feeling disheartened, dispirited, depressed?
like the world is burning to a crisp?
be like a phoenix and rise from the ashes
start dancing and singing and enchanting stories
and taking refuge in the still, sweet, sacred space of silence
hum with cosmic rhythm, be the dance of life, an imaginal butterfly winging so free
“Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
i love closing each moon with blessing the space between us but today i’m feeling the call to celebrate our shared journey of openhearted october… did you awaken as i did today re-membering the universe in each moment is making an irresistible offer? thousandfold thanks for conspiring to gift us with so many moments of wedding and weaving our cosmic shared presence into the lush field of beloved… a day, truly, of love after love…
Love After Love
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
Derek Walcott
today, we stand in prayerful solidarity with all our relations at standing rock as they continue to stand courageously and peacefully for all that is sacred and teach us and show us the way of interconnectedness…
Let our standing be a mindful gesture: mindful of the ground on which we are standing, the one little plot of land on this earth not belonging to one nation, but to all nations united. It is a very small piece of land, indeed, but it is a symbol of human concord, a symbol of the truth that this poor, mistreated earth belongs to all of us together.
As we stand, then, like plants standing on a good plot of ground, let us sink our roots deep into our hidden unity. Allow yourself to feel what it means to stand and to extend your inner roots.
Rooted in the soil of the heart, let us expose ourselves to the wind of the Spirit, the one Spirit who moves all who let themselves be moved. Let us breathe deeply the breath of the one Spirit.
Let our standing bear witness that we take a stand on common ground.
Let our standing be an expression of reverence for all those who before us have taken a stand for human unity.
Let us stand with reverence on the ground of our common human endeavor, joining all those who stood on this ground, from the first shaper of tools to the engineers of the most complex machines and institutions.
Let us stand with reverence on the common ground of the human quest for meaning, side by side with all who ever stood on this ground in their searching thought, in their celebration of beauty, in their dedicated service.
Let us stand in reverence before all those who on our common ground stood up to be counted, stood up – and were cut down.
Let us remember that to stand up as we have now stood up implies a readiness to lay down one’s life for that for which one stands.
Let us stand in awe before those thousands upon thousands – known and unknown – who have laid down their lives for the common cause of our human family.
Let us bow our heads. Let us bow our heads to them.
Let us stand and bow our heads, because we stand under judgment.
We stand under judgment, for “One is the human Spirit.” If we are one with the heroes and prophets, we are also one with those who persecuted and killed them. One with the henchmen as we are one with the victims. We all share the glory of human greatness and the shame of human failure.
Allow me to invite you now to focus your mind on the most inhuman act of destruction you can find in your memory. And now take this, together with all human violence, all human greed, injustice, stupidity, hypocrisy, all human misery, and lift it all up, with all the strength of your heart, into the stream of compassion and healing that pulsates through the heart of the world – that center in which all our hearts are one. This is not an easy gesture. It may almost seem too difficult for some of us. But until we can reach and tap with our deepest roots this common source of concord and compassion, we have not yet claimed within our own hearts that oneness that is our common human birthright.
Standing firm, then, in this oneness, let us close our eyes.
Let us close our eyes to bring home to ourselves our blindness as we face the future.
Let us close our eyes to focus our minds on the inner light, our one common light, in whose brightness we shall be able to walk together even in the dark.
Let us close our eyes as a gesture of trust in the guidance of the one Spirit who will move us if we open our hearts.
“One is the human Spirit,” but the human Spirit is more than human, because the human heart is unfathomable. Into this depth let us silently sink our roots. There lies our only source of peace.
In a moment, when I will invite you to open again your eyes, I will invite you also to turn in this Spirit to the person next to you with greeting of peace. Let our celebration culminate and conclude in this gesture, by which we will send one another forth as messengers of peace. Let us do this now.
Peace be with you all!
amazingly, this prayer was not created for today’s day of action but was led by Brother David Steindl-Rast at a gathering of spiritual leaders at the 30th Anniversary of the United Nations, October 24, 1975.
Honoring United Nations and Global Oneness Days
today, in meeting each moment fully, in feeling the darkening of the moon and the season, in witnessing so much breakdown personally and collectively, in sensing the impending breakthrough amplified by joining with others as we stand together in peace and love with eyes and hands and hearts wide open to hold the tension of the opposites as we walk the pathless path, the road less traveled, the unknown byway and re-member the ancient story arising anew of the unitive field of oneness we are with a birthright of cooperation and collaboration passed forward from one to another over the millennia calling us to create a world where peace is built with justice and justice is guided by love…
here is a perfect image to show you the astonishing light of your own being… as you gaze on the light radiating from both of these lovely sunflowers, take a moment to put your hands on your heart saying, I AM basically good… I AM basically good… I AM basically good… relax even more deeply into basic goodness by moving your hands to your belly and breathing this in again and again…
and now, let’s anchor this feeling of the light of love we are with the intention of being compassion and lovingkindness with all our relations beginning with ourselves as we bring up an image of the innocent child alive in us and as breath breathes us, bless all that is with happiness and safety and health and ease…
re-member there’s only one of us here… a streaming wave of luminous, phosphorescent flotsam drifting on an invisible dark sea, an unfolding dance of rainbow mystery always being love, always becoming love…
today’s pilgrimage of stopping the ordinary world to enter more deeply into the timeless present moment, is a meeting and greeting each moment fully, a meeting and embracing it as an honored guest, a friend… with nowhere to go and nothing to do, we live in an open, free space of compassion being lovingkindness and generosity… like this tree, we are a place of true refuge for everything seeking shelter in our arms…
dwelling in the presence of the present moment, trusting in our one heart, surrendering to love transforms our walking each other home from mundane monotony to a sacred moveable feast…
i’ll have some of that!
“To seek freedom is the only driving force I know. Freedom to fly off into that infinity out there. Freedom to dissolve; to lift off; to be like the flame of a candle, which, in spite of being up against the light of a billion stars, remains intact, because it never pretended to be more than what it is: a mere candle.”
― Carlos Castaneda, Don Juan: the Sorcerer
today’s journey is one of stopping the world by stopping thoughts, the internal dialogue through contemplation of the breath going deeper and deeper into the breath, into presence, into the freespirit space of unconditional love, boundless love like a candle in the wind…
today, i’m following the orders of the healing priest of radio frequencies at the hospital ity center of the good samaritan and doing nothing, freeing me to dwell in the space of true refuge, our wounded, softened heart and experience the goodness of all our relations of the awakened heart… thousandfold thanks for radiating so much love and light…
so, i respond in kind and kindness to all with a kiss, a keeping it super simple, on this day of adventure, this day of trodding an unknown path, this day of flow, of holy synchronicity, of being still at the center, living creativity, living in the chaos that gives births to a dancing star and re-members the soul song of our multiverse… join with me in bodhicitta re-joy-sing. co-hearts of the one wounded heart….
all is well
and all is well
and all that is, is well
re-member our song dancing it long and sharing it in great silence with seven generations….
breathing out, we die to what’s no longer true… breathing in, we’re born anew… in the space between the worlds, between expiring and inspiring, in this place of pause we are in the sacred space of of the void, the stillpoint, the birth canal, the tunnel… are you catching glimpses of the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel?
yes, we’ve been experiencing the germinating energy of darkness… perhaps, you have felt inner wound seeds rupturing causing confusion, despair, disorientation, anxiety… now is the moment to re-member…
The wound is the place where the Light enters you.
~ Rumi ~
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
~ Leonard Cohen ~
yes, re-member, the wheel of life is always turning and returning just as we are always turning and returning to the breath, to the present moment, to the dance of creation… rest assured… the deeper we openly and courageously go into the unknown, the more we come to know…
if one picture is ever worth a thousand words, this is it….
i could post this image every day for this lesson is what the pilgrimage we are all on teaches us… moment by moment, breath by breath and step by step… breathing in, we’re born anew… breathing out we die to what’s no longer true…
today, i so feel the tsunami building in me, that towering wave that’s about to break free as i curl in it’s curl trusting and blessing the space between us, that luxurious pause where i have the moment to choose to be the wild sea of love energy, of rainbow mystery…
YES!