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 Chance to Meet God

 

I see each meeting, one with the other, as a chance to meet God.

I believe the Lords reside within us, each and every one of us,

The good, the bad, the saintly and the liars.

Each person I meet holds the keys to eternity in their inner being, they  belong inside the shelter of

The essence of Krishna consciousness, Christ consciousness, and God consciousness that lives within them whether they know it or believe it or not.

When I look for it – in their eyes- I can see that spark of belonging in even the darkest of souls and know

Know that I am meeting the God consciousness within them and

Maybe really seeing them for the first time.

The Love and Stillness of Forever

Our destiny is love,

In its form of being and nonbeing.

It flows from the source,

From the beginnings of timelessness.

From the place of no time or deception as time is limiting and

Deception is the extinguisher of love.

Loves lies around the edges of our worldly existence,

Waiting for its chance, for an opening to flow in.

It is patient and forgiving but is not to

Be taken for a fool.

Love cries with agony watching our abuse of and unkindness towards each other

But it will never walk away or give up on us.

It sees and is the stillness in me and

Recognizes itself in you and all beings and nonbeings.

There is a lack of labeling in love, no separateness of one from the other.

It does not merely exist in some abstract form as it has no form and is alive in the stillness of all things.

Love seeps into existence in fragrant vapors of stillness and

Frames the portal to eternity.

Isness and non-duality are the very essence of love, the connection of being and nonbeing,

The beginning and the end, the beginingless and endless formlessness of all form.

Love is the essential formlessness of me and you and

The non-separate nature of us all.

So  forget my name but remember when you and I were the formless within each other.

And when you again feel that deep stillness  and

Have found your remembered place in me,

Come and  we will reside there together

In the love and stillness of forever.

 

Blessing of the Saco River

River Blessing, June 20, 2016

 

The continuance of life

The renewal of its essence.

 

From sea to sky

From sky to mountain

From mountain to river

And from river back to the sea,

A continuous loop in the process of eternity.

 

Water is the giver and sustainer of life, it is the softness of gentle drops on sweet summer leaves,

and the raging fury and unstoppable force of a flood.

 

It represents a manifestation of life, a confluence of the forces of nature; a mystery with its truth below the surface. It flows where the land allows it to and always returns to its source, as do we.

 

As the bearer of water and life, we honor its place in the circle of truth, and pay tribute to its never ending gifts.

We gather here together to give thanks for its beauty and the peace it brings to our souls and hearts with our gifts of the earth and samples of the bounty its sweet water brings.

(My ladies and I ended our annual blessing ceremony by dropping flowers and herbs into the Saco River.  It was a lovey way to spend a summer late afternoon in the company of the setting sun and full solstice moon).

Summer Solstice/Full Moon 6-20-16

Longest day and shortest time of darkness.  Magic in the moon light and peace in the secret of its knowing.

A secret to share with everyone but for now, only known by those among us of like mind, of those awake enough to behold the truth because it is a truth without words, a knowing in the soul, a connection to all there is but with no attachments.

A trust in the cycles of life, the rhythm of nature, the dependability of the cycles that Divine Mother brings.  She has laid in waiting, has been patient with our neglect but now it is her time, a time of new awareness, a time of a rebirth of the mother knowledge, a time to rejoice in her beauty and truth.

In this day of less darkness, let us see the meaning in the seasons, let us feel the vibration of Mother’s truth, let us believe in her promise in the light of the moon that she will never leave us in darkness and let us honor her in our hearts and share her love and truth with one another to become for all time sisters/brothers and lovers of the beauty of her truth and of the right of all beings to exist in the bliss of the conscious life.

Let us make a vow, a promise to her this evening of shortened darkness, to be her children and partners in the process of waking the unconscious to an appreciation of Mother and of each other and to make this world the place she has always dreamed of.

Join me in drying her tears with our hearts in honor of all she unselfishly and joyfully gives of herself.  The blessing of day light and moon shine, of love, death and rebirth, a never ending cycle, dependable in its truth and continuance, a chain never broken, a perpetual loop of manifestation of the unmanifested through and because of our consciousness.

With Mother to guide us and hold us in her heart of compassion, we cannot fail and can assist her in bringing forth a new earth, one of compassion, truth, beauty and peace for all beings and all time.  This is the promises in the moonlight and star shine of this magical evening.

Please Join me in silent meditation and feel the message of the bells and gong as we offer our gifts of the sweetness of life to our sister the river and our mother the earth, a taste of the fruits river’s gift of water brings us and a tribute and thanks to our Divine Mother for the beauty and flavor she adds to our lives.

A Passionate Kiss

It takes so little,

A soft touch, a kind word

 

A passionate kiss or a loving smile

To erase a world of hurt and sorrow.

 

The pleasures we give each other

Have no need for words,

 

For to love in silence

Is to love completely.

 

What we share is a soul deep connection

Which cannot be diminished by time, distance or willful neglect.

 

My gift to him of unconditional love

Is really a gift of freedom to us both

 

To be who we really are and to

Experience this love together for its own sake.

 

There have been stops and starts

But only in physical presence because in love there is no time.

 

So once again the physical will rejoin the heart in time

And the heat and passion of our love will resume, stronger for the absence,

 

As if it had never stopped.

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…

As Only He Can Do (this piece is about a wonderful friend I had who passed away)

 ((“That which is to be taken away

First must be given”  Tau Te Ching

Lau Tzu

 

 

I suppose that means I can’t lose what I never had.

But didn’t I?

 

The loss of nothing would be painless,

Not filled with missing and sorrow for what could have been.

 

Doesn’t the very missing and feeling of loss prove that I did have it?

If he didn’t give it, how could I have had it? 

 

But I did because it was given in soft subtle ways,

In after thoughts of kindness, in tender touches and looks.

 

In words only half spoken but completely felt.

I am not a fool, I didn’t imagine him, he was real as were his feelings for me and mine for him.

 

He said he felt the love in my touch, I could feel it in his too.

Such a strong connecting could not be denied, made up, faked.

 

Only words can be misunderstood as they are always left to interpretation by the receiver which interpretation is not always what the speaker intended.

 

Did I misunderstand?  Did I not get the correct message?

I don’t know, and now it is too late.

 

I am confused by the words vs. the feelings.

The meaning behind each is complicated,

 

Sometimes stark and cutting to the bone,

But in other ways and days softer and ambivalent.

 

Maybe I saw too much, maybe I viewed only what I wanted to see,

Accepted only how I wanted it to be.

 

But he was right, it was complicated, too many others involved, too many decisions to make and then, as if to save him from the hard choices,

 

He was gone, never to be here again, too late to ask, too late to know.

Death became a saving grace, a way out, a reprieve, a new beginning.

 

His last words to me, “you and I are all there really is” will always haunt me,

What did he mean?

 

Maybe when I lift the veil and step to the other side,  I will see his warm loving smile and feel his gentle hands on my face and he will take me in his arms once again and explain it all as before,

 

As only he can do.

Rain

 

The sound of rain takes me to a place of inner peace as the

Rain falls in sheets and slides down the roof over its edge in a curtain of water.

Tree leaves dance with the weight of the rain and

Flowers wash their faces in its freshness.

The sky is lower on rainy days and

Holds us close and grounded.

Sounds are muted and muffled and

Light is  defused in grayness.

But it is not a sad and depressing grayness,

But a soothing and peaceful shade

Full of the necessity of sorrow.

A rainy day is soft and dark.  It begs us to stop, rest and be mindful of our surrounds and loves.

It reminds us to take the time to be lulled by the patter of rain on the windows

Into a place of inner stillness,

And there remain, content to just be and accept what is.