the background becomes the foreground, what will happen then?

Joan Ruvinsky was "reabsorbed", you might say, into the Great Ocean of the Ineffable Mystery of Being March 21, 2016.  She was evidently conscious during much of the dying process, and could describe her experience, until she could no longer talk.  Amazing...

~*~

Photo - Craypas Oils Art
Radially Blurred

"No Separate Thread" - Danna Faulds

The ordinary and the unified field
don't just co-exist, they coincide in
the same place, at the same time.
Divine and human can't be teased
apart - there is no separate thread
to pull heart from mind or soul.

There is only the unbroken chain of
wholeness forged link by link in a
continuum.  What is sacred and awake
is inextricably braided into the everyday,
but we forget that we can't dissect the
mundane from the radiant.

We lose ourselves in the rush to get
things done. Our memory grows dim
and there is such longing.  We desperately
seek something, anything, to plug us back
into what we've always been, forgetting
that the disconnect is only an illusion,
easily erased in the choice to see the truth.


Danna Faulds
"No Separate Thread"
From: Prayers to the Infinite

The Universe is a Story - Swimme, Essman, MM, & Vaughan-Lee

...the universe is not simply a place but a story,
a story in which we are immersed, to which we belong,
and out of which we arose.

This story has the power to awaken us more deeply to who we are.
For just as the Milky Way is the universe in the form of a galaxy,
and an orchid is the universe in the form of a flower,
we are the universe in the form of a human.

And every time we are drawn to look up into the night sky
and reflect on the awesome beauty of the universe,
we are actually the universe reflecting on itself.

Journey of the Universe

Brian Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker

~*~

The Absolute is both unmanifest and a dynamic creative force.
From the creative force everything arises;
both the world as well as personal consciousness.
Everything is a blissful play [story] of consciousness,
not an unreal illusion.

Excerpt from an article by

Jan Essman

~*~

Everything is ultimately a story.
My life is a story,
your life is a story,
all occurring within the vast cosmic
Ocean of Consciousness.
The story of The Eternal is being lived
here...

The Ineffable Mystery of the Universe
takes a journey through
the story of life - as us...
The "Divine Drama" is our story -
and our "story" is the "Divine Drama"...

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
2013

~*~

The real mystery is how It
unveils ItSelf within us;
how the Beloved makes ItSelf known
to ItSelf in the fragile container of the
human being.

In the midst of the Divine Drama
there is a human story to be told.
But it's all "God's" story
being lived in human form...

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Sufi Mystic

*

Photo - A mystery :)

Shimmer of Light...

We are the grace of Love fulfilled,
the shimmer of Sacred Light,
lustrous uniqueness in a field of
multitudinal  Divine Shimmers
- autonomous, yet in glittering Oneness.

We are the twinkle of liberated luminosity
radiating from the Heart of Love,
in the Sound Stream of Life,
continuously unfolding.

We are created, and create, from the glowing embers
of the mystical furnace of Love's Fire...

Receive the molten flow of golden translucence
that forms you in the fire of Divine Love.
Love infuses you in every micron of consciousness
- Golden Light turned fluid,
flowing incessantly from the Primordial Heart..

Light of Love.
Love of Love.

Love experiencing ItSelf as Love
in every breath,
in every beat of your heart...

Mystic Meandering
Dec. 2001

~*~

Photo - reflection of light on wall
from a doorknob!

The Universe is Vibrating Strings - Kaku

...the subatomic particles we see in nature,
the quartz, the electrons,
are nothing but musical notes on a tiny vibrating string.

What is physics?

Physics is nothing but the laws of harmony that you can write
on vibrating strings...

What is chemistry?
Chemistry is nothing but melodies you can play on interacting
vibrating strings...

What is the universe?

The universe is a symphony of
vibrating strings...

What is the mind of God?
It's the cosmic music resonating
through hyperspace...


Michio Kaku

Physicist

Photo - Indra's Net of Jewels Mandala Art
digitally altered

Star Symphony...

The Cosmos plays a continuous Symphony of Silence
that only Inner Stillness can hear...
We have forgotten the music of the
Celestial Songs
that sound the stellar light language of
Love

Our remembrance lies hidden deep in
the cave of the Heart - untouched...

The unspoken language of the Heart
longs to be opened - awakened...
The dormant vibration calls to us,
to resonate with the tones of Creation
in the Space of Silence ~

in unified expression with
All That Is...

Listen deeply and hear the
Celestial Symphony
within the Stillness
of the Heart...

Follow the pulsing sound
into the Vastness
of Silence...

Find your resonance
with the Rhythm
in your Heart

~ and know ~

We are all a tone of Love

playing our uniqueness in the
Chord of Life,
reverberating with
the Sound of Source...

Mystic Meandering
Aug. 1, 2001

Photo - Mandala Art
digitally enhanced

The Universe is Sound - Fred LaMotte

The Universe is sound.
The subtle essence of light shines as sound.
Each star has a sound.
Every galaxy is a resolving chord,
the harmony of a trillion worlds.
We are each a unique resonance of
grace notes.

The atom of your body chimes.
Our subatomic counterpoint trembles
and dances over the scale of humanity,
and humanity's music co-mingles in the
cosmic chorus.

My heart is a receiver of your elegy,
and a transmitter of my own love song.
Inside the ribs of every man and woman,
the hollows of a well-carved instrument resonate,
softly playing notes
deeply personal,
yet pervading the universe.

With the vibrant sounds of our minds,
we contribute to the harmony of All,
or we grind out dissonance.

The day will come,
the day is here,
when you merely call
the Beloved's most secret name,
and the Beloved is with you,
nearer than this breath!

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

(Fred's words, my format)

~*~

Om is the primordial word [sound].
All that is, was, or will be is Om.

Mandukya Upanishad