Worship

For so long I believed if I was looking in just the right place,
at just the right angle,

then perhaps I too could claim to have secret knowledge of the Mystery.

The Christians would say, "Oh, of course, God has these three aspects of Himself",
while Jews might wonder if Christians are working with some bad information.

Muslims pay respect to the person of Jesus as a prophet of God,
and yet claim another Prophet with a more relevant message entered the Divine narrative afterwards.

Indigenous Americans are able to see the face of the Divine in animals, plants, and sky spirits,
while Buddhists and Hindus instruct people to search for God within themselves.

Tantric yoginis and Amazonian shamans both sing songs of praise to the Great Mother,
and sometimes participate in ritualized ecstasy.

Yet a Sufi mystic believes to have a Lover's intimate knowledge of God.

But, alas, and thank God, Whomever God may be,

the possibility of my own unique arrogance continues to be revealed to me.

No matter how many spiritual paths I travel down,
I now am starting to believe
I will never find Absolute knowledge on much of anything.

Like the light rising at dawn upon a crew of lost and frightened travelers,
I am learning to let go of other peoples' ideas about things.

Embracing instead the unknowingness of each new and changing moment,

Absolute only in it's Mystery.

-- Whitney Logan

On Human Life:

"It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between".  -- Diane Ackerman

What We Could See....

If I could meet myself again
as a tiny little girl,
with a wide-open and unobstructed consciousness,

I would tell her to close her eyes,
and go ahead,
and try to see what she could find deep within herself.

I would tell her to expect that it would be beautiful and wonderful ---
and only sometimes a little bit terrible,

and I would tell her about how even those terrible parts need to be honored and included in a careful way.

I know now that she would then be able to see
how the whole Universe was there -
with her
and
within her.

Always.


--Whitney Logan, 11.1.13

God

I looked up into the sky yesterday.
And saw the Face of God.

That face was ever changing.
Every shape and being,
Terrible and wonderful.

I begged for forgiveness for trying to speak at all,
Yet could neither keep from singing or shouting
About the tender Mystery.

Every form is Yours, O Lord.

Today I borrow language from an ancient tradition, but only now know what it means.

The people who first wrote music to the Lord
Must have had a similar
Hidden audience with This glory.

To write at all of Love and Longing
Is like trying to describe a cry
For that which is most Holy.

-- Whitney Logan

Seasons

The trees are starting to let go.

I think I'll follow their lead.

Things I Learned From Trees

Things I learned from trees yesterday
Include nothing not already known

And yet everything transformed

Into a kind of radiance of the Old
New way of being with Mystery

The children of Mother and Father;
These trees

Reaching out in all directions -
Never fearing Love's dark reciprocities

And so Growing up from tenderness
To create this bridge Between

And suddenly I too could remember
Giving birth to those majestic beings.

-- Whitney Logan, 6.9.13

Stories.

The sage and her student were standing by a pool discussing longing and ambition.

"What do you want more than anything else?" the sage asked.

"To perfect my ability to love all of creation the way I love myself," the young man replied.

At that moment, the sage tackled the student and shoved his head beneath the water. Accustomed to letting his teacher shape the unpredictable contours of his education, he did not resist.

One minute went by. Then another. The student began to struggle and kick. His teacher was strong.

Finally she released her grip and the student surfaced, fighting for breath.

"What did you want more than anything else during these last few minutes?" the sage inquired.

"Nothing else was in my mind except the desire for air," gasped the student.

"Excellent," beamed the sage. "As soon as you are equally single-minded in your desire to perfect your ability to love all of creation the way you love yourself, you will achieve your goal."

The Gospel According to Mary Magdalene

Pages 1-6 are missing.

     "… Will m[a]tter then be utterly [destr]oyed or not?"
     The Savior replied, "Every nature, every modeled form, every creature, exists in and with each other. They will dissolve again into their own proper root. For the nature of matter is dissolved into what belongs to its nature. Anyone with two ears able to hear should listen!"
     Then Peter said to him, "You have been explaining every topic to us; tell us one other thing. What is the sin of the world?"
     The Savior replied, "There is no such thing as sin; rather you yourselves are what produces sin when you act in accordance with the nature of adultery, which is called 'sin.' For this reason, the Good came among you, pursuing (the good) which belongs to every nature. It will set it within its root."
     Then he continued. He said, "This is why you get si[c]k and die: because [you love] what de[c]ei[ve]s [you]. [Anyone who] thinks should consider (these matters)!
     "[Ma]tter gav[e bi]rth to a passion which has no Image because it derives from what is contrary to nature. A disturbing confusion then occurred in the whole body. That is why I told you, 'Become content at heart, while also remaining discontent and disobedient; indeed become contented and agreeable (only) in the presence of that other Image of nature.' Anyone with two ears capable of hearing should listen!"
     When the Blessed One had said these things, he greeted them all. "Peace be with you!" he said. "Acquire my peace within yourselves!
     "Be on your guard so that no one deceives you by saying, 'Look over here!' or 'Look over there!' For the child of true Humanity exists within you. Follow it! Those who search for it will find it.
     "Go then, preac[h] the good news about the Realm. [Do] not lay down any rule beyond what I determined for you, nor promulgate law like the lawgiver, or else you might be dominated by it."
After he had said these things, he departed from them.
     But they were distressed and wept greatly. "How are we going to go out to the rest of the world to announce the good news about the Realm of the child of true Humanity?" they said. "If they did not spare him, how will they spare us?"
     Then Mary stood up. She greeted them all, addressing her brothers and sisters, "Do not weep and be distressed nor let your hearts be irresolute. For his grace will be with you all and will shelter you. Rather we should praise his greatness, for he has prepared us and made us true Human beings."
      When Mary had said these things, she turned their heart [to]ward the Good, and they began to deba[t]e about the wor[d]s of [the Savior].
     Peter said to Mary, "Sister, we know that the Savior loved you more than all other women. Tell us the words of the Savior that you remember, the things which you know that we don't because we haven't heard them."
     Mary responded, "I will teach you about what is hidden from you." And she began to speak these words to them.
     She said, "I saw the Lord in a vision and I said to him, 'Lord, I saw you today in a vision.'
He answered me, 'How wonderful you are for not wavering at seeing me! For where the mind is, there is the treasure.'
     I said to him, 'So now, Lord, does a person who sees a vision see it <with> the soul <or> with the spirit?'
     The Savior answered, 'A person does not see with the soul or with the spirit. 'Rather the mind, which exists between these two, sees the vision an[d] that is w[hat … ]'

(Pages 11-14 are missing.)

     " '… it.'
     "And Desire said, 'I did not see you go down, yet now I see you go up. So why do you lie since you belong to me?'
     "The soul answered, 'I saw you. You did not see me nor did you know me. You (mis)took the garment (I wore) for my (true) self. And you did not recognize me.'
     "After it had said these things, it left rejoicing greatly.
     "Again, it came to the third Power, which is called 'Ignorance.' [It] examined the soul closely, saying, 'Where are you going? You are bound by wickedness. Indeed you are bound! Do not judge!'
     "And the soul said, 'Why do you judge me, since I have not passed judgement? I have been bound, but I have not bound (anything). They did not recognize me, but I have recognized that the universe is to be dissolved, both the things of earth and those of heaven.'
     "When the soul had brought the third Power to naught, it went upward and saw the fourth Power. It had seven forms. The first form is darkness; the second is desire; the third is ignorance; the fourth is zeal for death; the fifth is the realm of the flesh; the sixth is the foolish wisdom of the flesh; the seventh is the wisdom of the wrathful person. These are the seven Powers of Wrath.
     "They interrogated the soul, 'Where are you coming from, human-killer, and where are you going, space-conqueror?'
     "The soul replied, saying, 'What binds me has been slain, and what surrounds me has been destroyed, and my desire has been brought to an end, and ignorance has died. In a [wor]ld, I was set loose from a world [an]d in a type, from a type which is above, and (from) the chain of forgetfulness which exists in time. From this hour on, for the time of the due season of the aeon, I will receive rest i[n] silence.' "
     After Mary had said these things, she was silent, since it was up to this point that the Savior had spoken to her.
     Andrew responded, addressing the brothers and sisters, "Say what you will about the things she has said, but I do not believe that the S[a]vior said these things, f[or] indeed these teachings are strange ideas."
     Peter responded, bringing up similar concerns. He questioned them about the Savior: "Did he, then, speak with a woman in private without our knowing about it? Are we to turn around and listen to her? Did he choose her over us?"
     Then [M]ary wept and said to Peter, "My brother Peter, what are you imagining? Do you think that I have thought up these things by myself in my heart or that I am telling lies about the Savior?"
Levi answered, speaking to Peter, "Peter, you have always been a wrathful person. Now I see you contending against the woman like the Adversaries. For if the Savior made her worthy, who are you then for your part to reject her? Assuredly the Savior's knowledge of her is completely reliable. That is why he loved her more than us.
     "Rather we should be ashamed. We should clothe ourselves with the perfect Human, acquire it for ourselves as he commanded us, and announce the good news, not laying down any other rule or law that differs from what the Savior said."
     After [he had said these] things, they started going out [to] teach and to preach.

Everything Is Beautiful

Once in awhile I realize that everything is truly This beautiful.
The pain, the pleasure, the mystery of what will happen next --

My breath catches between heart and throat,
And each moment that touches me leaves me

Changed.
Forever.

Welcome the difficulty when it Insists
On it's own teaching.

Remembering how

To wring out the heaviness
That holds down
The buoyancy of a Heart

Returning

Into Nothingness
Where everything Beautiful
Is True at once.

This is the Way-
In which all that's Becoming
Is allowed to happen

To us now

In order that it might begin
To happen through us too.

Nothing is easy about surrender,
But still --
I will give myself to it when I can.

The Mystery

Looking out, we find ourselves in everything; looking in, we find everything within ourselves.

Don't you think?

Aunt Leaf

Needing one, I invented her – - -
the great-great-aunt dark as hickory
called Shining-Leaf, or Drifting-Cloud
or The-Beauty-of-the-Night.

Dear aunt, I’d call into the leaves,
and she’d rise up, like an old log in a pool,
and whisper in a language only the two of us knew
the word that meant follow,

and we’d travel
cheerful as birds
out of the dusty town and into the trees
where she would change us both into something quicker – - -
two foxes with black feet,
two snakes green as ribbons,
two shimmering fish – - – and all day we’d travel.

At day’s end she’d leave me back at my own door
with the rest of my family,
who were kind, but solid as wood
and rarely wandered. While she,
old twist of feathers and birch bark,
would walk in circles wide as rain and then
float back

scattering the rags of twilight
on fluttering moth wings;

or she’d slouch from the barn like a gray opossum;

or she’d hang in the milky moonlight
burning like a medallion,

this bone dream, this friend I had to have,
this old woman made out of leaves.

-- Mary Oliver

True Refuge

Healing the Ancestral Lines

Recently, I had a beautiful and strange experience called a Tarpana ceremony. Tarpana is an Ayurvedic ritual that combines physical massage with spiritual journeying (or "active imagination") into a timeless, spaceless place in which I was encouraged to have conversations with people (alive and dead) with whom I have established or inherited unhealthy relationship patterns.

The Tarpana ritual turned out to be much more powerful than I expected at first. Combining bodywork with spiritual and psychological sensitivity helped me feel into the places in my body where I was holding onto these attachments. From there, I could then work to release these holding patterns in the psyche and the body simultaneously. I have done many, many kinds of therapy and spiritual healing rituals in my life, but this one in particular brought something unexpected: a new sense of personal responsibility.

Let me explain.  

After the ceremony, I felt myself start to understand - both mentally and viscerally - that my attitudes towards the people in my life (past and present) manifest as inner attitudes towards myself. I could see how all the negative energy I’d been directing towards any of my relationships created the same experience of negativity in my own body! For example: if I was defending against empathy and understanding in a relationship with someone else, I was blocking off the flow of empathy and understanding within my own system. Alternatively, when I allowed empathy and understanding to arise towards this person, those same energies began to flow freely in my body again.

Many intuitive healers talk about the role of psychological or spiritual sickness in the manifestation of physical dis-ease. I saw this very clearly during my Tarpana ritual. It was as if the innate flow of healing energy was being released from behind a dam of my own creation. It became suddenly obvious to me that while the abundance I seek is within my own reach, it is also not freely available if I’m willfully defended against others - alive or dead; present or absent; known or unknown.

As Rumi says, "Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it".

May all beings Awaken. Namaste.

Creation Stories

"In the Beginning, Nothingness longed for Love.  And so it was made possible: this planet of contrast, where the play of opposites could Become the dance of Love that was longed for at the start".  -- mine

Human Consciousness

“Over three decades of systematic studies of the human consciousness have led me to conclusions that many traditional psychiatrists and psychologists might find implausible if not downright incredible.  I now firmly believe that consciousness is more than an accidental by-product of the neurophysiological and biochemical processes taking place in the human brain.  I see consciousness and the human psyche as expressions and reflections of a cosmic intelligence that permeates the entire universe and all of existence.  We are not just highly evolved animals with biological computers embedded inside our skulls; we are also fields of consciousness without limits, transcending time, space, matter, and linear causality.”

-- Stanislav Grof, MD, PhD 

Fruit of the Spirit

Recently, I had the opportunity to attend a shamanic retreat at a beautiful retreat center near St. Louis.  For those who are unfamiliar with the concept of shamanism, here's a few rough talking points: a shaman is an indigenous (i.e. in some way native to the "place" they practice) healer.  They often facilitate "journeys" to transpersonal realms so that people might have experiences of healing and transformation they may not otherwise have access to in their ordinary waking state of consciousness.  In shamanism, there is also a deep belief in reciprocal exchange between all potential and manifest energies.  In other words, it's possible for us to have a mutually influential relationship (and an ongoing conversation!) with all things - visible and invisible.

During this recent retreat, for example, I was able to receive some information about the psychological origins of a current experience of dis-ease in my physical body.  From this previously mentioned belief in the possibility of reciprocal relationship with all energies, I was encouraged to ask the dis-ease itself about it's origins.  I asked this specific energy why it had manifested at this time in my life.  It answered back immediately: "because of your belief in scarcity".  I also asked the dis-ease where the physical origins of this energy block - or holding pattern - were located in my body, and it responded by showing me the back of my heart.  I was working with a woman who is both a shaman and a neurologist during this particular exercise, and she reminded me that the back side of the body often holds the unconscious beliefs associated with each organ or energy center in the body.  Subsequently, I then decided to then ask that energy center if it would allow whatever was unconscious to become conscious (i.e. unblocked).  After a moment or two, I received this answer:  "THE LOVE IS REAL".

I didn't understand that message in it's entirety immediately, but my body responded by softening in such a way that convinced me that this answer must be exactly right.  Later that evening - in the middle of a Despacho Ceremony - I kept noticing feelings of the deepest kind of tenderness in my body.  This feeling of tenderness was connected to my own experience of love towards the many energies and persons that were being honored by this ceremony.  Spontaneously, I understood that what Spirt meant by "THE LOVE IS REAL" was that my own experience of love in my physical body is a real experience of Love.  At that moment, I could literally feel my heart pouring itself into every other cell in body, and I wept many tears for many hours out of this experience of profoundly loving overflow.

That night, I had a dream.  In the dream, I became aware of a feeling of deeply satisfying joy in my body.  As I went searching for the source of this joy, some kind of disembodied dream voice explained to me that "joy is also experienced on the inside".  Fortuitously, I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote down all that I could remember from the dream before falling back to sleep. During our lunch break the next day, I went outside to find a place to make "Sand Art" (another shamanic ritual involving reciprocal exchange with nature).  While gathering up some sticks I intended to use to enclose my sand art with, I happened to stumble upon this literal sign in nature that read "JOY":

As you may be able to see, I placed my sticks in a circle at the foot of this altar to JOY, and then began to clear away the leaves with the boundaries of the sticks.  Underneath the leaves, I found a small stump.  Upon uncovering this stump, I noticed that it was literally shaped like an anatomically accurate human heart!  See image:

When I turned the stump over, I discovered that the entire back side of this heart-shaped stump was covered in ICE!  The "back of the heart" was literally frozen over.  Immediately, I allowed myself to feel into that real experience of love I now believed to be available in my own body, placed my hand over the icy stump, and proceeded to send love and warmth to that frozen heart until I felt nothing but warm wetness underneath my palm.  At the exact moment I realized the thawing process was complete, the noon-ish sun shifted in the sky just slightly, spilling all of it's radiance onto my face, and casting a perfect shadow from the "JOY" sign right through the center of that heart-shaped stump.  I understood the tender message that the natural world seemed to be speaking to me in that moment, and allowed myself to become conscious of the real experience of joy in my physical body too.

Some moments later, I got up in order to walk away from this sacred space and ran into another literal sign in nature that read "PEACE":

I stood there gazing for at it for a moment, trying to honor the message that might be trying to reveal itself to me.  I felt peaceful, certainly, and could appreciate that this feeling of peace could also become an internal refuge.  But when I tried to walk away from this spot, I felt something pull me back toward it.  I looked all around the little meadow of trees, and only found one other sign:

In a single moment, I remembered (thank you Christian youth camp!) that there's a passage in the Bible lists the "Fruit of the Holy Spirit" in precisely this order:  LOVE, JOY, PEACE... Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control.  I laughed out loud, feeling myself filled with gratitude for this newly enlivened teaching, as I suddenly understood in a new, deep way that they are ordered in this way for a reason.  I wondered how much of my life I had spent trying to master self-control in order to gain an experience of love (something that probably got reinforced by this same youth camp, unfortunately).  At this particular moment, however, I could see very clearly the grievous error in this way of thinking, and felt the grace that comes with an embodied understanding of how things could be different.  It seemed that Spirit had given me a living, breathing experience that would continue to help me understand that we must start with a belief in the immediate, experiential, available reality of Love, and everything else we value would flow forth from there.  

Mary Oliver says it this way: "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". The rest will follow.

The Wisdom of Darkness

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark.  
Go without sight,
And find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
And is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

-- Wendell Berry