Hummingbird called me awake this morning.
On the wind, in the air.
Intimate voices.
Self-inflicted wound/fatal.
Moving in all directions at the same time.
A storm between the temples.
“No martyr’s cause has ever been stilled by his assassin’s bullet.” rfk
Controversy>
Tears, now.
We have the right to remain silent>
He said, “When you sit down to meditate, you sit down for everyone.”
Somatic illumination.
Born,
I am not worthy. I must pray to have the stain removed.
Questioning,
they turn their backs. I walk away.
Search.
I search for:
value,
self-acceptance,
non-invisibility/to be seen.
Ease within my own body.
To be heard.
I am told:
You need a teacher, a guru, a path, merit.
But here, in these bones and flesh of walking human anatomy.
There is body felt intuition. Shields are coming down/falling away.
This laboratory of body/biology and physiology, and anatomy; outside of time and space.
Outside of hierarchy, dominion, and patriarchal rightness.
Here – in this body made as woman. Evolving.
Codes of carbon transmuting into crystal (s).
Devoted to the continuous momentum of waking up.
Finding ease in this form; discordance a new friend.
Silence, a welcomed partner.
The codes of teacher change to: learner, mentor, ones who share.
Authority: yours and mine.
I trust. From beginningless time; shoulders upon shoulders.
And to this exact moment in time:
no longer standing ON shoulders.
Standing shoulder TO shoulder.
We wake up.
Shear.
Clarity. There’s a transparency.
A certain wisp of your breath.
Felt. Intimate.
I alight.
There is healing going on.
A healing.
I am healed. Wiped anew.
They are forgiven.
Discovered agency.
A pressure in the womb. The history of the universe.
Her story.
Yours/mine.
Mine.
And the tulips request another day.
Beautiful discipline.
I see you in your shoes.
New bird songs, un-named, sing to me.
The wooden windmill spins a reply.
Emerging tulips’ imminent growth.
Grief shows itself in the bones.
The wooden windmill spins a reply.
Adobe colored dirt lines the undercarriage.
Grief shows itself in the bones.
Buddha smiles with grace in hand.
Adobe colored dirt lines the undercarriage.
The roar of the silence is questionable.
Buddha smiles with grace in hand.
Over completed fullness in the round.
The roar of the silence is questionable.
He demanded, “Bring me the fan of the rhinoceros.”
Over completed fullness in the round.
First there are two cushions and now there is a chair.
He demanded, “Bring me the fan of the rhinoceros.”
Embody the touch of an unknown assailant.
First there are two cushions and now there is a chair.
You assuage the hunger of the pleading wolf.
Embody the touch of an unknown assailant.
You cup your hand to my left cheek.
You assuage the hunger of the pleading wolf.
Long dead, where is the forgiveness?
You Cup your hand to my left cheek.
Intimacy is unbearably brilliant.
Long dead, where is the forgiveness?
They say the scent of roses means Mary is near.
Intimacy is unbearably brilliant.
First apricot buds blooming today.
They say the scent of roses means Mary is near.
I was raised to believe I was a saint.
First apricot buds blooming today.
I carry history on my left side.
I was raised to believe I was a saint.
I wish I knew their names.
I carry history on my left side.
She said, “I am not your teacher, only your preceptor.”
I wish I knew their names.
Shivaratri delivers merit one thousand times over.
She said, “I am not your teacher, I am your preceptor.”
The blue in your eyes makes my heart break.
Shivaratri delivers merit one thousand times.
There is no evidence of living in India.
The blue in your eyes makes my heart break.
New birdsongs, un-named, sing to me.
There is no evidence of living in India.
Emerging tulips’ imminent growth.
***Also, kindly posted over at Miriam Sagan’s website
https://miriamswell.wordpress.com/
So much.
So many things.
Situations. A herstory. A discovery.
Roses.
Things found.
Love.
Mysteries unveiled.
The veil removed/ Not completely/ but not opaque.
Any longer.
A gentle hand held to the cheek.
mine.
Humans gliding on frozen water and the little girl who wanted to be.
Something/someone.
Solar plexus spinning out rays
of the sun.
no veil
A busy month for sure. Here we are in the last week of the first month of a new year. Fairly jam-packed so, I think listing is the most concise and accurate.
Writing class: sit/walk/write with Natalie Goldberg and my dear friend Annie.
And an infrequent unfight – with my partner. I thought I was perfect. What could I, how could I possibly have made you___________. Filling in the blank is what I do. But now, on the other side, I see that the story has gone on well past it’s day. In other words, drop it, Mary.
There are now five planets visible in the morning sky: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. A miracle.
David Bowie moved up into the ethers.
I work. I. I’m working with pain in the body. I never really knew what this meant. Who wants to feel, even more, what we’re? I’m already/always trying to get away from? This pain: here, then over there and mostly, when lifting my arms, and as they come together parallel with my eyes. And then up, up, over head to take off my shirt.
I have to make the animal noise/a release in order to move the arm just so. Just so I can complete the movement and remove the shirt/bra etc. And so on. I say, “aghhhh..”
And. Lucy comes running.
Embodiment.
Not grasping. No victim.
Who’s responsible? The jig is up.
“At some point,” he said, “we say, enough.” And then, although experientially, it may take the rest of our lives, you can’t/won’t be able to go back to sleep. You’re awake. Even though there are days, sometimes on end, where the eyes are droopy or closed tight shut, you cannot fully return to that ignorant slumber.
And I can and will go forward. Going forward.
Moving now.
and then he said, “when you sit down, the world sits down.” A new voice that called to me from ancient ancestry.
magic continuing
remain alert/listen
dragon sky bird
“If only people could perceive the mystery in all life, down to the smallest thing, and open themselves to it instead of taking it for granted. If only they could reverse its abundance which is undividedly both material and spiritual. For the mind’s creation springs from the physical, is of one nature with it and only a lighter, more enraptured and enduring recapturing of bodily delight.”
“Letters to a Young Poet”, Bodily Delight ~~Rilke
A new moon in Capricorn today. My natal moon. Working with soft and hard edges. A second Saturn return. A first mercury retrograde of the new year. Chiron cracking me open. How much more is there to go?!
Finding myself preferring to be quiet. Not putting in my “two cents.”
Walking through a foot of snow, walking Lucy. Lucy meanwhile, bounding/leaping/chopping bites of the snow. We make green chili hot chocolate/green tea/ chai extra spicy. Things that are warming.
Learning how to edit, I delete a full paragraph. Refreshing. A pressure/pinpoint pain in left occipital ridge. I learned to place my hand on my heart as a preliminary moment to meditation. Then place hand on something solid. Then begin meditation.
I belong to an online meditation Sangha. A community. Men and women wanting to wake up. There is a virtual shrine room. I turn on my meditation app for the timer. I sit up straight, then bow. Mostly, I’m alone. Sometimes with one other. It’s funny, but the whole experience is so intimate. Seeing myself sitting on the computer screen, I know others are meditating somewhere. There is a feeling of belonging.
I see the lottery is up to $900 million. Wouldn’t it be nice if whoever wins would give the money to people who really need it? I think the possibilities are pretty obvious.
So much processing going on. Every word I say, shift of head, foot off ground, all my sitting still, move, move, move. Shifts and changes occurring completely of their own accord.
I’m looking for the lightness in all things. Clarity. clean and clear. Awake. No, not looking/not outside myself. Discovering what’s already there.
Inside. When we hear, “You already have everything you need.” Do we have any understanding of what this really means? That’s what I’m finding out.
And then there’s the rest of your life.
And mine.
Ours.
Now:
I can’t seem to draw myself into a conclusion.
The direction is, synchronize body and mind to bring yourself into the present moment.
There is space.
And there is the heart center pounding and burning. I don’t seem
To have the appropriate mechanism. When something’s already occurred.
Taken place. And I imagine everything to be fine. And now I’m hanging.
Now, it seems, we are at a second phase. The first being that I would drink,
A lot. Because I was always putting.
Placing myself in the wrong.
Raw.
Now, we are at a deeper and more intimate level of awareness.
As the teachers have taught this day.
An elegance. Of discipline. Not running away.
Staying with the rawness. Even for moments.
One.
Here.
There. There. Sad-joy. I find this is nearly and almost always, my every waking moment.
And now, there’s a line across my right eye. This has happened perhaps four or five times.
Over use of the eyes?
Does the line refer to a separation?
Of thoughts/ideas/feelings/understandings?
The feeling is extraordinary and unnatural.
Ouch.
Is that true?
Dissonant
Discordant
Undeliverable.
These too can be the doorway in.
To.
Me.
I remain hurting but perhaps I can hold the space for myself?
Ripped open.
There, the heart muscle can be found. Striations named as myocardium.
Beyond understanding the heart requires blood and electronic(s).
How can I understand, if I can’t understand more steadily how this main system of my body
Connects with the rest of the underlying organisms?
Oh, there it is.
Belonging.
“There is a resonant heart in the depth of silence. When your true heart speaks, the echo will return to assure you that every moment of your presence happens in the shelter of the invisible circle. These eternal echoes will transfigure your hunger to belong.”*
Now. No one can do this for me.
Not even you.
The heart breaks and reveals more.
More.
More .
He said, “catching the scent of something beautiful: we notice the brilliance of a flower, the inner experience of our loved ones”.**
I lay myself bare.
Eternal Echoes, John O’Donohue **Acharya Nick Kranz
A cold, bright autumn November morning. A new down coat that covers my bottom.
Warm. Zipping up the two separate pieces of nylon filled with duck feathers I think, “may all beings be warm.”
I chanted the Guru Gita this morning. Do you know it? I chanted it every day during my second pregnancy.
At 38. With Ian (in belly).
I need to ask if he heard me.
No longer on that spiritual path I discover (still) much history:
Travel, marriage/divorce. Birth/betrayal.
I was looking for the “one” some ONE/thing who would tell me/show me.
Accept me.
But, you see, I love to sing/chant. Sanskrit is pure love in my throat.
Bhakti.
Continuing to work with loss of someone who, although I didn’t know all that well or for very long and yet.
And yet, changed my life.
Irrevocably. How many opportunities have I been given in this life where I’ve been allowed to sit with the body right before/during and after he/she has left?
Some left quickly while others lingered. And you.
She.
You hovered for nearly three hours. This completely odd juxtaposition of grief and shock and what, bliss?
No, complete freedom. You let me feel that didn’t you?
It could have happened that I paid no notice.
But, I did.
The veil, still thinner than one’s breath.
It seems a secret that gets carried around.
In me. I discover it one day in my left shoulder. Another day, in the occipital ridge.
At another time, the souls of my feet.
This embodiment is tricky business. It’s planting me more in my life.
Now.
And now.
While chanting, I watched as many storied memories floated by.
India: I have no proof I was there. No pictures. History stored.
For me:
In the gazebo.
3 am walk to the meditation hall while the dew master removed the crystallized wetness from each blade of grass. I see Baba’s statue dancing and I think I’ve finally arrived having had my first vision. Gurumayi psychically pierces my heart, I look up to see her heading directly towards me.
And you said, “what about me?”
And I thought, this was enlightenment.
And now a new now and here. Open wide. Edges softening.
My own intimacy, with myself. Allowing it to be.
Maitri.
Sangha.
Embodiment.
Awake at three am to let out Tara. Left arm with pin point pain in a new location.
Piercing the fascia. It feels brown and full and sad.
Embodying one’s life isn’t thinking about being in the body or observing the motions/movements of the movement.
We are sensing organs. Everything is experienced through this sensing mechanism.
And, we are so much more that cannot even be named.
Another lexicon necessarily required.
And, appreciation. Complete. Full. Stunning.
An articulation of gratitude for atoms/molecules/awareness/teaching/children/lovers/sponsors/friends/beloved four-leggeds.
Life partner.
Be kind.
You are love.
We are.
Love.
This season of change, of going inward.
Deep.
I’ve taken a little break from editing my book. Somehow I just needed to create space:
between me and the story and my coach. I’ve needed to allow the story to take on a new simmer if you will. But the story, and its main character walks around with me,
all the time and everywhere.
I said okay, you can do that. And while she’s made herself at home, I’ve been watching myself go through deep changes with my spiritual path.
First, it’s dynamic, no doubt. A nearly thirty-five year path from one system or lineage to another, mostly within the framework of Buddhism. Tibetan, vipassana and zen.
And so, I shouldn’t be too surprised that I find myself coming full circle and meeting my twenty-five year old self and the path (seeds) that for whatever reasons (karma) wasn’t meant to germinate until now.
There is something really beautiful in hearing things, reading things, I’ve heard and read before as if for the very first time. This is a great teaching. Everything changes. Can be experienced anew. A light, a book, a person, a chance, a teacher, a path.
A new set of eyes and ears.
A fresh open heart.
I feel such gratitude and warm appreciation for:
all of it.
You.
before
