today i spend walking in the woods with Mary Oliver contemplating and conversing on what we’ll do with our wild and precious lives… yesterday, i heard whispers from the invisible realms that Mary had died and today the air waves confirm it to be true… so i walk with Mary who shares the cosmic question… “Who made the world?
 / Who made the swan, and the black bear? / 
Who made the grasshopper?
 / This grasshopper, I mean— / 
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
 / the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
 / who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down— / who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
 / Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
 / Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
 / I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. / 
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down / 
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
 / how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
 / which is what I have been doing all day.
 / Tell me, what else should I have done?
 / doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
 / Tell me, what is it you plan to do
 / with your one wild and precious life?” Mary goes on to answer by saying… “And I say to my heart: Rave on.” and “Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it” in her much loved, Wild Geese, she is the words above and the words below telling about her life all the while supporting and comforting us as we walk home with her… “You do not have to be good. / You do not have to walk on your knees / for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. / You only have to let the soft animal of your body / love what it loves. / Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. / Meanwhile the world goes on. / Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain / are moving across the landscapes, / over the prairies and the deep trees, / the mountains and the rivers. / Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, / are heading home again. / Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, / the world offers itself to your imagination, / calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting— / over and over announcing your place / in the family of things.” let us close with Mary’s closing words… “When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real. I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument. I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.” thank you, Mary, beloved sherpa of the natural world for devotedly sharing your wanderings in wonder…
sea epiphany… winds whisper while waves resound: surrender to love.
Hell YES! this is the path, the way breath dances me this moment by following the course that love inspires… after moving into a space of bliss filled with what made my heart smile many moons ago and dwelling in the abundance of infinite love and gratitude, flowing in the rhythm of the waves is more and more natural, deepening and opening this sojourner to the wide and deep spaciousness of the ocean of love we are… down here in the depths of true emptiness, true reality, the the central questions to us all live me calling me into contemplative conversation concerning what really matters… i always come home to love and the one heart we share… love always finds the way, love is the way… may we all dwell, be well, in the stillness of the vast sea always being love dancing rainbow mystery…
let us take this wild and precious moment to put compassion into action by being lovingkindness as we join with the caravan of re-joy-sing to sing out to all our relations a song of strength, a song of courage, a song of spirit, a song of wisdom to hold us in the hard times inspiring our taking one more step when we feel we can’t go on and to open our one heart ever wider to and for each other as we all suffer losses each and every day with dreams changing form and flying away… everything is fleeting, only love is real, so, may we walk in beauty around the prayer wheel… may we be true refuge for all our relations sheltering each other through storms and desolation, returning home with each breath to create anew, a more beautiful cosmos, holy ground for me and you… may we comfort each other rekindling our inner flame circle dancing joyously together once again… ~ Oh Great Spirit, we raise smoke to the four sacred winds and the four corners, so that the blessings can reach our brothers and sisters in every corner of Great Mother Earth, while the smoke disperses all over Father Sky, lit by Mother Moon. Let the smoke pass to each their blessing and do away with all sorrows and unhappiness, fill their homes with love, and the light of your wisdom. If any be sick, cure them, If sad, make them happy, If they have needs, fulfill them. Give them all your love as they love you. They can give testimony to your power and mercy, and most important your love. Oh Great Spirit, we love you with all our heart as we love our brothers and sisters all. We are your servants and theirs. We ask for only one thing – give us strength to keep going on doing as we do on this spirit path. So it is! ~ Native American Blessing ~
on this ides of January, the moon of dreaming, let us celebrate the birth of one of our foremost modern day prophets who dreamed of his little children living in a world where they were judged by their character rather than their color, a dream still being dreamed today along with his call of sixty years ago to face the challenge of the new age with the creation of beloved community for only love transforms the fear of the old paradigm into the gladness of a new paradigm by opening our hearts to the miracle frequency of boundless love… “darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that”… Happy Birthday, Martin! celebrating you today with great faith in what is and what is coming… may we all journey with you to the mountain top where we tune in and listen to the celestial hum mapping out the path of the freedom road and journey a thousand miles and more without lifting a foot… loving how the circle of co-creators is expanding exponentially, a fractal of the universe we are… loving the flight into freedom we are sharing and so thankful for all of our relations whom have paved, are paving and will pave the way…
today’s pilgrimage calls for a special image as today’s a special day, one of my favorites… joan of arc, a lifelong shero of mine was born on this day and today is also the birthday of my beautiful daughter, my crown jules, another revered shero… it is so fitting to mark this day, this wild and precious moment of divine feminine rising with this call to trust inner wisdom and to proceed courageously always knowing that love always finds the way… with deep bows and enormous gratitude, today’s pilgrimage is dedicated to juliette, a surefooted capricorn child of the earth and to all children of the earth, our natural teachers of lovingkindness and compassion… on the occasion of the anniversary of your birth, i am seeing such an amazing turn around the sun for you, for us all… ~ yes! this is the year to take flight to be dreamweavers of translucent, rainbow light our cosmic heart soaring to an unimaginable height yes! this is the year to take flight ~ what a joy to travel the way of the heart… invisible, infolding pathway of presence, trust, surrender, devotion hypnotically calling us home to true refuge… this moment, this beautiful moment of boundless love, of taking flight on the wings of love’s angelic waves, may we be true…
so many celebrations today on the pathless path with heart… sunshine, waxing moon, astonishing light of being day as i honor the seed intention of singing light in the dark, of going deeply into the sound of the gong clearing all barriers to being true refuge in the moment, peace in this moment, every moment… “All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. … Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn’t. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it…” ― Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge as we take true refuge in the moment where we have everything simply by being in the moment… where everything shapeshifts, as do we, into no thing… no attachments, no possessions, no fixed identity… shapeshifting into flow, currents of water, waves of light… true refuge deepens trust in the invisible flowering already organically unfolding in rhythm with beloved… “…help me to live this day quietly, peacefully. To lean upon Thy great strength trustfully, restfully. To wait for the unfolding of Thy will patiently, serenely. To meet others peacefully, joyously…” ~ St Francis ~
Do not be satisfied with the stories that came before you. Unfold your own myth. ~Rumi~ today’s frequency calls us to walk the path of silence in the dream cave of joy as holy fool of beauty, wanderer of rainbow wonder, trusting in one’s elf to leap off of ledges into waiting angels’ wings, to dream of a cosmos where we wage peace with lovingkindness and compassion from our shared deep well of radical generosity… on today’s journey, i re-member back five years ago, a quintessence, to a moment of stretching and traveling to a place i have not been before… appearing as serendipity, a gift of wonder, i witness one, two, three, four rainbows with one disappearing and another appearing in its wake… with no sign of sun, the gray, rainy sky was transformed into rainbows… until this wild and precious moment, i thought of the sky as blue, gray or black… now, i know sky is rainbow, what a grace to dance the rainbow path… holy synchronisiddhi! seeing the world as it is… rainbow mystery flowing joyously and freely for us all to see and be… the beauty of what we truly love… with every breath, may we hear the call to come home to the heart, the kingdom of joy, beloved communion as one cosmic chorus singing, winging… peace…
every day is one of dreaming, every day is one of awakening… in this special first moon of the new turn around the sun, we are perfumed in the essence of dreamtime carried by the energy of great mother bear through the dark tunnel into the sacred space of the dream lodge, the cave of the heart, the place beyond words, the primordial womb of great silence, of pure consciousness, true emptiness before the world begins… here we rest in the gap with silence breathing us in and out… as we hibernate in this deep cave of imagination, a new world is forming in this watery womb, this ocean of being… breathing in and breathing out, we return to our great mother in still silence to receive essential nourishment as she breathes us into life through the placenta of the void, the organ of great mystery… may we all be gentle with ourselves and each other as we journey along the path of blessed darkness and deepen into a spaciousness of silence, a consciousness of generosity and of the wisdom of the heart giving us the strength to awaken the dreamer within and be the ones we have been waiting for… all our relations one unbroken circle of radiant love illuminating the dark sky, revealing wonder…
as rains gently fall, poets journey as pilgrims dreaming beautyway… ~ on this tenth day of journeying january, the moon of dreaming, what is awakening in you, what beauty is taking flight? ~ yes! this is the year for us to take flight being dreamweavers of translucent, rainbow light hearts soaring as one to unimaginable height yes! this is the year for us to take flight… ~ always i hold the dream, the vision of peace painted across the cosmos, a peace built on justice guided by love and elucidated in the Cathar Creed… It has no membership, save those who know they belong. It has no rivals because it is non competitive. It has no ambition – it seeks only to serve. It knows no boundaries, for nationalisms are unloving. It is not of itself because it seeks to enrich all groups and religions. It acknowledges all great teachers of all the ages who have shown the truth of love. Those who participate, practice the truth of love in all their being. There is no walk of life or nationality that is a barrier. Those who are, know. It seeks not to teach, but to be, and by being, enriched. It recognizes that the way we are may be the way of those around us because we are that way. It recognizes the whole planet as a being of which we are a part. It recognizes that the time has come for the supreme transmutation, the ultimate alchemical act of conscious change of the ego in to a voluntary return to the whole. It does not proclaim itself with a loud voice, but in the subtle realms of loving. It salutes all those in the past who have blazoned the path, but have paid the price. It admits no hierarchy or structure, for no one is greater than another. Its members shall know each other by their deeds and being, and by their eyes and by no other outward sign, save the fraternal embrace. Each one will dedicate their life to the silent loving of their neighbour and environment, and the planet, will carry out their task, however exalted or humble. It recognizes the supremacy of the great idea, which may only be accomplished if the human race practices the supremacy of love. It has no reward to offer, either here or in the hereafter, save that of the ineffable joy of being and loving. Each shall seek to advance the cause of understanding, doing good by stealth and teaching only by example. They shall heal their neighbour, their community, our planet and living beings in whatever form they take. They shall know no fear and feel no shame and their witness shall prevail over all odds. It has no secret, no arcanum, no initiation, save that of true understanding of the power of love and that, if we want it to be so, the world will change, but only if we change. All who belong, belong; they belong to the Church of Love. may we all dream and awaken to our medicine, our power, of weaving our light beingness into a seamless tapestry of lucid luminosity alive with love, liberation, compassion, wisdom, joy, awe and the deep peace of the running wave… ~
“We need the tonic of wildness— To wade sometimes in the meadows where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; To smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground. At the same time we are earnest to explore and learn, we require that all things be mysterious unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature, We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and titanic features: The sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and decaying trees, the thunder cloud, the rain that lasts three weeks and produces freshets. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.” ~ Henry David Thoreau, Walden.
today’s pilgrimage, today’s wandering in wonder opens into so many wild and precious moments of inscendence, of burrowing into the soul, of taking full advantage of the dreaming moon of journeying january to ground in the earth and listen deeply for her soul song echoing heaven’s spirit song of how soul will be unfolding in this new turn around the sun… may we all be gentle with ourselves and each other as we deepen into a spaciousness of silence, a consciousness of generosity, of the wisdom of the heart giving us the strength to awaken the dreamer and be the ones we have been waiting for, all our relations one unbroken field of rainbow pillars of light…
