"Window Sitting" - a meandering...

I used to have a "practice" that I called "window sitting" many
years ago, where I would sit in a chair at an open window late
at night, in the dark, leaning on the windowsill, pressing as
close to the screen as possible, breathing in the night air and
the silence.  Gazing out the window into the night was calming
and soothing, heightening my awareness of the Stillness, the
Silence that permeates everything.  It is tangible - almost
mystical.  It was a wonderful experience - basking in the silence
of the night, listening deeply to the sounds of the quiet, smelling
the night air; experiencing the soft aliveness of Nature;
opening into the Silence at the Core of my Being; feeling the
Rhythm of Existence.  It is a space where I became more *aware*
of the Inner Landscape as well.  I scribbled notes on scratch
paper in near darkness when Silence sang to my heart.  Every
fiber of my being swooned for this delicious nightly rendezvous
with The Silence of Being.  I long to hear that melody again.

Here's a "scribble" from my first night of "window sitting" back
in May 2010.

~

Nothing in nature is struggling...
Everything is at peace...

Everything in nature is the peace of the Silent Stream -
the Eternal Stillness...

The trees are peaceful.
The plants in the neighbor's garden are at peace.
The grass sleeps.

Everything is exquisitely - peaceful...

I feel myself returning to what I know to be true -
to the authentic Stillness of Being within,
allowing myself to be touched by this bliss of Stillness...
Befriending the Silence...
Recognizing this deep space of Silence as Home...

There is a feeling of intimacy,
as this still Silence wraps itself around me,
embraces everything that is,
infusing everything that lives...
It is so palpable, so Real...

Basking in the Pure Silence of the Night -
just listening,

just experiencing,
just Be-ing - Stillness.

Mystic Meandering
May 2010

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Cat window sitting :)

 

Inner Rhythms - a meandering...

I've been rediscovering my "Inner Rhythms" again through my
funky "art"; the Inner Rhythm of Being, of the Soul, that
John O'Donohue talks about here, and how that wants to 
move in and through me. 

I receive postings from Nature Artist and Writer, Rod MacIver
from his website, Heron Dance.  He has spent a lot of time
in nature, paddling in a canoe, getting in touch with his
Inner Rhythm.  He reflects on the larger context of
"inner rhythms."

"A balanced life is based on its own rhythm.  If you don't set
your own rhythm, and have the discipline to follow it, your
life will move at the speed of the culture around [you], which
moves too fast.  The space we make for quiet time affects our
thought patterns and, in turn, the quality of our lives."  And,
he asks: "To what extent is the rhythm of your life a result of...
adapting...to the flow that surrounds [you]."  Or, I even say,
to the people around you.  Have we entrained to the people
around us so much that we end up living their rhythm?  
I know I have...

I felt  resonance with his words, knowing that I need to find
that sense of the deeper Inner Rhythm again, not just my
own personal daily rhythm with life, getting through the day,
but the Flow with the Inner Rhythm of Being; the undercurrent
of the Flow of Life within - from which all movement arises;
creating color and movement on paper helps me do that...

It calls me into the Silence of my own Being,
and the pulsating Rhythm of Life.
At peace again...

Mystic Meandering

~

Funky Art 
Rhythm

2024

 

The Soul's Rhythm - John O'Donohue

We should not force ourselves to change by hammering
our lives into any predetermined shape.  We do not need to
operate according to the idea of a predetermined program or
plan for our lives.  Rather we need to practice a new art of
attention to our inner rhythm...  This attention brings a new
awareness of our own human and divine presence.

It is far more creative to work with the idea of mindfulness
than with the idea of will.  Too often people try to change
their lives by using the will as a kind of hammer to beat their
life into proper shape.  The intellect identifies the goal of the
program, and the will accordingly forces the life into shape.
This way of approaching the sacredness of one's own
presence is externalistic and violent.  It brings you falsely
outside of your own self and you can spend years lost in the
wilderness of your own mechanical, spiritual programs.

You can perish in a famine of your own making.

If you work with a different rhythm, you will come easily and
naturally home to your self.  Your Soul knows the geography...
  Your Soul alone has a map..., therefore you can trust this
 indirect, oblique side of your self.  If you do, it will take you

  where you need to go, but more importantly, it will teach
you a kindness of rhythm in your journey. 
There are no general principles for this art of being.
Yet the signature of this unique journey is inscribed deeply in
each Soul. If you attend to your self and seek to come into
your own presence, you will find exactly the right rhythm
for your life.  The senses are generous pathways which can
bring you home.

John O'Donohue
from Anam Cara

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

....belong first in your own interiority.  If you are in rhythm
with your self and connected to that deep, unique source
within, then you will never be vulnerable.
  You will be able to stand....on the ground of your
Soul, where you are at home.

John O'Donohue
from Anam Cara

~

Art - Mystic Meandering
Craypas oils done with fingers
"Ocean Splash"
2012

 

Balance - MacIver & Levey

Your inner world guides you without you knowing it.
Our thought patterns determine the quality of our lives.
That inner process works at the depth of each of us
carrying the meaning that has been trying to establish
itself in our existence.  It embodies the potential of who
we are when our life expresses itself as a whole.
Silence helps...

A sign of balance is a comfort with silence, both Silence
within and silence without.

Rod MacIver
Artist/Writer
Heron Dance

~

Balance can be sensed in terms of the waves of the Ocean.
...at a deeper level, the changing tides of such "waves" are balanced
by the profound reality of an unchanging "Ocean" within you;
Just as the Ocean is the water that forms all waves, 
The Ocean within you is the universal reality or essence
that dwells within all beings... 

[Some call this the Silence]
 Discovering the Ocean is vitally important for the
 discovery of balance, because it
provides a place of peace for you to return home to, despite
the chaos of the day.

...keep balanced on the waves of our challenging lives...

Joel and Michelle Levey
From: Living in Balance

~

Personal Note:  For many years the Inner Silence was my refuge.
Then life fell out of balance about 2 years ago through unexpected
life circumstances and I was unable to *access* the Silence,
or maintain balance, literally.
My energy and body are really out of whack.
Returning to doing my funky art vortexes seems to be helping
to find a sense of inner balance again, but I need to rediscover
the deep Inner Silence of Being and align with that.
One step at a time...

MM

~

Photo - Wave Vortex
Craypas oil with fingers
Mystic Meandering
Aug 2024

 

Alegria! - Joy - a meandering...

"If you have no hope - Create!"

"I see a light shining - Alegria!"

Two nights ago (Aug 11) we were watching the closing ceremonies of
the Paris Olympics.  As the athletes walked into the stadium,
I tried to read what country they were from printed on their
clothing.  I could have sworn one said "Alegria."
And I said: "Alegria?  Where's that!?"
Later I read it again, it said "Algiers."

Something went off inside when I read it as Alegria.
That was a Cirque du Soleil artistic circus performance many
years ago that we watched, and one of the opening lines was:
"If you have no hope - Create! Alegria!" (which means Joy)

Two nights ago that remembrance sparked a light in me to
Create again...

I got out the card table and pulled the poster board and Craypas
oil sticks from beneath the bed, set up a space and began to
Create...  Resulting in the above picture - just movement and color.
That's all that was needed.

I felt the heaviness that I've been carrying lift; a release occurred 
as something within gave expression through color and movement...

I felt the stuck energy unlock.  Having been swallowed up by my
current life experience, I knew my energy was out of sync.

The act of creating heals, frees,
and ignites something within...

I thought: Maybe creating is a way through;
a reclaiming of myself; a realignment...

I'm sure most true artists know this...
I just had to experience it for myself;
to feel it...

And how awed I was to experience that
"The Divine" (however called) speaks
through ordinary means,
like watching TV :) not just in moments
of silent meditation...

Alegria!

Mystic Meandering
Aug 12, 2024

~

Photo: Funky Vortex Art
Aug 2024
Mystic Meandering

 

Overwhelmed...

Tired of being"on top of things"
"putting out fires", making decisions
for others who aren't available to themselves.

I'm going to hang a shingle out -

"Not Available Today
Taking Care of Myself
And Don't ask me about tomorrow..."

We'll see how far I get with that.

I'm finally being honest with myself,
and everybody else...

Is this unloving, uncompassionate;
to save one's own sanity;
to not put others first;
to not be self-sacrificing...

I finally "let go" of having to be emotionally available,
trying to be constantly available.
I finally just stopped...

We'll see how long that lasts,
as life as it is still requires me to be...
- available...
I can't just stop - caring,
being kind..

However I can't engage in
 life as it is anymore.

A change is needed.

I "accept what is",
but my Soul needs something more...

Life as it is, as I'm living it, is a spirit killer
and I can't apply more "spiritual band aids"
- I bleed right through them.

I take a deep breath
Tension drains from the body ...

I'm not able to attend to life, 
I need Life to attend to me!
(Oh I forgot, there is no "me",
 or so some say..)
Is this self-centered, narcissistic,

indulging in my dark side?
Or - LIFE-centered...
I'm not sure anymore...

Although the "spiritual pundits" will
tell me the "I"  that I Am can't be broken;
that somewhere within there is an
"Unbrokenness" -
once found, not lost;

I evidently can't access it.
I carry too many burdens...

So I'm embracing my brokenness
and letting it be real,
letting it be seen - no longer hidden
behind "spirituality."

~

There are so many of us broken - fractured
in some way...

And non-duality tells us that can't be so;
that there is no 'self/me" to be broken.

I'd rather be broken, than an obnoxious
pretender spouting cliches to the masses
of broken people who want to believe in
their unbrokenness -
but who secretly wish
to put out a sign:

"Not Available"

Mystic Meandering

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

A Candle in the Wind - Monica Dayakar

There are a lot of weird ideas about this...

Awakening...  Enlightenment... the shift in perception...

A natural fall out...  thinking that everything will change after
the shift...

That enlightenment means that they will no longer be human...

Even sages are sublimely human...

I heard someone say...

"We do not become selfless doormats..."  !!

And yet... yet...

Including this one...

It is...
Till it isn't...

That's simply another idea
Of better... bigger...

Sounds real nice...

Selfless doormats is it, too...!!
Those that are...  simply are...

I know I was...

Till I wasn't...

LOL

Tried really hard not to be...

A scurried attempt at now being this shiny, brave new thing..

It didn't work...

Oh...

Tears...

And thereby hangs another tale...

Any attempt at replacing one idea about yourself with another...
Well...
Is the belief in the mentally fabricated self...

And apart from it...

There isn't one...

Circling within the dream
She learnt to pirouette perfectly...

What is not included in the gambit  of "being human"...

Yes...

It's all a dream...
[or so they say]

Ideas upon ideas...
All made up...

Seeking ideas of perfection... of what this should look like...

Tears...

Or not look like...

Across the board...
Humanity
The best and worst life has to offer...

A few days ago
Anger rose in me..

Of an intensity, that would put rage to shame...

I was shocked to the core of my being...!!

That I was even capable of it...

And whence had I abhorred it so... in another...

Lay in me too...

I just kept mumbling to my self....

"It's just unacceptable... just unacceptable..."
And kept shaking my head from side to side...

The core of my being ripped to shreds...

And I wept tears of blood...  that would inundate an ocean...

I guess... no one's exempt...

Shift or no shift...

And when all was lost...

And no ground beneath the feet...
Heck and no feet...
And no brownie points for Being...

A pretender under many guises...
I AM the biggest con-act in town...

Dressed as a cop...
Trying to catch a thief...

A lot is lost in translation when we can't see
each other's hearts...

And love guided her footsteps
To places she'd never been...

To the dark corners of her heart...
Where she's hid...

Face to face with herself...
In all shades of blue and pink...

A rainbow exploded...
And she disappeared in a wink...

And she flung her clothes to the wind...
Running naked like a mad woman,,,

No description fit...

And she laughed and cried...
A new born babe...

It ends where it began...
It was ever so...

And all notions of emptiness and fullness...
Cried in the dark,,,

As she wept and laughed...
A candle in the wind...

Monica Dayakar
13/01/2016

Facebook

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~~~

Your thinking that you have to make an effort to get rid of 
this dream of the waking state, and your making efforts to
attain Jnana (realization of Self) or real awakening, are
all parts of the dream.

Ramana Maharshi

with thanks to Love Is A Place

~~~

Photo Mystic Meandering

 

Basket Case...

Into the 3rd day of roof replacement.  12 hours a day of
pounding, banging, and nail gun on the roof.  Pure torture,
which no notions of "enlightenment", "awakening", or
"spirituality" can assuage.  Life is just challenging at times

 and enough sometimes to test one's sanity...
Thus this humorous photo of one of the new Panda Bears
at the San Diego Zoo wearing a basket, because
I know how it feels!   I LMAO :)
  It was part of a larger video that went
around of the new Pandas...

Will be back when I regain my sanity,
if I do... LOLOL

Mystic Meandering
not so mystic today :)

 

Listen to the Wound...

In Deep Silence
In Deep Rest
In Deep Quiet
Deeply Listen

Sit in the depths
of the Sacred Silence
of Existence
and
breathe...

Touch and be touched by
this Sacred Space
that holds your
stories,
your wounding,
your brokenness.

From the depths of
your Being
Listen to the whisper
of the Wound...

From here all things
are made
clear...

Touch its depth
and
allow it
into the liquid flow
of Life

again...

Mystic Meandering
2024

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

a "wound" in a tree...
Can you see the weathered face
screaming?

 

Everyone Is Wounded - Rachel Naomi Remen

All people are wounded, but people who come here can't cover
it up the way the rest do.  Everybody has pain, everybody is
wounded.  And because [Commonweal] participants can't cover up
 their woundedness now that they have cancer, they can trust each
other. I can trust another person only if I can sense that they, too
have woundedness, have pain, have fear.

[When you have cancer, or other chronic or serious illness]
you feel separated from the whole  human race.  You feel
 as though you're looking at the world through plate glass. 
You can see other people, but you feel as if you can't touch them
 or be with them, because you are different.  They say that the
sense of isolation, of being separated from people who are
well, is as painful as chemotherapy, as cancer itself...

Years ago, when I was Associate Director of the pediatric
clinics at the Stanford Medical School, one of my
colleagues, Marshall Klaus, did a study which at the time
was extremely innovative.  He was chief of the intensive
care nursery, where all the babies were these tiny little
people you could hold in your hand.  Each incubator was
surrounded by shifts of people and millions of dollars worth
of equipment.  Everything was high-tech. Of course, we
didn't touch these infants because we'd get germs on them.
But Klaus decided to do an experiment in which half the
babies in the nursery would be treated as usual, and the 
other half would be touched for fifteen minutes every few
hours.  You'd take your pinky finger and rub it up and down
the little baby's back.  And we discovered that the babies
that were touched survived better.  No one knows why.
Maybe there's something about touching that strengthens
the will to live.  Maybe isolation weakens us.

Rachel Naomi Remen
Cofounder of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program,
as interviewed by Bill Moyers in
Healing and the Mind

with thanks to Rod MacIver 
at Heron Dance
Rod is a survivor of 4th stage Lymphoma.

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

~

"People don't care how much you know,
until they know how much you care."

whatever happened to compassion...

 

Reality Rupture - Pema Khandro Rinpoche

The Tibetan term bardo, the "intermediate state" [or the
in-between state], is not just a reference to the afterlife.  It
also refers more generally to moments when gaps appear,
inter-ruptions to the continuity that we otherwise project onto
our lives.  The interruptions in our normal sense of certainty
are what is being referred to by the term bardo.  To be precise,
bardo refers to that state in which we have lost our old reality

and it is no longer available to us. [there is no going back].  
There is a total rupture in our who-I-am-ness.

We have been holding onto the idea of an inherent continuity
in our lives, creating a false sense of comfort for ourselves on
artificial ground.

Anyone who has experienced this kind of loss knows what it
means to be disrupted...  In these moments we lose our grip on
the old reality and yet have no sense what a new one might be
like.  There is no ground, no certainty, and no reference point -
there is, in a sense, no rest.

There is rupture in our reality...

A direct experience of disruption felt a the core of our being,
and there is no longer any use manufacturing artificial security.

The bardo teachings are really about recognizing the value of 
giving up the game, which we play without even knowing it.
We hold pictures/images of our ideal self in an ideal world.  We
imagine that if we could only manipulate our circumstances or
other people enough, then that ideal self could be achieved, and
in the meantime we pretend to have it together... and pursue
reality as we think it should be...

When we suffer disruption. we find we just can't play the game
anymore.  Holding it all together is not an option.

Death and loss are great teachers, if we can open to the
experience of profound disruption.

Without some way of managing this experience, this unsettling
discontinuity, punctuated by occasional disruptions to the very
idea of our being, we never know if we are going to show up....

We contract with our wounded sense of self, and are dissociated
from our true nature, and make frantic efforts to create something
more ideal, more secure, more definite.

In a raw broken-open state, this place where we let go of all
games, there is actually a great sense of relief available to us,
a knowledge that we don't have to do it anymore - to *be* that;
and find way to disrupt our own habit of clinging to our
continuity story.

Emerging from the bardo, we reenter the flow of life with a
new sense of groundlessness: it is clear that "later" is not always
a luxury that will be available to us...  The perspective gained
in the bardo cuts through petty concerns.  It cuts through delusions
so that whatever we contact, we do so with raw presence, without
the denial of impermanence.  A new kind of openness becomes
available to us.

The rupture of the bardo inevitably leads to whatever is next and
appreciating the [losses] in our lives, and the bardo for what it is -
the pause - the end that clarifies what exactly we will now be
beginning...

Impermanence is not just an illuminator of loss.  It is the illuminator
of newness, the ever-unfolding moment and its creativity....

Pema Khandro Rinpoche

excerpts from
"Letting Go In the Bardo"

from Lion's Roar

[brackets mine]

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Soul Hears - Rumi

The soul has been given its own ears to hear things the mind
does not understand.

If you want to know who someone is, what is flowing through
or not flowing, stay in a listening posture.

Close your eyes inside your companion's shadow.

Rumi

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Plumb The Depths...

Do not be afraid to
plumb
the
depths
of 
your 
Being,
of

Truth;
to question
everything
you
have
learned

Take the journey deeply inward
to your beginnings - and endings;
to the Silent hum
in the Heart
of all Life
that sings,
and
see
for
your
self.

There are many caravans to follow,
those aspiring to "enlighten" or "awaken" you
with their words,
left like burning firewood to light your way,
along the road...

But only in Sacred Silence can the journey be made
to the Heart of Being;
to discover the depths of Being ~
of That which you are;
That which wants to 
*live*
within you...

Do not let fear stop your descent
into the Inner Vastness:
the deep Ocean within...

Be still,
and open...
Listening...

Follow the plumb line
of your breath,
past the Furies and the Sirens
into the soft ebullience
of Love
and quiet Joy
waiting for you,
like ethereal
liquid pools
of Light
drawing
you
in

Rest Here

In
the
depths
of
this
Alive
Silent
Spacious
Awareness

Listen to the endless
Rhythm already
holding
you
in the cradle
of
Peace

Feel
the
pervasive
contentment
of Life
Here
in
the
depths of
Sacred
Silence,
that animates
every cell,
every atom,
every sound,
every thought,

every feeling ~

until you *know*
THIS

*as*

yourself.

Simply Living...

Mystic Meandering
April 17, 2012

Vortex Art - Mystic Meandering
2010

 

When Things Fall Apart - Pema Khandro Rinpoche

There are times like these in our lives - such as facing death
or even giving birth - when we are no longer able to manage
our outer image, no longer able to suspend ourselves in
pursuit of the ideal self.  It's just how it is....  and in these
times of crisis we just don't have the energy to hold it all
together.  When things fall apart, we can only be as we are.
Pretense and striving fall away, and life becomes starkly
simple.

The value of such moments is this:  we are shown that the
game can be given up and that when it is, the emptiness
that we feared, emptiness of the void, is not what is there.
What is there is the bare fact of being.  Simple presence 
remains - breathing in and out, waking up and going to 
sleep.  The inevitability of the circumstances at hand is
compelling enough that for the moment, our complexity
ceases.  Our compulsive manufacturing of contrived 
existence stops.  Perhaps in that ungrounded space, we
are not even comforting ourselves, not even telling
ourselves everything is okay; we may be too tired to
do even that.

It's just capitulation - we're forced into non-grasping of
inherent reality.  The contrived self has been emptied
out along with contrived existence and the tiring
treadmill of image maintenance that goes along with it.
What remains is a new moment spontaneously meeting us,
again and again.

There is an incredible reality that opens up to us in 
those gaps...

Pema Khandro Rinpoche

excerpts from Breaking Open in the Bardo

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

"Prepare for Death" - a meandering...

"Prepare for death" were the words I heard
whispered recently, unexpectedly.
I tried to ignore them,
not wanting to acknowledge them,
but wanting to keep them at bay - like
they hadn't been heard -
but they had...

This meandering is not meant to be morbid, just realistic,
even sobering - it is for me anyway...

Maybe the "reason" our bodies decline,
I thought, is because it is, in a sense, preparing
us for death... so that we recognize what's coming,
because we feel the body's fading, so we can start
detaching from the attachments we made in this world...

Most people I've encountered recently
don't like the mention of the word "death",
they react, as if it was a dangerous word;
like it's not supposed to happen, at least not now,
because our lives, for the most part, are still
oriented toward achievement and accomplishment,
materializing what we want, acquiring - and legacy.

Most are not ready to "let go" yet.

Evidently the word "death" - makes some people
very uncomfortable - let alone its actuality.

In pondering death,
the reality of impermanence,
I never thought I would back away,
but would welcome the
release...  I still do really...
But I wasn't expecting the words to waft
through me either...

And do they mean - literally?
Or metaphorically - like - *some*thing is
going to die in me?  Or a message that some*one*
will pass?  Or symbolically - like some aspect of
myself is going to fall away?

It is not clear...

As I continued to ponder its meaning
memories of those who have passed and their lives
floated through.  But those memories seemed like
another world - like looking through a window
into another time - which it is actually
- it *was* another time
that now seems unreal.

I want to be able to look through the window
into the past-death portal and what that's going to 
be like.  It seems we really can't know until we get
there, unless we are given glimpses, through meditation,
or mystical moments, or belief...
And I "believe" that *some*thing departs -
but what?

Spirit, Soul, Consciousness?
Returning to the "energy"
from which "we" arose?

a Mystery...

I have no clue really - just meandering here...

But I do think we feel death coming
in the waning of our body and energy; and the mind
unable to maintain its acuity, its cognition, its
memory of words...

We *are* given signs, but we try to fool ourselves
into thinking that if we just "live right",
pray/meditate enough,
exercise and eat "right";
believe the "right" religion,
we can put off the inevitable.

When it's time for me to "let go" of this world -
I hope I can relax and willingly walk over the bridge,
 through the portal into the Unknown...

Namaste

_/\_

Mystic Meandering
July 13, 2024

12:30am

~

Photo - Mystic Meanderng

 

The Silence Called...

She called me to the window again last night.
She beckoned me to come and be still,
to listen...

She waited for me to settle,
to be quiet...

Waited as I deepened
into Her Stillness...

No agenda, she whispered...

I listened...

Put everything aside and just breathe, She said.

Be aware of My Breath, breathing you...

Experience My Presence,
Sense the Intimacy
in every cell...

From the depths of Stillness
I heard Her call again,
calling me back to HerSelf.
Like a Great Ocean pulling back
the waves on shore,
back to ItSelf...

The wave giving in to the pull...

The Great Silence called
again and again;
the silent rhythmic intimacy of wave and Ocean,
one and the same...

The Silence embracing ItSelf,
knowing only
ItSelf...

The Eternal Embrace...

Come - She whispered...
Follow the pull...
Give in...

Come Home...

Mystic Meandering
Aug/Sept 2010

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering