always new

The soul, like the moon,

is new, and always new again.

And I have seen the ocean

continuously creating.

Since I scoured my mind

and my body, I too, Lalla,

am new, each moment new.

My teacher told me one thing.

Live in the soul.

When that was so,

I began to go naked,

and dance.

~ Lalla

from Naked Song

translation by Coleman Barks

awareness is

Don't talk of different religions.

The one reality is everywhere,

not just in a Hindu, or a Muslim,

or anywhere else! Realize:

your awareness is

the truth about God.

~ Lalla

simply joy

There are seconds, they only come five or six at a time, 

and you suddenly feel the presence of eternal harmony, 

fully achieved. It is nothing earthly; not that it's heavenly,

 but man cannot endure it in his earthly state. 

One must change physically or die. 

The feeling is clear and indisputable. 

As if you suddenly sense the whole of nature and

 suddenly say: yes, this is true. 

This is not tenderheartedness, but simply joy.

~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

from The Devils found in 

Collection of the best works of Fyodor Dostoevsky

.

remembering now

.

 

 

You think you will never forget any of this, you will remember

 it always just the way it was. But you can't remember it the way it was. 

To know it, you have to be living in the presence of it right as it is happening.

 It can return only by surprise.

 

 Speaking of these things tells you that there are no words for them

 that are equal to them or that can restore them to your mind.

 And so you have a life that you are living only now,

now and now and now, gone before you can speak of it, 

and you must be thankful for living day by day,

 moment by moment, in this presence.

.

But you have a life too that you remember. It stays with you. 

You have lived a life in the breath and pulse and living light of the present,

 and your memories of it, remember now, are of a different life in a different world and time.

 When you remember the past, you are not remembering it as it was. 

You are remembering it as it is.

 It is a vision or a dream, present with you in the present,

 alive with you in the only time you are alive.

.

~ Wendell Berry

it is enough

.

.

It is enough that one surrenders oneself. 

Surrender is to give oneself up to the original cause of one's being. 

Do not delude yourself by imagining such a source to be some God outside you. 

One's source is within oneself. 

Give yourself up to it. 

.

...

~ Ramana Maharshi


.

.

water, forms and forces

 

 

 

 

 
Christopher Tin: Live at Cadogan Hall - Waloyo Yamon

 

 

Water is one of the most powerful forces in the world. It creates life and brings about death, and it has the power to shape the face of the earth. Water means different things to different cultures, and I wanted to explore this in The Drop That Contained the Sea. Each piece is inspired by water in a different form, arranged in the order that water flows through the world: melting snow, mountain streams, rivers, the ocean, and so forth. And like Calling All Dawns, the end of the album flows back into the beginning, reflecting the endless nature of the water cycle. Each of the 10 pieces is also sung in a different language, exploring a different vocal tradition: Bulgarian women's choirs, Mongolian throat singing, and Portuguese fado, to name just a few.

 

 

 

The album features an all-star collection of international classical and world music artists, including Soweto Gospel Choir, Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, Dulce Pontes, Anonymous 4, Schola Cantorum, Kardes Türküler, Nominjin, Roopa Mahadevan, Angel City Chorale, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Christopher Tin).

 

 with thanks to love is a place

 

 

 

 

 

antidote

You and I are not only here in terms of the work we’re doing on ourselves.

 We are here in terms of the role we’re playing within the systems of which we are a part,

 if you look at the way change affects people that are unconscious.

Change generates fear, fear generates contractions,

 contraction generates prejudice, bigotry, and ultimately violence.

 You can watch the whole thing happen, and you can see it happen

 in society after society after society.

The antidote for that is a consciousness that does not respond to change with fear.

 

~ Ram Dass

standing up

In a split second of hard thought, I managed to catch her. 

 I stopped, holding the hen in my hands.  Strange,

 she didn't really feel living: rigid, dry, 

and old white plume-ridden lady's hat that shrieked out the truths of 1912.  

Thunder in the air.  An odor rose from the fence-boards,

 as when you open a photo album that has got so old

 that no one can identify the people any longer.

I carried her back inside the chicken netting and let her go. 

 All of a sudden she came back to life, she knew who she was,

 and ran off according to the rules.  Hen-yards are thick with taboos. 

 But the earth all around is full of affection and tenacity.  

A low stone wall half-overgrown with leaves.  

When dusk begins to fall the stones are faintly luminous 

with the hundred-year-old warmth from the hands that built it.

It's been a hard winter, but summer is here and the fields want us to walk upright. 

 Every man unimpeded, but careful, as when you stand up in a small boat. 

 I remember a day in Africa: on the banks of the Chari, there were many boats, 

an atmosphere positively friendly, the men almost blue-black in color 

with three parallel scars on each cheek (meaning the Sara tribe). 

 I am welcomed on a boat - it's a canoe hollowed from a dark tree.  

The canoe is incredibly wobbly, even when you sit on your heels.  A balancing act.

  If you have the heart on the left side you have to lean a bit to the right, 

nothing in the pockets, no big arm movements, please, all rhetoric has to be left behind.  

Precisely: rhetoric is impossible here. 

 The canoe glides out over the water.

~ Tomas Transtromer

from The Half-Finished Heaven

translation by Robert Bly

Photo by Will Baxter/CRS

the vase

I am always holding a priceless vase in my hands.

If you asked me about the deeper truths

of the path and I told you

the answers,

it would be like handing sacred relics to you.

But most have their hands tied

behind their

backs;

that is, most are not free of events their eyes have seen

and their ears have heard

and their bodies have felt.

Most cannot focus their abilities

in the present, and 

might drop what 

I said.

So I'll wait; I don't mind waiting until

your love for all

makes luminous

the now.

~ Rabia

(c. 717-801)

translation by Daniel Ladinsky

the sail just needs to open

.

.

On a day

when the wind is perfect,

the sail just needs to open and the world is full of beauty.

Today is such a

day.

My eyes are like the sun that makes promises;

the promise of life

that it always

keeps

each morning.

The living heart gives to us as does that luminous sphere,

both caress the earth with great

tenderness.

This is a breeze that can enter the soul.

This love I know plays a drum. Arms move around me;

who can contain their self before my beauty?

Peace is wonderful,

but ecstatic dance is more fun, and less narcissistic;

gregarious He makes our lips.

On a day when the wind is perfect,

the sail just needs to open

and the love starts.

Today is such

a day.

~ Rumi 

from Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West

translations by Daniel Ladinsky

.

begin to see through

When you take the time to draw on your listening-imagination, 

you will begin to hear this gentle voice at the heart of your life.

 

 It is deeper and surer than all the other voices 

of disappointment, unease, self-criticism and bleakness. 

All holiness is about learning to hear the voice of your own soul.

 It is always there and the more deeply you learn to listen, 

the greater surprises and discoveries that will unfold. 

 

To enter into the gentleness of your own soul

 changes the tone and quality of your life. 

Your life is no longer consumed by hunger for the next event,

 experience or achievement. You learn to come down 

from the treadmill and walk on the earth. 

You gain a new respect for yourself and others 

and you learn to see how wonderfully precious this one life is. 

You begin to see through the enchanting veils of illusion 

that you had taken for reality. You no longer squander yourself 

on things and situations that deplete your essence. 

You know now that your true source is not outside you. 

 

Your soul is your true source and a new energy

 and passion awakens in you. 

~ John O'Donohue

from Beauty, The Invisible Embrace

 

 

I am wondering

I could not lie anymore so I started to call my dog "God,"

First he looked 

confused,

then he started smiling, then he even

danced.

I kept at it: now he doesn't even

bite.

I am wondering if this

might work on

people?

~ Tukaram

from Love Poems from God:
Twelve Voices from East and West
by Daniel Ladinsky

if you have listened

 

 

When you listen you reach

into dark corners and

pull out your wonders.

When you listen your

ideas come in and out

like they were waiting in line.

Your ears don’t always listen.

It can be your brain, your

fingers, your toes.

You can listen anywhere.

Your mind might not want to go.

If you can listen you can find

answers to questions you didn’t know.

If you have listened, truly

listened, you don’t find your

self alone.

 

 

 

 

~  Nick Penna, fifth grade

(from:  Poetic Medicine by John Fox)

 art by Joe Villion

 

 

 

 

there is a kindness

There is a kindness that dwells deep down in things; it presides everywhere,
 often in the places we least expect. The world can be harsh and negative,
 but if we remain generous and patient, kindness inevitably reveals itself. 
Something deep in the human soul seems to depend on the presence of kindness;
 something instinctive in us expects it, and once we sense it we are able to trust
 and open ourselves. Here in Connemara, the mountains are terse and dark; 
left to themselves they would make for a brooding atmosphere. However,
 everywhere around and in between there are lakes. The surface of these lakes
 takes on the variations of the surrounding light to create 
subtle diffusion's of color. Thus their presence qualifies the whole landscape
 with a sense of warmth and imagination. If we did not feel that some ultimate kindness
 holds sway, we would feel like outsiders confronted on every side by a world 
toward which we could make no real bridges.


The word kindness has a gentle sound that seems to echo the presence
 of compassionate goodness. When someone is kind to you, you feel understood
 and seen. There is no judgment or harsh perception directed toward you.
 Kindness has gracious eyes; it is not small-minded or competitive;
 it wants nothing back for itself. Kindness strikes a resonance with the depths
 of your own heart; it also suggests that your vulnerability,
 though somehow exposed, is not taken advantage of; 
rather, it has become an occasion for dignity and empathy.
 Kindness casts a different light, an evening light that has the depth
 of color and patience to illuminate what is complex and rich in difference.

Despite all the darkness, human hope is based on the instinct 
that at the deepest level of reality some intimate kindness holds sway.
 This is the heart of blessing. To believe in blessing is to believe
 that our being here, our very presence in the world, is itself the first gift,
 the primal blessing. As Rilke says: Hier zu sein ist so viel 
— to be here is immense. Nowhere does the silence of the infinite
 lean so intensely as around the form of a newly born infant. 
Once we arrive, we enter into the inheritance of everything that has preceded us;
 we become heirs to the world. To be born is to be chosen. To be created 
and come to birth is to be blessed. Some primal kindness chose us
 and brought us through the forest of dreaming until we could emerge
 into the clearance of individuality, with a path of life
 opening before us through the world.

The beginning often holds the clue to everything that follows. 
Given the nature of our beginning, it is no wonder that our hearts are imbued
 with longing for beauty, meaning, order, creativity, compassion, and love, 
We approach the world with this roster of longings and expect 
that in some way the world will respond and confirm our desire. 
Our longing knows it cannot force the fulfillment of its desire; 
yet it does instinctively expect that primal benevolence to respond to it.
 This is the threshold where blessing comes alive.

~ John O'Donohue

from To Bless the Space Between Us

photo by Ami Vitale

by presence

.

The teacher teaches by presence. 

The language of presence is 

more powerful than all the verbalizations 

from all the languages from the world put together. 

It is the eloquence of existence. 

If you allow life to become your teacher, it teaches. 

But if you turn to books 

and want to know whether it be duality or non-duality, 

one god or many, one creator, or two, etc., 

if you turn to books and theories, 

if you want to dig into the past and base your perception on that, 

then the opportunity to live first hand would be missed.

~ Vimala Thakar

from Growing into Wholeness