Regaining the Rhythm of "Self" - John O'Donohue

When you regain a sense of your life as a journey of discovery,
you return to rhythm with your self.  When you take the time
to travel with reverence, a richer life unfolds before you.
Moments of beauty begin to braid your days.  When your
mind becomes more acquainted with reverence, the light,
grace and elegance of beauty find you more frequently.
When the destination becomes gracious, the journey
becomes an adventure of beauty.

John O'Donohue
Excerpt from: Divine Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

                                                                                        

Kindness casts a different light - John O'Donohue

There is a kindness that dwells deep down in things;
it presides everywhere, often in the places we least
expect.  The world can be harsh and negative, but
if we remain generous, and patient, kindness inevitably
reveals itself.  Something deep in the human soul seems
to depend on the presence of kindness; something
instinctive in us expects it, and once we sense it we
are able to trust and open ourselves...

If we did not feel that some ultimate kindness holds
sway, we would feel like outsiders confronted on every
side by a world toward which we could make no real bridges.

The word kindness has a gentle sound that seems to echo
the presence of compassionate goodness.  When someone
is kind to you, you feel understood and seen.  There is no
judgment or harsh perception directed toward you.

Kindness has gracious eyes; it also suggests that your
vulnerability, though somehow exposed, is not taken
advantage of; rather, it has become an occasion for dignity
and empathy.

Kindness casts a different light, an evening light that has
the depth of color and patience to illuminate what is
complex and rich in difference.

Despite all the darkness, human hope is based on the
instinct that at the deepest level of reality some intimate
kindness holds sway.  This is the heart of blessing.  To believe
in blessing is to believe that our being here, our very presence
in the world, is itself the first gift, the primal blessing.

Given the nature of our beginning [our birth] - nowhere does
 the Silence of the Infinite lean so intensely as around the form
of  a newly born infant - it is no wonder  that our hearts are
imbued with longing for beauty, meaning, order, creativity,
compassion, and love.  

John O'Donohue
From: To Bless the Sapce Between Us

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Everything flowers from within - Galway Kinnell

The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing.

Galway Kinnell

Excerpt from: "St. Francis the Sow"

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Follow the Warmth - Fred LaMotte

When you were a
very young child
you used no esoteric practice,
no spiritual technique.
You just honored people
who made your chest expand
with silent warmth.

You stayed away from those
who chilled and shrank
your heart.
How does the orchid open
in the wilderness?
It bends toward light,
away from cold.
Follow the sacred scripture
of your body.
Walk through the forest
at midnight holding
the candle of your breath.
You don't need to see far.
Just step into the next
lit pool of silence.
Ways will open,
ways will open surely.
Now is the time to depart
from the kingdom of fear
and travel towards the golden
palace of your [True] Self.

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

~

Art - Mystic Meandering
Vortex Art with Craypas oils
c. 2011

Loss after Loss - Mark Nepo

...Somehow we go on
loss after loss, like seeds
drowning in their possibilities
under all that snow.

From a distance, stars
are pins of light
pushing back the dark. 

But inside, each
is a world of light.

And the Spirit we carry -
that carries us - flares like a
star, everywhere we go pushing
back the pain and loss.

Still, a star can't be seen
without its covering of night,
nor a soul without its
human skin.

I don't know why -
It has nothing to do with
optimism or pessimism
or with triumph and defeat.

More, the impressible reach
of a beam of light entering the
darkest place it can find,
because that is how it
fulfills itself.

Mark Nepo
Excerpt from "Still"
From: Inside the Miracle

~

...[when the heart] is ripped apart
nothing makes sense while
in this re-arranging pain.
Nothing.
No matter what others say,
nothing is of comfort while
the heart is reforged in
the furnace no one asks for.

...Against our will, our heart
is remade by the angel of grief
who grips the center of our life,
shaking everything dead within us
from our branches, until
the heart condenses into a diamond.

Hard as this is to endure,
this too is a miracle.

Mark Nepo

Excerpts from: "After Mira"

From: Inside the Miracle.

~

Photo: Mystic Meandering

No Such Things as Death - Sadhguru

Most people are investing their whole lifetime
just for their material well-being.
Dying to live, this is called.
When you are constantly in pursuit of security,
you are in pursuit of death.

There is no such thing as death.

There is only life, life and life alone..
moving from one dimension to another,
another and another.

Most people only experience peace and
transcendence when they are dead.
But in the yogic tradition, the word 'samadhi'
is used to describe a state in which one has
transcended the limitations of the body and mind,
in this life.

If you work five to ten years for your security,
that's okay...
But if you are going to work all your life
for your security, you are seeking death
because death is the only secure thing
in existence.

Life is never secure...

Death - An Inside Story
Sadhguru
Feb. 19, 2020

With thanks to Ocean Speak

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Our Cosmic Vibration...

We are equipped with everything we need - right now.
There is no linear self-improvement program to
measure up to;
no spiritual standard to compare our progress with;
achieving lofty goals of "enlightenment" or non-duality.
Everything is open ended, boundaryless, freely fluid,
forever fluctuating - "enlightened."

The key - the one unchanging "truth" -
is Love - a Cosmic Love -
unborn, inexplicable Love;
an "un-dualating" energy vibration of Love
that just IS - that has always existed -
that is the gateway to
knowing our True Inner Beingness...

...into knowing
a truer Vibration that lies at the
Core of our Being;
the "mother energy" of our
Cosmology;
the place of no beginning, or ending,
no birth, no death,
only the Isness and Eternality of our Essence.

Dissolve into your Cosmic Origin...
Return to your "roots";
naked, Luminous, ever-present Love...

Entrain with the Maternal Heart,
where the ripples of Love
form and expand,
pulsating the Rhythm of Ineffable Love
within you ~

You will know it when you feel it...

Pure, untainted, causeless, objectless

Love ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Our Cosmic Origin

Mystic Meandering
Feb. 2018

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Pondering Impermanence...

With my mother's death last year and now with the COVID
Pandemic - feeling surrounded by death - I have become more
aware of my own mortality, especially at my age, with a body
malfunctioning, broken since birth.

So I have been pondering "death" - not morbidly, but with a
sense of the reality of the impermanence of this life of
physicality.  What can you do...  It's going to happen...
It's just the nature of time for things to fall away in the
cycle of life...

~

A few months ago, in my ponderings, I wrote this -

The "I" (the Eternal Being) that inhabits this body is not aging -
but "i" am surprised by the body's increasing decline - knowing
where it is headed - the inevitable...

death...

Saddened by the prospect -
although grateful that the end
to the body's struggles is closer -
how close "she" doesn't know -
but wonders what that will be like;
to witness the death of her body
and the possibility of a
"cosmic birthing" into a new "form"
of the Formless; or maybe dissolve
back into cosmic dust, or be absorbed
by the Vastness of the Eternal.
Sentience dissolving into the Eternal...

Who really knows...

All is transient here.
We're just passing through.

I shouldn't be surprised by this,
feeling the body's decline as I do -
but still -

gives me pause...

Mystic Meandering
Feb. 23, 2020

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Your Outlook Matters - John O'Donohue

Sometimes when we look out, the world seems dark.
War, violence, hunger and misery seem to abound.
This makes us anxious...  What can I do in my private little
corner of life that could have an effect on world events?
Believing ourselves to be helpless, we hand over our
power to forces and systems outside us that then act in
our names; they go on to put their beliefs into action; and
ironically their actions are often sinister and destructive.

We live in times when the call to real presence is urgent.
We need to rediscover the careless courage, yet devastating
simplicity of the little boy who, in the middle of the
numbed multitude, in naive Socratic fashion, blurts out:
"But the emperor has no clothes."
When spoken, the truth can bring down citadels of falsity.

The spirit of a time is incredibly subtle [or not], yet a hugely
powerful force.  And it is comprised of the mentality and spirit
of all individuals.  The way you look at things is not actually
a private matter.  Your outlook actually and concretely affects
what goes on.  When you take back your power and choose
to see the possibilities for healing and transformation, your
creativity awakens and flows to become an active force of
renewal and encouragement in the world.  In this way, even
in your own hidden life, you can become a powerful agent
of transformation in a broken, darkened world.

John O'Donohue
From: To Bless the Space Between Us
(written in 2008!)

~

Intuitive Art - Mystic Meandering

If you look closely you can see little "beads"
scattered in the painting and the larger one in the purple heart.
They are Snowflake Obsidian from a bracelet I once wore,
and just happened to find them in a little plastic cup.  I had placed
them in a particular order on the painting that was lying on
my work table, and then accidentally hit the canvas, scattering
the little beads over the black and white swirls of the painting. 
I left them where they were, and glued them to the painting. :)

The properties of Snowflake Obsidian are:
Brings about balance, removes negativity from
 a space or person, and  promotes a sense of calm and
 inner centering - where our real power lies.

Amazing!

The Real Virus...

In the first minutes of dawn,
at the edge of the dark night,
she awakes...

Inexplicable dread overtakes her...

... a dream?

...or the zeitgeist of our time...

~

In the dark hours of time,
a "virus" slipped in;
a failing, narcissistic system;
a divisive ideology,
resurrected from former shadow
minds of tribal hatred,
attempting to invade and isolate
through the power of greed and
self-interest...

Turning us
against ourselves with its myopic lens,
demeaning and deriding
"other" cultures,
"other" races,
"other" religions,
"other" peoples -
while pretending
to protect its own...

The "virus" imposes boundaries on a
boundaryless world,
polarizing unity into fragments
that shatter,
creating the current paradigm
of Ignorance,
Paranoia,
Protectionism,
Isolationism,
Narcissism,
Nationalism,
Racism,
Fear
 and
 Violence.

But those who know the beauty of
true Light,
endure the false light,
knowing that the mindless "virus"
cannot shatter the pristine Light of
a radiant Cosmos;
for it cannot be rent in two
by the darkness of ignorant minds
whose pretense and perniciousness
would even attempt to destroy
what cannot be destroyed:

The Eternal, Infinite Light and
movement of a Grand Cosmic Mystery
with its own Rhythms and Purposes
unknown
by
feeble, darkened minds
and the ineptness of
fake power.

Mystic Meandering
January 23, 2017

~

May the Infinite Spirit of Love heal our
wounded lives and help us endure what
is happening in our country and the world...

Namaste

_/\_

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Free to BE - Fred LaMotte

The first discipline of non-violence is to honor every human
being as a unique soul-body, refusing to identify them by
race, gender, religion, or political party.

Yet just as much as right-wing movements, today's "progressive"
movement often promotes conflict and division by labeling
individual Persons by their group identity.  Some of us who
talk about "diversity" actually stifle it, because real diversity
is not to promote tribalism [or nationalism], but to recognize
the incomparable [unique] Personhood of individuals.
[As it also says in the Declaration of Independence.]

It is much easier to hate a category than a Person, whether
your animosity is toward Muslims or Christians, "black people",
or "white people", liberals or conservatives.

The beginning of world peace is to free each human soul-body
from racial, political, or religious abstractions.  Our incidental
association with a group is not who we really are.

I do not identify my Self [Eternal Being] as a color, as rich
or poor, capitalist or socialist, Republican or Democrat,
Christian or Pagan [or American].  I am neither "good" nor
"evil."  Those are just conceptual chains with which your mind
attempts to enthrall me.  But I am not your concept of me:
you are.

If you want to superimpose a group identity on me, that is your
act of violence against the singularity of my Personhood.  You
are free to label me, but I am also free...  I refuse to identify with
your label...

I Am who I Am...

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance
(from a 2018 post)

[brackets mine]

Photo from Stillness Speaks

~

This is a newspaper clipping from 1968 that I still have.
The same year that Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy
were assassinated...

~

We are truly Free when we recognize our Eternal Beingness
in each other, and, the diverseness of our individuality
that expresses that Beingness, and treat each other with
respect and compassion...

Holy Bellows...

She enters the Quietness of Her Being
and waits...

Breathing into the Quiet,
salvaging the remnants from
previous excursions here.

Waves of The Quiet that still
remain, before the mind
usurped the calming rise and fall
with its staccato tempo...

Finding the deeper Rhythm again,
she returns to the Core of Her Being,
unperturbed by the flailing mind
that wants attention.

Following the rhythm of the breath;
breathing in the Holy,
breathing out the Holy...
The Sacredness of The Breath
brings her back;
being breathed by the
Holy Bellows...

Resuscitating the Quiet Core,
she falls back into deep Rest -
just breathing...

The Holy Quiet permeates
her body again with the gentle
vibration of her Aliveness...

Mystic Meandering
June 18, 2020

~

Mandala Art
Mystic Meandering
2013

...Lalla - Ivan Granger - Rupert Spira

I have traveled a long way seeking God
but when I finally gave up and turned back
there He [She] was within me!

Lalla
14th Century Mystic
of the Kashmir Shaivism tradition

For so many mystics it is this way.  After intense searching
without "success",  what can be done but give up or collapse?
Yet a special thing happens at that very moment.  We drop
our expectations, our hopes, our projections about this
external thing called "God" [Self/Enlightenment].  For the
first time we have truly let go of the story we've been telling
ourselves about what "God" is...  It is only then that the
scales fall way from our eyes.

We stop straining to look, and finally see.
And we see the Eternal already here, within.

Ivan Granger
Poetry Chaikhana

~

After the current of seeking gives up and sinks back down
into the depths of the Ocean of which it is itself a
modulation, it finds the peace for which it was in search...

Rupert Spira

~

Photo - Colored in Mandala
digitally blurred
Mystic Meandering

~

Nothing is more important in these polarizing, unsettled
 times than directly experiencing the Presence of our
Eternal Being within, and knowing that we *are*
that...  That's what will get us through... 
I endeavor to *feel* this Presence daily...
Try to find a quiet space to be in each day
and enter the Quietness within
and just breathe

Namaste

_/\_

"Seeing" MySelf...

I recently saw a video of my present self...
These were the "reflections" that came...

~

Seeing myself I immediately felt compassion and empathy for "her";
for the way she walked, the way she held herself, and how she had
aged, since the last time I saw "her", as if it wasn't me, but a dear
friend that I had known for a long, long time, and knew all that she
had been through...  There was a recognition of something in "her"
that I could not name at that moment...

Days later the "recognition" began to unwind itself.
I was awestruck that I could see myself as not myself, as if I were
someone else seeing "her", as if the true Presence at the Core of my
Being was seeing me/her...

I internally gasped...

There was a recognition of myself as that Presence...

It was the recognition that it was the Core Being that was
recognizing ItSelf as "me."

It was a spontaneous moment of truly "seeing" that which inhabits
and animates this "me"...

~

There was an awareness of myself being like an echo of that Inner
Being which was seeing; seeing an image of ItSelf as "me" -
as if 2, but which is really only an echo of ItSelf.

As the days passed beyond these initial "recognitions" there was
yet another recognition:

I am that which Sees from the Core of my Being.
And my Core Being sees "me" as ItSelf,
not "me" as I know myself to be through the mind.
The self that we think we are is only an echo of our
Eternal Beingness, or Essence...

~

I was seeing through the eyes of mySelf (the Eternal Being)
within myself, seeing/recognizing ItSelf within myself - as myself.

Instead of seeing myself through the eyes of my mind,
I was seeing myself through the eyes of the Eternal Being
that abides at the Core of my Being - here.

This changed the perception...

Seeing "her" from Beingness ItSelf,
seeing ItSelf in myself...

~

"She" (Source/Presence/Eternal Being) resides in us,
recognizes HerSelf in us as us.
The Eternal Being is the one Seeing,
without the mind's conditioning...

Namaste 

_/\_

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Meanderings
June 2020

~

Mandala Art - Mystic Meandering
"Eternal Echoes"

2013

Creative Entitlement - Elizabeth Gilbert

Creativity is the relationship between a human being and
the mysteries of inspiration...

You have treasures hidden within you... extraordinary treasures.
Bringing those treasures to light takes work and faith and focus
and courage...  and the clock is ticking, and the world is
spinning and we simply do not have time anymore to think small.

We are all capable of brushing up against a sense of mystery and
inspiration.  We may be able to draw nearer to that source than
we think, being gently propelled by some force.  Something
carries us along, something not "me."

"Creative Living" is living a life that is driven more strongly
by curiosity than by fear.

You will never be able to create if you don't believe that you
are entitled to at least try.  "Creative Entitlement" doesn't mean
behaving like a princess, or acting as though the world owes
you anything.  Creative entitlement simply means believing
 that you are *allowed* to be here, and that merely by being
 here you are allowed to have a voice, and a vision of your own. 

The poet David Whyte calls the sense of creative entitlement
"the arrogance of belonging" and claims it is an absolutely vital
privilege to cultivate if you wish to interact more vividly with life.
Without it, you will never push yourself out of the suffocating
insulation of personal safety and into the frontiers of the beautiful
and the unexpected.

"The arrogance of belonging" is not about egotism or self-absorption.
In a strange way it's the opposite.  It is a divine force that will
actually take you out of yourself and allow you to engage
 more fully with life.  It's not abut saying "I am the greatest", but
 merely saying "I am here" - to simply allow yourself to exist
 and express yourself. [to allow your Core Beingness
to express through you...]

Your soul will mobilize accordingly.  It will mobilize ecstatically,
because this is what your soul was born for.  Your soul [your
Core Beingness] has been waiting for you to wake up to your
 own existence [your innate Aliveness] for years.

Do whatever brings you to life.  Follow your own fascinations...
Trust them.  Create whatever causes a revolution in your Heart.

Inspiration is trying to send you messages in every form it can.
Through dreams, through portents, through clues, through
coincidences, through deja vu, through kismet, through inspiring
waves of attraction and reaction, through the chills that run up
your arms, through the hair that stand on the back of your neck,
through the pleasure of something new and surprising.  Through
stubborn ideas that keep you awake all night long - whatever works.

The work wants to be made, [whatever 'the work' is for you] and it
wants to be made through you.  [You Core Being wants to express
ItSelf through you in creative ways.]

Elizabeth Gilbert

From: Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

[brackets mine]

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
photo of leaves on grass in the Fall, color digitally inverted.

Magic! :)

A Deeper Intelligence - Amoda Maa

There's an intelligence that's deeper than thought
and more intimate than concept.

There's an intelligence that weaves together
the substance of your body,
the tapestry of your life,
and the majesty of your light.

It's the same intelligence that
makes the stars shine,
the planets dance,
and new suns to be born.

It's the same intelligence that
makes a bird sing,
a flea jump,
and a microbe eat up pathogens.

It's the intelligence that holds you
whilst you fall apart,
whilst you bear the unbearable,
whilst you endure the suffering of ignorance...

This intelligence has never not been here,
in the deep you.

It's just that you looked the other way.
You gave your allegiance to an imaginary intelligence,
an external authority believed to be true because
they told you so.

You ignored your true knowing for the knowledge of beliefs
force fed to you by those you thought were in power.

And those beliefs became your thoughts
and you believed those thoughts
to be your master.

But, my friend, the time has come.
The time for you to look within,
to go deeper than thought,
to turn away from imagined authority.

To become your own master...
of that which is truly alive in you...

Because, my friend, when you know the unshakability
of the openness of your true nature,
you will no longer give you power away and
you will no longer be threatened
by that which is not true.

You will irrevocably know
that there is no one and no thing that can take away
that which is your birthright... your aliveness,
the naked fact of your being-ness,
that makes life possible.

And you will live by this aliveness,
you will live by this intelligence,
you will live by the truth of your unshakable presence...
...come what may.

This, my friend, is how you
rise as truth in the face of lies.

This is how you are born into a new world
as an old one crumbles.

It is time, my friend...

Amoda Maa

with thanks to:
Dorothea Mills
Ocean Speak

~

Photo - Aurora Borealis over Yellow Knife Canada
from the internet

Existence Beyond Words - Bynner

Existence is beyond the power of words
 to define: Terms may be used
But are none of them absolute.
In the beginning of heaven and earth
there were no words.

Words came out of the womb of matter;
And whether a man dispassionately
Sees to the core of life
Or Passionately
Sees the surface,
The core and the surface
Are essentially the same,
Words making them seem different
Only to express appearance.

If name be needed, wonder names them both;
From wonder to wonder
Existence opens.

From - The Way of Life
According to Lao Tzu

(translation of the Tao Te Ching)
by Witter Bynner

~

Solstice day is the peak of time,
a high pause in the year, when
we taste and see the majesty of
light solidified [in Nature].

The Formless sparkles in form...

For at the core of our soul is an
inward eye that cane see [the light]
hidden behind the ordinary...

Fred LaMotte

~

Photo taken by my brother :)

The Play of Perceptions - Nancy Neithercut

"Awakening" is utterly uncaused...

All trying or trying not to try merely perpetuates the illusion
of something to get or some-one to "get it."

There's nothing you can do to "get it."

There is no path, no method, no practice.

"Awakening" is not a belief or understanding.
It is not about getting rid of beliefs.

You cannot erase yourself.

It does not happen in the character [called "self/me"].

It is a shift that occurs in the brain.

The brain imagines things like gods and selves.
We try all kinds of things to join together the separate
pieces to create unity - but all trying merely perpetuates
the illusion that some-one is trying - chasing their tail.

You may have had a glimpse of the feeling that life is
just doing itself [living itself], this edgeless centerless flow,
and you will do anything to try to get it  [the feeling] back.

Yet trying merely perpetuates the illusion.

All of life always occurs by itself.

It is intuited and cannot be captured with words or knowing
in a conventional sense because it is beyond belief,
imagination or understanding - and although there may seem
to be techniques in order that you may feel this, all these
techniques do is give you the idea of it...

This recognition, this deep knowing feeling tone of
seamlessness... embraces the mind with the  most wondrous
sense of awe.

It is an unfathomable, untouchable, un-pinpoint-able edgeless
vast expanse ever emerging never done nor undone,
seamless, fleeting, momentary, without time nor non-time,
neither moving nor non-moving - that has no name or
 non-name, unknowable yet deeply felt.

There is not me, not two, not one.
All we can know is that there is an un-interrupted,
invisible symphony of what we call perception and the
simultaneous recognition of it.  It is known and felt deeply -
the pulsating aliveness vibrantly appearing as anything and
everything.

There is no separate thing called life.  You are simply
Awareness [Beingness] aware, aware through a
symphony of perceptions, the streaming of you, of me,
of we...

[This recognition] is the end of everything you held to be
true about yourself and your world, including the ideas of
truth...

Nancy Neithercut

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

"Everything is a play of perception.
Life is an ongoing exploration of this
dance of perceptions."

Mitch Rosacker
Self Discovery Studio

~

Mandala Art - Mystic Meandering
2013

Which do you see - a crescent moon
or a caricature profile of a baby's face ? :)

Gazing from within Presence - Lalla

I wearied myself searching for the Friend

With efforts beyond my strength
I came to the door
And saw how powerfully the locks were bolted
And the longing in me became that strong
And then I saw that I was gazing from within the Presence
Only after that waiting and giving up all trying
Did Lalla flow out from where I knelt.

Gently I weep for my mind,
caught in the illusion of ownership.
Mind, you're not who you think you are.
You're dancing over a pit.
Soon you'll fall through,
And these things you've valued
And collected will be left behind.

Lalla

Lalla - aka - Lalleshwari (1320-1392)
was a Kashmir Mystic of the Kashmir Shaivism tradition
who wrote mystic poetry
 

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Reflection of sky on the hood of the car
photo rotated

The Abode at the Core of Her Being...

The Unamable suddenly moves in Her,
felt from the very core of Her being,
pulling Her awareness inward from the chaos
of the world trance.

Energy currents surge through Her Body
opening an internal space,
unlocking an inner door,
to the deeper "Abode at the Core of Her Being."

She enters...
breathing into the Core,
in deep gratitude...

She asks - "What do I need to "see" here?

A silent whisper replies:

"Abide at the Core of your Being."

Peace suffuses the very core of Her Body.
She settles into the timeless Quiet...
the healing balm for a restless mind,
in a troubled culture...

Finally, after years of meandering,
She's at home in Herself - Her True Abode -
Her Being.

Not needing to find a truer Self -
a "spiritual" Self - a Higher Self...

Just being Herself...

Accepting Her flow with life,
as it is...

Open to the movement of the Universe.

Mystic Meandering
June 12, 2020

~

Art - Mystic Meandering
"Eye of God" Mandala Art
2013 (?)

An Inner Whisper - John O'Donohue

Human identity is complex.  Nothing is ever given simply
or immediately.  Even the simplest act of perception has
many layers... Time and memory often reveal things later
that were staring us in the eye, but we never noticed them.
The quest for the truth of things is never ending.  Every
experience is open to countless readings and interpretations.
We never see a thing completely.  In sure anticipation, our
eyes have always already altered what awaits our gaze.
The search for truth is difficult and uncomfortable.  Because
the mystery is too much for us, we may opt to settle for
the surface of things.  Comfort becomes more important than
true presence.  This is precisely why we need to hear the
discerning voice.

Somewhere in every heart there is a discerning voice.  This
voice distrusts the status quo.  It sounds out the falsity in
things and encourages the dissent from the images things
tend to assume.  It underlines the secret crevices where the
surface has become strained.  It advises distance and opens
up a new perspective through which the concealed meaning
 of a situation might emerge... Its intention is to keep the heart
clean and clear.  This voice is an inner whisper not obvious or
known to others outside...  Yet much depends on that small
voice.  The truth of its whisper marks the line between honor
and egoism, kindness and chaos.  In extreme situations,
which have been emptied of all shelter and tenderness,
that small voice whispers from somewhere beyond and
encourages the heart to hold out for dignity, respect, beauty
and love.  That whisper brings forgotten nobility into an arena
where violence has traduced everything.  This faithful voice
can illuminate the dark lands of despair.  It becomes both the
sign and presence of a transcendence that no force or horror
can extinguish.  Each day in the world, in the prisons, hospitals
and killing fields, against all the odds, this still, small voice
continues to echo the beauty of the human being.  In haunted
places this voice carries the light of beauty like a magical
lantern to transform the desolation, to remind us that
regardless of what may be wrenched from us, there is a
dignity and hope that we do not have to lose.  This voice
brings us directly into contact with the inalienable presence
of beauty in the soul.

John O'Donohue

~

Photo from the Internet

Inner Life - John O'Donohue

The visible world is only the shoreline of the magnificent
ocean of the invisible.  The invisible is not empty, but is
textured and tense with presences [energies].  These
presences cannot be named; they can only be sensed,
not seen.

When you name a dimension of your experience, one of
your qualities or difficulties... you give it an identity.  It
then responds to you according to the tone of its name...

The wildness of the invisible world is nameless.  It has no
name.  A first step towards reawakening respect for your
inner life may be to become aware of the private collage
of dead names you have for your inner life.  Often the
experiences of wilderness can return us to the nameless
wildness within.  Sometimes, go away to a wild place
on your own.  Leave your name and the grid of intentions
and projects and images which mark you out as citizen Z.
Leave it all and let yourself just slip back into the rhythms
of your intimate wildness.  You will be surprised at the
lost terrains, wells, and mountains that you will rediscover,
territories which have been buried under will-meant
but dead names.  To go beyond confinement is to
rediscover yourself.

John O'Donohue
from: Eternal Echoes

~

Photo - taken in Gloucester MA
 by my brother

A Call to Awareness - Mystic Meandering

Humanity is living out the drama of the "original wound" of
 mankind, where we "fell asleep", numbed, fractured, fragmented
 from our original innate Beingness - our Original Self.
(Some call it our "Divine" or True Nature).
That Original Being became seen as something separate that
mankind continually tries to reconnect with - instead of
knowing it is already within us.

The shadow drama that we live in is a play of the split off
parts of consciousness - the splits in consciousness due to the
"original wound"; a perceived separation from the Essence of
who we are: our Original Being...

We fractured into illusions of self, disguises, rather than
retaining the truth of who we are - our true untouched
Beingness.  We fractured into a life of suffering, pain and
struggle.

The "original wound" is a deep hole in the psyche of man -
the dark heart of mankind, a split in the Innocence of the Heart,
creating a shadow of the Real.

The "original wound" holds the phantoms and ghosts of pain
and suffering that separated into a shadow self, a shadow belief
in separateness, disempowerment, and victimization.  Fear and
anger wield power from the shadows.

However, there is no real power in the shadow.  It is a false power
based on false beliefs about ourselves and others that are only a
shadow of who we really are...

"The Shadow" aspect is just a mist, an illusion, an "imprint" in the
psyche of man; a consciousness like everything else.  It is the
consciousness spawned from the belief in separateness...
A belief in separateness creates a consciousness of darkness and
fear.  The mind of man functions from this consciousness.  A
consciousness of separateness dominates our existence - creating
suffering.  The fear feeds on fear creating more darkness.
But it is only a consciousness.  It is not real.  It manifests a
particular reality of darkness that you believe in.

But the consciousness of darkness is only a thin layer, a thin veil.
It creates much dysfunction, but it really has no power to sustain.
It gives the illusion of power to seemingly rob you of your Essence,
which frightens you.

You have become caught in the net of fear, thinking it is real.  You
can emerge through this layer of darkness by becoming aware of
the Consciousness of your own Original Beingness -  "The Divine"
within you.  This consciousness of awareness creates a new reality,
a new consciousness.  Whatever your consciousness is, that is your
reality.  So shift the consciousness that you now hold onto and
 create a whole new reality.

Love creates love. Fear creates fear. Hate creates hate.

Be mindful of what you create and how you create.
Don't create from the wounds of fear and separation.
Create from the Essence of your Being -
from the deeper Rhythms of your True Being...

The gift of "the shadow" is a call to Awareness,
a call to a change in consciousness...

~

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
c. 2004-2006

These writings came when I was practicing sitting meditation
nearly 2 hours a day.  I don't remember what was going on
during this time period that would have allowed these words
to come.  But I wanted to share these now as they seemed
relevant and appropriate to what we are all experiencing at
the moment, a "darkness" of mankind, "the shadow" aspect
of mankind, the real virus, that has emerged in so many ways...
Hopefully from this double pandemic, that has the ability to
suffocate, will be birthed a new consciousness...

It is our wake up call...

Namaste
_/\_

MM

~

Art - Mystic Meandering
June 4, 2020

a moment of anger and frustration,
experiencing my "shadow self" :)

(sorry for the glare)