Unbearably Holy - Matt Licata

Today may not be the day for answers,
but let your heart break open to the vastness
of the questions, the longing, the burning, the uncertainty;
the sense that a miracle is here,
just beyond the veil, but how to reach it?

How to fully show up and participate
in your immediate experience
and be fully alive...

All the teachings.....and worn out ideas about who you are
and why you've come here, about the true source of meaning...
At times, can be overwhelming...
The questions that once had answers...only a tenderness remains,
with no sign or resolution.

Only a burning where the questions once existed...

An old vision seems to be dissolving...
There is no life without the willingness to fully participate
in the shattering and the death of an ancient dream.
No life without embodiment to the vulnerability
as it surges in its eternal forms within you.
Perhaps it was never resolution you were after,
but the pure surging of life.

The heartbreak found here is not a mistake,
but to let your heart break open to the vastness
of the questions.
To fall to the ground as a humble lover of the mystery.

Trust in the flow of your immediate experience,
exactly as it is,
and participate in the raging truth that nothing is wrong with you...
For what you are is unbearably Holy...

Matt Licata

Matt's words, my format.
This is also a synthesis of two
different posts:
Unbearably Holy
and
A Humble Lover of the Mystery

~

Photo - Vortex Art Digitally Altered.

Riding A Pale Horse...

A Pale Horse of an unpredictable destiny
arrived at my door recently;
an intense illness,
causing the body to feel disembodied
and disconnected from Source...

It invited me to ride...

I was anxious, unsure of where it would take me.
But I had no choice,
I had to ride;
to ride the illness out - half willingly, half resisting.

Strangely, all awareness of "Presence" vanished.
as if I had been cowled to the Truth
that I had "known" for so long -
or thought I knew -
that ultimately we are Pure Awareness...
But "I" was caught in the body-mechanism
and its struggle...

Frightened

I rode - as if in a weird dream,
through a strange land of un-awareness,
while still *trying* to be aware
of "The Truths"
that I had known...

But they eluded my senses, my awareness, my mind -
even my Heart...

Confused

I rode for 3 weeks - empty,
until, fatigued,
I faintly felt the exuberance and euphoria of Life
bubble up from within...
The veil of un-awareness had briefly lifted...
and with it, the shattering of all certainties
I once held to be true;
a burning away of the dross
in the alchemy of fever...

The fever broke
and I relaxed...

into Gratitude...

just Gratitude...

- and breathed...

Sometimes that's all you can do...

fall into Gratitude and Breathe...

_/\_

Mystic Meandering
January 27, 2017

Resilience - Nepo and Tesla

Some days I wake with a cloud around my heart,
and it dulls everything except the weight I carry deep inside.
Yet, just because I can't make it to the light today doesn't mean
that the light has vanished...

Mark Nepo

In the first hours post dawn,
at the edge of a dark night,
I awake,..

breathing labored,
fever peaked,
sweat running down my spine...

Inexplicable dread overtakes me...

But somehow the Light finds me
and I rise again to a new day,
facing the merry-go-round of life,
as we all do...
Needing a dose of inspiration,
and a bit of wisdom...

Here is my inspiration for the day.
Once again recognizing the larger context
in which we exist...

If you want to find the secrets of the universe,
think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.

Nikola Tesla

Transcription of Narrative:

Like a wave in the physical world, in the Infinite Ocean of the medium which pervades all,so in the world of organisms, in life, an impulse started proceeds onward, at times, maybe, with the speed of light, at times, again, so slowly that for ages it seems to stay, passing through processes of complexity inconceivable to men, but in all its forms, in all its stages, its energy ever and ever integrally present.

A single ray of light from a distant star falling upon the eye of a tyrant in bygone times may have altered the course of his life, may have changed the destiny of nations, may have transformed the surface of the globe, so intricate, so inconceivably complex are the processes of Nature.

In no way can we get such an overwhelming idea of the grandeur of Nature than when we consider that in accordance with the law of conservation of energy, throughout the Infinite, the forces are in perfect balance, and hence the energy of a single thought may determine the motion of a universe.

Nikola Tesla
The Electrical Review, 1893

via: Love is a Place
Thank you Alixe!

Keeping Perspective

I take comfort in this video by Nicholas Buer,
reminding me that no matter what is taking place on planet
earth, or the circumstances of our lives, and how the paradigms
of our culture are shifting, for some not in directions we
want to go, we are part of a Greater Reality.
Whatever we experience is taking place in a larger context.
Beyond the polarization of politics, there is always the awe
and mystery of an inclusive, radiant cosmos...
Be sure to click on the Full Screen icon.

In Dark Times - John O'Donohue

[.....]

In the glare of neon times,
Let your eyes not be worn
By the surfaces that shine
With hunger made attractive.

That our thoughts may be true light.
Finding their way into words

Which have the weight of shadow
To hold the layers of truth.

That we never place our trust
In minds claimed by empty light,
Where one-sided certainties
Are driven by false desire.

When we look into the heart,
May our eyes have the kindness
And reverence of candlelight.

That the searching of our minds
Be equal to the oblique
Crevices and corners where
The mystery continues to dwell.
Glimmering in fugitive light.

When we are confined inside
The dark house of suffering
That moonlight find a window.

When we become false and lost
That the severe noon-light
Would cast our shadow clear.

When we love, that dawn-light
 Would lighten our feet...

[.....]

Excerpt from: "For Light"

by John O'Donohue
From: To Bless the Space Between Us

Ending Suffering - Joan Tollifson

If we truly want to end suffering, we must move from our self-centered drama and story line, to the open surrender of "Thy will be done."  It involves a shift in attention - a shift out of the entanglement in and identification with the thought-stream - and open into awareness of Presence - a shift from thinking to sensing and awaring.  It involves a surrender, or opening, into the whole body-mind, a dissolving of the felt sense of separation, and duality, a melting into the spacious undivided, luminous and inseparable; noticing what is ever-present regardless of the experience that is arising.  

Surrendering is an opening of the whole body-mind, a dissolving of the solidity of the body-mind, a letting go into boundlessness, [realizing] that it is all appearing in a larger context - the open space of awareness.  The true "I" to which we all refer is ultimately this unbound awareness that is being and beholding everything.  We are not limited to the body-mind, and the body-mind is not really a separate, solid, autonomous "thing."  In fact there is no real boundary between "awareness" and "the body."  The words seem to divide what is actually seamless and whole.  So we don't need to deny the body or the person or relative reality, because all of that is appearing in a much larger context, and all of that is really very ephemeral and fluid and ungraspable...

There are many words for surrender: dissolving, opening, relaxing, softening, melting, letting go, resting, allowing, welcoming.  What matters is not the word or some idea of this, but discovering this for oneself experientially.  Surrender is a discovery that we each have to make for ourself.

In surrendering there is a letting go, an opening - allowing everything to be as it is, not resisting anything, and not trying to get anything.  Simply stay with the living reality itself, just as it is.  Awareness always allows everything to be as it is.  It never rejects or hates anything.  It is never really harmed or destroyed by anything that appears to happen in waking life.  All the apparent darkness and getting lost is always happening in this bigger, vaster context.  To realize this is to be free from suffering...

Joan Tollifson

Honoring The Mystery - Mark Nepo

Somehow we have been dropped into the Mystery, below role,
fallen through our maps into one stream of love.
Some moment or circumstance becomes and unexpected doorway
into the Mystery,  We never know how it will appear, or how we will
be drawn into it...

Honoring the Mystery is what opens us to the powers of wholeness -
this unknowable totality that we live in.  To honor the Mystery is
not just to glimpse the whole, or even acknowledge the whole, but
to live our days with [as] that wholeness...  Commit to leaning into
life until it drops us beneath our surface maps of reality...

Though we pray to the many faces of God, each is a changing
wave in a sea of Divine Being...  Any circumstance that
awakens us to that divine sea is a holy gift...

If courageous enough we might just slow down to the pace of
creation, where the pulse by which the mind thinks touches the
pulse by which the heart feels, and together they equal the rhythm
where Being plays in exact motion with all beings...

Nothing matters but emptying...
until the softness we call Spirit bubbles through the tongue and
words fail in utter adoration.
Nothing now but the need to be...

Mark Nepo
Quotes from: The Exquisite Risk

~

Photo - Windshield going through car wash :)

An Unseen Hand...

I took these pictures of the "mittens" over a period of weeks
on my "twilight walks" from January to February 2012.

I first found them on the ground behind a bench.
I picked them up and laid them out on the bench
hoping their owner would see them...

The next time they had been only slightly moved
and covered with a light dusting of snow...

Then ~

neatly laid together
at one end of the bench;
one holding the other
as if content to wait
for their owner to
retrieve them...

I left them as they were...

On the next visit one was on the bench,
delicately laid out
in this dainty hand position,
almost as if an invitation to sit...

and the other on the ground
in the shape of the peace sign,
as if to say everything is okay...

Once again I left them as they were,
wondering what unseen hand
was sculpting them...

After two large snow falls
and a couple of weeks of
60 mile an hour winds
I found one here

sculpted into the ice...

And finally, out of curiosity,
I made a quick trip back to the park
that March to see if I could find them again...

And there they were on another bench,
flattened and weather-worn...

So I did a little sculpting of my own
in a funky finger mudra :)

We are all each other's "unseen hand",
appearing and disappearing when needed,
lifting each other's spirits,
unknowingly shaping,
influencing and rearranging
life perspectives
in slight and subtle ways,
through our presence...
Each offering something
in our own way,
inviting each other to sit a while;
offering signs of encouragement
and inspiration,
lending each other
a hand
to extricate each other
from the frozen constructs of our minds;
melting away the outmoded concepts that
keep us frozen
with the warmth of a
loving "unseen hand"...

Thank you to the "unseen hands"
in my life
who have inspired and opened
this Heart...

_/\_

Devotion - Nirmala

...When devotion has claimed you for its own
no longer any chance to stray
a brief fling with illusion no longer satisfies.
The truth demands utter fidelity...

All pain must be faced
and embraced as the true countenance of
your beloved.

All fear must be met
and recognized as the thrill of tasting
the unknowable.

All joy must be surrendered
and acknowledged as a gift with
no giver.

This union only requires telling the truth
even when the truth shatters your dreams
even when the truth leaves you emptied out
even when the truth reveals your counterfeit
existence...

[.....]

Nirmala
Gift With No Giver

via: Being Silently Drawn

Illuminating the Way - Matt Licata

...there is something illuminating the way, but just what this is
cannot often be apprehended by ordinary means.
There is no external map here that you can rely on, only the
one that is written inside you.  While at times we sense the
presence of this inner guidance, it often comes by hidden
and symbolic means.  We must learn to listen for it in a
non-ordinary manner, not  just with our ears but with the
wisdom of the body, with the cells of the heart.

The mysteries of separation and union are already wired
into you... We are invited to meet them, in an inclusive embrace
of life -  the wholeness that we already are...

Matt Licata

~

Photo - Sunlight through a thinning cutting board...

Walk The Divine Life - Clare Blanchflower

What will it take
to rest
all your weight on to the foot
that walks the divine life?

What will it take
to saturate the
fear of living
With the peace
of loving presence?
To dance in
the freedom of reality

Dive deeper
than this surface
of mind that thinks
it knows something
Stop questioning
the grace that life
is spilling out
and rest
Listen
Be

What will it take
to feel,
to truly feel
it all
Right down to the
transparent
bones of clarity
And admit
you know not
what to do
Know not how to
live
Crack open

Rest your forehead
to the ground
Bow at the feet of life
In the glory of
your personal
disempowerment
Meet the true power
that you are
The richness
of love
that swoons in the
heart of Being

Allow praise
to dance on the
tip of your tongue
Allow gratitude to tumble
from your lips
Trust that
the idiosyncrasies
of life
are happening
for you
by you
are you

Fall into the silence that is
roaring with aliveness
Drowning out
the voice in
your head that wants you
to dance a small dance
in a circle
around and around

What will it take
to recognize
that life is
blessing you with
the honour
of unfolding
from your smallness
into the largesse of Being
Whole

Allow awe to take up residence
Be taken
by your unknowing
May the tears of surrender
swirl into a river of flowing love
that carries you
right to the heart of your
inner most Being

Clare Blanchflower
Original title: "Fierce Grace"

~

Photo - Incredible contemporary art piece
that the photo does not do justice to...

My interpretation?:

One standing single-pointed
helping the other to take the step...

What's Your Echo? - Bram Levinson

Have you actually ever considered what you do right now,
like the next word that comes out of your mouth,
the next social media post that you put up, the next thought that
flutters across your mind...is actually contributing to your echo?
Your echo is the energy that someone is filled with when they talk
about you or think about you - your energy with them.
Your echo is the energy that trails behind you in your wake.
It's the energy that outlives you and out lasts your body, your life.
It's your impact, your imprint.
We emanate energy.  We are energy in a human body and that energy
is palpable, it's contagious.

What's your echo?

What's going on in the world has triggered a lot of opinion.
What you emanate into the world contributes.
It's your echo.
We are responsible for what we give off.
What is happening around the world right now is the sum total of
all our energies that are frenetic.  We are giving off a lot of chaos.
There is a rising wave of intolerance that is happening in our minds.
We get swept up into it...  [But] we are given life boats to navigate
those choppy waters if we are clear enough.
It's about getting out of our stories and beliefs that we walk around with
about who we *think* we are.

We are all energy, the energy that animates us into life...

What you do matters...

It takes presence...

What's your echo...? 

Bram Levinson
Yoga and Meditation Teacher

Excerpts from the video: "Echoes: What Remains of Us?"

To view the full video click HERE and scroll down to video

~

What we speak
becomes the house
we live in.

Who will want to sleep in your bed
if the roof leaks
right above it?

Hafiz

~

Photo - part of an arurora borealis

The Gift of "The Quiet"...

I awoke to "The Quiet" filling this space...
A palpable Nameless Presence in the air this morning,
as if "It" had taken up residence here,
in this space of dwelling...

I breathed "The Quiet" in,
and with curiosity
turned my awareness more keenly to
"The Quiet",
and was comforted...
by this unbidden Presence.

Through fluid eyes I understood that
only "The Quiet Presence" truly occupies this space,
not the *things* in the rooms, or the rooms themselves,
but only the ubiquitous space of "The Quiet"
that matter reality dwells *in*
beyond sight, beyond form...
Every sound, every form dwells within "The Quiet"
and "The Quiet" dwells in them...

I surrendered in Love and Gratitude to "The Quiet"
that dwells here,
that fills the space here - tangibly -
forever present in each breath
of this space that"I"
occupy as well...

Hush...

"The Quiet" Presence
dwells among us
and in us...

Holy-Holy

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Meanderings
Dec. 5, 2016

~

If you celebrate Christmas
may you experience
the gift of "The Quiet" Presence
filling your space today...
and every day...

_/\_

Photo - have no idea what this is a photo of,
probably a "mistake" - but can you see
the faint outline

 of a heart in the center
of that "cloud"?  :)

Listen for the Silence - Fred LaMotte

In the white noise
of many opinions
I long to hear the silence
creatures make
when they are listening.

There is no thought,
only the mysterious harmony
of trees and raindrops.

Invisible things appear.

The deer step gently
out of the mist.

When we listen,
the heart opens
fearlessly.

[.....]

Fred LaMotte

Uradiance

Interfaith Chaplain
Instructor of World Religions
Shaman

~

For those who celebrate the Solstice/Yule
may you hear the Silence of Life
singing in your Heart...

_/\_

An Unfinished Song - Mark Nepo

The more we surrender the more we are touched by
the life around us...

In our journey, when.....driven by experience
we spiral through a stripping of our will,
reduced to an unfinished song.....into
a place of increasing surrender
that always brings us closer
to the essence of
life.

It is often when in need -
when too sad to keep the mask in place,
too tired to keep the wall propped up,
too wounded to lift the sword -
often it is then that we glimpse
each other as we really are,
stripped of all things we think
we need to protect ourselves.

When we are humbled to surrender
our claims of control and mastery,
we are invited into a space where
we are both completely ourselves
and completely beyond ourselves.

In moments of total surrender
we become the song
that brings us and others alive.

Surrendering control, letting go
and accepting,
opens a small
doorway
back
to life;
to being present
and staying open...
to the mystery of Being,
living in Wholeness...


Mark Nepo
From: The Exquisite Risk:
Daring To Live An Authentic Life

(Mark's words, my compilation)

Photo - Mandala Art digitally altered

Authentic Being - Clare Blanchflower

Make no mistake
There is no goal
There is no path
Your quest ends
Here
In the
absolute
authentic
allowing of
this moment's
raw expression

In the deepest surrender
to what is
the lens of
limited focus
softens into
unbounded emptiness
Revealing
the infinity of you

If you truly desire

to know
your Self
Awaken to
Honesty
Let go of everything
that keeps you from
authentic
Being

Allow the awakeness
of the moment
to meet your
wholehearted
openness

Give up all roles
Surrender all masks
Melt
Into the radiant gaze
of wholeness

Clare Blanchflower

Emptying - Mark Nepo

Experience is a river that never stops coming.
Often we need to empty ourselves of conclusions, judgments and
preconceptions in order to meet whatever comes our way...
The early monastic vow of poverty was based on the need to empty,
as a way to involve a deeper form of listening.
In its original intent we find that poverty of mind reflects a quietude
that can restore an inner emptiness.  Poverty in an inner sense means
a divestment of all the distractions that occupy the mind.  It means an
emptying of the interior belongings that keep us from the essential
experience of being that waits beneath all our human noise.

[We] must carry less - must put down the wounds that clog
 and weigh the heart.  We must risk being touched [by life].

[But] letting go is not just about putting things down.
On a deeper plane, letting go is about letting your heart crumble,
 about letting yourself be rearranged by the journey of being alive.
  To soften and crumble is not to die.  It simply allows us to change.
  It is a call to enter the unknown.

When we can admit who we are, and give voice to what lives inside us,
[all that we feel and experience], that very act opens us like an inlet
and lets the depths of being rush in.  For in admitting who we are lets
the mysteries of life enter us.
We are talking about the authenticity of being.

Mark Nepo

From - The Exquisite Risk: Daring To Live An Authentic Life

~

Photo - the bottom of a glass bowl...

The Timeless Moment - Bodhipaksa & Hesse

Time was no longer a path with the past behind me
and the future before me, as we commonly conceive of it.
Instead there was a sense of an eternally unfolding present moment.

Rather than time being a journey along a linear path, change
 appeared to be mandala-like.  It seemed to be like a flower
 seen from above, endlessly unfolding from within,
 or like a kaleidoscope's image forever rearranging itself.

It struck me as highly misleading to think in terms of there being a
 past behind us and a future ahead of us.  Instead there was only
 this one present moment, eternally unfolding, according to its
 nature. I found myself in an eternal, timeless present...

Bodhipaksa - Living As A River

via: Markings

"I would like to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise
of its own unfolding"
John O'Donohue

~

Have you learned that secret from the river;
that there is no such thing as time?
That the river is everywhere at the same time,
at the source, at the current, in the ocean, and
in the mountains,

 everywhere...

And that the present only exists for it,
not the shadow of the past, nor the shadow of the future.

Herman Hesse
Siddartha

via: Love Is A Place

~

Top Photo: Mandala art digitally altered
2nd Photo: An Aurora Borealis in Yellow Knife, Canada
 - a "river" in the sky :)
Sent to us by a friend

Vigil of "The Eternal Presence"...

Beholding the Beauty of the Placeless Place,
the Invisible Space of "The Eternal Presence",
prior to the world of form,
where You exist before your "self",
before the "you" was born...

Enfolded in the Embrace of Existence...
Surrendered to The Silence...
Immersed in the deep internal River of Stillness...
You find yourself
in the Hush of the Mystery:
the indwelling realm of "The Eternal Presence..."

Effortlessly breathing a cyclical rhythm.
Overtaken by Pure Silence.
Resting in the In-between:
The Liminal space - holding vigil -
at the threshold between time
and timelessness...

Awake - in the pre-birth twilight
within the Primordial Womb of Being,
from which all things are birthed,
and in which all things exist,
there is a profound sense of completeness;
a place of being fulfilled and emptied out
- simultaneously...

No "self"-realization, no holy revelations...
Only Awareness, and the pure ISness of Being - just being,
 in the fullness of the timeless Presence of Being - within...
Where Everything unfolds
in one continuous, ongoing moment.
No "present moment", nor past, nor future,
only the ceaseless unfurling
of the Liquid Life Stream,
without time...

~ as the body-mind wanders
through time ~

~

What words can convey
what can only be experienced...
And these jumble of words are only distortions
of the pureness of "The Eternal Presence."

_/\_

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
Nov. 22, 2016

~

The Divine is experienced by the heart.
The Intellect, at best, can only trail behind and take notes.

Ivan Granger
Poetry Chaikhana

Invocation - Dolores Stewart

You who were with me before I was born,
dark shining on dark,
be with me now.
You who will stay with me after I die,
light traveling on light,
be with me now.

You who are nameless
in the marketplace of the ten thousand things,
how shall I call you?
You who are invisible between the stars,
how shall I see you?

You who nurture me with silent wisdom
speak to me now.
I am listening beyond the sounds of night,
I am looking beyond the sights of the day.
You who fill the infinite void,
travel on my shoulder now,
show me the way.

Dolores Stewart
From - Doors to the Universe

Via: Beyond The Fields We Know

~

The desire to go home
is a desire to be whole,
to be the point of intersection
of all the lines drawn through
all the stars...
that center called love.
To let the soul go wild,
to cease to speak
and be perfectly
understood.

Rebecca Soinit
Excerpt from - Storming The Gates of Paradise

(Ms. Soinit's words, my format)

There Is Always a Song - The Radiance Sutras

Strong or soft, wild or serene -
Wherever breath flows there is song.
Hear its whisper touching behind the face,
singing in the throat,
Dancing spirals in the sanctuary of your heart.

In this practice of listening,
A moment may come when you just want to lie down.
This is a doorway - surrender.
Fall into the wide-open embrace of life.
You are the instrument breath is playing.

All the meditations you have ever loved
Are vibrating in this luxurious hum,
Continuing even in sleep and dreams.
This is your school.  Just you and infinity.
The texture of the Self is untamed freedom.

Lorin Roche
The Radiance Sutras, 32

via: Being Silently Drawn

~

Photo - Mandala Art digitally altered

Buffers of Perception - Mark Nepo

Through our self-will and self-control,
we have buffered ourselves from the mysterious
dimensions of spirit...

When we assume that we author everything we experience
we snuff the possibility of being touched by the more
numinous dimensions of reality...

Our constant insistence that we are self-creators
of our own destiny,
the builders of our own circumstances,
can create a spiritual cataract that blocks us
from being touched by the mystical light of spirit
that so often surrounds us - from
honoring how the Divine speaks directly
through the things of this world...

Somehow we fear such direct contact with grace...

A continual and deep risk for us,
if we are to feel the presence
and friendship of all that is,
is to humbly lift the veils we drape ourselves in,
the veils that insulate us as the self-creators
of everything we experience.

Whether we accept it or not,
we are asked to let life,
in all its unseeable elements,
touch us -
letting the indwelling spirit
pass through us...

We can become dangerously small
and insular if we limit truth to just
what our small lives have encountered.
Compassion allows us to embrace
the underlying truth that all experiences
thread together to form the
living Universe...

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

(Mark's words, my format)

Mystical Presence - Vaughan-Lee & Campbell

To know that beneath all the divisions of the outer world

 there is a single stream of mystical [Presence]
is in itself a refuge and deep reassurance.
It is so easy to get caught up in the forms and images
of the outer world, and yet, as Rumi writes,"God does not
look at your outer forms, but at the love within your love."
And as I have discovered from my own journey into the heart,
there is a love that embraces each of us with a tenderness
and passion known only to lovers.
We are taken by love to love.

We begin this mystical journey with the simple act of listening
within the heart.  We bring the mind down into the heart,
into the feeling center of our self.  And here we wait and listen,
not to the sounds of the outer world, but to the silence
that is within our self.  This silence is nourishing, and draws
us deeper and deeper within.  It is the silence from which
love is born.  It nourishes us from the depths of our own soul,
[and] our outer, everyday life becomes more and more
grounded in the core of our Being.

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Sufi Mystic
From: The Prayer of the Heart

~

The divine manifestation is ubiquitous, only our eyes are not
open to it.  Awe is what moves us forward.
Live from your own center. The divine lives within you.
The separation apparent in the world is secondary.
Beyond the world of opposites is an unseen, but experienced,
unity and identity in us all.

See the radiance everywhere...

Sanctify the place you are in...

Joseph Campbell
Mythologist