Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Page 113 – Exploring True Nature

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 7 – Day 201 – 7/4/2020

July 5, 2020 Jo BeallLeave a Comment

wandering along the ocean, dancing with the breeze

looking toward the skies, waltzing with the trees

sister moon is dancing too, floating through the clouds of blue

waxing full and all aglow, she whispers to the earth below

come home to the heart and listen, all answers are within

awaken to the clarion call to stand together one for all

this capricorn full moon under the cancer sun coming at such a pivotal moment is profoundly impacting both inner and outer tides with intense ebbs and the flows… an image associated with the sun in cancer now is that of an old man facing the darkness of the north east, the navigator guiding us into wisdom and integration and greeting the new… the image for the moon in cap is a dense jungle covering civilisation portending eaerthmother is able to recover from the desacration…

so, what a joy to go out into the night to commune with sister moon feeling her divine feminine energy washing through us, purifying inner inflammation reflected in an outer world on fire… her light like a soothing balm, like a gentle lullaby, a sweet reminder of all is well in this moment, this intense, uncertain, unknowing moment…

we are the guardians of a new vision called to awaken ourselves and inspire others to be the dream of experiencing all as an unbroken circle holding hands around the cosmos breathing in the rhythm of the waves to the tune of metta or lovingkindness:

may we be filled with lovingkindness

may we be well

may we be peaceful and at ease

may we be happy

may the full moon’s light of liberation, luminosity and eclipsing shadow penetrate us to the core decolonizing and deconstucting all that chains and enslaves and blessing all that arises…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 7 – Day 200 – 7/3/2020

July 4, 2020 Jo BeallLeave a Comment

like you, i’m feeling the revolution as the usa celebrates independence tomorrow and the whole world is feeling the uprise… usually. i like to celebrate it as interdependence day and it feels more and more of us are awakening to that truth – that we are interconnected in an amazing tapestry, what happens to one, happens to all…

in this pivotal moment in the usa when more and more of us are facing the music that we are a country built on genocide and slavery and injustice, in this opportune moment where we can choose a revolutionary path and walk the talk of our ideals, let us listen to the prophetic and poignant words of a black live movement leader from a speech 168 years ago…

“Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men, too, great enough to give frame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory….

…Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that a nation’s sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation’s jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the ‘lame man leap as an hart.’

But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn…”

~ Frederick Douglass, July 5, 1852 ~

america is not yet what she was proclaimed to be, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” have become hypocrisy while black Americans are continuously brutalized, while the money runs out and the rent is due for 140 million poor and low-income folks and while the COVID-19 cases disproportionately affect and devastate black and native american communities and essential workers are sacrificed to this system…

so let us commit to and act from our true nature of generosity and cooperation and compassion to weave the tapestry of a country and a world understanding no one is free until we all are free living liberty and justice for all… howlelujah for the full moon and lunar eclipse energizing the revolution, release and rebirth…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 7 – Day 199 – 7/2/2020

July 3, 2020 Jo BeallLeave a Comment

woo hoo! let’s get this day of joyvolution, a revolution of joy revved quintessentially…

get comfortable, slow down, settle in, take a deep breath smiling, with our next deep breath feel thank you thank you thank you flooding every cell and as we drop down deeper breathe in from the earthmother who loves us so and feel the joy of true nature flooding every cell…

as we conspire, breathe together, smiling and thanking as we breathe in and out notice the joy of our true nature deepening and expanding as we feel the shower of golden light bathing us, pouring through us,,,, while delighting in this waterfall of joy, we salute this joy always bubbling in the core of the ocean of being…

thank you for coming home to our one heart and luxuriating in the frequency of joy, committing this act of rebellion, of revolution where we pause in the gap and choose to be the transformation, the deepest and most expansive expression of our wide open heart…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 7 – Day 198 – 7/1/2020

July 2, 2020 Jo BeallLeave a Comment

welcome joyvolution july, a month vibrating at the frequency of one, of new beginnings, of creative momentum and, yes, i’ve coined a word for this moonth of the wise pilgrim facing the music and love your joining me in celebrating every day as one of joy revolution…for being joy in these turbulent times is a rebellious, a wild act and an ancient one for joy is our tue natire, who we quintessentially are… enough with the masters of the dominance worldview selling us an unsustainable bill of goods… come home to the heart, sit on the lap of the great mother as she reminds us of our true nature…

in honor of this oh so potent joyvolution july including another cancer new moon and the full moon three days from now with a penumbral lunar eclipse, i’m letting go of my usual practice of sharing the image of new beginnings for an image of a collective intention for us all…

eclipses call us to re-set and re-boot, to let go, to go with the flow, we are being re-built, re-wired, re-plumbed under the great mother energies of the sun in cancer and a full moon in capricorn… yes, a perfect time for a joy revolution to unite with the uprisings going on all over the cosmos as we speak truth to power…

in this sacred moment, i feel us sitting on a mountain top with a panoramic view of the all that is poised in a pregnant pause on the edge, the verge of a new world where joy is vibrating through every cell – can you hear her breathing?

this new world of unconditional love guiding us into justice for all building a rock solid peace beyond our most expansive and deepest imaginings…

during this cosmic turtle moon, may we all feel the astonishing lightness of being joyous high-spirited water falling home and the deep peace of the rhythm of light-waves and re-member the wellspring of lovingkindness and compassion we are…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 7 – Day 197 – 6/30/2020

July 1, 2020 Jo BeallLeave a Comment

Drink the wine down, tip the glass. Drink with the Beloved.
Take this breath like it’s your last. Drink with the Beloved.
We’re a caravan, you see, moving towards our destiny. You must find the eyes to see.
Drink with the Beloved.

La Illaha il’Allah, La Illaha il’Allah
La Illaha il’Allah, La Illaha il’Allah

Go to the East or to the West. Drink with the Beloved.
You can’t escape this birth and death. Drink with the Beloved.
Drink the cup of loving down. This is truly drink and drown. What is lost, it shall be found.
Drink with the Beloved.

La Illaha il’Allah, La Illaha il’Allah
La Illaha il’Allah, La Illaha il’Allah

So listen to the inner call. Drink with the Beloved.
The tavern masters rise and fall. Drink with the Beloved.
Watch the drunkards reel and spin. Feel the Presence from within, toasting with the dearest Friend. Drink with the Beloved.

La Illaha il’Allah, La Illaha il’Allah
La Illaha il’Allah, La Illaha il’Allah

~ Rumi ~

ah, it’s that day of the moonth, the last day, the day of blessing the space between us… what a moonth ending this last week plus under the seventh moon of the wise pilgrim facing the music… what better way than to join Rumi with re-joy-sing in a “drinking” song fom another kind of tavern…

in addition to being the closing of the circle of june, it’s also the opening of another year of practice, of polishing the mirror, of deepening into our true nature which is not only what Rumi calls us to but also which this moment of planetary mutation calls us to, which is what viruses call us to as they whisper to the genes to mutate, transform…

i begin today with this soul song, Rumi’s poem singing me, as i am clean-sing, still it sings me… as i head to the healing temple it sings me, as i drink the potion to light me up, it sings me and i’m starting to feel quite a buzz as if a whole hive of bees were with me throughout the scan…

thank you beloved, divine presence and beloveds, divine presences for sharing the dance of synchronisiddhi deepening our pilgrimage into great mystery… cheers!!!!!

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 7 – Day 196 – 6/29/2020

June 30, 2020 Jo BeallLeave a Comment

at 21, i was given heirloom seeds of devocean… at 42, i planted the seeds saying a mantra over them daily about being a midwife of heart consciousness… at 63, i began devotedly tending, caring for, watering, chanting over these seeds in co-llaboration with Beloved and an earth angel…

today marks a sacred anniversary, a quintessential anniversary, five years of sauntering along the above noted devoceanal path of invocation, eighteen hundred and twenty-seven days of opening the seven sacred seals’ portals of grace, forty-three thousand eight hundred forty-eight hours of offering the wounds of us all up for clean-sing, two million six hundred thirty thousand eight hundred eighty moments of being breathed into life more abundant…

thank you Beloved for breaking our hearts open ever wider empowering us to see through the eyes of love, to deepen in the ways of compassion, to stretch our capacity for patience and trust, to flow in the peace that passeth all understanding in this moment, this beautiful moment…

deepest bows to my beloved contemplative partner whose steadfast devocean brings us to this moment, to Richard Rudd, receiver and transmitter of The Seven Sacred Seals and to all beings populating the one cosmic sea of love energy…

thanks for pausing in this beautiful moment on our endless voyage deeper and deeper along the pathless path into the great unknown to honor our sacred pilgrimage of coming home to the heart in a moment so momentous as the whole planet goes through the great unraveling and turning, the cosmic dark night and rebirth when we are all called to listen for our soulsong and commit to being here as fully and openheartedly as we can…

in honor of this moment, i want to close with the 21st century bodhisattva vow, the eco-sattva vow with thanks to the ecosattva, Joanna Macy…

“i vow to:

commit daily to the healing of our world and the welfare of all beings

live on earth more lightly and less violently in the food products and energy i use

draw strength and guidance from the earth, ancestors, future generations and my brothers and sisters of all species

support others in our work in the world and ask for help when needed

to pursue a daily practice that clarifies my mind, strengthens my heart and supports me in observing these vows“

thousandfold thanks for joining in this daily practice of clean-sing, polishing the mirror of our one heart, yes, we are all involved for we all live in the same field, we are family, communitas, sangha of the one heart of boundless love all breathed into life by the same spirit… deep, deep bows as we meet each moment more and more openheartedly…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 7 – Day 195 – 6/28/2020

June 29, 2020 Jo BeallLeave a Comment

well come, well come, well come to this moment of celebrating and re-joy-sing in the astonishing light of our being…

we are nomads in the vast skysea

dan-sing waves of rainbow mystery

singing songs of peaceful harmony

There is no independent existence. There is no you and no me apart from other people and the earth and the wind and the sun. We exist because of numberless causal factors—our genetics, the love of our mothers and fathers, our place in time, the food we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink, and so on. And we are defined by our relationships to others and to our world. This is the matrix in which we act. When designing a garden we will again and again remind ourselves of this and cultivate the mind that thinks in unfolding, evolving energetic systems. Because a garden is a complete mandala, its parts relate to one another. Together they form one whole energetic system. The parts are inseparable from the whole, and the whole is inseparable from its parts, and both are in process of changing.

Excerpted from:The Sound of Cherry BlossomsZen Lessons from the Garden of Contemplative Designby Alxe Noden and Martin Hakubai Mosko,page 19–20

time now for all souls to play our music and rejoice in the astonishing light of our being looking into the cosmic mirror and bringing to heartmind all buddhas, bodhisattvas, teachers, ancestors, beings devoted to creating a just world and roll all the virtues and merits into a huge gaia ball re-joy-sing in the astonishing light… now, bring to heart mind all your virtues and merit and dedicate this offering to all who suffer, fear and grieve seeing the suffering, fear and grief eased… thank you for sharing your astonishing light so generously…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 7 – Day 194 – 6/27/2020

June 28, 2020 Jo BeallLeave a Comment

today, on the magical mystery tour of life as i go about polishing mirrors, i so delight being in this house of mirrors, beautiful mirrors as i look into every soul and see such radiance… thank you for being such a profound reflection of our true nature… your lovingkindness, compassion, generosity, grace, luminescence, humor, sensitivity, presence, devocean, joy, peace, patience, passion, curiosity and on and on enrich and inspire me in this moment and every moment… thank you for being so courageous in meeting each moment whatever arises and being with the pain and the joy, the suffering and the ease and continuing with one more breath, one more step, one more moment of polishing… thousandfold thanks and deep bows…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 7 – Day 193 – 6/26/2020

June 27, 2020 Jo BeallLeave a Comment

one of the many things that breaks my heart, that breaks my heart wide open is the inhumane policy in the usa of holding migrant children in detention facilities… today is a day of walking with sunlight made a thousand fold brighter by a federal judge ordering the immediate release of these innocents… so, i’m feeling the inner sunlight, being sunlight, painting sunlight on the canvas of the more beautiful world we co-create with every thought, word and action, breathing in light, breathing out love…

Instructions to Painters & Poets

I asked a hundred painters and a hundred poets
how to paint sunlight
on the face of life
Their answers were ambiguous and ingenuous
as if they were all guarding trade secrets
Whereas it seems to me
all you have to do
is conceive of the whole world
and all humanity
as a kind of art work
a site-specific art work
an art project of the god of light
the whole earth and all that’s in it
to be painted with light

And the first thing you have to do
is paint out postmodern painting
And the next thing is to paint yourself
in your true colors
in primary colors
as you seem them
(without whitewash)
paint yourself as you see yourself
without make-up
without masks
Then paint your favorite people and animals
with your brush loaded with light
And be sure you get the perspective right
and don’t fake it
because one false line leads to another

And then paint the high hills
when the sun first strikes them
on an autumn morning
With your palette knife
lay it on
the cadmium yellow leaves
the ochre leaves
the vermillion leaves
of a New England autumn
And paint the ghost light of summer nights
and the light of the midnight sun
which is moon light
And don’t paint out the shadows made by light

for without chiaroscuro you’ll have shallow pictures
So paint all the dark corners too
everywhere in the world
all the hidden places and minds and hearts
which light never reaches
all the caves of ignorance and fear
the pits of despair
the sloughs of despond
and write plain upon them
“Abandon all despair, ye who enter here”

And don’t forget to paint
all those who lived their lives
as bearers of light
Paint their eyes
and the eyes of every animal
and the eyes of beautiful women
known best for the perfection of their breasts
and the eyes of men and women
known only for the light of their minds
Paint the light of their eyes
the light of sunlit laughter
the song of eyes
the song of birds in flight

And remember that the light is within
if it is anywhere
and you must paint from the inside
Start with purity
with pure white
the pure white of gesso
the pure white of cadmium white
the pure white of flake white
the pure virgin canvas
the pure life we all begin with

Turner painted sunlight
with egg tempera
(which proved unstable)
and Van Gogh did it with madness
and the blood of his ear
(also unstable)
and the Impressionists did it
by never using black
and the Abstract Expressionists did it
with white house paint
But you can do it with the pure pigment
(if you can figure out the formula)
of your own true light
But before you strike the first blow
on the virgin canvas
remember its fragility
life’s extreme fragility
and remember its innocence
its original innocence
before you strike the first blow

Or perhaps never strike it
And let the light come through
the inner light of the canvas
the inner light of the models posed
in the life study
the inner light of everyone
Let it all come through
like a pentimento
the light that’s been painted over
the life that’s been painted over
so many times
Let it all surge to the surface
the painted-over image
of primal life on earth

And when you’ve finished your painting
stand back astonished
stand back and observe
the life on earth that you’ve created
the lighted life on earth
that you’ve created
a new brave world

~ Lawrence Ferlinghetti ~

yes, may we all paint the sunlight of our inner being into the beautiful brave new world being birthed in this moment of metamorphosis and stand together as one sacred hoop in astonishment and wonder…

Poetic Peace Pilgrimage – Year 7 – Day 192 – 6/25/2020

June 26, 2020 Jo BeallLeave a Comment

I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not ever complete the last one,
but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, that primordial tower.
I have been circling for thousands of years,
and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?

~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~

i circle around, i circle around, the boundaries of the earth…

i have loved Rilke’s poem and this chant for so many moons, the feeling of expansiveness and liberation… for a quintessence of moons while deepening in stillness, i’ve also been deepening my practice of the three tenets of the Order of Zen Peacemakers – not knowing, bearing witness, and taking action and this poem sings these tenets inspiring moving into them on a day when impermanence is rocking my everyday world reheartening me to take action by being lovingkindness in ever-widening circles… join me – the still waters are clean-sing…

To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear;
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.

~ Joy Harjo ~

may every moment of our holy meandering unfold in harmony, gathering place for nomads of the heart, awakening to the illumination we be…