Wednesday, October 30, 2024

insecurity and violence



Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.

Herein lies the peace of God.


~ from the introduction to a course in miracles




The major cause of violence, I think, 
is that each one of us is inwardly, psychologically, 
seeking security. 

In each one of us the urge for psychological security
 that inward sense of being safe -projects the demand, 
the outward demand, for security. 

Inwardly each one of us wants to be secure, sure, certain. 
That is why we have all these marriage laws; 
in order that we may possess a woman, or a man,
 and so be secure in our relationship.

 If that relationship is attacked we become violent, 
which is the psychological demand, the inward demand,
to be certain of our relationship to everything.
 But there is no such thing as certainty, security, in any relationship. 
Inwardly, psychologically, we should like to be secure,
 but there is no such thing as permanent security.

So all these are the contributory causes of the violence that is prevalent, 
rampaging, throughout the world. I think anybody who has observed, 
even if only a little, what is going on in the world, 
and especially in this unfortunate country, can also, 
without a great deal of intellectual study, 
observe and find out in himself those things which,
 projected outwardly, are the causes of this extraordinary brutality, 
callousness, indifference, violence.





~ J. Krishnamurti
from The Book of Life



thirst and ... mirage






The appearance of water in a mirage persists after the fact
 that it is a mirage has dawned on us. 
So it is with the world. 

Though knowing it to be unreal,
 it continues to manifest - 
but we do not try to satisfy our thirst
 with the water of the mirage. 

As soon as one knows that it is a mirage, 
one gives it up as useless and does not run after it to get water. 




~ Ramana Maharshi




daydreaming





I believe that the root of evil,
in everybody perhaps,
but, certainly in those whom
affliction has touched,
is daydreaming.
It is the sole consolation,
the unique resource of the afflicted;
the one solace that helps them bear
the fearful burden to time;
and a very innocent one,
besides being indispensable.
So how could it be possible to renounce it?
It has only one disadvantage,
which is that it is unreal.
To renounce it for the love of truth
is really to abandon all one's possessions
in a mad excess of love and follow Him
who is the personification of Truth.
And it is really to bear the cross;
because time is the cross.
In all its forms without exception,
daydreaming is falsehood.
It excludes love. Love is real.



~ Simone Weil
from for lovers of god everywhere
poems of the Christian mystics
by roger housden
art by picasso

.
  Daydreaming - not the activity of having thoughts, 
but allowing one's attention to get lost in them -
 is an obstacle to presence, an obstacle to love 
which exists only in presence, an obstacle to
 our embrace of the fullness of life,  and to 
contemplative practices in all traditions..



.


Saturday, October 26, 2024

the tree of love






....

I said to God, “Let me love you.”
And he replied, “Which part?”

“All of you, all of you.” I said.

“Dear” God spoke, “You are as a mouse wanting to impregnate
a tiger who is not even in heat. It is a feat way
beyond your courage and strength.
You would run from me
if I removed my
mask.”

I said to God again,

“Beloved I need to love you – every aspect, every pore.”

And this time God said,

“There is a hideous blemish on my body,
though it is such an infinitesimal part of my Being-
could you kiss that if it were revealed?”

“I will try, Lord, I will try.”

And then God said,
“That blemish is all the hatred and
cruelty in this
world.”



~  Saint Thomas Aquinas
from Love Poems from God, by Daniel Ladinsky


abandon







.
.

The rain has stopped,
the clouds have drifted away,
and the weather is clear again.
If your heart is pure,
then all things in your world are pure.
Abandon this fleeting world,
abandon yourself,
then the moon and the flowers
will guide you along the way.
.


~ Ryokan
photo by  Hideyuki Katagiri

.

Friday, October 25, 2024

the voice under all silences






being to timelessness as it's to time,
love did no more begin than love will end;
where nothing is to breathe to stroll to swim
love is the air the ocean and the land

(do lovers suffer?all divinities
proudly descending put on deathful flesh:
are lovers glad?only their smallest joy's
a universe emerging from a wish)

love is the voice under all silences,
the hope which has no opposite in fear;
the strength so strong mere force is feebleness:
the truth more first than sun more last than star

-do lovers love?why then to heaven with hell.
Whatever sages say and fools,all's well




~ e.e.cummings
photo by Eliot Porter



Wednesday, October 23, 2024

sighs from the deep sea of affection







I am dotted silver threads dropped from heaven 
By the gods. Nature then takes me, to adorn 
Her fields and valleys. 

I am beautiful pearls, plucked from the 
Crown of Ishtar by the daughter of Dawn 
To embellish the gardens. 

When I cry the hills laugh; 
When I humble myself the flowers rejoice; 
When I bow, all things are elated. 

The field and the cloud are lovers 
And between them I am a messenger of mercy. 
I quench the thirst of one; 
I cure the ailment of the other. 

The voice of thunder declares my arrival; 
The rainbow announces my departure. 
I am like earthly life, which begins at 
The feet of the mad elements and ends 
Under the upraised wings of death. 

I emerge from the heard of the sea 
Soar with the breeze. When I see a field in 
Need, I descend and embrace the flowers and 
The trees in a million little ways. 

I touch gently at the windows with my 
Soft fingers, and my announcement is a 
Welcome song. All can hear, but only 
The sensitive can understand. 

The heat in the air gives birth to me, 
But in turn I kill it, 
As woman overcomes man with 
The strength she takes from him. 

I am the sigh of the sea; 
The laughter of the field; 
The tears of heaven. 

So with love - 
Sighs from the deep sea of affection; 
Laughter from the colorful field of the spirit; 
Tears from the endless heaven of memories.





~ Kahlil Gibran
from Tears and Laughter




greet yourself in your thousand other forms







Leave the familiar for a while.
Let your senses and bodies stretch out


Like a welcomed season
Onto the meadows and shores and hills.
Open up to the Roof.
Make a new water-mark on your excitement
And love.
Like a blooming night flower,
Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness
And giving
Upon our intimate assembly.
Change rooms in your mind for a day.
All the hemispheres in existence
Lie beside an equator
In your heart.
Greet Yourself
In your thousand other forms
As you mount the hidden tide and travel
Back home.
All the hemispheres in heaven
Are sitting around a fire
Chatting
While stitching themselves together
Into the Great Circle inside of
You.
.


~ Hafiz


Sunday, October 20, 2024

few are willing








To deliver oneself up,
to hand oneself over,
entrust oneself completely to the silence
of a wide landscape of woods and hills,
or sea and desert; to sit still while
the sun comes up over the land
and fills its silences with light.

...few are willing to belong completely
to such silence, to let it soak into their bones,
to breathe nothing but silence, to feed
on silence, and to turn the very substance of their life
into a living and vigilant silence.





~ Thomas Merton
from Thoughts in Solitude





Saturday, October 19, 2024

life which makes us strangers

 





life is other, always there,
further off, beyond you and
beyond me, always on the horizon,
life which unlives us and makes us strangers,
that invents our face and wears it away

...

I heard my blood, singing in its prison,
and the sea sang with a murmur of light,
one by one the walls gave way,
all of the doors were broken down,
and the sun came bursting through my forehead,
it tore apart my closed lids,
cut loose my being from its wrappers,
and pulled me out of myself to wake me
from this animal sleep and its centuries of stone




~ Octavio Paz
from Sunstone/Piedra De Sol



Thursday, October 17, 2024

for the Lobaria, Usnea, Witches Hair, Map Lichen, Beard Lichen, Ground Lichen, Shield Lichen





Back then, what did I know?
The names of subway lines, buses.
How long it took to walk twenty blocks.

Uptown and downtown.
Not north, not south, not you.

When I saw you, later, seaweed reefed in the air,
you were gray-green, incomprehensible, old.
What you clung to, hung from: old.
Trees looking half-dead, stones.

Marriage of fungi and algae,
chemists of air,
changers of nitrogen-unusable into nitrogen-usable.

Like those nameless ones
who kept painting, shaping, engraving
unseen, unread, unremembered.
Not caring if they were no good, if they were past it.

Rock wools, water fans, earth scale, mouse ears, dust,
ash-of-the-woods.
Transformers unvalued, uncounted.
Cell by cell, word by word, making a world they could live in




~ Jane Hirshfield
from Come, Thief



Wednesday, October 16, 2024

in the melody of silence

 






In the melody of silence,
Each note is a prayer,
Each break, a return to the Source.
Those who have passed through the tempests of ego,
And the torments of the spirit,
Know that this music is not found in the noise of the world,
But in inner quietude,
Where heaven and earth meet,
In the sacred union of being and non-being.


The melody of silence is the voice of Love,
Who speaks without words,
Who touches without touching,
Who kisses without hugging.
It is the melody that the prophets heard in their hearts,
When they were alone with the Beloved,
When the night enveloped the world,
And the whole cosmos seemed to hold its breath,
Waiting for the Light to reveal itself.

 

~ from the Quran, 
65:3,  55:1-4
with thanks to No Mind's Land

Tuesday, October 15, 2024

noninterference and surrender







On a farm you learn to respect nature, 
particularly for the wisdom of its dark underworld.  
When you sow things in the spring, 
you commit them to the darkness of the soil.  
The soil does its own work.  

It is destructive to interfere with the rhythm and wisdom of its darkness.  
You sow drills of potatoes on Tuesday and you are delighted with them.  
You meet someone on a Wednesday who says 
that you spread the potatoes too thickly, you will have no crop.  

You dig up the potatoes again and spread them more thinly.  

On the following Monday, you meet an agricultural advisor who says 
this particular variety of seed potatoes needs to be spread close together.
  
You dig them up again and set them closer to each other.  

If you keep scraping at the garden, you will never allow anything to grow.  
People in our hungry modern world are always scraping at the clay of their hearts.  
They have a new thought, a new plan, a new syndrome, that now explains why 
they are the way they are.  They have found an old memory that opens a new wound.  
They keep on relentlessly, again and again, scraping the clay away from their own hearts.  
In nature we do not see the trees, for instance, getting seriously involved in therapeutic analysis 
of their root systems or the whole stony world that they had to avoid on their way to the light.  
Each tree grows in two directions at once, into the darkness and out to the light 
with as many branches and roots as it needs to embody its wild desires...

It is wise to allow the soul to carry on its secret work in the night side of your life.  
You might not see anything stirring for a long time.  
You might have only the slightest intimations 
of the secret growth that is happening within you, 
but these intimations are sufficient.




~ John O'Donohue
from Anam Cara


when you want to bow to the past








Today, in conversation,
the past
cropped up,
my past.
Sleazy
incidents
indulged,
vacuous
episodes,
spoiled flour,
dust.
You crouch down,
gently
sink
into yourself,
you smile,
congratulate yourself,
but
when it's a matter
of someone else, some friend,
some enemy,
then
you are merciless,
you frown:
What a terrible life he had!
That woman, what a life
she led!
You hold
your nose,
visibly
you disapprove of pasts
other than your own.
Looking back, we view
our worst days
with nostalgia,
cautiously
we open the coffer
and run up the ensign
of our feats
to be admired.
Let's forget the rest.
Just a bad memory.
Listen and learn.
Time
is divided into two rivers:
one
flows backward, devouring
life already lived;
the other
moves forward with you
exposing
your life.
For a single second
they may be joined.
Now.
This is that moment,
the drop of an instant
that washes away the past.
It is the present.
It is in your hands.
Racing, slipping,
tumbling like a waterfall.
But it is yours.
Help it grow
with love, with firmness,
with stone and flight,
with resounding
rectitude,
with purest grains,
the most brilliant metal
from your heart,
walking
in the full light of day
without fear
of truth, goodness, justice,
companions of song,
time that flows
will have the shape
and sound
of a guitar,
and when you want
to bow to the past,
the singing spring of
transparent time
will reveal your wholeness.
Time is joy.


 


~ Pablo Neruda
 from Selected Odes of Pablo Neruda
 photo Judy Garland by Richard Avedon


Saturday, October 12, 2024

woven of peace

 





I thought of happiness, how it is woven
Out of the silence in the empty house each day
And how it is not sudden and it is not given
But is creation itself like the growth of a tree.
No one has seen it happen, but inside the bark
Another circle is growing in the expanding ring.
No one has heard the root go deeper in the dark,
But the tree is lifted by this inward work
And its plumes shine, and its leaves are glittering.

So happiness is woven out of the peace of hours
And strikes its roots deep in the house alone:
The old chest in the corner, cool waxed floors,
White curtains softly and continually blown
As the free air moves quietly about the room;
A shelf of books, a table, and the white-washed wall—
These are the dear familiar gods of home,
And here the work of faith can best be done,
The growing tree is green and musical.

For what is happiness but growth in peace,
The timeless sense of time when furniture
Has stood a life's span in a single place,
And as the air moves, so the old dreams stir
The shining leaves of present happiness?
No one has heard thought or listened to a mind,
But where people have lived in inwardness
The air is charged with blessing and does bless;
Windows look out on mountains and the walls are kind.



~ May Sarton
The Work of Happiness from Collected Poems