The city trembled at the wolf

outside its gates, fangs

fierce, howling with hunger,

fur thick with blood.

Francis approaches softly,

palms open. When the wolf lunges 

his breath stays slow and steady,

looks with eyes of love,

smiles and bows

and the beast whimpers,

licks the monk’s salty face,

tail a brown banner waving,

and follows Francis

through the streets

like an old friend,

to the wonder of all.

Except perhaps it’s not

such a wonder that

when we open the gate

to all that is fierce

and fearful inside us,

when we hold our hands

like begging bowls,

our hearts like candles,

the wolf within will want

to lay its soft head

upon our laps and we see

there is no more wolf and me

just one wild love,

one wild hunger.

~Christine Valters Paintner

it’s ok to be wild and unkempt and undaunted…..

inquiry for today~ may you too, feel the heartbeat of your humanness….

this sweet underbelly of hope

In the end, it’s as if you have one foot in eternity and the other foot in the relative world. In eternity, it’s all connected sameness and it’s perfect, even with all its absolute horror and disaster, as well as beauty. There is something that is perfect about it—perfect, not as a philosophical statement, but as an experience of being. The other foot is in relative reality.

~Adyashanti