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

Freedom

The other day, a stranger in my local grocery store approached me and announced that I was “born a queen, remain a queen, and will die a queen".  I was surprised and confused, and I’m pretty sure I simply stared at him for 30-60 seconds before I decided he wasn’t dangerous or crazy.  He then continued by telling me that he felt compelled to remind me of my own absolute Freedom.  He told me that I needed to look up the definition of the word ‘sovereign’, and understand that it applied to me.

So I looked it up right then: "sovereign: one that exercises supreme authority within a limited sphere".

He went on to tell me about his brother, a doctor, who went to medical school to learn how to help people heal themselves, and wound up working in a hospital where he saw 30-40 patients every day. And then there was this moment when his brother realized that this medical model wasn’t aligned with his values as a ‘healer’, and quit his job a few weeks later.  Apparently, this man’s brother now feels that his soul is significantly more ‘free’.  He concluded, “we don’t have to be any more bound up by things than we want to be.  You can always choose to set the soul free when and if it demands this".

Curiously, less than 45 minutes before this strange interaction at the grocery store, a very wise friend of mine was attempting to share with me what he knew about the hero/heroine’s journey re: the soul’s liberation from self-imposed fundamentalism of any kind.  In a different way, he was also encouraging me to remember my own ultimate freedom and sovereignty within the limited sphere of myself.

These two strong voices - both echoing the others’ message - got my attention.  The Universe seemed to be gently encouraging me to consider (again) how the psychological prisons I often feel held within might be self-imposed constructions.  Of course, the work of liberating ourselves from our habits of thought is no simple task, but I imagine it’s one that others might relate to, and figured I’d do my part in offering both solidarity and support to everyone else on the same journey toward true (shall we say, "inner"?) Freedom.

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.

Elephant Shoulders

“I have felt the swaying of the elephant's shoulders;

and now you want me to climb on a jackass? Try to be serious". 

- Mirabai

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

The Mystery

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

Don't you think?

Mother Moon.

True Refuge

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