Monday Morning Thoughts on “Being”

 

             There is a thickness to life, a depth and a knowing, an observer and an observed.  I feel the depth deepening.  I see the” I”  as ego and separate from the observer, when this separation is complete, bliss will remain and be all pervasive.  I feel it coming; a flood of knowing is approaching.  Glimpses of  becoming, I see the 3D effect, the truth in believing without the believing, or the truth.  To dis-identify with the body is to watch it change and grow, watch it become and not, watch it be and not and know there is no death to the being that is observing.  The bliss’s will follow, don’t grab at it, just let it be.

                It really no longer matters if he loved me or not, it really doesn’t – that is just ego. I say to him in my head,  “you have no power over me” and the glass breaks, the mirror shatters and that which is identified with is gone, leaving only the essence of being, of eternal being, not dependent on anything or anyone external.  A freeing of non-self but all self, without ego, a smiling face beyond thought, above resistance to what is, in spite of “myself” recognizing and seeing it in everything and everyone, even the many who don’t see, who don’t  know there is anything to see or know.

               My body changes, it needs food, water and rest.  It doesn’t ask for it, it demands it and takes it.  It is its due as a vessel of importance.  It holds my humanness but is not who I am.  The universal consciousness powers my physical being.  It makes me breathe in my sleep, it lights my inner darkness with a promise of the eternal.  It whispers “no fear, no death, no end to being” to my soul and shows me the way to peace.  Its peace, like a warm blanket, descends to wrap my soul and quiet its longings.  It holds and comforts until the longing stops, and then it holds some more.

                To be given this gift of life for however long the body lasts, is the ultimate blessing.  It provides a benchmark of sorts; a non-being to give being its meaning.  It provides  a sense of the temporary to illustrate the permanent, the enlessness of being.  It provides the physical to complete the picture and therein comes the depth and texture of existence, eternal existence.

                This little body, this perfect creation is lovely.  I feel its aliveness; I watch in awe how in spite of me, and my abuse of it, it continues on.  I see how I think of it, when I honor it with truth and love, it glows, it reacts as a whole with a flushing of the skin, it is telling me it knows, it hears me.  But it is ageing, only doing what it is meant to do and I have been privileged to be able to watch as the un-manifested became manifested, how it learned and experienced and how now it is fading back to the formless again but richer and aware of being aware, it is all what we choose it to be, but only if we know.

                Just be still and let it come, whatever “it” is, no concept, no thought, all freedom, stop labeling, feel and not,  see and not, know and don’t, be without being.  I can’t help but think in words, but try to stop thinking and be, be as the fresh night air that is flowing through my bedroom window.  Sharing itself with my being, the fragrance of the moist early spring earth just is and buy its just being it imbibes my being with a wonder and joy.  I experience it without thought as to the why or how of it, my being knowing its being. 

                When we can truly embrace this knowing, when we can truly embrace this mess that is our human condition, when we can finally stop pointing and touching with the broken finger only then can we experience the eternal hallelujah.  As L. Cohen wrote, “It is a cold and broke hallelujah”.  But thank goodness for the pain, for the depth, for the experience, for all of it.  But to hold that being, to maintain that presence,  to accept and believe in its fleeting nature is sometimes so far out of reach because of my ego, and when that unreachable feeling comes over me,  then it is time to sit, to be silent, to let the being take hold in silence.

                In my  sitting, there are bursts of joy, bliss and understanding of being, felt not thought, a spontaneous smile but then I try to grab it, to hold on to the majic and by doing so I chase it back into the silence from where it came.  By being silent and just sitting and being, I invite it back.  It acts like a timid bird, wanting to be close but afraid of me and my ego.  It shows itself and thereby makes the lack if it, or the absense of it when I have chased it away, so empty and flat, uncomfortable and shallow, dark and cold, I don’t’ like it.  It is not reality, or more accurately it is reality without the knowing and I don’t want to stay there.  But when I try to rise above it the effort seems too great.  It is only when I don’t try that it is effortless.  I need to stop getting in my own way, stop getting in my beings way.

The sights, smells, senses of life are wonderful.  We and all the beings on this earth share our presence here together.  We enrich each other’s physical experience; and by doing so we make that cold and broken hallelujah no so cold or broken after all.

Serendipity

 

Serendipity – an intricate woven web of guidance.

Guidance offered – but unknown by the unconscious.

 

Open your eyes, partake of the details.

Notice the unnoticeable, take in that which is un-takeable.

 

Acknowledge the hidden gifts that surround you.

Be a willing participant in the story.

 

Let the unnoticed notice you.

Let the world share its beauty with you and share yours with it.

 

Let the story become yours as it was meant to and then,

Step out if it and watch!

 

It is waiting, now, now, now…

Are you willing?

Curtis Field In Summer

Birdsong and morning sunlight,

Waves of grass, swaying in unison.

The melody of life and light

Plays across the field.

Heated mist rises in currents of song

And murmurs in harmony.

The field holds its life close,

An entire universe in a blade of grass.

Life teams in layers from dirt to dawn,

Root to crown.

A place of abundance

Well hidden.

Come, sit with me,

Get up close and watch.

Feel the warmth,

Embrace the sweetness.

Hold the magic in your soul and my hands in yours and

Be, just be.

2/15

The Promise of Eternity

Peace in a baby’s smile,

Light inside the shell of an egg,

 

Hearts glowing in the blossom of a milkweed, and

The secrets of love revealed in the face of a flower.

 

The world bursts with proof of his love,

Of the strength in the gentleness of his hands on his creation.

 

He holds us lightly,

He holds us in consciousness and in return, how do we repay him?

 

By giving form to his love,

And light to his eyes.

 

It is a mutual dance of intimate feeling and love,

The creator for me and me for him.

 

We are one in the circle of light and grace,

One in the promise of eternity.

His Secrets

 

The fox barks in the night.

He feels safe in the darkness.

 

He circles my house, slowly

Barking his questions at me.

 

He watches as I sit by the campfire in the yard.

I see his eyes at the edge of the wood lit by the flames, waiting, observing.

 

Does he have something to tell me?  Some great wisdom to impart to my so-called intelligent brain?

 

I know he holds all the answers but in his innocence

He assumes that I do.

 

He knows that all there is, is all he is.

It is only the falseness of my thinking that keeps us separate.

 

I envy him and his essence and ability to be completely in tune with all there  is.

But why does he watch me?

 

What could my presence here possibly give to him?

He needs nothing that I have.

 

So he continues barking his secrets at me and I continue to

Wait and long for that time when words and barks lose their separate meanings

 

And I finally understand and feel his secrets too.

The Soulscape of My Heart.

 

Outcrops of rock and

Lichen covered pinnacles of grandeur are

 

God’s favorite places,

Places where he lets us see,

 

Lets us in on the secret,

Lets us in on what makes him happy.

 

His eyes sculpted the mountains with a glance,

His hands scooped the valleys with ease giving light and dark a place to play.

 

His breath still powers the winds that sail and howl over the cliffs

And stir the hearts of human kind.

 

The mountains are God’s sacred place and

A place where I go to feel His power,

 

To be closer to heaven

To touch and feel His love.

 

He exists forever in the hard landscape of rock and

In the soft soulscape of my heart.

In or Out of Time

 

Transient whispers in the night,

Loves softness is given in kisses.

 

Bodies connected by touch and heat,

Hearts untied in space and now.

 

Time stands still and holds us there with it and

Darkness and light exist together in our hearts and minds.

 

Our souls intermingle in beauty and

Sadness.

 

Sadness for the perceived separateness and beauty at the knowing

That there is no separateness in space or time.

 

I need to find you again, in or out of time.

I want to hold you, but where have you gone?

 

Will you wait for me there?

Do you exist in one other than God?

 

Do any of us?

The Soul of the Storm

 

3:30 am February Thunder

 

What is it that speaks to me through thunder?

Why does it hold such fascination?

 

Why does it bring from and to me such joy?

It is just a sound, a physical reaction to the heat of lightening, a compression and release of air pressure, That is all it is, but is it? What more does it represent to me?

 

It is nature, it is God speaking to me, it awakens in me a sense of personal connection, me to God, me to nature’s voice, me to the divine Mother Earth.

 

Lighten is the spark, the bright flash of Satori,

But thunder is the voice, the depth of feeling, the depth of God’s soul in sound.

 

Thunder emanates from the extremeness and storminess of the soul.  It is the release of charge, not the lamenting of loss but a celebration of depth.

 

The sound echoes between the hills and shakes the ground.  It cracks and air and then rolls in waves of intensity lower and lower until its vibrations shake the very core of the earth and of my being.

 

It touches me in a very primal way, a way before time, a way before and above thought, a way that has no need for thought or time.

 

I feel as a tree must feel in a storm.  I picture how it must be in my head…

 

Standing in the night, warm summer air flowing through my branches, gentle purposful breezes stirring my leaves and off in the distance the brief brilliant flashes of lighting appear.  Their light, reflecting over the towering cloud tops,  announces the storms approach.  I know what this means and I await its arrival with mixed emotions.

 

The breezes start to stiffen, my braches and leaves are tossed and startled.  My trunk is strong but so is the wind and I am fearful.  As the storm approaches, the very darkness and emotion of the air is changed.  It becomes charged with anticipation, with expectations and apprehension.

 

The rain arrives first in wind carried drops, miles ahead of the storm.  My leaves dance to the rhythm of these gentle drops while waiting for the violence of the curtains of water that will accompany the storm.

 

As the storm gains ground and draws closer, I feel it rather than hear it.  It is a deep feeling that travels through the ground and vibrates and shakes my roots.

 

Then it begins to crackle overhead and toss my limbs like whispers of silk.  My leaves are turned upside-down by the wind and my storm facing bark is soaked by streams of rain.

 

The sky lowers and pressed heavily on my crown.  Forest creatures take refuge in the shelter of my branches where I hold them tight against the onslaught of power and turbulence from the storm.

 

The storm roils through my forest, soaking the soil and bringing energy and life to the earth.  Its violence is only its great need to communicate its passion for life, and then it begins to fade…

 

It moves off to the east, dragging its lightening with it.  The thunder fades quickly with distance rolling back into the silence from which it was born and the forest night resumes its rest as if nothing had happened.

 

 

As the storm passes I return to me and to my soft, warm, dry bed and dream of being a tree as the trees watch me though the open window.

 

They understand better than I do our connection, me to them, them to me and all of us to the soul of the storm.

A Part of His Plan

 

It is warm here now.

Just yesterday I could still feel the cold.

 

It retreated upward,

The sun melting the frost.

 

Mother Earth sending her warmth

To meet the sun’s, with me in the middle!

 

I hear the rain striking

The earth above me now,

 

Its sound no longer muffled

By the snow.

 

The water puddles around me in the spaces between the rocks and

Softens my shell with its spring freshness.

 

My soul is awakened and has been waiting for this moment,

Waiting for the conditions to be just right.

 

My softened shall cracks and

A single, tiny root pokes its little head out into the soil.

 

It stretches its very being into the darkness and

Finds water and nutrients to power my growth.

 

Slowly my stem emerges from this shell and pushes me ever so gently up and up

Around the rocks and worms,

 

Bending to avoid the obstacle’s, always holding me in love

While searching for the sun.

 

I have never seen the sun, but I know it is there.

It has spoken to me in my dark winter of dreams.

 

Its promise is finely fulfilled when, only by  gargantuan efforts, my

Tiny stem has transported me to the surface of the soil.

 

My head breaks free and I feel the fresh spring breeze for the first time as

My stem lifts me up as an offering to the sun.

 

Through my soil bound journey, a miracle has taken place within me.

The work of God, done in darkness, is now revealed.

 

My seed splits open and my two magically made seed leaves open

Their fresh green faces to the sun.

 

Its brilliance is over whelming and

Its warmth and love unsurpassed.

 

I feel its strength soaking into even fiber of my being.

The sensation is incredible and I am full of life.

 

But the end of my journey is still a mystery to me.

What will I become?  Only God knows …

 

He has built the blueprint into my soul

But he hasn’t given me the instructions.

 

I will grow in the awareness that I am aware.

My being will take in the sun and wind, the soil and water, and I will become that which God intended.

 

Whether his intentions be a sunflower or a string bean,

I will be happy and joyful at being a part of His plan and

 

I will rejoice in His goodness.

Hari Om

The Now of a Heartbeat

The darkness in the depth of my tea mug

Is as vast as the universe.

 

Its emptiness the very thing

That makes it useful.

 

But depth is relative,

My cup can be as deep as the ocean and

 

The universe as shallow

As a thimble.

 

The night sky calls to me

To come and explore the spaces between.

 

But they are all the same, the spaces between you and me

Hate and love, all and nothing – no space and only space.

 

We are made of space and little else so my being can hold this limitless space

And my body the universe just as

 

Infinity exists in the now of a heartbeat

And forever is defined in the bloom of the milkweed