Now it is Clear by WS Merwin
NOW IT IS CLEAR
Now it is clear to me that no leaves are mine
no roots are mine
that wherever I go I will be a spine of smoke in the forest
and the forest will know it
we will both know it
and that birds vanish because of something
that I remember
flying through me as though I were a great wind
as the stones settle into the ground
the trees into themselves
staring as though I were a great wind
which is what I pray for
it is clear to me that I cannot return
but that some of us will meet once more
even here
like our own statues
and some of us still later without names
and some of us will burn with the speed
of endless departures
and be found and lost no more
Revelation Must Be Terrible by David Whyte
Revelation must be
terrible with no time left
to say goodbye.
Imagine that moment
staring at the still waters
with only the brief tremor
of your body to say
you are leaving everything
and everyone you know behind.
Being far from home is hard, but you know,
at least we are exiled together.
When you open your eyes to the world
you are on your own for
the first time. No one is
even interested in saving you now
and the world steps in
to test the calm fluidity of your body
from moment to moment
as if it believed you could join
its vibrant dance
of fire and calmness and final stillness.
As if you were meant to be exactly
where you are, as if
like the dark branch of a desert river
you could flow on without a speck
of guilt and everything
everywhere would still be just as it should be.
As if your place in the world mattered
and the world could
neither speak nor hear the fullness of
its own bitter and beautiful cry
without the deep well
of your body resonating in the echo.
Knowing that it takes only
that one, terrible
word to make the circle complete,
revelation must be terrible
knowing you can
never hide your voice again.
— David Whyte
from Fire in the Earth
©1992 Many Rivers Press
Some Questions You Might Ask
Is the soul solid, like iron?
Or is it tender and breakable, like
the wings of a moth in the beak of the owl?
Who has it, and who doesn’t?
I keep looking around me.
The face of the moose is as sad
as the face of Jesus.
The swan opens her white wings slowly.
In the fall, the black bear carries leaves into the darkness.
One question leads to another.
Does it have a shape? Like an iceberg?
Like the eye of a hummingbird?
Does it have one lung, like the snake and the scallop?
Why should I have it, and not the anteater
who loves her children?
Why should I have it, and not the camel?
Come to think of it, what about the maple trees?
What about the blue iris?
What about all the little stones, sitting alone in the moonlight?
What about roses, and lemons, and their shining leaves?
What about the grass?
Mary Oliver
amnesia in dreams and life . . .
“We all have had the experience of going into a room to do or get something or other and forgetting when we get there what it was we had intended to do. Worse yet, we may not even notice that we have forgotten why we were there, and instead just do something we habitually do in that room. This trivial bit of the psychopathology of everyday life offers a compelling analogy to the amnesia we experience not just in dreams but in our lives as a whole.”
Stephen La Berge - Scientist
contemplative image
Geologic time spiral scale
Lots of things I love about this picture; wonderful tool for contemplation. My favorite part is how it illustrates that we don’t know how this all got started or where it’s going. Magic!
Might be hard to see on the screen but the present moment is at the very ‘end’, represented by sky scrapers and humans bottom center - right at the cliff’s edge of the next moment from now. . .
We are always at that edge. Yikes! or Wee! depending on how you see it
You Who Want
“You Who Want . . .” by Hadewijch II
You who want
knowledge,
seek the Oneness
within.
There you
will find
the clear mirror
already waiting.
From Poetry Foundation:
“Little is known about the life of Middle Dutch visionary and poet Hadewijch, except what can be gleaned from her 13th century writings. Many scholars believe she lived in Antwerp, and her fluency in Dutch, Latin, and French can be taken as evidence that she received an education typically limited to the wealthy. She joined a group of beguines, evangelical women who, outside the monastic system, took vows of poverty, chastity, and service while remaining in the world.
Her texts, which include religious poetry, accounts of visions, and religious letters, were written in the vernacular. Hadewijch used elements of the poetic tradition of troubadour poetry, which celebrated romantic love, to construct her ecstatic renderings of yearning for the beloved. Hadewijch has been the subject of much recent study in the fields of feminist theology and historiography. Her work was first translated into English in 1980 when Hadewijch: The Complete Works appeared as part of the Classics of Western Spirituality series. The seminal critical study of her writing, Hadewijch: Writer – Beguine – Love Mystic, by Paul Mommaers with Elisabeth Dutton (1989), won the Flemish Prijs De Standaard and was translated into English in 2004. Poet Jane Hirshfield included a selection of Hadewijch’s poetry in the anthology Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women (1994), and a feature film, Hadewijch, inspired by her life and directed by Bruno Dumont, was first screened in 2010.
A group of poems was found along with Hadewijch's manuscripts, written in what appears to be another hand and bearing a more advanced vocabulary than the other poems. Since scholars have long disputed the authority of these poems, they have been set off from Hadewijch's known works and their author is referred to as 'Hadewijch II', who may have been Hadewijch or one of her acquaintances.
The location of her grave is not known.”
Love takes off the masks . . .
“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace - not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
I am not a person
I am not a person.
I am a succession of persons
Held together by memory.
When the string breaks,
The beads scatter.
By Lindley Williams Hubbell
Disrupting Karma
KARMA can be a scary word! I’m careful about how and when I use it with clients in a reading or process session.
A wise perspective from Buddhist master Mingyur Rinpoche:
“Karma is not destiny. It is not fate. It has become popular to conclude, “ That’s my karma,” in a way that implies, “ there’s nothing I can do about this.”
That’s a complete misunderstanding. We are born with impulses and inclinations, tastes and characteristics. That’s obvious. yet our impulse for aggression does not necessarily lead to murder.
Our instinct for kindness does not necessarily lea to boundless compassion.
The maturation of any instinct, like that of a seed, depends on circumstances and conditions. But it remains our responsibility to make the most of what we have, and what we are born with, by taking the reins and directing our activities.
Karma contributes to everyday situations that we find ourselves in. It contributes to our family context, the type of work we do, and our financial circumstances.
It shapes our appetites and behavior.
It increases and decreases possibilities.
Karma is not a life sentence, but more like a predilection we can work with - and change. It is not immutable.
. . . we learn to detect impulses in their early stages. We can check an impulse toward anger before exploding like a volcano. If we do not recognize that impulse, then the repetition of angry outbursts strengthens the tendency towards anger and creates its own karmic energy, its own propensity for reoccurrence.
Recognition allows us to disrupt the habitual identification that we have with the impulse, and therefore to separate from it.
We can also learn to cultivate our impulse for kindness so that it permeates our entire being for our own benefit and for that of others.
Our humanness provides us with the choice between positive and negative.
Our karma may shift he balance one way or another. But the choices that we make are our responsibility, and they condition our future.”
Love Ramble
“ Most of my films deal with people who are stuck in certain routines and habits that don’t make them happy. They want to change, but they need something to push them. I think it’s mostly love that causes them to break their routines and move on.” - Wong Kar-wai
Archaic Bust of Apollo by Rainer Maria Rilke
We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,
gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.
Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:
would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.
"One turning and burning diamond". . .
So many garish lamps in the dying brain’s lamp-show,
Forget about them.
Concentrate on the essence, concentrate on the Light.
In lucid bliss, calmly smoking off its own holy fire,
The Light streams towards you from all things,
All people, all possible permutations of good, evil, thought, passion.
The lamps are different,
But the Light is the same.
One matter, one energy, one Light, one Light-mind,
Endlessly emanating all things.
One turning and burning diamond,
One, one, one.
Ground yourself, strip yourself down,
To blind loving silence.
Stay there, until you see
You are gazing at the Light
With its own ageless eyes
-Rumi
Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet
“Do not hold regrets.
When you find your way to the circle, to the fire kept burning by the keepers of your soul, you will be welcomed.”
Excerpt from poem “ For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet
Link to full poem: https://poets.org/poem/calling-spirit-back-wandering-earth-its-human-feet
How do beliefs about death and dying shape living?
As Ninakawa lay dying, zen master Ikkyu visited him: Shall I lead you on?” Ikkyu asked.
Ninakawa replied: “ I came here alone and I go alone. What help could you be to me?”
Ikkyu answered: “ If you think you really come and go, that is your delusion. Let me show you the path on which there is no coming and going.”
With his words, Ikkyu had revealed the path so clearly that Ninakawa died and passed away.
Excerpt from " Graceful Exits: how Great Beings Die" By Sushila Blackman
I find reflecting on death to be one of the most powerful spiritual / existential contemplations. Whether or not we’re ready to look at death head on, the beliefs we hold unconsciously about it have huge influences on how we feel about ourselves and the meaning of our life. Exploring assumptions about death and dying means exploring assumptions about living!
Liberational Spirituality Class Materials
Going through files and found this handout from Liberational Spirituality class I did in 2018.
