In Aryaloka’s sacred forest space,
The presence of the Stupa and Shrine
Change the energy of the landscape.
Trees and stones become softer and energized,
They feel our reverence and respond in kind.
Category: candles
Summer Stillness Retreat
Silence among strangers
and trees.
All enclosed in sacred spaces and domes with
The inside out and the outside in.
Our souls are connected in silence,
With everything in common but no two of us the same.
Bells and sunrise mark the day’s beginning and in the evening,
Night is a blanket of calm and sleep as
Tomorrow’s promises wait in shadowed softness.
A Valuable Part of Two
The heat of a summer day softens and slips silently
Into evening twilight.
The shifting shadows and cooling breezes of evening chill my being and
Bring an acute awareness of sorrow and emptiness to my state of mind.
This subtle, soft twilight is lonely and empty now
But was beautiful at other times and under other circumstances in my life.
Twilight holds tenderness and acceptance of love in times of loving but
When love is missing or withheld, twilight is punishing in its loneliness.
A solitary stroll through the garden is a waste;
There is no joy in relaxing in the rocking hammock alone.
Light sadly leaves the landscape and drains the world of color
Just as this lost love drains my soul and heart of color.
The trees along the edge of the clearing blend into a fortress wall,
Locking me out in my loneliness.
Fireflies blink on and off but evade my eyes behind the fortress of trees
and the stark cold moon light accentuates my solitude by throwing only one shadow behind me.
In better times, when I was not alone, the deepiening twilight was a magical time,
Full of love and acceptance.
We walked the garden paths together, basking in the glow of the moon
And soaking in the softness of star-shine.
Our shadows moved willingly behind us, hand in hand,
And fireflies lit our way home.
I want to go back to that time, back to being a valuable part of two,
Back to the times of softened days that faded into loving nights of passion and acceptance.
I need you take me back there, please…
Sunday Evening Sorrow
Sunday evening sorrow
A lonely time, a time in between.
The old week has ended,
The new not yet begun.
Another ending, freshly felt and remembered in sadness,
Will not end as easily as last week, it continues to linger and hurt, refusing to let go.
I am left behind,
Alone with this Sunday evening truth.
There is no space
No thought, no warmth.
Need is strong but left unattended, neglected,
And words that linger are incomplete.
Conversations left unfinished,
With thoughts not expressed or maybe expressed but not received or wanted.
It starts and stops,
Comes and goes but comes back only to stop again.
How can the coming stop,
But the stopping go on and on and on?
I thought there was no separation,
But now I accept that there is nothing to be separate from.
The empty space is all that remains within me,
The void was never filled, the dream never realized.
One thought had weight and ruled the results,
But mine did not.
But isn’t there really only one thought, one truth
One meaning?
I just don’t know anymore, I used to think I did, used to feel it in all there was
But now, it is gone and all that is left is the doubt.
I want to fight back, regain what I had, what I love
But I can’t. And even if I could, it would be futile; there is no longer another side.
What I thought was one is now two.
There is no energy, no anger, only the wanting and needing.
And so I sit, just sit on my cushions
In this Sunday evening loneliness
And watch the candles burn away the time
And hurt of love left behind.
It Is All I Have
I need to write.
I need to say what I feel.
But I’m afraid,
Afraid of my pen, of my words.
Afraid I will not be able to stop.
Afraid that they will take over my being and
Bring out all my hidden truths and fears,
Even the ones I’m not aware of and I will have nowhere left to hide.
It will be a flood of words,
A torrent of emotions.
Some familiar in their pain, and
Others new in their hope.
Can I be brave and strong enough to hold onto my belief in love
In spite of all those truths and fears?
The wind-chimes on my porch say yes,
The trees, in their silent way, nod in agreement
And in hope the earth turns ever towards the sun
Always believing in and following its light and love.
So I must be brave and follow the earth’s example and
Turn to the Son too with faith and hope and
Never stop believing in love for in this moment, this now,
It is all I have and nothing else matters.
Early Morning Silence (Noble Silence Retreat at Aryaloka Buddhist Center in Newmarket, New Hampshire)
As I await the bell, a flood of emotion and
Excitement fills me.
The potential for connection is just ahead,
Each moment a possibility for fulfillment.
Hours feel like minutes in the predawn darkness and
Black widows look down on me like all knowing eyes.
Buddha’s face, illuminated by candle flame,
Comes to life, filling the room with his essence.
At 5:30, a procession of sleepy souls makes its way
Up the creaky stairs and each takes its place in rows of blue.
There are yawns from the now familiar faces and heads of tussled hair
As we each fade slowly into ourselves and become one in silence.
The next few hours are punctuated by a creaking floor, the shuffles of re- positioning bodies, and hungry pre-breakfast tummy growls.
We all appear to be different people on the outside but inside
Our humaneness enables us to share a singular mindset and a connected purpose.
When the sitting and silence is done, we will move back into our individual lives richer for the people we have met and the silence we have shared.
Soft Sadness
The silence of midnight
The silence of wanting.
Dark time, soft
With sadness.
A scent, a look, a memory,
Almost enough.
I long for that touch
That voice, that look.
It fills the night, turns the silence of longing
Into loving and giving.
The soft sadness replaced with his touch
His hand to hold.
His kiss to make mine
A light in the darkness but
Never to keep.
Originally posted February, 2015
A Celebration of Light and Love
Embrace the feminine,
Rejoin the world of light and shadow.
My sisters await,
I have been gone too long.
But they are patient, their rhythmic drumming continues,
A call for wisdom to those who have come before.
The drums awaken in our souls the
Primal sounds of life.
Listen to the crows cry in morning
Listen to the night sounds resonate with the vibrations of life.
Brook and sky
Flow together in harmony.
My soul reunites with my heart.
My place is remembered and rejoined.
My heart is endless, and knows no time or place,
It retains a place for him.
He who completes the connection,
Body and soul as no other can.
But I have learned, that to desert myself,
To love so completely that I lose myself
Is not what it is meant to be.
My love must complement who I am
Not become who I am.
My love for him is eternal,
It takes up no space and has no limits but
I will not allow it to consume me.
If only he could know, could feel as I do,
Our love would be as it was intended, the connection would be complete.
The space between us would dissolve into vapor and
We would be one in harmony with earth and sky.
Together
And the crows would cry at sunrise
And the night sounds would resonate with the sound of my sisters singing and drumming in celebration of light and love, love as it should be.
2/11/15
MC
I wrote this for him last year, a lovely fantasy, very lovely but equally lonely…
Dissolving
I sit, candlelight flickering
Through my eyelids.
The skylight reflects the candlelight back to me,
And the new moon back to the moon.
The night landscape is dark,
Cold and endless.
I am cold and endless as I rise above the candle.
The wind blows my hair and chills my bones.
My eyes scan the dark earth.
Fields lie in wait, trees sleep.
Hills role on to hills,
And night sky meets night wood.
My body and gaze rise above
The wood to the sky.
Dark joining dark,
Points of light joining points of light.
In the darkness there is no separation of earth and sky.
In my darkness there is no separation.
The flicker of candlelight
Through the skylight fades with distance.
The quiet and dark become who I am,
All encompassing, all inclusive, comforting
All dissolving into one.
Haiku
Candlelight fills us
Soft warm sounds fill the night air
Christmas gives us hope
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