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

You are God's Lover

“Soul, if you want to learn secrets,

your heart must forget about
shame
 and dignity.
You are God's lover,

yet you worry
what people
are saying.”

-- Rumi

Honoring Loneliness

Don't surrender your loneliness so quickly. 
Let it cut more deep. 

Let it ferment and season you as few human or even divine ingredients can. 

Something missing in my heart tonight
has made my eyes so soft, my voice so tender,

My need of God 
Absolutely 
Clear.

-Hafiz

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.

Divine Conversation

I am so close, I may look distant.
So completely mixed with you, I may look separate.
So out in the open, I appear hidden.
So silent, because I am constantly talking with you.

-- Rumi

Remembering what we already know.

I want to learn how to let Love move through me unobstructed.

Believing that particular Resource is Eternally and Infinitely available.

The Alpha, the Omega, the Beginning, and the End.

Dwelling right inside of me.

Perhaps then I could freely give That which I knew could never be exhausted.

Love.
Love.
Love.

Love.

My soul says, "It's True already, you know?"

And I can only respond, "I'm working on Remembering".


-- Whitney Logan

Self-Blessing

The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don’t flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing.

-- BY GALWAY KINNELL

What Are You Running Away From?

Suppose what you fear
could be trapped
and held in Paris.

Then you would have the courage
to go everywhere in the world.
All the directions of the compass
open to you,
except the degrees east or west
of true north
that lead to Paris.

Still, you wouldn’t dare
to put your toes smack dab
on the city limit line.

And you’re not really willing to stand on a mountainside
miles away
and watch the Paris lights
come up at night.
And just to be on the safe side, you decide to stay completely
out of France.

But then danger
seems too close
even to those boundaries,
and you feel the timid part of you
covering the whole globe again.

You need the kind of friend
who learns your secret and says,
“See Paris first.”

—M. Truman Cooper

The metaphorical Mary Magdalene (every woman)

"Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven devils had been cast out" —Luke 8:2.

The first was that I was very busy.

The second — I was different from you: whatever happened to you could
not happen to me, not like that.

The third — I worried.

The fourth — envy, disguised as compassion.

The fifth was that I refused to consider the quality of life of the aphid,

The aphid disgusted me. But I couldn't stop thinking about it.

The mosquito too — its face. And the ant — its bifurcated body.

Ok the first was that I was so busy.

The second that I might make the wrong choice,

because I had decided to take that plane that day,

that flight, before noon, so as to arrive early

and, I shouldn't have wanted that.

The third was that if I walked past the certain place on the street

the house would blow up.

The fourth was that I was made of guts and blood with a thin layer

of skin lightly thrown over the whole thing.

The fifth was that the dead seemed more alive to me than the living

The sixth — if I touched my right arm I had to touch my left arm, and if I

touched the left arm a little harder than I'd first touched the right then I

had

to retouch the left and then touch the right again so it would be even.

The seventh — I knew I was breathing the expelled breath of everything that

was alive and I couldn't stand it,

I wanted a sieve, a mask, a, I hate this word — cheesecloth —

to breath through that would trap it — whatever was inside everyone else that

entered me when I breathed in

No. That was the first one.

The second was that I was so busy. I had no time. How had this happened?

How had our lives gotten like this?

The third was that I couldn't eat food if I really saw it — distinct, separate

from me in a bowl or on a plate.

Ok. The first was that I could never get to the end of the list.

The second was that the laundry was never finally done.

The third was that no one knew me, although they thought they did.

And that if people thought of me as little as I thought of them then what was

love?

The fourth was I didn't belong to anyone. I wouldn't allow myself to belong

to anyone.

The fifth was that I knew none of us could ever know what we didn't know.

The sixth was that I projected onto others what I myself was feeling.

The seventh was the way my mother looked when she was dying—her mouth wrenched into an O so as to take in as much air…
The sound she made — the gurgling sound — so loud we had to speak louder 
to hear each other over it.

And that I couldn't stop hearing it—years later—

grocery shopping, crossing the street —

No, not the sound — it was her body's hunger

finally evident.
—what our mother had hidden all her life.

For months I dreamt of knucklebones and roots,

the slabs of sidewalk pushed up like crooked teeth by what grew underneath.

The underneath —that was the first devil.
It was always with me.

And that I didn't think you — if I told you — would understand any of this —

Copyright © 2008 by Marie Howe. 

Closeness

Your body is away from me,
but there is a window open
from my heart to yours.
From this window, like the moon,
I keep sending news secretly.

-- Rumi

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

Writer's Block

It can feel base
And meaningless
To try to make words
Form themselves
In such a way
As to deliver
Their Message

When we must too
Remember
How it is
That even the most
Carefully formed
Sounds

Simply return
Back
Into the form from
Which they emerged:

Formless.

Receptivity

Oh Lady of The Great Waiting!
In your stillness you receive All Things.

Revealing your secrets for Enduring

The moment where two types of Trembling -
Ecstasy and Terror - occur simultaneously.

And then show us that the only Thing
Capable of surviving One is the Other -

The hero bows before the throne.

Love has already conquered Eternity.

Self Reflection

One day you will decide to risk
Sharing your own deep truths about being and becoming

No matter how dark the substance you must sift
You will risk and risk and risk again

Believing now that you're able to survive
The exacting gaze of your own knowing

Because on that day you will have already had the mysterious and good fortune
Of catching a glimmer of Love -
Both strange and familiar to your tired human body

And everything after that glimpse will never be the same again
Now that you know that meeting the gleam in your own eyes
Doesn't require so much stalwart bravery as you once thought

Your gaze now only serves to return you into your own open arms
Where you can finally hear the sound of your own soothing voice
Saying simply this: "I will welcome you in".

Yes.
I will welcome you in, I will welcome you in, I will welcome you in.

How Love Looks

Each new day
I’m learning
How Love looks
Like the leaves
Stirring on an Elm
Tree touched by wind
Withstanding
Not splitting
Revealing itself
Within shifting
Patterns of light
Where only moments
Before
Nothing at all
Had been there.

-- Whitney Logan, 4.9.13

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.

Let The Earth Receive Your Stirring

I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.

Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it,
and the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.

After days of labor,
mute in my consternations,
I hear my song at last,
and I sing it. As we sing,
the day turns, the trees move.

--Wendell Berry

Yes.

"We were made and set here to give voice to our astonishments." -- Annie Dillard