Between Two Houses - a meandering...

Sitting watching the evening news,
I looked out the living room window - to the space
between my neighbors' houses.

Looking through
the bare branches of the trees between their homes,
I saw the pinkish, orange, gold-yellow of the sunset
fading in the West.

It occurred to me, in that moment,
that no matter what is happening on the earth,
and my personal life - the Cosmos still "works"!
The sun, the moon, the stars, the planets, the galaxies
all dance the Dance of the Cosmos -
for eons -

giving us beauty, wonder, and awe - and peace.
It's us humans that don't seem to be "working" well -
on this little planet - divided...

It also reminded me that there is a greater context
in which we live - a vaster Reality - hidden -
that I want to be aware of...

Sometimes this world seems so gray
- run by lunatics -
that I miss the beauty in
The Cosmos,
and in between spaces...

I really need to
look out my window more often! :)

And expand my view of the Universe...

Mystic Meandering
January 30, 2025

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
The photo was actually taken in April 2023

 

Peaceful Window...

I am surrounded by Beauty -
the Beauty of nature - just outside my window.
So peaceful, so quiet...  I marvel in wonderment;
in contrast with the chaos inside the window...

I breathe in the Beauty through my eyes - and relax -
knowing that ultimately everything is at peace
within itself - including myself - within and without -
and breathe a sigh of relief -

as the Beauty of Grace shows up once again...

Mystic Meandering
Nov. 3, 2022

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

The Broken Can Blossom - Sarah Carlson

My gaze drifts out
the kitchen window
as I ponder an issue
I have been grappling with
for quite some time.
My body is a bit tense,
but my eyes are soft
as my focus is actually within.
Slowly, ever so slowly,
my attention is captured
by a plant on the windowsill.
Not just any plant, though.
An orchid that had been cherished
by my mother
and hasn't bloomed since
her death almost two years ago.
There's a stem with several buds
and a branch, almost fully separated,
that bends around the back of the pot.
I turn it slowly,
breathe in deeply
as my eyes focus
on a blossom that had been
quietly seeking the sun
without my knowing.
A slow smile extends
throughout my being.
Ah yes,
the broken can blossom.
And when they do,
there is beauty that is
intricate and profound
and deeply genuine.
What a gift for all
who choose to see.

Sarah Carlson
Meanderings of the Heart

Posted with permission from the author

Photo by Sarah Carlson

 

I am not dead - Robinson Jeffers

I am not dead, I have only become inhuman:
That is to say,
Undressed myself of laughable prides and infirmities,
But not as a man
Undresses to creep into bed, but like an athlete
Stripping for the race.

The delicate ravel of nerves that made me a measurer
Of certain fictions
Called good and evil; that made me contract with pain
And expand with pleasure;
Fussily adjusted like a little electroscope:
That's gone, it is true;
(I never miss it; if the universe does,
How easily replaced!)

But all the rest is heightened, widened, set free.
I admired the beauty
While I was human, now I am part of the beauty.
I wander in the air,

Being mostly gas and water, and flow in the ocean;
Touch you and Asia
At the same moment; have a hand in the sunrises
And the glow of this grass.
I left the light precipitate of ashes to earth
For a love-token.

Robinson Jeffers

with thanks to Death Deconstructed

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

Regaining the Rhythm of "Self" - John O'Donohue

When you regain a sense of your life as a journey of discovery,
you return to rhythm with your self.  When you take the time
to travel with reverence, a richer life unfolds before you.
Moments of beauty begin to braid your days.  When your
mind becomes more acquainted with reverence, the light,
grace and elegance of beauty find you more frequently.
When the destination becomes gracious, the journey
becomes an adventure of beauty.

John O'Donohue
Excerpt from: Divine Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

                                                                                        

An Inner Whisper - John O'Donohue

Human identity is complex.  Nothing is ever given simply
or immediately.  Even the simplest act of perception has
many layers... Time and memory often reveal things later
that were staring us in the eye, but we never noticed them.
The quest for the truth of things is never ending.  Every
experience is open to countless readings and interpretations.
We never see a thing completely.  In sure anticipation, our
eyes have always already altered what awaits our gaze.
The search for truth is difficult and uncomfortable.  Because
the mystery is too much for us, we may opt to settle for
the surface of things.  Comfort becomes more important than
true presence.  This is precisely why we need to hear the
discerning voice.

Somewhere in every heart there is a discerning voice.  This
voice distrusts the status quo.  It sounds out the falsity in
things and encourages the dissent from the images things
tend to assume.  It underlines the secret crevices where the
surface has become strained.  It advises distance and opens
up a new perspective through which the concealed meaning
 of a situation might emerge... Its intention is to keep the heart
clean and clear.  This voice is an inner whisper not obvious or
known to others outside...  Yet much depends on that small
voice.  The truth of its whisper marks the line between honor
and egoism, kindness and chaos.  In extreme situations,
which have been emptied of all shelter and tenderness,
that small voice whispers from somewhere beyond and
encourages the heart to hold out for dignity, respect, beauty
and love.  That whisper brings forgotten nobility into an arena
where violence has traduced everything.  This faithful voice
can illuminate the dark lands of despair.  It becomes both the
sign and presence of a transcendence that no force or horror
can extinguish.  Each day in the world, in the prisons, hospitals
and killing fields, against all the odds, this still, small voice
continues to echo the beauty of the human being.  In haunted
places this voice carries the light of beauty like a magical
lantern to transform the desolation, to remind us that
regardless of what may be wrenched from us, there is a
dignity and hope that we do not have to lose.  This voice
brings us directly into contact with the inalienable presence
of beauty in the soul.

John O'Donohue

~

Photo from the Internet

For Samhain - "A Morning Blessing"

“I bless the night that nourished my heart
to set the ghosts of longing free
into the flow and figure of dream
that went to harvest from the dark,
bread for the hunger that no one sees.

All that is eternal in me
welcome the wonder of this day,
the field of brightness it creates
offering time for each thing
to arise and illuminate.

I place on the altar of dawn:
The quiet loyalty of breath,
the tent of thought where I shelter,
wave of desire I am shore to,
and all beauty drawn to the eye.

May my mind come alive today
to the invisible geography
that invites me to new frontiers,
to break the dead shell of yesterdays,
to risk being disturbed and changed.

May I have the courage today
to live the life that I would love,
to postpone my dream no longer
but do at last what I came here for
and waste my time on fear no more…”

John O’Donohue
”A Morning Offering”
From: To Bless the Space Between Us

~

For those of the ancient Celtic and Druid traditions Samhain
 (Nov. 1) is the beginning of a new cycle in
 the Great Round of Time - recognizing the cyclical nature
 of manifest existence.

Warm Blessings to all no matter what your tradition…

Life's Eerie Glow...

Muted golden sunlight came through the living room window Monday evening just before 6pm with the strong smell of smoke filling the air. I looked out the window and saw an eerie glow in the sky. A forest fire was burning out of control in the foothills only about 30 miles from here, as the wind blows. And it was blowing in our direction. I saw the red ball of the sun just above the roof top across the street and went for the camera. As soon as I stepped out the front door I gulped in smoke filled air. I snapped a few pictures and went back inside and closed up the house. Unbeknownst to me, DH had gone down the street to the park to see if he could get some pictures with his cell phone. Those are the ones that came out here. The bright yellow globe and bright light is the sun in a yellow sky. Filtered through the smoke it cast an eerie light on the landscape. Sitting at dinner we could see the smoke wafting through the trees, as the smell of smoke continued to seep through house.

The fire still burns. Two people have died, one is missing. 24 homes were burned to the ground. Homeless in an instant. I can’t imagine. And it wasn’t an act of Nature. It started from a prescribed burn… Some knuckle head in the government allowed a planned burn to take place in the driest, windiest March on record… Go figure.

March is usually our snowiest month, but we haven’t gotten any precipitation at all. We are already breaking temperature records. Summer has arrived, apparently skipping Spring. Today they say we will reach 84 degrees and break a record. The wind has been relentless. Everything is already parched, and everything is blooming. The Maple tree leaves are already out, small as they are. Cottonwoods have budded out. Crab Apple trees are beginning to bloom. Beauty is happening despite the desert-like conditions. Everything is two months ahead of schedule. I’ve been noticing this for 10 years now - this slowly creeping shift in seasonal time, as if the earth itself has shifted to a new rhythm – ever so slowly.

It’s also hard to believe that something so devastating could create such an eerie beauty – from a distance. In an instant it became clear how I often take life for granted, always counting on it being the same – day after day. We, in the “spiritual community” often give lip service to the inevitability of change and suffering, (as long as it’s not happening to us), as we get comfortable with the life we think we have created for ourselves. Or we become ensconced in our “spiritual” search for “enlightenment” (as I have – meandering as it is), only wanting to see beyond: beyond duality, beyond the here and now, beyond life as it is. And it is sometimes hard to come "back to earth" so-to-speak, and surrender to what is, to the immediacy of the moment, to “just this” - seeing life as it is in its rawness. Or some only see this world, and the people in it, as an illusion, a dream – and shut themselves off from life. And some focus only on beauty and what gives pleasure, overlooking the pain of the mundane all around us – and in themselves. In some instances denying that there is a “self” that suffers, that hurts, that grieves… But, if we are paying attention at all, we are reminded by life that the structures (and illusions) that we have built for ourselves – physically, conceptually and spiritually - crumble, and the life (and beliefs) we *think* we have earned and achieved, that we subconsciously feel in control of and entitled to, can go up in smoke.

So what is left when our illusions and beliefs about life and self burn away and we are left standing – naked – in the eerie glow of life…? The Heart of Compassion - for the nakedness of life… That’s all that really matters…

“Only when we know our own darkness well
can we be present with the darkness of others.
Compassion becomes real
when we recognize our shared humanity.”

“To be fully alive, fully human
and completely awake
is to be continually
thrown out of the nest.”

“Life’s painful aspects soften us up.
Gloriousness and pain...
One inspires us, the other softens us.”

Pema Chodron
From The Places That Scare You

Beauty After The Blizzard

Wanted to share these photos
from our recent snow fall.

They remind me of the pristine beauty that emerges

after a blizzard,

whether from Mother Nature,

or life experiences…

And yet, though we strain against the grip

of daily necessity,

I sense there is this mystery:

All life is being lived.

Who is living it then?

Is it the things themselves,

or something waiting

inside them,

like an unplayed melody

in a flute?

Rainer Maria Rilke

from: ‘Book of Hours’

Photos - Christine