Entering the Void

Many of us are moving through a powerful passage of opening to what is bigger and more real than any story we have had about who we have imagined we are supposed to be.  

As a part of this letting go and letting come, we will inevitably enter what some have called the VOID. A place that leaves us with little to say or think about anything. It can be a confusing passage as our culture has a bias toward action and knowing.

Yet this passage offers the invitation to stop looking outside for instruction, distraction, or validation through do-do-doing and go-go-going. Step by step we learn to say yes to this "not-knowing." Step by step we enter the Mystery with no guidance for the mind. Instead we drop our anchor into This moment. Only This moment. With each breath, each step, sinking more deeply into our own felt experience. Deeper and deeper we go into What has always been "closer than breathing nearer than hands and feet."

As Van Morrison sings...
"Let go into the mystery
Let yourself go
There is no other place to be
Baby this I know
You've got to dance and sing
And be alive in the mystery
And be joyous and give thanks
And let yourself go"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


(art by Freydoon Rassouli)

Dissolving in Breath

Oh my Beloved!

With each inhalation,
He invites me
To ride this wave of ecstasy
Back to Its Source...
Then to linger for a moment

In Silence,
Before riding exhalation
slowly, effortlessly, back
Out into Infinity.

Each Inhalation… Immersion
Every Exhalation… Dissolution, Emptiness

Each breath an invitation
To join Him in
This eternal dance
Of revelation.

Om purnam-adah purnam-idam


Purnaat purnam-udachyate


Purnasya purnam-aadaaya


Purnameva-a va shishyate


(image by Kagaya)

Everything Singing Your Holy Name

Have you noticed lately that Everything

Is singing a love song to the One 

Who abides deep within your own heart?

Everything...
pointing you back
to your Origins.

Everything...
celebrating the utter magnificence
that is here right now.

Everything...
bowing in Namaste.

The Infinite Ocean of Love is here.
You are the revelation.
Just be still.

No Boundary

Just stopping for a moment.

Allowing Life to reveal Itself.
Pursuing nothing
Protecting nothing
Knowing nothing.

Relaxing into this breath
Allowing yourself to be breathed
By Life Itself.
Allowing that every sound, sight, sensation
Is this magnificence
Is this vibrant Stillness
Is this alive Mystery
Is this embodied cosmic movement
We call Love.
Here
Right Here
Where no boundary has ever existed
I am.

(Painting by Artam Rhads Cheboha)

The Lullaby of Presence

Sometimes when I dip into the political discourse, if I’m not careful, I can find myself walking in the polarized landscape of my lizard brain. Then, this mind that was created to serve me, can quickly become my prison guard. In that state of mind, I can be easily angered as I try to comprehend why ‘they” cant see “the” (my) truth. After that, it’s one short step into the self-created world of victimization.

Neurobiology tells us that the lizard brain can create our experience (of reality)… by resurrecting past memories and using these memories to filter our world based on our own biases (alternative facts). This state of mind is the tyrant of our own psyche; it is self-focused, and seeks every opportunity to prove that we are right, safe, and “tremendously” liked.  ;-)

Some time ago, in an effort to move beyond the grip of this tyrannical little mind, I decided to head out for an afternoon hike. For the first 20 minutes, I tried really hard to “move beyond” this grey, mechanized, polarized mind. I’d look at the blue sky, the majestic movement of clouds, the expanse of golden grass waving in the breeze, and yet the mind just kept running its incessant litany of provocative images and phrases.

Then from out of nowhere, I began hearing, and then singing a quiet lullaby to everything I saw. And soon, it wasn’t me singing, it was the Buddha field, the heart of the Christ… singing to itself in everything as everything. There was no difference between a rose quartz pebble and the fragrant pile of poop next to it. For the next hour, I experienced a state of open Presence that broke open the labels and containers that the mind-made world had placed on everything I saw and heard and smelled and felt. There was no past, no future. Only this, only Here, only Now. Thoughts came and went, but they were no longer creating my experience. They were also simply part of the landscape. At one point, I had to leap out of the way of a biker who cursed at me for getting in his way… and this too was part of the landscape.

Pebble, poop, biker. Nothing personal. Nothing to fight against. Just moving through the landscape and responding to it all exactly as it is. This... is freedom. This... is what we were made for.

:)

(photo by Anne Geddes)

The Deepest Rest

Let everything rest
In the Source of all things.
Let the mind rest in the Mind
Let the heart rest in the Heart
Let sensations rest in the Body

Just as the wave rests back in the Ocean
There is no effort required here.
Simply Ocean rising and falling as wave.
Continuous. Ever changing. 
Yet always Itself.

Just as exhale follows inhale
Allow the waves to come and go.

This is being as you Are.

The Love of the Cosmos for Itself

Sometimes your heart will break.
Sometimes you will be asked to bear the depths of humanity's grief and suffering
And it will seem an impossible task;
To bear witness to the upheaval and ignorance,
To watch the intractable forces,
To live in the midst of the inevitable breakdown
Of life as we have known it.

Be gentle and kind with yourselves
As waves of grief, resistance and anger arise,
Allow them to lift up like steam, dissolving
In the healing atmosphere
Of the Love of the Cosmos for Itself

It is only as we make room
For that which has remained homeless within us
That we can be a healing force for this world.

May we continue to bear witness
To take sacred action
And to meet all of it with Love.

Aho.

(Painting Marina del Mar)