Category Archives: Gateways

an ordinary day of being slammed with our walls

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another sunset....opportunity to begin again...

A genuine spiritual path does not avoid difficulties or mistakes but leads us to the art of making mistakes wakefully, bringing them to the transformative power of our heart. When we set out to love, to awaken, to become free, we are inevitably confronted with our own limitations. We see more clearly our unexamined conflicts & fears, our frailties & confusion. Trungpa Rinpoche described spiritual progress from the ego’s view as ‘one insult after another.’  Our limited perspective, our hopes & fears become our measure of life, & when circumstances don’t fit our ideas, they become our difficulties…..Jack Kornfield

we listen quietly to these words with our heads bowed…..how many difficulties are you struggling with today? how many sunsets do we miss? what is it about all of the ups & downs which continually call us to ‘wait’ until ‘things’ are a bit more manageable? then we’ll ease up on ourselves….

we all live this way….time to sit with the sunset, sip some wine, & find a new moment…

When we finally look at horror & joy, birth & death, gain & loss, things, with an equal heart & open mind, there arises a most beautiful & profound equanimity….William James

I took myself out walking…

blooming into our lens…

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moving with perspective

photography as a life lesson…

As you practice, there will be ups & downs. You will experience flashes of color & get so excited that you start shooting away, forgetting all about visual discernment & forming the equivalent. As you get wound up, you might think that everything you notice is a flash of perception & fire away at everything that you see. On the other hand, you could go for quite a while without experiencing any flashes & get frustrated, thinking you will never be able to see anything at all. This is practice. Practice means learning to work with all of these states of mind. One way to reduce the emotional swings is to linger a little over each shot. Try to find a balance between being too tight & being too loose….

Andy Karr & Michael Wood

seeing is a gateway….we forget to pay attention..our vision narrows…..

reminds me of walking meditation….with a camera in hand….

Photography students often complain that their photograph of a sunset did not at all translate into the image. I tell them it’s not that there is anything wrong with the image. It’s just that they were photographing only one aspect of their experience; what they could see. We are usually only dimly aware, if we’re aware at all, of the converging of information from our senses when we experience an event. This is why whole body & mind seeing is so important. When we make direct contact with reality, we go beyond an ordinary way of seeing, of being, & touch the sacred dimension of our lives…..John Daido Loori

discover your new perspective blooming in red…

true freedom is not truth…rather…a little edgy reality…

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a child's view

To live the symbolic life which the journey required so I could perceive it, I had to free myself from the encumbrance of the ordinary……Barbara Hammer

do you really believe in peace, love, hope & faith?

how can we make these ideologies more real? maybe the twist lies not in making them more real, but more ethereal…landing them in our dreams so that we may believe again…as seen from a child’s eyes…

a little naive hope lands us softly sometimes…like puppets & fairy tales…

Many people have their first spiritual experience in childhood, that of an innate & natural connection with what is sacred & holy. The playfulness, joy, & curiosity of our childhood can become a foundation for the delighted rediscovery of this spirit in our practice. Even with painful experiences behind us, they may stimulate our longing for true well-being, & therefore, inevitably certain moments of every childhood will contain the seeds of awakening.

….Jack Kornfield…

may your silliness bring out your highest integrity…

mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the wisest of them all?

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sleeping softly

peek into your mirror so that you may see…..may witness…

may engage with time…

There is no place to search for the truth. Though it’s right beneath your feet, it can’t be found. Look at springtime……when the snow has melted, the scars of the landscape are no longer hidden…John Daido Loori

this mysterious countenance, this reverie of communion between body & mind….unearths our artistic charms disguised as longing…

One day passes & another day comes along, & everything happens the same. But basically, we are so afraid of the brilliance coming at us, & the sharp experience of our life, that we can’t even focus our eyes…..Chogyam Trungpa

can’t you feel that dazzling array of rapture & disillusionment…taunting & dissolving into openings….maybe we call it our spiritual path, our neuroses, our character flaws, our alternative flair….

when we wake up it’s all different….there’s a steadiness, a simple okness, a face we can ‘see’ in the mirror…maybe even laugh a little at our absurdities….enjoy simple pleasures…

revel in the connection between sensual & ethereal…

a brighter world seen in one flower, one breath, one awareness

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reveling in our world....

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

& Heaven in a Wild Flower,

hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

& Eternity in an hour.

…..William Blake

Do we really see the flowers? What clarity seeps in when we engage with flowers we’ve never ‘seen?’ This cocooning & blossoming, a fluidity of soul, takes our small selves & embarks them on a bigger journey of seeing & knowing….not so tight…not so small….

when we become vague, left with dogma & disenchanted morality…

fear & pale faces….

we revive in the sun…with the flowers…in simplicity’s wisdom…

the numinous dirt…

drown in flowers once in awhile…. 

The more conscious you are in both body & spirit, when you’re breathing at those deep, deep levels & become keen in all your senses, your life changes. I never saw red until the day I left the cancer ward; then I saw a red tulip. Love is spoken all the time, but how many really live it? Open the body……Marion Woodman

sacred space…..the profound cave where our lives echo….

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a lifetime of preparing for full moons...

When we set aside a certain area as a special or sacred precinct….we are engaging in the ancient act of making ‘temenos’….marking out a space appropriate for a certain spirit that breathes life into our activity…We need thresholds in our daily lives, so that we clearly move from one sphere of life to another. Our souls need a variety of places where they can retreat & disappear from life. Parks, beaches, trails, daydreaming, night dreams, distraction, memory & many other things fit in the category of rapture, each requiring a temenos that is created with imagination & protected firecely & aggressively…..Thomas Moore

the key to temenos seems to be unerring boundaries…. empty & filled require distinct thresholds….mirroring our lives….our relationships……our dreams & our choices…spiraling up from a ‘garden of wildflowers’ & once we understand our soul-roots it becomes ’our garden’…knowing intuitively where our spirit thrives & where enchantment wanes….

The Wanderer explores the interweavings between psyche & nature, how a dream or a place may suggest a place in nature in which to wander or an image to seek in his wanderings. Or he might ramble in the wild & run smack into a repeating dreamscape from childhood, his eyes wide & mouth agape. Now what will he do? Inner & outer wanderings & boundaries support, extend, & enrich one another- a key feature of soulcraft….Bill Plotkin

waxing & waning moons in the sky are subtle reminders to carve out that same moon space in our hearts….to soar up from the canyon, we only need to step outside for a moment at the end of the day….wander in our souls just to seek & disappear in one cycle of breath….

create your own meaning of liminality…..

a simple joy mirrors the inner to the outer …..

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moving through fire....

Maybe you’ve had the disturbing experience of misplacing your soul. You might have asked, ‘Is my soul found inside me or is it ‘out there’ in nature?’ The answer surprises: You can learn about your soul by looking ‘inward’ through the windows of imagination & feeling. And you can learn about your soul by looking ‘outward’ to the wild world. But the soul itself is neither inside nor outside. The wild world reflects your essence back to you just like a still lake reflects your image. In the same way, your soul, your essence, is in the world, & nature mirrors that fact back to you…Bill Plotkin

this visionary experience reveals layers….knowing & not knowing…death & life…soul embracing all…..complete with its ambiguity, paradox, & shifty-eyed shadows in the dark….

really though, these ‘big mysteries’ come back to simple joys where soul ignites….

eating an apple, tying your hiking boots, tucking in a cool pillow, waking to birdsong, following the moon behind a tree, cool sand under tense feet, photos of your grandmother, sitting on a park bench, snowballs & a little mischief, picking strawberries, moonless quiet, packing a picnic…

glimpsing the brief thin place between you & soul

when everything around you is enough….

I know that nothing has ever been real

without my beholding it.

All becoming has needed me.

My liking ripens things

and they come toward me, to meet & be met.

…Rilke

 I can hear music…when there is none….

standing on the pavement, feet burning, & looking up

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simplicity

This is it, I think, this is it, right now, the present, this empty gas station, here, this western wind, this tang of coffee on the tongue, & I am patting the puppy, I am watching the mountain. And the second I verbalise this awareness in my brain, I cease to see the mountain or feel the puppy. I am opaque, so much black asphalt……Annie Dillard

what could be more counter-intuitive to fluffy white clouds in the deep blue sky than black asphalt? isn’t this why cloud-watching is perfect, sublime, translucent to the senses?

the ideal of the experiential moment…the one that unfolds, is self-contained & tender…organic like bamboo, skin, & clouds…..

Give me nothing fixed, set, static. Don’t give me the infinite or the eternal: nothing of infinity, nothing of eternity. Give me the still, white seething, the incandescence & coldness of the incarnate moment…the immediate present, the Now…..D.H. Lawrence

may we soothe our burning feet & our burning hearts….

breathe in the cool day…

just a little cool silence 

chasing our tail & why letting go is the answer….

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drinking in detail

Whenever a man awakes, he awakes from the false assumption that he has always been awake, & therefore the master of his thoughts, feelings & actions. In that moment, he realizes, & this is the shadow side of recognition, how deeply ignorant he is of himself, how narrrowly dependent on the web of relationships by which he exists, how helplessly at the mercy of any suggestion that happens to act upon him at a given moment…….

where is that moment? somewhere in the minutiae of the day….in loved ones walking away…in head bowed in prayer in a weak moment of lost faith…in the little promises we gift to each other….in that space between you & the next decision to be made…..in a sudden & difficult memory that becomes the beginning of profound knowing….in that unresolved mystery of ‘where did I come from?’….in the everday groove of pizza & beer…

…..He may also awake, if only for a flash, to the light of a higher consciousness, which will grant him a glimpse of the world of hidden potentialities to which he essentially belongs, help him transcend his own limitations, & open the way to inner transformation. But woe betide him if he believes himself safe from now on. The vision does not last, & once more he is left with the dizzying impression of having sunk back into his own insoluble contradictions. Whenever a man awakes & remembers his purpose, he awakes to a fleeting miracle, & at the same time to an unanswerable riddle. Such is the human condition…..Henri Tracol

we cannot often sleep…we cannot often awaken….

we live in a lovely, yet inconsistent bubble….we are seekers…

we unbind, peel away layers, shift our reality… 

awakening, drifting in & out from the edge; being in the deep blue

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a lovely, blue hazy day...soft in awakening...

The hand of God sometimes takes me by the scruff of my neck & the seat of my pants & speaks, ‘Not that way, this way.’ And my rebel has learned the shrivelling of attempting to deny my Destiny; it has also learned the power of surrendering to it. Sacrifice releases transformation. When I am awakened, I shout Goethe’s lines to the noble maple in my garden:

I praise what is truly alive

What longs to be burned to death…

And so long as you haven’t experienced

This to die & so to grow

You are only a troubled guest

On the dark earth.

….Marion Woodman

it’s an unexpectedly sunny day….as it seeps deeper into the moment…when I actually notice & am grateful for it….there’s a shift….we go for a walk….with each step, there’s  an unfolding….so small I might not even notice it…..but the silence around me lulls & each step finds my hearbeat & my boots are in walking meditation before I am….they lead me….they ask quietly….come along? let go of your day? be in this day? the one you can see if you would only sigh & release….

A hal is a sudden mind-bending glimpse of hidden things. A maquam, by contrast, is a sustained inner capacity to integrate experience at a specific level of elevated realization. A hal is a gift, whereas a maquam must be earned…..Pir Zia Inayat Khan

they begin so softly…..revelations, disappointments, insights…in an instant they can be a sweetness….or a deep knife edge… sudden & quick…they are one & the same many times….bringing us to our knees…renewing us once again…reminding us that each direction is one & the same…

Waking & sleeping, living & dreaming, getting along in the world & making art, working & sitting, enlightenment & profound ignorance….the way of opposites is the only way. We are all again & again falling asleep & waking up. Again & again. Waking. Sleeping. Waking. Sleeping….Thomas Moore

I would add…..walking…..waking, sleeping, getting lost, walking….waking, sleeping, getting lost….

cycles & circles & missed directions & moon phases….