Holy Wounds - Pesha Joyce Gertler

Finally on my way to [saying] yes [to life]
I bump into
all the places
where I said no...

all the untended wounds
the red and purple scars
those hieroglyphs of pain
carved into my skin, my bones,
those coded messages
that send me down
the wrong street
again and again
where I find them
the old wounds

the old misdirections
and I lift them
one by one
close to my heart
and say - holy
holy...

Pesha Joyce Gertler

"The Healing Time"

via: Beyond the Fields We know

Sorry the photo is not clear
it was taken many years ago
with a very old camera,
but I like the colored water :)

When Seeking Ends - Dorothy Hunt & Papaji

I can no longer read the Teachings
or visit those awakened on the path
who sit amidst flowers and incense
and eager seekers waiting for morsels
of Enlightenment food.

I can no longer sit on my black cushion
waiting for the moment to appear
when the big bang will occur
and blow this world of work and life
into the heavens of bliss.

I can no longer search for what is missing
nor can I say that I have found it.
I listen to the furnace blowing at dawn
and watch a feather dance before its music.
I work and eat and sleep and simply live my life.

I no longer wonder if I should dye my hair
or give up eating meat
or lose ten pounds before summer.
If I do, I do, and if I don't, I don't,
and who is there to care?

The sound of the garbage truck
chewing up the remains of my week
offers just as much stimulation to my soul
as a church bell or the song bird's melody
lilting from the distant hill.

My candles of devotion sit unlit
upon the altar to the gods,
and the bell of mindfulness unrung
upon its hand-sewn cushion,
the incense resting in a drawer.

What has become of the one
who searched and chanted and read and prayed
and hoped for enlightenment?
She still laughs with her family,
sips champagne with friends, and sings in the shower.

What is life when the seeking ends?
Just what it is,
nothing more or less...

- ordinary -

not wishing to be more or less,
content to simply be...

Dorothy Hunt

Buddhist teacher, therapist and poet

~

There is simply the seeing of This as it is; just what is.
What is, is eternal movement that is eternally still.
What is, is never born and never dies.
This has no form and is every form.
I am This.  And you are This.
There is nothing special in This,
because everything is This.
When the sense of being a "me" fades
or is seen through,
then the
extraordinary ordinariness of This
can be seen...

Papaji
East Indian Sage

Love and Surrender - Chuck Surface

These days, with more behind than ahead,
I do not yearn to solve the Mystery of Life,
Or come to "enlightenment" or "awakening."

Those words long ago lost all meaning,
And the Great Mystery has proven,
Beyond all doubt, Unknowable.

These days I Cherish two things:

The Sacred Presence in The Heart,
That Ineffable Sublimity,
which Illumines the Experience of Being:

Love.

And the Enlivened Serenity of the mind,
Though ever awash in Wonder,
Surrendered to Not Knowing.

Love... and Surrender.

Having these,
What care is there of attainment,
Or "levels" of enlightenment?

Having these,
What care is there for states of being,
Created and sustained conditionality?

Having these,
How can one bear arid discourses,
Seeking to prove this "Truth" or that?

Having these,
What "spiritual desire" can arise
Save...

Love's desire to Bless.

I've grown so weary of all else "spiritual."

These days, with more behind than ahead,
This Mystery within a Mystery is content
To breathe in Love, and breathe out Surrender.

Chuck Surface
In The Garden of the Beloved
Facebook

~

...in the course of my life, I found,
No finality in the milestones come to along The Way.
No flag planted, no summit attained.
And however Profound each milestone,
More should not be made of them,
than should be made,
Each being merely a juncture...
On a Journey of Endless Enlightening.

Chuck Surface

~

Photo - sent to us by a friend many years ago.
The Fawn's mother had been killed...

Rest - David Whyte

Rest is the conversation between what we love to do
and how we love to be.
To rest is to give up on the already exhausted will
as the prime motivator of endeavor, with its endless
outward need to reward itself through established goals.
To rest is to give up on worrying and fretting and the sense
that there is something wrong with the world
unless we are there to put it right;
to rest is to fall back literally or figuratively from outer targets,
and shift.....to an inner state of natural exchange.

The template of natural exchange is the breath,
the autonomic giving and receiving
that forms the basis and the measure for life itself.

We are rested when we are living [that] exchange...

In rest is the sense of stopping, of giving up on
what we've been doing or how we have been being.
It is the sense of slowly coming home...

Deep in the primal exchange of the breath,
is the give and take, the blessing and the being blessed
and the ability to delight in both.
In rest there is a sense of presence, a delight in and
anticipation of the world and all of its forms [in which]
receiving and responding occur in one spontaneous movement.

A deep experience of rest is a perspective from which we are
able to perceive the outer specific forms of our work [and life]
and our relationships whilst being nourished by the shared
foundational gift of the breath itself.

Rested, we are ready for the world,
but not held hostage by it...

David Whyte

Excerpts from a writing called "Rest"
From the book: CONSOLATIONS

(David's words, my format)

Note: In Non-Duality religions they would call this Resting in Awareness...  One could also say it is resting in the Primal Rest of Pure Being, although am not sure that is David's meaning - but is how I interpret his words...   

Meditation and the self - Shinzen Young

...you can think of enlightenment as a kind of permanent shift
in perspective that comes about through direct realization
that there is no thing called "self" inside you.

Notice that I'm not saying that there is no self, but rather
no thing called a self.

Of course. there is certainly an activity inside you called
personality, and activity of the self.  But that is different
from a thing called the self.

Meditation changes your relationship to sensory experience,
including your thoughts and body sensations.  It allows you
to experience thoughts and body sensations in a clear
and unblocked way.  When the sensory experience of the
mind-body becomes sufficiently clear and uninhibited,
it ceases to be a rigid thing that imprisons your identity.

The sensory self becomes a comfortable home, not a jail cell.
That's why enlightenment is sometimes referred to as liberation.

You realize that the thingness of self is an artifact caused by
habitual nebulosity (cloudiness, haziness) and viscosity (density)
around your mind-body experience...

Shinzen Young
The Science of Enlightenment:
How Meditation Works

via: Markings

~

Photo - Amitabha
Buddha of Infinite Light,.
also called The Eternal Buddha

The Tao of Physics - Fritjof Capra

...the intuition behind the physicist's interpretation of the sub-atomic
world, in terms of the quantum fields, is closely paralleled by
 that of the Eastern Mystic who interprets his or her
 experience of the world in terms of an ultimate underlying reality.The Brahman of the Hindus, like the Dharmakaya of the
 Buddhists, and the Tao of the Taoists, can be seen,
 perhaps, as the ultimate unified field from which spring
 not only the phenomena studied in
 physics, but all other phenomena as well.
In the Eastern view, the reality underlying all phenomena is beyond
 all forms and defies all description and specification.  It is therefore
 said to be formless, empty, or void, but this emptiness is not to be
 taken for mere nothingness.  It is, on the contrary, the essence of
 all forms and the source of all life.  Thus the Upanishads say:

Brahman is life.  Brahman is Joy.  Brahman is the Void.
Joy, verily, that is the same as the Void.
The Void, verily, that is the same as Joy,

(Chandogya Upanishad 3.14.1)

The Eastern sages make it clear that they do no mean ordinary
 emptiness, when they talk about Brahman, Sunyata or Tao,
 but.....a Void which has infinite creative potential...
Like the quantum field, it gives birth to an infinite variety of
 forms, which it sustains and eventually reabsorbs.

Fritjof Capra
From: The Tao of Physics

via: No Mind's Land

~

"...in reality only the Ultimate is...
When you understand that what is real is
nameless and formless,
pure energy of life and light
of consciousness,
you will be at peace -
immersed in the deep silence
of reality."

Nisargadatta

Note: I know nothing of Quantum Physics or the "unified field theory" from a scientific perspective.  But this excerpt caught my attention.  The subject fascinates me as a mystic, and sometimes confirms
to me what I have experienced in "meditation."  _/\_

Photo: Mandala Art

Silence is Universal...

Midnight...
Sitting at the window again...
Sinking deeply into
the peace of Stillness,
leaning into the night
in awe... of its Silence...

The one constant is Utter Silence...
tangible; a felt sense
that undulates ItSelf through form
in Silent Rhythms...

The Universal Silence of all existence...
The Energy of Being that pulsates through all life...
manifesting many different faces of the Formless,
reflecting ItSelf in many expressions,
all "different", yet all the same Life Energy...

The mind focuses on differences,
instead of That which unifies;
the common thread of Living Silence...

Beyond seeming "difference"
is the same Infinite, Resonant Vibration of Being ~

Wondrous, Ubiquitous Silence in varying vibrations...

Every utterance from Infinite Silence
is an expression of the Eternal;
is a wave in the Ocean of Infinity...

Every life form is The Formless Silence...
It's Sound is an undulating OM ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

And

This "me" experience, then, is the expression of
That ~ an emanation from Pure Silence...
in all Its disguises...

Mystic Meandering
Oct. 16, 2016

Rediscovering True Silence - Jean Klein

Silence is our real nature.
What we are fundamentally,
is only Silence...
Silence is free from beginning and end.
It was before the beginning of all things.
It is causeless.
Its greatness lies in the fact that it simply is.

Silence has no opposite in noise.
It is beyond positive and negative.
Silence dissolves all objects.
It is not related to any counterpart which belongs to the mind.
Silence has nothing to do with mind.
It cannot be defined but it can be felt directly because
it is our nearness.

Silence is freedom without restriction or center.
It is our wholeness,
neither inside or outside the body.
Silence is joyful, not pleasurable.
It is not psychological...

Silence is holy.
Silence needs no intermediary.
It is healing.
There is no fear in Silence.
Silence is autonomous like love and beauty.
It is untouched by time.
Silence is meditation, free from any intention...
Silence is the absence of one's self...

Sound, which comes from Silence, is music.
All activity is creative when it comes from Silence.
It is constantly a new beginning.
Silence precedes speech and poetry
and music and all art.
Silence is the home ground of all creative activity.
What is truly creative is the word, is Truth.
Silence is the word.
Silence is Truth.

Jean Klein

via: Being Silently Drawn

(Jean Klein's words, my format)

Utter Stillness...

Utter Stillness,
within and without,
comforts, nurtures,
claims me...

Sweet repose in this Stillness...
beyond noise,
beyond feeling,
beyond thought,
beyond story.

Utter Stillness does not anticipate,
does not seek.
It just IS...
awareing,
seeing,
knowing.

To *reside* in Utter Stillness
is pure Being,
pure Awareness,
pure Life...

From the Spaciousness of Utter Stillness
life is just experienced...

no conclusions,
no interpretations,
no judgments,
no reactions,
no labels...

Just Life being lived...

Utter Stillness...

Sweet Refuge...

Mystic Meandering
2010

Embrace Your Wholeness - Oriah

Embracing your wholeness is the greatest gift you can give...
Christine Wushke
Freely Human

~

All things are made of the same sacred presence - stillness...
All things emanate from and return to and are never
separated from a vast and sacred wholeness...

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

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

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

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

Living it consciously is why you are here...

Oriah
From: The Call

(Oriah's words, my format)

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