within the circles of our lives

Within the circles of our lives

we dance the circles of the years,

the circles of the seasons

within the circles of the years,

the cycles of the moon

within the circles of the seasons,

the circles of our reasons

within the cycles of the moon.

Again, again we come and go,

changed, changing.  Hands

join, unjoin in love and fear,

grief and joy.  The circles turn,

each giving into each, into all.

Only music keeps us here,

each by all the others held.

In the hold of hands and eyes

we turn in pairs, that joining 

joining each to all again.

And then we turn aside, alone,

out of the sunlight gone

into the darker circles of return.

~ Wendell Berry

art by Sammy Hill, Swinomish Nation

rejoice

 

~ Kathleen Battle

2500 Montréalers sing L. Cohen’s “Hallelujah”

 

~ Leonard Cohen

and 2500 Montrealers

now is the time

Now is the time to know

That all that you do is sacred.

Now, why not consider

 A lasting truce with yourself and God.

Now is the time to understand 

That all your ideas of right and wrong 

Were just a child's training wheels 

To be laid aside 

When you finally live

 With veracity And love.

Hafiz is a divine envoy 

Whom the Beloved 

Has written a holy message upon.

My dear, please tell me, 

Why do you still 

Throw sticks at your heart 

And God?

What is it in that sweet voice inside 

That incites you to fear?

Now is the time for the world to know 

That every thought and action is sacred.

This is the time

 For you to compute the impossibility

 That there is anything

 But Grace.

Now is the season to know 

That everything you do Is sacred.

~ Hafiz

from Poetry of Presence 

through the sacred womb of your soul

If
you want
the Virgin will come walking down the road
pregnant with the holy
and say,
“I need shelter for the night, please take me inside your heart,
my time is so close.”

Then, under the roof of your soul, you will witness the sublime
intimacy, the divine, the Christ
taking birth
forever,
as she grasps your hand for help, for each of us
is the midwife of God, each of us.

Yes there, under the dome of your being does creation
come into existence externally, through your womb, dear pilgrim—
the sacred womb of your soul,
as God grasps our arms for help; for each of us is
His beloved servant
never
far.

If you want, the Virgin will come walking
down the street pregnant
with Light, and
sing . . .





~ St. John of the Cross
Daniel Ladinsky translation
Love Poems from God

to Mary

A child unborn, the coming year

Grows big within us, dangerous,

And yet we hunger as we fear

For its increase: the blunted bud

To free the leaf to have its day,

The unborn to be born.  The ones

Who are to come are on their way,

And though we stand in mortal good

Among our dead, we turn in doom

In joy to welcome them, stirred by 

That Ghost who stirs in seed and tomb,

Who brings the stones to parenthood.

~ Wendell Berry

from This Day - Collected and New Sabbath Poems

hopi

 

~ Ramson Lomatewama

water song

 

www.singthewatersong.com

Grandmother NANCY ANDRY

Grandmother MARGARET BEHAN

Grandmother  CLARA SOARING HAWK

Navajo early morning blessing

 

~ "Hooghan" from the album Sacred Mountains by Louie Gonnie

all these prayers

 

So a little spring prays to the ocean, 

so the beating heart prays to the heart of the universe, 

so the little word prays to the great Logos,

 so a dust speck prays to the earth, 

so the earth prays to the cosmos, 

so the one prays to the billion, 

so human love prays to God’s love, 

so always prays to never, 

so the moment prays to eternity, 

so the snowflake prays to winter, 

so the frightened beast prays to the forest silence, 

so uncertainty prays to beauty itself.

And all these prayers are heard.

~ Anna Kamieńska

from In the Great River: A Notebook

with thanks to love is a place

with gratitude

 

in the wordless beginning

iguana & myrrh

magma & reef ghost moth

& the cordyceps tickling its nerves

& cedar & archipelago & anemone

dodo bird & cardinal waiting for its red

ocean salt & crude oil now black

muck now most naïve fumbling plankton

every egg clutched in the copycat soft

of me unwomaned unraced

unsexed as the ecstatic prokaryote

that would rage my uncle’s blood

or the bacterium that will widow

your eldest daughter’s eldest son

my uncle, her son our mammoth sun

& her uncountable siblings & dust mite & peat

apatosaurus & nile river

& maple green & nude & chill-blushed &

yeasty keratined bug-gutted i & you

spleen & femur seven-year refreshed

seven-year shedding & taking & being this dust

& my children & your children

& their children & the children

of the black bears & gladiolus & pink florida grapefruit

here not allied but the same perpetual breath

held fast to each other as each other’s own skin

cold-dormant & rotting & birthing & being born

in the olympus of the smallest

possible once before once

~ Marissa Davis

Singularity

art by Joan Sokolowska

with thanks to The Marginalian

you are the fullness of perfection here and now

 

I can see with the utmost clarity that you have never been, 

nor are, nor will be estranged from reality, 

that you are the fullness of perfection here and now,

 and that nothing can deprive you of your heritage, 

of what you are. 

You are in no way different from me, only you do not know it.

 Be fully aware of your own being, 

and you will be in bliss consciously.

 Because you take your mind off yourself 

and make it dwell on what you are not,

 you lose your sense of well-being, 

of being well.

You people do not know how much you miss

 by not knowing your own true self.

The moment you know your real being, 

you are afraid of nothing. 

Death gives freedom and power. 

To be free in the world, 

you must die to the world. 

Then the universe is your own,

 it becomes your body,

 an expression and a tool. 

The happiness of being absolutely free is beyond description.

His state tastes of the pure, uncaused, undiluted bliss. 

He is happy and fully aware that happiness

 is his very nature and that he need not do anything,

 nor strive for anything to secure it. It follows him,

 more real than the body, nearer than the mind itself. 

To me, dependence on anything for happiness is utter misery.

 Pleasure and pain have causes, 

while my state is my own,

 totally uncaused, 

independent,

 unassailable.

As he gets older, 

he grows more and more happy and peaceful.

 After all, he is going home.

 Like a traveler nearing his destination and collecting his luggage,

 he leaves the train without regret. 

The reel of destiny is coming to its end

—the mind is happy. 

The mist of bodily existence is lifting—

the burden of the body is growing less from day to day.

~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

 from I AM THAT...

art by Oskar Hokeah

a mustard seed

Become as a child,

become deaf, become blind!

Your own substance

must become nothingness;

drive all substance, all nothingness far from you!

Leave space, leave time,

eschew also all physical representation.

Go without a way

the narrow footpath,

then you will succeed in finding the desert.

 ~ Anonymous

(excerpt from Granum Sinapis)

  found here in for lovers of god everywhere 

by roger housden

toward emptiness

In the desert,

Turn toward emptiness,

Fleeing the self.

Stand alone

Ask no one's help,

And your being will quiet,

Free from the bondage of things.

Those who cling to the world,

endeavor to free them;

Those who are free, praise.

Care for the sick,

But live alone,

Happy to drink from the waters of sorrow,

To kindle Love's fire

With the twigs of a simple life.

Thus you will live in the desert.

Mechtild of Magdeburg

translation by Jane Hirshfield

the last cloud drains away

 

The birds have vanished down the sky.

Now the last cloud drains away.

We sit together, the mountain and me,

until only the mountain remains.

~  Li Po,

  from Zazen on Ching-t’ing Mountain

 translated by Sam Hamill

 from Crossing the Yellow River: 

Three Hundred Poems from the Chinese