forms we seem to be

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These forms we seem to be are cups floating in an ocean

of living consciousness.

 

They fill and sink without leaving an arc of bubbles or

any good-bye spray.  What we

 

are is that ocean, too near to see, though we swim in it

and drink it in.  Don't

 

be a cup with a dry rim, or someone who rides all night

and never knows the horse

 

beneath his thighs, the surging that carries him along.

 

  

 

 

~ Rumi 

 

 

 

as we have loved

 

 

 

 

Over the local stations, one by one,
Announcers list disasters like dark poems
That always happen in the skull of winter.
But once again the storm has passed us by:
Lovely and moderate, the snow lies down
While shouting children hurry back to play,
And scarved and smiling citizens once more
Sweep down their easy paths of pride and welcome.

And what else might we do? Let us be truthful.
Two counties north the storm has taken lives.
Two counties north, to us, is far away, -
A land of trees, a wing upon a map,
A wild place never visited, - so we
Forget with ease each far mortality.

Peacefully from our frozen yards we watch
Our children running on the mild white hills.
This is the landscape that we understand, -
And till the principle of things takes root,
How shall examples move us from our calm?
I do not say that is not a fault.
I only say, except as we have loved,
All news arrives as from a distant land. 

 

 

 

 

~ Mary Oliver

Beyond the Storm Belt from Devotions

 

 

a time of change

In a time of drastic change 

one can be too preoccupied with what is ending
 or too obsessed with what seems to be beginning.

 In either case one loses touch with the present
 and with its obscure but dynamic possibilities. 

You do not need to know what is happening,
 or exactly where it is all going.

 

What you need is to recognize the possibilities
 and challenges offered by the present moment, 

and embrace them with courage, faith and hope.

 

In such an event, 
courage is the authentic form taken by love.

~  Thomas Merton

from Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

yet my soul drew back

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.


"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"


"Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.





~ George Herbert

art by  Pavlo Makedonskyi

the tree in winter

This is the time of hidden regeneration.  

Mist hangs above the ground.  

Frost forms on open fields.

The tree is still.  

It stands alone and quiet.  

In the darkness of the early morning, nature is asleep.  

There is no movement in the air, 

no hint of trembling in the branches.  

The tree is silent in the darkness like a stone - 

a pillar in the courtyard of an empty temple.

A distant sound breaks through the stillness.  

The day's first light advances on the earth.  

The shadow of the tree moves with the dawn, 

but the tree is motionless.

The ground beneath the tree is frozen hard.  

Above the ground, the bark is cold, the limbs are stiff.  

A passer-by might wonder if the tree will live in spring.

But underneath the ground the earth is warm.  

The weight of all the tree sinks to its roots.  

They are indifferent to the frozen soil, 

they grow toward the centre of the earth.

The tree is not afraid.  

It was a seed: it knows the earth is holding it.  

Within its core, a vital ring is being formed.

Around its spine, a new life is rising from the earth, 

while flakes of snow are settling on the silent and unmoving tree.

~ Master Lam Kam Chuen

from the way of energy: 

mastering the chinese art of internal strength 

 

 

 

 

closed for the night

~ St. John of the Cross

read by Robert Bly

holding hands

 

 

 

 

Out of a great need
we are all holding hands
and climbing.

Not loving is a letting go.

Listen,the terrain around here
is
far too
dangerous
for
that.

 

 

 

~ Hafiz

 

 

 

 

the word

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I pronounce the word Future,

the first syllable already belongs to the past.

When I pronounce the word Silence,

I destroy it.

When I pronounce the word Nothing,

I make something no nonbeing can hold.

– Wislawa Szymborska

 Polish Poet (Born July 1923)/Nobel Literature Prize 1996

intimately

Knowledge always deceives.
It always limits the Truth, every concept and image does.

From cage to cage the caravan moves,
but I give thanks,
for at each divine juncture
my wings expand
and I

touch Him more
intimately.




~ Meister Eckhart

willing to belong

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 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

 

 

 

 

 

 

deepening

He who attempts to act and do things for others or for the world 

without deepening his own self-understanding, 

freedom and integrity and capacity to love, 

will not have anything to give others. 

He will communicate to them nothing but the contagion 

of his own obsessions, his aggressiveness, his ego-centeredness, 

his delusions about the ends and means, 

his doctrinaire prejudices and ideas.

- Thomas Merton

from Contemplation in a World of Action
art by  Art Strayer

othering

 

 

 

 

"There are no others."

~ Ramana Maharshi



Where there is a duality, as it were, there one sees another; 

there one smells another; there one tastes another; 

there one speaks to another... 

 

But where everything has become just one's own self,

 then whereby and whom would one see? 

then whereby and whom would one smell? 

then whereby and to whom would one speak?

 then whereby and whom would one hear?

 then whereby and of whom would one think?

 then whereby and whom would one touch?
then whereby and whom would one understand?


—Brihadaranyaka Upabishad

 

 

 

lightly, lightly

It’s dark because you are trying too hard. 

Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. 

Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. 

Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. 

I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig

. 

Lightly, lightly

 

 – it’s the best advice ever given me. 

 

When it comes to dying even. Nothing ponderous, 

or portentous, or emphatic. 

No rhetoric, no tremolos, 

no self conscious persona 

putting on its celebrated imitation of Christ or Little Nell. 

And of course, no theology, no metaphysics. 

Just the fact of dying and the fact of the clear light. 

So throw away your baggage and go forward. 

There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, 

trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. 

 

That’s why you must walk so lightly. 

Lightly my darling, 

on tiptoes and no luggage, 

not even a sponge bag, 

completely unencumbered.

~ Aldous Huxley

from Island

in my breast

 

 

 

 

 

The tree has entered my hands,
The sap has ascended my arms,
The tree has grown in my breast -
Downward,
The branches grow out of me, like arms.

Tree you are,
Moss you are,
You are violets with wind above them.
A child – so high – you are,
And all this is folly to the world.

 

 

 

~ Ezra Pound

 

 

 

a skill which can be cultivated

Learn self-conquest, preserve thus for a time,

and you will perceive very clearly the advantage which you gain from it.

As soon as you apply yourself to contemplation,

you will at once feel your senses gather themselves together:

they seem like bees which return to the hive

and there shut themselves up to work at the making of honey.

~ Saint Teresa of Avila

Complete concentration is complete relaxation.

 The ability to work on a job with total concentration, 
and then put it out of your mind when necessary,
 is a skill which can be cultivated. 
Through practice, 

 
we can learn to drop whatever we are doing

 and turn our attention to a more urgent need.
 When you are absorbed in a favorite book 

and your partner interrupts you, 
set the book aside and give your complete attention

 to what he or she is saying.
 If part of your mind is on the conversation

 and part on what you have been reading, 
there will be division and tension in the mind. 

 

When we practice this one-pointedness during the day,
 it will greatly help our meditation.
 The mind will much more quickly become recollected. 

~  Eknath Easwaran

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