Starry-Starry Part 2 - Swimme and Tucker

 

The essence of the Universe story is this:

The stars are our ancestors.  Out of them,
everything came forth.  They have a birth.
They go through development.  They come
to an end...

[.....]

In many cultures throughout history humans intuited  that they
descended from the stars, even before they had empirical evidence
from science that our bodies were formed by the elements forged
by the stars.  Humans felt something in the depths of the night
as they contemplated the presence of the stars.  They began to
suspect that the meaning of their lives went far beyond what
preoccupied them during the urgencies of the daytime world.
They knew in their hearts that *their* journey and the radiance
of the stars were interwoven.

[.....]

Stars are the fiery cauldrons of transformation.  Stars are the
wombs of immense creativity and complex interactions.
Certainly there are similarities in the human experience...
Could it be that life is not possible without vast mysterious,
and ongoing transformation...

From:  Journey of the Universe
Swimme and Tucker

~

Art - Vincent Van Gough

Child of the Milky Way - Chet Raymo

I am a child of the Milky Way.  I am made of the dust of stars.
Every atom in my body was forged in a star.  When the
Universe exploded into being, already the bird longed for
the wood and the fish for the pond.  When the first galaxies
fell into luminous clumps. already matter was struggling
toward consciousness.

The star clouds of Sagittarius are a burning bush.  If there is
a voice in Sagittarius, I'd be a fool not to listen.  If "God's"
voice in the night is a scrawny cry, then I'll pick up my ears.
If night's faint lights fail to knock me off my feet, then I'll sit
back on a dark hillside and wait and watch.  A hint here and
a trait there.  Listening and watching.  Waiting, always waiting
for the tingle in the spine.

Chet Raymo
from The Soul of the Night: An Astronomical Pilgrimage

with thanks to Cate Kerr
Beyond the Fields We Know

Photo - Cate Kerr

~

How can you explain the mystery of the Inexplicable?
You can only surrender to it...

My "medicine" - my wild comfort -
is the wonderment and splendor
of the Infinite Cosmos...
It soothes my Soul

MM

_/\_

 

Gratitude - Marge Ackley

We [I] offer gratitude to and for all friends

Who create, remake and refine one another;

Who point to stars and keep us from the dark;

Who help us hear the music in the silent spaces...

Who hold us and will not let us go.

Marge Ackely

with thanks to Love is a Place

~

Photo - I believe this was taken by Cate Kerr
at Beyond the Fields We Know

 

The Song of the Stars - Radiance Sutra

Bathe deeply in that ocean of sound
which is even now vibrating within you,
resonating softly,

permeating the space of the heart.
The ear that is tuned by rapt listening
learns to hear the song of creation.
First like a hand bell,
then subtler still as a stringed instrument,
eventually the buzz of a bee.
Entering this current of sound, the Listening One
forgets the external world, and becomes
absorbed into internal sound,
and then absorbed into vastness
like the song of the stars as they shine.

The Radiance Sutra part XV

with thanks to No Mind's Land

~

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

Rumi

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Homing Call...

I have heard the Homing Call of the Cosmos.
The deep soundings of stars and galaxies
singing the Cosmos ~

drawing me into their luminous waters...

I step through the gateway of this mortal land of
Earth and Stone
into the Eternal Cosmic Ocean ~

The Illumined hush of "The Mystery"...

Following the call,
I recognize the Celestial Songs...

Venturing into the Vastness of the Cosmic Sea,
oceanic movement becomes a pulsating permeation
of deep Stillness...

Suspended in this silent etheric fluid
~ the womb of Creation ~

everything once known to be real
is held motionless in translucent radiance.
Not needing identity or conceptual framework.
Only the immediacy and spontaneity of pure Being...

Mystic Meandering
May 6, 2001

Photo from the Internet

 

Heaven's Wrinkle - Susan Tweit

 Looking at the heavens places me in time and space - and beyond
them.  Gazing at the stars, I look through heaven's wrinkle; the
light I see now represents their past, having traveled many years
across space to reach my eyes here on earth; the light they are
emitting now will be visible only in some future, years away.

I and all the other lives on Earth are connected to the stars, held
together by gravity, the invisible glue that defines our universe,
and bound elementally by a common material: stardust.  This
atomic grit of interstellar space paints dark clouds on the Milky
Way, condenses itself into swirls of gravity-bound suns and 
planets, and provides the minerals bounded by the push and pull
of electrical charges into the molecules that form our cells.  Like
stardust and other materials of life itself, we are in constant
motion, changing shape as we pass through our lives, and after
the makings of our bodies break down and are recycled,
rearranged into other forms of life.  The stars remind me of
where I come from and who I am.

Susan J. Tweit
from -Walking Nature Home

with thanks to Beyond the Fields We Know
for post and incredible photo!

Child of the Milky Way - Chet Raymo

 I am a child of the Milky Way.  I am made of the dust of stars.
Every atom in my body was forged in a star.  When the
Universe exploded into being, already the bird longed for
the wood and the fish for the pond.  When the first galaxies
fell into luminous clumps, already matter was struggling
toward consciousness.

The star clouds of Sagittarius are a burning bush.  If there is
a voice in Sagittarius, I'd be a fool not to listen.  If "God's" 
voice in the night is a scrawny cry, then I'll prick up my ears.
If night's faint lights fail to knock me off my feet, then I'll sit
 back on a dark hillside and wait and watch.  A hint here and
a trait there.  Listening and watching.  Waiting, always waiting,
for the tingle in the spine.

Chet Raymo
from: Soul of the Night: An Astronomical Pilgrimage

With thanks to Cate Kerr
Beyond the Fields We Know

Photo - Cate Kerr

~

How can you explain the mystery of the Inexplicable?
You can only surrender to it...
My "medicine" - my wild comfort -
is the wonderment and splendor
of the Infinite Cosmos...
It soothes my Soul.

MM

_/\_

Indwelling - Fred LaMotte

 As you fall asleep tonight,
do not take this Breath
for granted.  Honor Her
as a royal guest, making
a spacious tent of your flesh.

For she who contains the galaxies
has come to dwell in you,
pouring her gift of starlight
down your backbone.

...Your exhalation
will lead you to a crystal door.
The key is silence.
Step through.

Follow her dark rainbow
into the golden void.
Let the wings of astonishment
carry your from death to death
until you gaze into your own
original face, floating
in a vastness with no name.

A scent of blossoms
from the garden of the unborn
will guide you home...
Just make the pilgrimage, friend,
the journey of one breath
from the mind to the Heart.

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

~

Photo - a note card I've had for years
credit on back: Francene Hart

Loss after Loss - Mark Nepo

...Somehow we go on
loss after loss, like seeds
drowning in their possibilities
under all that snow.

From a distance, stars
are pins of light
pushing back the dark. 

But inside, each
is a world of light.

And the Spirit we carry -
that carries us - flares like a
star, everywhere we go pushing
back the pain and loss.

Still, a star can't be seen
without its covering of night,
nor a soul without its
human skin.

I don't know why -
It has nothing to do with
optimism or pessimism
or with triumph and defeat.

More, the impressible reach
of a beam of light entering the
darkest place it can find,
because that is how it
fulfills itself.

Mark Nepo
Excerpt from "Still"
From: Inside the Miracle

~

...[when the heart] is ripped apart
nothing makes sense while
in this re-arranging pain.
Nothing.
No matter what others say,
nothing is of comfort while
the heart is reforged in
the furnace no one asks for.

...Against our will, our heart
is remade by the angel of grief
who grips the center of our life,
shaking everything dead within us
from our branches, until
the heart condenses into a diamond.

Hard as this is to endure,
this too is a miracle.

Mark Nepo

Excerpts from: "After Mira"

From: Inside the Miracle.

~

Photo: Mystic Meandering

Perceptions of The Universe - Selected Quotes

The surface of the earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean.
Some part of our being knows this is where we came from.
We long to return, and we can because the cosmos is
also within us.

We are made of star stuff.

Carl Sagan
Cosmos

~

photo - Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

What are we?

A fleeting, intricate presence riding a tiny speck of water
and rock, out here in the dark, sailing the ship of wonder
ever more deeply into the void from which we came...

Whitley Strieber and Jeffrey J. Kripal
from: The Super Natural: A New Vision of the Unexplained

~

When dew falls as tears from the morning sky,
When riverside trees sparkle in sunlight,
So close in my heart their shadows fall,
Then I know
That the Universe is a floating lotus
In the holy lake of my mind.
Then I know:

I am the voice within the Voice,
The song within the Song,
The life within the Life,
The light breaking through the heart of darkness.

Rabindranath Tagore
from - "A Flight of Swans"
translated by Aurobindo Bose

Photo - Mystic Meandering

~

... thus you came into being
from non-existence...

...like a star without a name...

Move across the night sky
with those anonymous lights...

Rumi

~

How we perceive affects what we believe,
what we believe affects what our perception is...

MM

Namaste

_/\_

Cosmic Dust...

We are Cosmic Dust...

Star stuff...

Elements of the firmament...
Infinitesimal atoms
coalesced in time and non-time;

non-existence into existence.

Star born,
in luminous womb-like nebulae.
Light, born from darkness.
Carried by Solar winds
among trillions of galaxies...

The Cosmos runs through us -
IS us...

Undying brilliance that death cannot erase;
forever gliding through the Universe...
unconfined by the limits of time and place,
our "spirit" is always free,
unfettered by the bonds of earth.

Shine on...

Mystic Meandering
May 18, 2020

For all those who have lost loved ones
- they are not "lost" -

Their "spirit" is shining forever brilliant
lighting the darkness,
forever free...

Shine on, dear ones, Shine on...

MM

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Everything Breathes Together - Mark Helprin

The universe is still and complete.  Everything that ever was, is;
everything that ever will be , is - and so on, in all possible
combinations.  Though in perceiving it we imagine that it is
in motion, and unfinished, it is quite finished and quite
astonishingly beautiful.

In the end, or rather, as things really are, any event, no matter
how small, is intimately and sensibly tied to all others.
All rivers run full to the sea; those who are apart are brought
together; the lost ones are redeemed; the dead come back to life;
the perfectly blue days that have begun and ended in golden
dimness continue, immobile and accessible; and, when all is
perceived in such a way as to obviate time, justice becomes
apparent not as something that will be, but something that is.

Mark Helprin
From: Winter's Tale

via - Beyond The Fields We Know

~

The stars are like letters which inscribe themselves at every
moment in the sky.  Everything in the world is full of signs.
All events are coordinated.  All things depend on each other...
Everything breathes together.

Plotinus
CE 204/5-270

~

Photo from Facebook

Fantasia of Existence...

Sinking deeper into the calming comfort
of the rich darkness of the universe within;
floating into the depths of the inner Cosmos,
lanterns of light appear suspended in the dark;
stars - at the interior frontiers of beginnings,
before time, before relative reality, before "I" began,
in the space of Pure Silence...

Where the unmanifest spirals ItSelf into form;
into galaxies of molten stardust
rotating ever so slowly through the universe;
that also somehow became "me"!
For no reason - except
the pure pleasure of Being,
the pure pleasure of existing.

This fantasia of Existence,
fancied to be composed of
stardust and galaxies of liquid light
dancing through the universe -
inhabits this body...

Light and matter
vibrating together, in resonance,
like a tuning fork - enlivening this body,
all bodies, everywhere.

A symphony of Wonderment...

Mystic Meandering
Oct. 27, 2017

~

If a child is to keep his inborn sense of wonder
he needs the companionship of at least one adult
who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy,
excitement, and mystery of the world
we live in...

Rachel Carson

from a journal book called
Live In Wonder
by Eric Saperston

~

Photo - Vortex Art
craypas oils, done with fingers
2011

Cosmic Birthing...

Drink the word of Wisdom,
for it has become a veiled light

so that you may become able
to receive the unveiled Light,
to behold without veils
that which is now hidden…

Taste the filtered light
and work your way toward wisdom
with no personal covering.

And traverse the sky like a star,
that you may journey unconditioned…

Thus you came into being from non-existence…

...like a star without a name…

Move across the night sky
with those anonymous lights…

Rumi

taken from two different translations:
Reynold A. Nicholson
The Mathnawi of Jalalu’ddin Rumi
and
Coleman Barks

Mathnawi III

The surface of the earth
is the shore of the cosmic ocean.
Some part of our being knows this is where
we came from.

We long to return, and we can
because the cosmos
is also within us.

We are made of star stuff.

Carl Sagan
Cosmos

Those vast (stars) that you see
far off, far off, far off
with telescopes…

One day you’re going to wake up
and say:
”Why, that is me!”

You are the Eternal

Alan Watts

~

Please see this wonderful post
Sparkling Awareness
by Fred LaMotte

~

Photos: taken out the window
at 3am with flash,
creating these interesting affects

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star...

Sitting in deep Silence in “The Cave” – Awareness flows. By Silence I mean the deep space of Awareness, the space of Existence in which existence exists – The Emptiness, Consciousness, the Primordial Womb of Stillness that is beyond the sense of “me”, beyond the mind of fear and trembling, beyond construct, label and concept. It is the knowing Stillness of ISness. It is the deep space where everything that is, is just allowed to be. It is the space from which life and life experiences spring… It is the space of True Mind, True Nature, The Great Mystery, Love, and Light beyond light… And in this Silence you know yourself as That…

In deep Silence everything exists in suspended animation within deep knowing Awareness – all of it originating from and reflected in Its Emptiness – like some grand reflecting pool. The “me”/body-mind that we believe ourselves to be exists (ephemerally) within this context of this Space of Aware Knowing, like a cloud that exists within the context of the sky-space. The cloud is suspended in the spaciousness of the sky, and is not just an “appearance” appearing *on* it, as if super-imposed on the backdrop of sky, as if the sky were a flat screen, but is actually suspended in the depth of the sky – surrounded by sky-space. During the day the sky *looks* flat, except for the clouds that also appear to be flat against the sky. At night it become obvious that there are many stars suspended *in* space. It becomes obvious that the sky-space has dimension, has substance – has life. Space is literally full of ItSelf. :)

Several years ago my husband and I went to an observatory late at night out in the middle of a forest. We both were awed when we realized that what we can actually see with our naked eyes is only a fraction of the multitude of stars and planets that actually exist in this spacious Space of deep Silence. Deep Space is *alive* with millions and billions of light-generating substance. This realization is enlivening. Nothing is flat. Everything is suspended in Spaciousness. What we see and experience is only the surface. Remembering this now has brought home to me how I live, for the most part, only at the surface of life, at the edge of Reality – unaware of Its depth; unaware of the *Life* that is at the *depths* of Being – just being.

In deep Silence it becomes obvious that life is not a movie against a flat screen. We are not flat “objects against a backdrop of Awareness.” Awareness is not a “backdrop”, not a flat movie screen on which a movie of life is projected. Awareness is alive spaciousness that flows through as Life – a generative Aliveness. Everything is being lived. Life/Awareness/Presence is living ItSelf here *as* this life, *as* this existence, as this “me” – evanescent as it is. Life is not “just this” – in the sense of just what you can taste, touch, smell, see, hear. It is ‘THIS’ – this Alive, Conscious, Awareing Silence - the life blood of “just this.” It is the Intelligent Living Awareing Reality that “just this” is. Do I hear heart giggles echoing in the distance? :)

In the deep Silence, Existence (capital E) sees/knows/recognizes everything as ItSelf. It does not see separate objects floating within itself. Everything that exists is in suspended animation - Life suspended in ItSelf – like the stars, planets and clouds mysteriously suspended in space. And it’s not that Awareness “sees” like some objective distant observer out beyond the universe, but is intimately aware of its own existence, its own expression, as this expression is happening within ItSelf – as Itself - like a hologram – reflected out into Infinity.

In the deep Silence, Pure Awareness has no concept of “duality” or of anything being other than ItSelf. Non-duality and duality are concepts that only exist in the mind, in comparison to each other. Everything always was and is an expression of One Aware Consciousness. No comparison is made in the expression – as the *expression* is not seen as something *separate* from ItSelf. The conceptual framework, the structure through which we *see* becomes confining and needless – except to the mind of course. And yet we continue to play our duality/non-duality game – making distinctions where there are none…

I read recently that after a long period of deep Silence, when the Buddha opened his eyes and saw the morning star on the day of his enlightenment, he realized that he was the star he was seeing – he realized that he was the same pure nature as the star, and that all beings are endowed with this pure, radiant brilliance… A Mystery. We are the stuff of stars. Twinkle, twinkle…

~*~

Photo ~ From The Invisible Universe
by David Malin

~*~



“The Void is a mirror…
Creation is an image…
Man is as the eye of the image,
reflected in the mirror.
The One who is reflected in the image
is hidden in the pupil of the eye.
Thus ‘He’ sees ‘Himself’…

What you see around you is
not other-than-you.
All and everything is the existence
of the One…

See ‘Him’ in everything
as yourself
and the non-existence of yourself.
This is Truth.
There is only the One/Self/Essence…
The reflection of man in the mirror
is the same as that
which is being reflected -
and the words of the image
are the reflected words of
the Real One.”

From the writings of
Sufi Master Ibn’ Arabi
From Grace Is Now