to catch a look at yourself

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I

I flinch from something that shuffles slantwise through sleet,
A fragment of what is to come.
A wall broken loose. Something without eyes. Hard.
A face of teeth!
A lone wall. Or is the house there
although I do not see it?
The Future: an army of empty houses
that grope their way ahead through sleet.

II

Two truths approach each other. One comes from within,
one comes from without--and where they meet you have the chance
to catch a look at yourself.
Noticing what is about to happen, you shout desperately: "Stop!
Anything, anything, as long as I don't have to know myself."
And there is a boat that wants to put in--tries to, right here--
it will try again thousands of times.
Out of the forest's dark comes a long boat hook
that's pushed through the open window
among the party guests who have danced themselves warm.

III

The apartment I've lived in most of my life is to be evacuated. It's already
emptied of everything. The anchor has let go--but despite the mournful
air it's still the lightest apartment in the city. Truth needs no furniture.
I've gone one round on life's circle and come back to the starting point: a
bare room. Scenes from my early life take shape on the walls like Egyptian
paintings inside a burial chamber. But they are fading. The light is too
strong. The windows have enlarged. The empty apartment is a big tele-
scope pointed at the sky. It's as quiet here as a Quaker meeting. Nothing
heard b ut the pigeons of the backyards, their cooings.

 

 

 

 

 

~ Tomas Transtromer

   Preludes

 art by Picasso

 

 

unlock the fullness of life

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.

 It turns what we have into enough, and more. 

It turns denial into acceptance,

 chaos to order, confusion to clarity.

 

 It can turn a meal into a feast, 

a house into a home, 

a stranger into a friend. 

 

Gratitude makes sense of our past,

 brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 ~ Melody Beattie

with thanks to Heron Dance Art Journal

shoreline of the magnificent

 

 

 

 

 

The visible world is only the shoreline of the magnificent
ocean of the invisible. The invisible is not empty, but is
textured and tense with presences [energies]. These
presences cannot be named; they can only be sensed, not seen.

When you name a dimension of your experience, one of your
qualities or difficulties...you give it an identity. It then responds
to you according to the tone of its name...

The wildness of the invisible world is nameless. It has no name.
A first step towards reawakening respect for your inner life
may be to become aware of the private collage of dead names
you have for your inner life. 

 

Often the experiences of
wilderness can return us to the nameless wildness within.
Sometimes, go away to a wild place of your own. Leave
your name and the grid of intentions and projects and images
which mark you out as citizen Z. Leave it all and let yourself
just slip back into the rhythms of your intimate wildness.[rhythm]

 
You will be surprised at the lost terrains, wells, and mountains
that you will rediscover, territories which have been buried
under well-meant but dead names. To go beyond confinement
is to rediscover yourself.

 

 

 

 

John O'Donohue
from Eternal Echoes

with thanks to Mystic Meandering

 

 

 

 

an unexpected visitor, a joy, a depression, a meanness

.

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival,
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
Some momentary awareness come 

As an unexpected visitor,
Welcome and entertain them all,
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows
Who violently sweep your house
Empty of its furniture,
Still, treat each guest honorably 

They may be clearing you out
For some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the shame, the malice,
Meet them at the door laughing
And invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
Because each has been sent
As a guide from above.


.
~ Rumi

.

what matters

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~ Rick Hanson

 

 

 

 

words

Being tired of people who come with words, but no speech,

I made my way to the snow-covered island.

 

The wild does not have words.

The pages free of handwriting stretched out on all sides!

I came upon the tracks of reindeer in the snow.

Speech but no words.

~ Tomas Transtromer

translation by Robert Bly

from The Half-Finished Heaven

allegro

I play Haydn after a black day

and feel a simple warmth in my hands.

The keys are willing. Soft hammers strike.

The resonance green, lively and calm.

The music says freedom exists

and someone doesn't pay the emperor tax.

I push down my hands in my Haydnpockets

and imitate a person looking on the world calmly.

I hoist the Haydnflag - it signifies:

"We don't give in. But want peace.'

The music is a glass-house on the slope

where the stones fly, the stones roll.

And the stones roll right through

but each pane stays whole.

~ Tomas Transtromer

from New Collected Poems

translated by Robin Fulton

making it right: a prophecy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The duty of a musician is for us to take anything that

happens on stage and make it part of the music.

 

~ Herbie Hancock 

 

 

No wrong notes in jazz, said the musician

and the poet insisted, no wrong words,

No wrong leaf, said the tree,

and field said, no wrong grass.

No wrong time, promised the friend,

and the river said, no wrong rock.

And the heart said, no wrong love,

but the mind said, no, that's wrong.

And the wrong love replanted itself like grass

and grew wild in all the wrong places

like a gorgeous weed, like a tap-rooted song

until the whole field was beautifully wrong, wrong.

 

 

 

~ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

from All the Honey

 

 

 

grace

"What is grace?" I asked God.
And He said,

"All that happens."

Then He added, when I looked perplexed,

"Could not lovers
say that every moment in their Beloved's arms
was grace?

Existence is my arms,
though I well understand how one can turn
away from
me,
until the heart has
wisdom."

 

~ Saint John of the Cross

in everything...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I seek to reach the innermost part of myself...

One thing no longer existed for him, the wish to have teachers
and to listen to teachings.

He asked himself - "But what is this, what you have sought to
learn from teachings and from teachers, and what they, who
have taught you much, were still unable to teach you?" And
he found: "It was the self, the purpose and essence of which
I sought to learn. It was the self I wanted to free myself from,
which I sought to overcome. But I was not able to overcome
it, could only deceive it, could only flee from it, only hide from
it.

No thing in this world has kept my thoughts thus busy, as this
my very own self, this mystery of one being one and being
separated... And there is nothing I know less about... I know
nothing about myself! I searched Atman, I searched Brahman,
I was willing to dissect myself and pull off all of its layers, to
find the core of all peels in its unknown interior, the Atman, life
the divine part, the ultimate part. But I have lost myself in the
process. I do not want to kill and dissect myself any longer, to
find a secret behind the ruins.

I want to get to know myself, the secret of Siddhartha.

[The beauty of this world] was no longer the veil of Maya, was
no longer a pointless coincidental diversity of mere appearance,
despicable to the deeply thinking Brahman, who scorns diversity
who seeks unity, but the beauty was also in Siddhartha, the singular
and the divine lived hidden - the purpose and the essential
properties were not somewhere behind the things, they were in
them, in everything...



~  Hermann Hesse

from: Siddhartha

with thanks to Mystic Meandering

 

 

 

the self you leave behind

 

 

 

 

 

 

The self you leave behind
is only a skin you have outgrown.

 
Don't grieve for it.
Look to the wet, raw, unfinished
self, the one you are becoming.
The world, too, sheds its skin:
politicians, cataclysms, ordinary days.

 
It's easy to lose this tenderly
unfolding moment. Look for it
as if it were the first green blade
after a long winter. Listen for it
as if it were the first clear tone
in a place where dawn is heralded by bells.

And if all that fails,

wash your own dishes.
Rinse them.
Stand in your kitchen at your sink.
Let cold water run between your fingers.
Feel it.

 

 

 

 

 ~  Pat Schneider

 from  Olive Street Transfer

with thanks to Poetry Chaikhana

how healing comes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Healing comes less like a falcon

            with mighty wings,

                        and more like an earthworm

            that slowly, slowly moves

beneath it all, tightening up,

            then stretching out, tightening up

                        and stretching out, a simple

            two-part rhythm. Some days,

that is all the body can do.

            Contract. Expand. Contract. Expand.

                        In the meantime, through this

            artless act, what is dense

becomes porous.

            In the meantime, what is stuck

                        and clotted gets moved around.

            What is dead passes through,

is processes by the grit inside.

            There are tunnels now in the soil of me,

                        thin channels of recovery-

            a blessed loosening,

a gradual renewal, It's unhurried, but

            I feel it, the air, the rain

                        the life coming in.

 

 

 

 

 

~ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

    from All the Honey 

 

 

 

 

filling my purse with commas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All afternoon, each time

I think I should hurry,

I pull out a comma,

 

such humble punctuation,

and I invite it into the moment,

and the comma does

 

what it always does, which

is to invite a pause, a small pause,

of course, but a pause long enough

 

to breathe, to notice what else

is happening, a slight

suggestion that right here

 

is a perfect place to rest,

yes, how funny I never noticed

before that the comma itself

 

looks as if it;s bowing, nodding

its small dark head to what is,

encouraging us to find 

 

a brief silence and then,

thus refreshed, go on. 

 

 

 

 

~ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

from All the Honey

 art by Mori Yuzan

 

 

  

our relationship with ourself

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How would you describe the current of energy, the life force inside you, 

that is seeking to grow? Our most important relationship is our relationship with ourself,

 with our interior world. What do you do to nurture that relationship?

 How you nurture that relationship will determine the quality of your life.

 

 What we call fate does not come to us from outside;

 it goes forth from within us. 

 

 

 

 

 ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

 

 

 

 

 

I have no parents

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have no parents:
I make the heaven and earth my parents.

I have no home:
I make awareness my home.

I have no life and death:
I make the tides of breathing my life and death.

I have no divine powers:
I make honesty my divine power.

I have no means:
I make understanding my means.

I have no secrets:
I make character my secret.

I have no body:
I make endurance my body.

I have no eyes:
I make the flash of lightening my eyes.

I have no ears:
I make sensibility my ears.

I have no limbs:
I make promptness my limbs.

I have no strategy:
I make "unshadowed by thought" my strategy.

I have no design:
I make "seizing opportunity by the forelock" my design.

I have no miracles:
I make right action my miracle.

I have no principles:
I make adaptability to all circumstances my principle.

I have no tactics:
I make emptiness and fullness my tactics.

I have no talent:
I make ready wit my talent.

I have no friends:
I make my mind my friend.

I have no enemy:
I make carelessness my enemy.

I have no armor:
I make benevolence and righteousness my armor.

I have no castle:
I make immovable mind my castle.

I have no sword:
I make absence of self my sword.





 ~ anonymous samurai song 

 14th century

 

 

I have no Parents; I make the Heavens and the Earth my Parents.
We are all from the same origin and we are all learning from the same source of knowledge: the universe.

I have no Home; I make the Tan T’ien my Home.
The Tan T’ien is considered to be the true center of the body regarding strength and balance. Making this my home, I am always at home, no matter where I am physically. It is also a place to be away from distractions, both from the world and from thoughts. It is where feeling and instinct are most powerful.

I have no Divine Power; I make Honesty my Divine Power.
Complete honesty under all circumstances is something only divine creatures are capable of. For me, to strive for honesty is one big step closer to be a better human being. I understand honesty as not to lie to myself or to other people.

I have no Means; I make Docility my Means.
Assets or utilities are not essential for me, I can do without them. I overcome obstacles by having a mind that is willing to learn and willing to be taught.

I have no Magic Power; I make Personality my Magic Power.
My personality is unique. Its magic is sometimes obvious, sometimes surprising, and sometimes hidden to be discovered.

I have neither Life nor Death; I make A Um my Life and Death.
A Um is the eternal soul. To something that is eternal, life and death do not matter, they are mere steps from one state to the other. 

I have no Body; I make Stoicism my Body.
My body is subject to pain and other physical “distractions”. If stoicism is my body, I am indifferent to the shortcomings of my flesh. What really counts is my mental attitude which will eventually overcome my body’s weaknesses.

I have no Eyes; I make The Flash of Lightning my eyes.
I do not trust things just because I can see them, because my visual senses are easily deceived. The flash of lightning is some kind of first impression, a gut-feeling, or my instinct about a certain situation. I try to trust these more than what I can see.

I have no Ears; I make Sensibility my Ears.
This is rather similar to the previous one. Things do not become facts just because I can hear them. It is more important what happens in my mind to the heard: I process what I hear, think about it, and weigh it with experience. Thus, I do have an opinion about it most of the time.

I have no Limbs; I make Promptitude my Limbs.
It is not really my arms and my legs that get me where I want. It is my decision to get there right now, which gets me there. I try to do important things without any delay.

I have no Laws; I make Self-Protection my Laws.
In the end, nearly all comes down to self-protection. This is the universal law that governs everything. While I think this is some kind of fact, I also think that one should try to overcome this basic law. There are people we cannot live without, there’s family and other loved ones. They build up a context where self-protection does not matter any more. Though this is a weakness, it is a necessary one and one I embrace.

I have no Strategy; I make the Right to Kill and the Right to Restore Life my Strategy.
The underlying strategy of my life is that everything counts. God or the Devil is in the details, as many details might have the power to save my life or to destroy it.

I have no Designs; I make Seizing the Opportunity by the Forelock my Designs.
I have no secret plans. I try to make the best out of the opportunities life offers me, as I cannot control life.

I have no Miracles; I make Righteous Laws my Miracle.
I cannot do miracles. But as it is really hard to be a good human being, I consider it my miracle that I stick to traditional virtues such as honor or honesty.

I have no Principles; I make Adaptability to all circumstances my Principle.
I accept and embrace change. Many things in life are unchangeable and therefore it is not wise to try to stick to strict pseudo-universal principles. I am ready to question myself and to adapt to new situations. I am agile. I am change.

I have no Tactics; I make Emptiness and Fullness my Tactics.
This seems to be contradictory. To achieve a goal, I have to empty myself from any prejudices and other external influences. An empty mind is a mind before thinking, before speaking, before words, a mind at home, relying on instinct (see above). This emptiness is necessary to build up a fascination for the new and to have space that can be filled with ideas and knowledge concerning the goal. (This idea is also discussed in Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” and in Buddhism.)

I have no Talent; I make Ready Wit my Talent.
Talents are mostly bound to specific tasks. If I have a ready mind that adapts to new tasks quickly, I am not limited by this constraint.

I have no Friends; I make my Mind my Friend.
The first and foremost person I have to become friends with is myself. I am much more powerful if I am happy with myself, if I can trust myself, and if I really know and understand myself.

I have no Enemy; I make Incautiousness my Enemy.
Not other people are my worst enemies, but myself. If I do things in a sloppy way, hastily, if I am not paying attention to the details, if I am betraying myself, if I do not know what I can do and what not: these things will harm me. Trying to do my best at all times is my protection against this enemy.

I have no Armour; I make Benevolence my Armour.
This can be seen in two ways. First, being benevolent, I probably make more friends than enemies and this saves me a lot of trouble. Second, being benevolent poses no threat to other people and, thus, might make an armor unnecessary.

I have no Castle; I make Immovable Mind my Castle.
A castle is a place to hide, a place to gather strength. As it is a common theme in this creed, this is not a physical place, but a place within me. The “immovable mind” (the translation can also mean the “immovable heart”) is immovable in respect to its focus. This focus should be in my inner, natural self and be free of corrupting influences such as anger, fear, or doubt. Within the self, the focus is flexible and not fixed on one particular attribute of the self. This whole idea is heavily connected to the concept of emptiness and fullness, as outlined above.

I have no Sword; I make No Mind my Sword.
And again, this is also very related to the concept of emptiness and fullness and to rely on instinct. Striving for emptiness, the point where I do not think anymore, where I really am…this state of the mind is considered to be the most powerful one, the state I am capable of the most difficult tasks. (This idea is discussed further in Zen and especially in Miyamoto Musashi’s “A Book of Five Rings”.)

 

 This is merely a brief start to finding a meaning for the creed.

 

 

 

 Comments by André Miede