Macarius and the pony

.

.

People in a village

At the desert's edge

Had a daughter

Who was changed (they thought)

By magic arts

Into a pony.

At first they berated her

"Why do you have to be a horse?"

She could think of no reply.

So they led her out with a halter 

Into the hot waste land

Where there was a saint

Called Macarius

Living in a cell.

"Father" they said

"This young mare here

Is, or was, our daughter.

Enemies, wicked men,

Magicians, have made her

The animal you see.

Now by your prayers to God

Change her back

Into the girl she used to be."

"My prayers" said Macarius,

"Will change nothing,

For I see no mare.

Why do you call this good child

An animal?"

But he led her into his cell

With her parents:

There he spoke to God 

Anointing the girl with oil;

And when they saw with what love 

He placed his hand upon her head

They realized, at once.

She was no animal.

She had never changed.

She had been a girl from the beginning.

"Your own eyes

(said Macarius)

Are your enemies.

Your own crooked thoughts

(said the anchorite)

Change people around you

Into birds and animals.

Your own ill-will

(said the clear-eyed one)

Peoples the world with specters."

.

~ Thomas Merton

from  The Collected Poems

.

sweater

What is asked of one is not what is asked of another.

A sweater takes on the shape of its wearer,

a coffee cup sits to the left or the right of the workspace,

making its pale Saturn rings of now and before.

Lucky the one who rises to sit at a table,

day after day spilling coffee sweet with sugar, whitened with milk.

Lucky the one who writes in a book of spiral-bound mornings

a future in ink, who writes hand unshaking, warmed by thick wool.

Lucky still, the one who writes later, shaking.  Acrobatic at last, the 

sweater,

elastic as breath that enters what shape it is asked to. 

Patient the table;  unjudging, the ample, refillable cup.

Irrefusable, the shape the sweater is given,

stretched in the shoulders, sleeves lengthened by unmetaphysical

pullings on.

~ Jane Hirshfield

from Come, Thief 

the "I" experience

~ Alan Watts

simple acceptance

The everyday practice is simply to develop 

a complete acceptance and openness to all 

situations and emotions, and to all people,

 experiencing everything totally 

without mental reservations and blockages, 

so that one never withdraws

 or centralizes into oneself.

~ Trungpa Rinpoche

thank you

.

Meditation enables them to go

Deeper and deeper into consciousness,

From the world of words to the world of thoughts,

Then beyond thoughts to wisdom in the Self.

...

Sharp like a razor's edge, the sages say,

Is the path, difficult to traverse.

~ Katha Upanishad

This is the passage from which the title of Somerset Maugham's book The Razor's Edge was taken. His story traces the spiritual journey of an American fighter pilot traumatized by WWI. The book is apparently based on the life of Guy Hague who had spent time with Ramana Maharshi in Tamil Nadu, India, as did Maugham himself.

William Somerset Maugham was born on this day in 1874 in Paris. He was trained as a doctor and work on the front as a Red Cross volunteer during WWI. He became famous with his semi- autobiographical novel Of Human Bondage in 1915. Maugham's novels seem to make apparent the beauty of and intricacy of the fabric of life in-which we are all entwined.

Happy Birthday Mr. Maugham and thank you.