Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage

welcome, welcome to day 37 of a season of peace, a day on the pilgrimage like all others of  living the quest ion of what drumbeat are we dancing? what heartbeat are we musing?, i give you, my co-heart pilgrims, poets on a journey, Rilke’s plea from Letters to a Young Poet to be patience, to live patiently with everything, loving all that is yet unresolved, for it is in the loving that sacred balance organically rises…

a quest ion that i have been living since i was a teenager and lives inside me so strongly over the last few moons building to the force of a tidal wave energetically was and is inspired by another of my favorite poets…

to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. ~ e e cummings

tho, i’d edit the words of fight and battle, it is such a challenge in this sped-up world impelling us to be human doings rather than to be our true nature… light beings of divine love embodied through our one cosmic heart in an intricate web of interconnection…

thousandfold thanks, dear rilke, dear life, as i heed your sage words to have patience and love the quest ions…

welcome, welcome to day 36 of a season of peace, on this day of quintessence, the fifth day of musing march, we honor this day when exactly seven years ago the Poetic Peace Pilgrimage was conceived as a daily breathing practice, a daily presencing practice of  being peace in every moment…

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awakening with cold feet on this day to go wild,

to warm them up, i begin with a SMILE…

flowing in love now, each breath a thanksgiving,

being love in this moment, every breath a peace prayer passing all understanding…

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breathing deeply in our one heart’s embrace,

dancing silence and stillness in this field of grace

reverencing the beauty of a new born rose,

opens the heart wider melting ice floes

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Poetic PEACE Pilgrim now prepares to march forth

flowing in rhythm, one with source

tuning into the cosmic hum

surrendering and trusting in what’s to come…

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free and easy wanderer, dancing star,

when cold feet return and doubts arise,

come home to the breath with closed eyes

come home to the breath, wanderer from afar…

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may we all be empty vessels to be filled to overflowing with lovingkindness, peace passing all understanding and a bubbling joy arising from our inner river of being…

March Fourth Pilgrimage Re-Dedication

it seems so perfectly fitting on this day of marching forth on March 4th, in this moment of confusion and chaos falling on the thirty-fifth day of a season of peace to journey to the garden of zen and breathe in this mountain, surrendering all distractions and clearing the path to come home to our one heart, our true refuge in the midst of madness… thousand fold thanks for this path of devotion, thousand fold thanks for the courage and encouragement to be wholeheartedly here, thousand fold thanks for lighting the way…thousand fold thanks for your overflowing grace today…

many of us marching forth in these uncertain times despair not for we are unwavering, resolute knowing we are made for these times, these chaos cycles which call out the best in us…

“The most remarkable feature of this historical moment on Earth

is not that we are on the way to destroying the world –

we’ve actually been on the way for quite awhile.

It is that we are beginning to wake up, as from a millennia-long sleep,

to a whole new relationship to our world, to ourselves

and each other.”

~Joanna Macy~

listen, take courage as Howard Zinn elucidates the right way of being in these turbulent times…

“An optimist isn’t necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places- and there are so many- where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

now, take peace with the words of Desmond Tutu…

“You and I are made for goodness. You and I are creatures who were made for transcendence, were made for love, were made for caring, were made for embracing one another… And that is what is going to prevail.”

yes! we can…

deep dark mystery

dances with infinite luminosity

in spacious emptiness

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welcome, welcome to a most auspicious day… 3-3, day 34 of a season of peace under the energy of the waxing moon and for a few more days in a reflective mercury in retrograde – are you feeling as am i the chaos and topsy-turvyness of the outer world?

and, yes, carl, living in a spaciousness of solitude, silence, in deed, comes alive in such mysterious ways as i reflect  on this serene sojourn in the quantum field of deep dark mystery where i saunter along a path unknown, a dancing with infinite luminosity resting in the gap, in the sacred space of silence, the stillpoint…

in this field beyond words, beloved appears to breathe us alive, inspiring we hollow reeds to open to being conduits of divine flow responsive to taking one more step, encouraging our sitting tenderly in the moment with our feelings, our ancestral feelings, our descendants’ feelings all merging in the one cosmic devocean of now…

in this solitude, in this divine alchemical flowing temple, the daft (divine alchemical flow team) transmute our shadowlands into gardens of grace… watered by our tears, we blossom like flow-ers opening to the light and revealing the sparkling jewel, the polished star pearl of the sea, radiantly resting in the center of the bloom…

here in the deep void of great silence, in the dancing stillness of great mystery, we stand at the portal of a brave new world where we’re called to courageously let go the old and break our one heart wide open to expansive, creative  space for birthing to the new… do we have it in us? of course we do, in this knowing we can all relax into enjoying this ride on the wild side…

welcome, welcome to day 32 of a season of peace on this first day of the new moon (month) of musing march and its treasure trove of riches as we are still celebrating the miracles buddha bestows at tibetan new year and it is the day of sharing an image of the astonishing light of being… 

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The Light of Smiles

I will light the match of smiles. My gloom veil will disappear. I shall behold my soul in the light of smiles hidden behind the accumulated darkness of ages. When I find myself, I shall race through all hearts with the torch of my soul-smiles. My heart will smile first, then my eyes, then my face. Every body part will shine in the light of smiles.

I will run amid the thickets of melancholy hearts and make a bonfire of all sorrows. I am the irresistible fire of smiles. I will fan myself with the breeze of God-joy and blaze my way through the darkness of all minds. My smiles will convey His smiles and whoever meets me will catch a whiff of my divine joy. I will carry fragrant, purifying torches of smiles for all hearts.

from Metaphysical Meditations
by Paramahansa Yogananda

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yes, may we all travel in an awakened way with hearts wide open and filled with lovingkindness… may we be well and peaceful and at ease and free…

om shanti, shanti, shantihi…

welcome, welcome to day 31 of a season of peace on the 29th day of the flowering field of february which means it’s a very special day, one that only happens every four years as we leap into this quantum flowering field in the miracle days of the tibetan new year…

so, today, i celebrate all our relatives… yes, you, like his holiness, showing up as sunshine… yes, you showing up being love… yes, you, being harmonizing healer… thousandfold thanks for being astonishing radiant lights… seeing the best in others, spreading lovingkindness virally…

let’s close with the Dalai Lama’s personal daily prayer… “Every day as you wake up, think that I am fortunate to be alive. I have a precious human life, and I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand myself out to others; to achieve enlightenment for all beings.”

welcome, welcome to day 29 of a season of peace on this twenty-seventh day of the flowering field of february; it’s one more beautiful day of gathering the quintessence, the energy of love and light with the sun still shining on the energy of  tenderness, the crucible of our interconnectedness calling us to journey into the dream cave of grace and rest in love…

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Journeys bring power and love back into you. If you can’t go somewhere, move in the passageways of the self. They are like shafts of light, always changing, and you change when you explore them.

~ Rumi ~

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four years ago today, i traveled to an outer graceland for a beautiful gathering with soul family, a re-treat of tuning into the frequency of opening the heart… my first spoken words of the day in the “love is all there is” temenos were the same words – everything is grace –  spoken nine months previously when a dogstar trying to open my third eye ruptured  my second eye as well which led to a dream of being in a temple just like the one i lived in this weekend four years ago… this dream of so many moons ago, of opening the door into the heart, of home being graceland, is birthed right now and just as alive in this moment, this beautiful moment as we breathe in through our one heart and deep down into our core, inner navel of the universe, and, deeper down into our mother earth and breathe out love, sweet love into the multiverse’s harmony re-joy-sing in our coming more and more alive as we open our ever expanding cosmic heart wider and wider and deeper and deeper…

in this moment, simply rest in being and imagine that you are just the way you are, and you are totally loved… you are loved, you are accepted, you are acknowledged simply as you are…

bring to mind other beings with whom you are close and see them with that same single eye that looks through the veils and sees another being of love…

breathing deeply and slowly through the heart, let it soften and form the sweetest, most gentle flow with each breath opening your heart just a little bit more… if there’s sadness, let the sadness come out, if there’s joy, let the joy bubble over, if there’s a quiet, deep space of love, let it rest in its deep silence...

resting in love… resting in love… softer, just a bit softer… open your heart just a bit more… a little bit more… ah, the grace of being together in love right now with each breath, so sweet…

we can live life, moment to moment, with our heart this open being the mother of the universe, and everybody you look upon is your child…

may all of us harvest the potential of this sacred day seeing every moment is grace…

welcome, welcome to day 28 of 64 days of a season of peace on this twenty-sixth day of the flowering field of february; it’s one more beautiful day of gathering the quintessence, the energy of love and light with the sun shining on the energy of  tenderness, the crucible of our interconnectedness giving us the courage to say yes to creator, creation, creativity, the creative process…  with all the turbulence in the outer world, i’m still so called by source to come into the dream cave, the grand canyon of stillness – happy 101st anniversary grand canyon national park…

listen, listen, listen to our heartsong hums through me all day today as does the assurance from source that we will never be forgotten or forsaken giving me the courage to leap off the cliff and into the wings of love…

and, onto a most magical pilgrimage into the grand canyon of being where many turns around the sun ago, i celebrated my fiftieth birthday, the chiron return, in that physical space and, like today, in this sacred space of feeling down in the belly of the earth, dissolving into all that is, resting and re-treating in the restorative silence of the stillpoint simply listening to our soul song…

while sauntering (walking on holy land) as blessingway, every step is one of thanks and meandering deeper on a path unknown, every step is a merging into great beyond as the longing to return to the deep blue sea transmutes every step into a coming home to the heart, a questing complete with pilgrim reborn, every step a celebration of life…

yes, today is a day of devotion, of leaping into the void of creation lying in the lap of the divine bathed in the bliss of  love culminating in a moment of illumination when what no longer serves is burned away as the great silence whispers to us of our soul purpose, why we are here awakening us to the song of the true self, to our soul song…

everything is alive… everything is awakening… everything is moving…. everything is dancing… be still, silent, listen, listen, listen to our heartsong of re-joy-sing in the moment luxuriating in this sacred space of resting in the now….

om shanti shanti shantihi