Listening at the level of the Soul - Danna Faulds

I'm trying to listen
at the level of the Soul,
to hear the liquid gold
that flows in from Source,
to receive the mystery
with all my inner senses.
I can't tell you how I
do this exactly.  It's a
matter of attuning and
also choosing to receive.

It isn't so much a practice
as a way of life --

opting for quiet so I don't 
miss the gifts that come
from who knows where...

I'm not sure why
inner listening means so
much to me, but I think
it's why I'm here. Today,
what the universe has to
say to me is this:
By being yourself without shame
or excuses, you add your 
small puzzle piece to the
infinite frame of the unknown.

Danna Faulds

with thanks to No Minds Land

This is why I sit at the window at night,
to hear the Quiet of my Soul...

MM

~

Beyond the "cloak of spirituality" that we wear,
in its many guises, is the unconditional Nature
of our own Being - the" Genuine Self",
the "Authentic Self" at the depths of Beingness;
not the super-imposed conditioning of belief systems,
but the pure state of Being from deep within the
Quietness of the Soul
that has no "belief", no conditioned *idea* of
"spirituality" - just pure Being,
living as we are...

Mystic Meandering
May 2019

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Inner Listening - Danna Faulds

I'm trying to listen
at the level of the soul,
to hear the liquid gold
that flows in from Source,
to receive the mystery
with all my inner senses.

I can't tell you how I
do this exactly.  It's a
matter of attuning and
also choosing to receive.
It isn't so much a practice
as a way of life --
opting for quiet so I don't
miss the gifts that come
from who knows where
to keep me focused on
the truth.  I'm not sure why
inner listening means so
much to me, but I think
it's why I'm here.  Today,
what the universe has to
say to me is this: There is
only one consciousness
shining through the whole.
Open to it.  Breathe it in.
Receive it fully.  By being
yourself without shame
or excuses, you add your
small puzzle piece to the
infinite frame of the unknown.

Danna Faulds

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Be the Energy - Danna Faulds

That's how you came here,
like a star without a name...

Rumi

Be The Energy

Trust the energy that courses
through you.  Trust - then take
surrender even deeper.
Be the energy.

Don't push anything away.
Follow each sensation back to
its source and focus your awareness
there.

Be the ecstasy...

Be unafraid of consummate wonder.
Energy so new, so vulnerable,
that you don't know
who you are.

Be the energy,
and paradoxically,
be at peace.

Dare to be your own illumination,
And blaze a trail across
the clear night sky...

Danna Faulds

From - Prayers to the Infinite

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Let the Mind be the Mind - Danna Faulds

Photo - Cate Kerr

Let the mind be the mind...

Behind its restless activity,
just one layer deeper is stillness,
and beneath even that,
is an ocean of mystery and truth.

Swim in this eternal sea
until you know yourself
to be infinity,
and bring that knowing
back into your day.

Let the mind be the mind,
but don't bind yourself
to its limited reality.

Trust your experience of vastness.
Trust the truth that never
loses potency
or disappears 
in fear.

Let the mind be the mind
and identify not with thought
but with with Silence...

Danna Faulds
Yoga Practitioner and Poet
From: Limitless

~

Photo - Cate Kerr
Beyond the Fields We Know

~*~

Still your mind in me,
still yourself in me,
and without a doubt
you shall be united in me,
Lord of Love,
dwelling in the Heart.

Bhagavad Gita

 

Gift from The Mystery - Danna Faulds

When I listen, words are everywhere,
riding the air currents like broad-winged hawks.
Poems are born in the molten centers
of stars.  Exploding into supernovas,
they travel light years to reach this spinning
ball of water and dirt, then wait eons more
to tell their tale.

When I'm lucky, a whole poem
arrives at once, sliding out of my psyche
as if it was mine, unexpectedly illuminating
this corner of the universe.

Words are everywhere when I grow still.
Whispered by lovers in mid-kiss
or sung as a lullaby; shouted in rage or prayed
by a saint whose face is lit with inner flames,
it's all fuel for my fire, grist for the turning
wheel of transformation, a gift from the
mystery to this finite world of form.

Danna Faulds
From: Limitless

~

Photo from the James Webb Space Telescope
from the Internet

 

Moving Into Love - Danna Faulds

On this voyage of
the soul, may we be
bridge builders,
our common ground
visible beneath the
surface differences.

May we braid the
threads of reconciliation
into a chain of possibility
that joins, heals, and
includes what once
seemed separate.

May our shared prayer
be answered: to grow 
so open that there is
no "them" or "us"
only...moving
always into
love.

Danna Faulds
From: Limitless

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Cracked Open by Illness - Jeff Foster

Just because someone manages a  smile today, or seems to hold
a positive outlook, or cracks a little joke, or convinces you that
they're okay, doesn't mean they're okay.

The experience of being on the inside of chronic illness has
completely cracked me open to a deeper compassion for
all my brothers and sisters.

I have no idea what anyone is going through, under their facade,
their mask, their personality, their brilliant defences, the 
"positive" or "spiritual" outfit they wear to survive.

They are trying to survive in the only way they know how.

Spiritual teachers and their students, therapist and their clients,
priests, philosophers, life coaches, world authorities, saints
and sinners - they are all in pain.

We are ALL trying to survive the only way we know how.

Let's be a little kinder to each other.  Forgive each other for
our masks, our awkwardness, our closed hearts, our weirdness.
Go beyond surfaces.

Sometimes we are not okay,
and that's okay.

As Ram Dass said, "we are all walking each other home..."

Jeff Foster

As some of you know know Jeff Foster has been very ill
since last July with debilitating Neurological Lyme Disease
that impacted him, not only physically but emotionally.

~

You may also be interested in reading a poem by Danna Faulds
on illness, called What Remains.

Or read John O'Donohue's piece on The Challenge of Illness

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Go Further - Danna Faulds

Go further than your mind can reach,
further than your words can speak.
Go further than you know, outside of
your control.  Break your conditioning...

Like a twig plucked from a tree, carried a
great distance, and woven into a crow's
nest, you have no idea of your real destiny.

Keep going until there is nothing left, and
you are empty and bereft.  Hold that open
space.  Inhabit the place of not knowing
until grace tugs on your awareness and
says "Follow me into the center of chaos
and serenity.  Follow me to what you've
always been and always will be."

The truth of you is far beyond what you
imagine, simultaneously deathless and
here to be lived, then surrendered back
into the Infinite.

Danna Faulds
From: Limitless

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Deconstruction - Danna Faulds

 I am deconstructing.
My identity, built
assumption by assumption,
is crumbling at my feet.
It's clear to me the way
of truth leads into the 
unknown...

[.....]

Balanced on the rubble,
I grope for
handholds even as I try
to let go.  I am bared to the
bone by pain and the thwarted
desire to maintain control.  I

long to paint the scene the
way I want, while ignoring
how it is.  My practice now
isn't about rebuilding what
I knew.  It's not about
clearing the littered ground
of old illusions only to
construct new ones.
Emptiness has a stark
beauty, noticed only
when I stop looking
for security.  I sit on the
tumble of mortar and brick
and pray for patience,
pray for strength,
pray for the humility
to just keep breathing.

Danna Faulds
Excerpt from: "Deconstruction"
From: One Soul
2003

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Stardust - Danna Faulds

 From a crowded firmament of
constellations, a galaxy reaches
out to stroke my cheek with a
single, spiral finger.  One star
speaks: "Life is not a test.
There is no key to find, or
door to open.  Self-improvement
is not the point.  There is only
awakening.  And one day you
will all awaken to the rapture
of the great lovemaking, when
the heart of everything is
revealed as you; when the myth
of separation is burned to ash
in the searing flame of truth."

A lifetime of forgetfulness
erased in an instant of 
remembering.  The Beloved
enters, takes me in a whirl
of tenderness and bliss.
In that moment, two are
one, and one is everything;
stars and souls are whole,
unbroken, flowing motions;
what is wrapped in skin or
cloaked in form has no birth
or death or destination.

The star speaks to me again:

"The seeds of love sown an
eternity ago are blooming now.
There has always been divinity,
and this, at last, is who we are -
love in endless consummation.
Love, not limitation, is the truth."

Then with a rush of wind like
countless wings, I am left to
sit in stillness, with the taste
of stardust sweet upon my lips.

Danna Faulds
From: Go In and In

2002

~

Photo from the Internet

What Remains - Danna Faulds

Despite illness of body and mind,
in spite of blinding despair
or habitual belief,
who you are is whole.

Let nothing separate you from the Truth.
The soul, illumined from within,
longs to be known...

Undying, untouched by fire, or
the storms of life,
there is a place inside
where stillness and abiding peace reside.

You can ride the breath to go there.

Despite doubt or hopeless turns of mind,
you are not broken.

Spirit surrounds, embraces,
fills you from the inside out.

Release everything
that isn't your true nature.
What's left?

the fullness of light...

Danna Faulds
Yoga Practitioner
From the poem" "Birthright"

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

The Open Door - Danna Faulds

A door opens.  Maybe I've been standing here shuffling my weight
from foot to foot for decades, or maybe I only knocked once.
In truth, it doesn't matter.

A door opens and I walk through without a backward glance.
This is it,then, one moment of truth in a lifetime of truth; a
choice made, a path taken, the gravitational pull of Spirit
too compelling to ignore any longer.

I am received by something far too vast to see.  It has roots in
antiquity but speaks clearly in the present tense. "Be," the
vastness says.  "Be without adverbs, descriptors, or qualities.

Be so alive that Awareness bares itself uncloaked and unadorned.
Then go forth to give what you alone can give, awaken to love
and suffering, unburdened by the weight of expectations.

Go forth to see and be seen, blossoming, always blossoming
into your magnificence."

Danna Faulds

~

Art - craypas oils
?date

Bare Awareness - Danna Faulds

Bare awareness
awake to its
true nature -
limitless and
vast, nothing to
grasp, no masks
or name tag.

What am I beyond
the answers of the
mind, outside
anything I can
find by seeking?

What is true
right now, and
what is transitory?

The witness watches
thoughts spin their
convincing stories
out of thin air and
doesn't care how
often I forget
that freedom is
the truth of being,
and no part of truth
is ever separate
from what is.

Danna Faulds
from: Limitless: 2009

~

Golden Sunset

Untitled - Danna Faulds

Put up no resistance to the day as it unfolds.
Watch the play of opposites, your likes
and dislikes, thoughts you would draw
close and those from which you would
recoil.  What if, for this moment, you let
it all be as it is?  What if you interfere
with nothing?

Become the subject - vast, bare, always
aware. Of course there are objects.  Do
not try to shut them out or change what
is.  Sense impressions, circumstances,
the day's events move forward on the
wheel of time while you are timeless, the
silent subject of the whole, pure
potential, simply there.

When the entire universe blazes into
being, take it all inside yourself, without
exception.  When the only word is "Yes,"
when your point of view dissolves into
every viewpoint and no viewpoint at all,
when the Big Bang is happening in
every instant, you are fully and finally
alive.

Danna Faulds
from the introduction to Limitless
2009

Deconstruction - Danna Faulds

I am deconstructing.

My identity, built
assumption by assumption,
is crumbling at my feet.
It's clear to me the way
of truth leads into the
unknown...

[.....]

Balanced on the rubble,
I grope for
handholds even as I try
to let go.  I am bared to the
bone by pain and the thwarted
desire to maintain control.  I
long to paint the scene the
way I want, while ignoring
how it is.  My practice now
isn't about rebuilding what
I knew.  It's not about
clearing the littered ground
of old illusions only to
construct new ones.
Emptiness has a stark
beauty, noticed only
when I stop looking
for security.  I sit on the
tumble of mortar and brick
and pray for patience,
pray for strength,
pray for the humility
to just keep breathing.

Danna Faulds
Excerpt from: "Deconstruction"
From: One Soul
2003

~

Art - Dissolving the Masks

2017

Let it go - Danna Faulds

Let go of the ways you thought life
would unfold; the holding of plans
or dreams or expectations - Let it
all go.  Save your strength to swim
with the tide.  The choice to fight
what is here before you now will
only result in struggle, fear, and
desperate attempts to flee from the
very energy you long for.  Let go.
Let it all go and flow with the grace
that washes through your day whether
you receive it gently or with all your
quills raised to defend against invaders.
Take this on faith: the mind may never
find the explanations that it seeks, but
you will move forward nonetheless.
Let go, and the wave's crest will carry
you to unknown shores, beyond your
wildest dreams or destinations.  Let it
all go and find the place of rest and
peace, and certain transformation.

Danna Faulds
From: Go In and In
2002

One Soul - Danna Faulds

When one soul is set ablaze
by truth, the whole universe
ignites, and for an instant
light reaches every corner,
cave and crevasse.  When

the heart remembers what
it is, joined in vastness by
joy and suffering, both the
future and the past dissolve
like snowflakes on the tongue.

There is nowhere to run, no
reason to do anything but
rest in the cradle of the
cosmos, rocked in the arms
of emptiness, and held in
the near embrace of love.

Danna Faulds
From: One Soul
2003

Paradox - Danna Faulds

Neti-Neti, translates as 'not this, not this.' The basis of classical
yoga, neti-neti is the way of negation.  It is a path that reveals
who I really am by cutting away all the things I am not.  I am not
this body or this migraine pain.  I am not my thoughts, even when
the inner voices grow so loud they drown out everything else.
I am not my personal stories or opinions.  I am not the fear that
threatens to swallow me, not my wisest and most insightful
writing, or even the most profound 'aha' to come out of my
spiritual practice.

The only problem is that after walking the path of neti-neti
for a time, I chafe against saying 'no' to everything.  At my
core there is a 'yes' that must be embodied and expressed...

Asmi-Asmi is the flip side of neti-neti.  Translated as 'this too,
this too', asmi-asmi is a practice that comes from tantra - the
path of immanence.  Identifying with the whole, I find spirit,
truth, and oneness everywhere...  I am this aging body on
its slow march toward death.  I am everything my senses can
experience and more. I am this mind and its dramatic machinations.
I am the yearnings of the heart, and the full spectrum of feelings,
and the peace that passes understanding.  I am the worst of my
poems, and the best.  I am the infinite reach of nature, sky and
stars.  The only word that matters on this path is 'Yes.'  I include,
include, include until the individual 'me' blips out, leaving
only unity.

My personal preference has always been for sensory experience,
embodiment, and inclusion.  For that reason, I resisted the practice
of neti-neti because it felt dry and life-denying.  I wasn't interested
in transcendence if it came at the expense of being fully alive in
my body and actively engaged in life.  Fortunately, I overcame
my resistance and discovered that when I really focused on bare
awareness, on what was not thought, not sensation, not my
personal accumulation of conditioning and beliefs, I landed in
a very spacious place of pure potential.

Exploring that potential, it occurred to me that practicing at
either end of the spectrum - neti-neti or asmi-asmi  - might
result in the same experience.  Inquiring deeper, I asked myself
if ultimate negation and absolute inclusion could exist
simultaneously.  'That's impossible', my rational mind answered.
'It's happening', my experience whispered softly in my ear.
In that moment, I fell into a profound inner silence - the silence
that flashes into existence when opposites unite.  Outside of time,
I disappeared into the limitless.

Perhaps I can best describe my current practice as 'both/and.'
Instead of focusing only on neti-neti, or giving myself entirely
over to the practice of asmi-asmi, I am plumbing the depths
of paradox where 'no' and 'yes' coexist.

In the light and laughing space
where Not-This and All-This
are both true, the whirl of
thought dissolves. The mind
drowns in paradox.  Awareness
neither reaches out, nor reaches in,
and times hangs suspended.

Danna Faulds
Excerpt from the introduction to her book
Limitless - 2009

Untitled Prose - Danna Faulds

Use your discontent, your longing, the sense that you are bereft
of connection, use everything around you to nudge you into
choosing joy.  Make the choice not because life is as you wish,
but because life is as it is.  Resist and you know suffering.
Jump in with both eyes open and you can drown in bliss.

It doesn't seem possible, I know.  You feel broken, disconnected,
less than whole.  Ask if Awareness shares your restlessness.
Ask if the Infinite cares that your emotional state is tenuous at
best.  Ask if your dreary thoughts should be believed and if
anything real stands between you and All That Is.  Use the
answers you receive to open a crack in the wall of separation.
Find a door and stick your foot in so it can't close even if your
doubts grow huge.

[.....]

Danna Faulds
From: Limitless
2009

Personal Note:  I know from personal experience that it is not
often possible to "choose joy" - still I like this piece.  It is
possible, however, to observe our feelings as they rise from
within, and just be with them, not resisting them, but allowing
them to speak to us just as they are, through inquiry, which
she seems to allude to in the second paragraph...

The Weaver and the Loom - Danna Faulds

Sit here for a bit.
Place yourself outside the frenzied pace of life.

Slow down long enough to appreciate birds in flight,
water drops like prisms in the grass and countless
shades of green.

Step off the fast track and listen to the sound of breath
and birdsong.

Take a moment to just be,
and in being, know the whole of this creation,
mystery and madness, passion and profanity,
know it all as one, stunning tapestry.

Sit still
and the thin line between sacred and profane simply
fades away.
There is nothing then to reconcile.

All the disparate are woven on the loom of life.

Sit here a bit
and your unique place in the pattern becomes clear.
Take the still point with you when it's time to walk away.

Make the choice to see affinity,
to watch the picture taking shape as thread joins thread.

Dare to be the weaver and the loom,
creator and creation, the sower and the sown.

In a moment of stillness,
all that came before is seen as one.

Danna Faulds
From: Go In and In

Danna is"...a long term practitioner of Kripalu Yoga.

She writes:
"Some days, the first line of a poem interrupts me and insists on
being written down - NOW!  Other days, I write the words 'This
is what I have to say to you' at the top of the page and see what
comes.  Like a faucet dispensing water from a hidden reservoir,
this kind of writing allows the formless mystery to flow into my
conscious life.  What I tap into when I write from the quiet of my
meditation cushion feels limitless.  Each morning finds me at the
edge of my current experience, writing about where I am stuck,
where I am learning to go, and what is calling me forward right
now.  Words on the page, both poetry and prose, are the bread
crumbs left behind as I move beyond my comfort zone and into
the unknown..."

(excerpt from Amazon.com)