Author: Jo Beall

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 352 – 12/3/2017

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right now, it’s like this…

Holy Synchronicity! The last full moon of this turn around the sun and a supermoon at that falls right on the weekly installment of sharing an image showing you the astonishing light of your being and what better image than the amazing illumination of you, the moon…

what a delight to gather tonight in sangha knowing that beings across the globe are joining in the Buddhist practice of lovingkindness meditation in celebration of the full moon… how i love this song, this prayer flowing through with every breath…

simple and profound, lovingkindness starts by blessing oneself and gradually expands outward, eventually wishing good intentions for the entire world and all beings including our enemies. There are many variations and translations of this prayer, what follows is the essence of it; if we all said this prayer with sincerity at least once per week, the world could be a very different place:

My heart fills with with loving kindness. I love myself. May I be happy. May I be well. May I be peaceful. May I be free.

May all beings in my vicinity be happy. May they be well. May they be peaceful. May they be free.

May all beings in my city be happy. May they be well. May they be peaceful. May they be free.

May all beings in my state be happy. May they be well. May they be peaceful. May they be free.

May all beings in my country be happy. May they be well. May they be peaceful. May they be free.

May all beings on my continent be happy. May they be well. May they be peaceful. May they be free.

May all beings in my hemisphere be happy. May they be well. May they be peaceful. May they be free.

May all beings on planet Earth be happy. May they be well. May they be peaceful. May they be free.

May my parents be happy. May they be well. May they be peaceful. May they be free.

May all my friends be happy. May they be well. May they be peaceful. May they be free.

May all my enemies be happy. May they be well. May they be peaceful. May they be free.

May all beings in the Universe be happy. May they be well. May they be peaceful. May they be free.

If I have hurt anyone, knowingly or unknowingly in thought, word or deed, I ask for their forgiveness.

If anyone has hurt me, knowingly or unknowingly in thought, word or deed, I extend my forgiveness.

may all beings everywhere, whether near or far, whether known or unknown, be happy

may we all be at peace

may our one heart remain open

may we all realize the beauty of our true nature

may we all know the astonishing light of our being

may we all be a source of healing for all

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 351 – 12/2/2017

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right now, it’s like this…

our last full moon of this turn around the sun, and a supermoon at that, and the last one before soulstice is just a few hours away as i write these words… somehow, Oregon’s state logo seems  a perfect turn of phrase for  this moon and this moment… this moment of slowing down, turning inward and descending into the watery depths to take this moment to bathe in the illumination of lady luna, and luxuriating in her nourishment of radiance…

last year i was winging my way across the country on an eagle, this year, like my state and the moon, i’m flying on inner wings across a timeless landscape drawing down the energy of this moon of rebirth to open our heart circle ever wider to the flow of compassion that is the very air we breathe…

may we all be filled with lovingkindness

may we all feel safe and at ease

may we all accept ourselves just as we are

may we all be deep peace

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 350 – 12/1/2017

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welcome to one of my favorite of moons… descending december… already i feel the pull of the sun coming to a standstill, soulstice, and like the sun feel my rhythms coming to a standstill, a slowing down into the stillpoint, a season of getting down to bare bones and nourishing the roots, the essence at the core of being…

yes, may we all travel awakened, lightened, flowing with the wisdom of the deep dark earth where we transform, go beyond the form pattern to be and become our, as yet, unknown self, a dancing star…

For the Unknown Self
So much of what delights and troubles you
Happens on a surface
You take for ground.
Your mind thinks your life alone,
Your eyes consider air your nearest neighbor,
Yet it seems that a little below your heart
There houses in you an unknown self
Who prefers the patterns of the dark
And is not persuaded by the eye’s affection
Or caught by the flash of thought.

It is a self that enjoys contemplative patience
With all your unfolding expression,
Is never drawn to break into light
Though you entangle yourself in unworthiness
And misjudge what you do and who you are.

It presides within like an evening freedom
That will often see you enchanted by twilight
Without ever recognizing the falling night,
It resembles the under-earth of your visible life:
All you do and say and think is fostered
Deep in its opaque and prevenient clay.

It dwells in a strange, yet rhythmic ease
That is not ruffled by disappointment;
It presides in a deeper current of time
Free from the force of cause and sequence
That otherwise shapes your life.

Were it to break forth into day,
Its dark light might quench your mind,
For it knows how your primeval heart
Sisters every cell of your life
To all your known mind would avoid,

Thus it knows to dwell in you gently,
Offering you only discrete glimpses
Of how you construct your life.

At times, it will lead you strangely,
Magnetized by some resonance
That ambushes your vigilance.

It works most resolutely at night
As the poet who draws your dreams,
Creating for you many secret doors,
Decorated with pictures of your hunger;

It has the dignity of the angelic
That knows you to your roots,
Always awaiting your deeper befriending
To take you beyond the threshold of want,
Where all your diverse strainings
Can come to wholesome ease.

~ John O’Donohue ~

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 349 – 11/30/2017

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on this day of sanctity, in this moment, this moon, this pilgrimage, this life of being in the unknowable, let us bless this space between us, this numinous space, this sacred space of openness where the spirit of all that is always flows through us, where we are one heart always being love…

blessing this space, this unified field of the divine, this pilgrimage of awakening with one small step and another and another, this journey of healing becoming more and more whole as we transmute the holes into the holy, the wholeness we are…

thanks be for it all for everything is the teacher bringing us to this moment of peace, of love, of joy… thanks be for you and your amazing gifts of kindling fire, the inner flame of spirit, of inspiration, of breath, of our breathing together through our one heart…

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 348 – 11/29/2017

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right now, it’s like this…

~

joyful in this moment

being true refuge here and now

coming home to peace

~

trusting in the waves

to bring us home with every breath

deepening and widening the arc of our one heart

from me to thee to we

as we dance the path of great mystery

~

may we all be filled with lovingkindness

may we all feel safe and at ease

may we all accept ourselves just as we are

may we all be deep peace

~

thanks be for this moment of resonance, this portal of peace where all our relations, one by one, are ringing bells of love creating a wave of our one heart dancing supporting earth mother supporting us… one cosmos, many stars, expansive roots, all belonging to each other woven together with invisible iridescent threads dancing rainbow mystery…

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 347 – 11/28/2017

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this is a picture of the Mahatma Gandhi World Peace Memorial which contains some of his ashes…. i love imagining the ashes are whispering to us about divine flow and re-membering to be present in the moment trusting in and surrendering to divine flow, the cosmic energy we choose with every thought, word and deed to align with and dance with in the rhythm of the  waves…

~

at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

~ T S Eliot ~

~

may we go with the flow on the path of ordinariness experiencing the miraculous in each moment and appreciating the sacred beauty of every breath… thousandfold thanks and deep bows, rainbow relatives of the one heart opening ever more widely…

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 346 – 11/27/2017

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today is pregnant with completion…the last day of a magical peace retreat in a land of sun bathing in the fireball’s rays of purification before  re-turning toward a cooler landscape where rains fall gently inviting nesting in cozy reflection…

today is the 77th day of an 11 week odyssey of awakening initiation foreshadowed in early summer with a leap into a blazing fire, a leap of faith into the void, into the unknown and uncertain where we learn of our true nature as beings of light, a light that flames eternally, the sign that we live on forever, we are immortal….

join me in a moment of sun gazing and prayerful contemplation…

Sun Tracks

The track of the sun
across the sky
leaves its shining message,
Illuminating,
Strengthening,
Warming
us who are here,
Showing us we are not alone,
we are yet ALIVE!
And this fire…
Our fire…
Shall not die.

~ Choctaw Prayer ~

may we all awaken and shine on and on…

namaste

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 345 – 11/26/2017

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today as we make a special pilgrimage across the vast ocean of peaceful being to the magical realm of avalon, i contemplate how this journey is the journey of life, of awakening to the magic and wonder waiting on the other side of the shore as you take one small step and another and another through the storms and darkness and travails of life until in a flash, the path of heart opens and the sun, that is always shining even when hidden by clouds, pops out in all its brilliance re-minding us, re-heartening us of the astonishing light of our being that is always and forever present…

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 344 – 11/25/2017

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today’s journey is rooted in the deep peace of the running wave flowing through us all as we journey  onward into an equanimity passing understanding and experience the harmony of relatives getting along tune into a celestial harmony blending together the earthly tones of dissonance…

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 343 – 11/24/2017

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we journey in peace today to the friendship bell overlooking the pacific ocean… this bell was given by the people of Korea to the people of the United States in the hope that friendship between the nations would endure as would their faith in freedom and interdependence…

today’s peace retreat has me re-membering that

a thousand years ago, the Great Peacemaker came across the Great Lake Onondaga, now known as Ontario, in a stone canoe to the warring six-nation confederacy of the Haudenosaunee, also known as the Iroquois… gradually his words and actions won the people over, they accepted the Great Law of Peace and they buried their weapons under the Peace Tree by Lake Onondaga and formed councils for making wise choices together… in the Haudenosaunee, historians recognize the oldest known participatory democracy, one that inspired the founders in crafting the Constitution of the United States. …

let us be in this moment peacemakers of the earth mother following the teachings of the Great Peacemaker just as still do the Onondaga Nation, whose name means Keepers of the Central Fire, always beginning with prayers of thanksgiving…

THE PEOPLE

Today we have gathered and we see that the cycles of life continue. We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. So now, we give greetings and thanks to each other as people.

Now our minds are one.

THE EARTH MOTHER

We are all thankful to our mother, the Earth, for she gives us all that we need for life. She supports our feet as we walk about upon her. It gives us joy that she continues to care for us as she has from the beginning of time. To our mother, we send greetings and thanks.

Now our minds are one.

THE ENLIGHTENED TEACHERS

We gather our minds to greet and thank the enlightened teachers who have come to help throughout the ages. When we forget how to live in harmony, they remind us of the way we were instructed to live as people. We send greetings and thanks to these caring teachers.

Now our minds are one.

THE CREATOR

Now we turn our thoughts to the creator, or great spirit, and send greetings and thanks for all the gifts of creation. Everything we need to live a good life is here on this Mother Earth. For all the love that is still around us, we gather our minds together as one and send our choicest words of greetings and thanks to the creator.

Now our minds are one.

CLOSING WORDS

We have now arrived at the place where we end our words. of all the things we have named, it was not our intention to leave anything out. If something was forgotten, we leave it to each individual to send such greetings and thanks in their own way.

Now our minds are one.

~

thanks be…