the alchemy of the mundane…..

Daily
These shriveled seeds we plant, corn kernel, dried bean, poke into loosened soil, cover over with measured fingertips
These T-shirts we fold into perfect white squares
These tortillas we slice & fry to crisp strips This rich egg scrambled in a gray clay bowl
This bed whose covers I straighten smoothing edges till blue quilt fits brown blanket & nothing hangs out
This envelope I address so the name balances like a cloud in the center of sky
This page I type & retype This table I dust till the scarred wood shines This bundle of clothes I wash & hang & wash again like flags we share, a country so close no one needs to name it
The days are nouns: touch them The hands are churches that worship the world
…Naomi Shihab Nye

neat & tidy shelves….

this picture of simple, bold awareness touches us when we land in it…….like falling feathers or sunsets….where did the sun go? such mystery….how much do we miss? there may be nothing as sad as feeling stripped of the day….let us know the moments of folding & washing & listening…..

Do stuff. be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. stay eager.
…Susan Sontag

rediscovering…

Deep spirituality is not an out-of-body experience. Physical form is the way we experience spiritual reality on earth. Come into animal presence. When we awaken somatic perception, we take the ownership of healing away from an ‘expert’ & give it back to our own body. Healing begins when we release & rediscover these instincts. When we follow the body’s lead, we enter ‘dream-time,’ through sleep, slowing down, rest, & communing with nature. A good way to ‘come into animal presence’ is to create for yourself time-outs or mini-rituals. Anything that reminds you in a visceral way that you are a walking miracle can become your own body ritual….Elizabeth Lesser

love these body rituals….walking meditation, textured sweaters & great boots over roots….stretching like a cat (yoga)….sunlight on my face….ocean water…..fresh lemons…how do you reconnect body to mind?

spiritual body’s own rhythm….

There is a deeply rooted desire or need to transcend who we naturally are. Some higher power finds us unacceptable as we are. We’ve spent several thousand years learning the arts of self-transcendence. But life is a matter of incarnation. The soul is an entity that lives within our human body. Over-spiritualization is a real danger. If you want to heal, you have to surrender; you have to give up control; you have to stop trying to be perfect, because eventually you have to face the fact that you cannot completely control your life….Marion Woodman

fire & ice

Spiritual maturity is not a function of age, or of years on the path, but of a powerful & discerning choice from within to cultivate gratitude as a way of being in the world. Like contentment, gratitude arises from learning to discern clearly. To praise is to choose gratitude even in hell. One description of ‘faith’ is ‘love of the unknown,’ meaning, ‘I am given everything I need, even if it is not what I imagine that I want.’  Faith says, ‘I choose the life I am given.’…..Mariana Caplan

hot & cold….this is how we live…. going deeper…coming up for air now & again..but ultimately realizing there is only one path…the one we walk on….when we see the other’s suffering, the mask is stripped away…& the flood of gratitude gifts us with an after-rain-washed-clean resting place…

who do you gift your story to?

There is a beautiful Tibetan myth that helps us to accept our sadness as a threshold to all that is life-changing & lasting. This myth affirms that all spiritual warriors have a broken heart- alas, must have a broken heart, because it is only through the break that the wonder & mysteries of life can enter us. Being a spiritual warrior is about the sincerity with which a soul faces itself in a daily way….Mark Nepo

luminous depths

To take full responsibility for ourselves is to discern the impact of our experience on all of life. The discovery of the truth about ourselves is not gained easily or cheaply. There is a price for growing up spiritually, & that is to discern clearly & take full responsiblity for our own internal & external world, particularly the aspects of our experience that we choose to leave just beneath consciousness. We must be willing to face illusions & limited ideas upon which we have hung our whole identity, to look at the many things within ourselves we would rather not see, to lose face & suffer the loss of our identities & dreams to whatever degree is required by the path…….Mariana Caplan

wow….heavy….a certain call to run away comes up with a directive such as this…a need to find the end of the line….no, not me….I just want to live a sweet & happy life….and yet….here we are….

wake me when it’s over?

You will see that in life you receive exactly what you give. Your life is the mirror of what you are. It is in your image…..The first requirement, the first condition, the first test for one who wishes to work on himself is to…see things in himself which he has never seen before, see them actually…And in order to see, he must learn to see; this is the first initiation of man into self-knowledge. But you will see that it is not easy. And it is not cheap. You must pay dearly…You must pay in advance. The more you are prepared to pay without economizing, without cheating, without any falsification, the more you will receive…….Jeanne de Salzmann

gentle space calling

The Word

Down near the bottom of the crossed-out list of things you have to do today,
between “green thread” and “broccoli” you find that you have penciled “sunlight.”
Resting on the page, the word is as beautiful, it touches you as if you had a friend
& sunlight were a present he had sent you from some place distant as this morning— to cheer you up,
& to remind you that, among your duties, pleasure is a thing,
that also needs accomplishing Do you remember? that time & light are kinds
of love, & love is no less practical than a coffee grinder
or a safe spare tire? Tomorrow you may be utterly without a clue
but today you get a telegram, from the heart in exile proclaiming that the kingdom
still exists, the king & queen alive, still speaking to their children,
…to any one among them who can find the time, to sit out in the sun & listen

…Tony Hoagland

oh, to just be for a day!….for an hour….for a moment….what does that mean anyway? do we know how to hum softly in a daydream? do we know how to contact our own longing?

I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date!

No time to say hello! Good-bye!

I’m late! I’m late! I’m late!

….The Mad Hatter

difference between seeing the bird & being the bird…

I wake clear & rested, light flooding my room. The day seems endless & free. But making coffee, I notice three bills I haven’t paid, & after showering, I notice I need a haircut, & since I’ll be out that way, I think I might as well pick up my shirts. But I so want to spend time in the sun. So I think, well, after these errands, I’ll go to the park, & then I deliberate which park will be just right & decide on one forty minutes away. Finally, wanting to make sure there is some fun in all of this, I call a friend & plan to meet her at a movie at six. Now I have to hurry along to make sure I can get eveywhere on time. But, thankful, while gassing up, I hear a small bird & lift my head just as a cloud opens & the light floods my mind, & I drop all my plans like change on the ground. I laugh at myself. I can so easily become a slave to a schedule I create. Not one of these things is necessary today. I drop everything & follow the bird into the sun…..Mark Nepo

life, like mancala...a game of hope & mystery...

I find you, Lord, in all Things & in all

my fellow creatures, pulsing with your life;

as a tiny seed you sleep in what is small

& in the vast you vastly yield yourself.

The wondrous game that power plays with Things

is to move in such submission through the world:

groping in roots & growing thick in trunks

& in treetops like a rising from the dead.

…Rilke

the promise of the spiritual quest is this…..to linger in the lightness of heart…an abiding awarensess….not cajoled into perfection….knowing the tranquil fearlessness which comes from breathing in the human condition….a life lived…..

longing for that place of grace & sureness…

Opening up the secret of our human nature, revealing to ourselves & to each other our deep & soulful longings, our fear & sadness, our joy & wonder, is the critical step on the spiritual path. It is the step that makes the difference between living our own, real spirituality & just acquiring someone else’s beliefs. We could say that the history of human suffering is our inability to come to terms with our spiritual hunger. Like one big cosmic joke, humans were born yearning, yet without the map to get ‘there.’ The source of our spiritual longing resides in a place deep within us. It is a quiet & faithful place that can become our most dependable friend when we learn to access its powerful wisdom…….Elizabeth Lesser

hope rooted...

Last night  I spent an hour in the dark transept of St. Patrick’s Cathedral where I go now & then in my more lonely moods. An old argument with me is that the true religious force in the world is not the church but the world itself: the mysterious callings of Nature & her response. In the cathedral I felt one presence; on the highway I felt another. The priest in me worshipped one God; the poet another God. The priest worshipped Mercy & Love; the poet, Beauty & Might. As I sat dreaming with humanity, I felt how the glittering altar worked on my senses stimulating & consoling; I went tramping through the fields & beheld every leaf & blade of grass revealing or betokening the Invisible……Wallace Stevens

it’s the awesomeness, the daunting past & the intricate human language of connection that calls us to bow our heads to cross & mountain….we find healing in the flickering candles, the tiny leaf, & the truth of the senses…

and yet, we can’t always reconcile our place…can’t allow love’s mysteries….we separate our God from each other…..remove our hearts from experience….disengage soul from faith….

Don’t you ever,

You up in the sky,

Don’t you ever get tired

Of having clouds between you & us?

….Nootka Prayer

let hope work its tiny miracles….

Music is being played to the cows in the milking barn. Rules have been made & confirmed: only sacred music is to be played to the cows, not ‘classical’ music. The music is to make the cows give more milk. The sacred music is to keep the brothers who work in the cow barn recollected. For sometime now sacred music has been played to the cows in the milking barn. They have not given more milk. The brothers have not been any more recollected than usual. I believe the cows will soon be hearing Beethoven. Then we shall have classical, perhaps worldly milk & the monastery will prosper. (Later: It was true. The hills resounded with Beethoven. The monastery has prospered. The brother mainly concerned with the music, however, has departed.)

…..Thomas Merton

buddhas & saints….where earth meets sky & water seeps ’round…

The Hindu scriptures say Self is self-luminous, vibrant energy & vigor, vitality, power, tranquility, wisdom, & love. This is who you really are. This is the inner self which is hidden at the center of life, it undergrids all our activities. We are encouraged to seek it out, to go for the inner place & ‘be still’ there. ‘Be still & know that I am God,’ say the Jewish scriptures. It is there you find Being-Awareness-Bliss, your true nature……Matthew Fox

are we really that pure? can we quiet ourselves enough? don’t you, like me, find deep resistance & yet feel completely intrigued by this idea of ‘waking up?’ does the ‘discursive intellect’ have to rule everything, all of the time? can the luminous imagination really un-grid our skepticism, just long enough to know the divine?

to un-grid, to look behind, be in you….

Consciousness is the highest word you will ever utter. It is pure awareness. What would it be like if your awareness didn’t exist? It’s actually pretty simple- you wouldn’t be there. There would be no sense of ‘me.’ And without awareness of being, there is nothing. If you are conscious, however, there can be nothing in front of you but you are fully aware that there is nothing. So now if I ask you, ‘Who are you?’ You answer, ‘I am the one who sees. From back in here somewhere, I look out, & I am aware of the events, thoughts, & emotions that pass before me.’ If you go very deep, that is where you live. A true spiritual being lives there, without effort & without intent. Behind all thoughts, & emotions, there you are. Now you are in the center of your consciousness. You are behind everything, your true home. The great mystery begins once you take that seat deep within…..Michael Singer

take me with you...

Awake

Waking today

just before winter

when I try to name the color of grasses,

how I feel of their beauty,

there is no word.

I think of the time before there were

words

when you would know morning mist

by the feel

of your loved one’s skin & hair,

& when someone came from the forest

of dry leaves

you would know by their scent

even if they carried no wood.

Or the heat of their body skin in summer.

Or if they came the winding way

down from the mountains

they would be covered in cloud

returning to the fold

or if they had gone farther, to the ocean,

you’d know them by their far-seeing eyes,

& when some travelers return

& are shining with light

you know, without saying, that they

have been

in touch with other worlds.

I have no wealth to speak of

other than this,

all this, just to praise the dry grasses

& their color that can’t be spoken

in words.

….Linda Hogan

there seems to be a deeper story to be told just under the surface of things….like polishing stones…we find our essential self when we allow the natural cycles of our lives to renew us…our continuity is trustworthy….

Under every deep a lower deep opens.

….Ralph Waldo Emerson

we seek…..

The story within & beneath the familiar story is almost always full of insight & possibility. It may take courage to go another level down, to abandon clarity, however illusory, for an unknown period of confusion & puzzlement. Our habitual stories usually protect us from the mystery of our lives. Whenever a story puts an end to reflection & further storytelling, that story is now serving as a defense. The poetics in a person’s story is its opening toward insight…..Thomas Moore

what are little boys made of? snips & snails & puppy dog tails...

Setting out is always a leap of faith, a risk in the deepest sense of the term, & yet an adventure too. None of us go into our spiritual maturity completely of our own accord, or by a totally free choice. We are led by ’mystery,’ rightly called grace. The familiar & the habitual are so falsely reassuring, & most of us make our homes there permanently. But the soul has many secrets. They are only revealed to those who want them, the ones who have heard some deep invitation to ‘something more,’  & set out to find it by grace & daring. One of the best kept secrets, yet hidden in plain sight, is that ’the way up is the way down.’  The central message of how spiritual growth happens is that we grow much more by doing it wrong than by doing it right……Richard Rohr

the beauty & wonderment of children comes from this concept….they innately know & are ok with this….their egos have not ripened into perfectionistic walls yet..they are willing to jump right in…explore with abandon….fall down….& laugh at themselves…..our instincts draw us to children to learn from them….to help us return to our natural state of grace which is pure in its imperfections….

find a kid & play while….

we discover love when we let go….love as a discovery, a surprise, a something much bigger than ourselves, a place of resilience we didn’t know we cradled in a tiny pocket of our heart…the innocence of children….an instinctual poetic power….

To live from a deep place is to go back or down to that origin of your life that is not in the least explained by the autobiographical myth…..Thomas Moore