You are a bird of fine wings
And so well seated on the earth
Fill the space with your light
And fill the sky with your glow.
Flood the quarters with your sheen.
Yajurveda, book XVI
Inside This Clay Jug
Inside this clay jug
there are canyons and
pine mountains,
and the maker of canyons
and pine mountains!
All seven oceans are inside,
and hundreds of millions of stars.
The acid that tests gold is here,
and the one who judges jewels.
And the music
that comes from the strings
that no one touches,
and the source of all water.
If you want the truth, I will tell you the truth:
Friend, listen: the God whom I love is inside.
~ Kabir
“Healthy wolves and healthy women share certain psychic characteristics: keen sensing, playful spirit, and a heightened capacity for devotion. Wolves and women are relational by nature, inquiring, possessed of great endurance and strength. They are intuitive, intensely concerned with their young, their mates, and their pack. They are experienced in adapting to constantly changing circumstances; they are fiercely stalwart and very brave.”
~Clarissa Pinkola Estes
“She tried to remember that she was only a vessel of power, not the power itself, for the power itself came from the Goddess.” – Mists of Avalon
“There is great power available by staying in difficult places – because if you don’t stay… you don’t get the goodies.” – A Dark Knight
“I once asked a bird, ‘How is it that you fly in this gravity of darkness?’
She responded, ‘Love lifts me.'”
– Hafiz
THE DAKINI SPEAKS by Jennifer Welwood
My friends, let’s grow up.
Let’s stop pretending we don’t know the deal here.
Or if we truly haven’t noticed, let’s wake up and notice.
Look: everything that can be lost, will be lost.
It’s simple–how could we have missed it for so long?
Let’s grieve our losses fully, like ripe human beings,
But please, let’s not be so shocked by them.
Let’s not act so betrayed,
As though life had broken her secret promise to us.
Impermanence is life’s only promise to us,
And she keeps it with ruthless impeccability.
To a child she seems cruel, but she is only wild,
And her compassion is exquisitely precise:
Brilliantly penetrating, luminous with truth,
She strips away the unreal to show us the real.
This is the true ride–let’s give ourselves to it!
Let’s stop making deals for a safe passage:
There isn’t one anyway, and the cost is too high.
We are not children any more.
The true human adult gives everything for what cannot be lost.
Let’s dance the wild dance of no hope!
UNBECOMING by ~~~Maya Luna
It’s okay not to have New Year’s resolutions
It’s okay not to have big goals for your life
It’s okay not to have plans you want to
Manifest
It’s okay not to chase your dreams
That path is not for everyone
Some walk the path of Unbecoming
They are traveling the road
Backwards
Seeking the core
What is basic and essential
What has been there all along
Though we may be headed the same direction
Our spirals are mirror opposites
Some walk the path of the visionary
Creating abundance and
Dancing inside a multiplicity of forms
And Some walk the path
of the serpent owl
Becoming more and more naked
Shedding layers of fantasy into the ash
Night sky
Sitting in the dark
And seeing the way the wind moves
They do not walk a line or
poise their arrow to the target
They sit at the bottom of the ocean
And wait
Letting the waves devour them
They are following the pulse
of listening
To silence
Like a tiger in the brush
Waiting for existence to strike lightening
Into the fire of the heart
For this kind
Nothing less will do
Some are opening the palms of their hands
And unraveling
To become
Less and less
Until they are
No-Thing
To become the still point
In the center of
All
You know who you are
Keep going
Whatever concept you may have of Grace, even if it is an intuitive and insightful one . . . that’s not it. Grace is literally and very forcefully present, and you will never know that by merely listening to those words. You must be open to Grace and let it transform you.
~Lee Lozowick
If your’re going to the Ocean, don’t take a teaspoon. At lest take a bucket so the kids don’t laugh at you.
Jim Rohr
“You do not need to do anything; you do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You do not even need to listen; just wait. You do not even need to wait; just become still, quiet and solitary and the world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.” ~Franz Kafka
Bugs in a Bowl
Han Shan, that great and crazy, wonder-filled Chinese poet of a thousand years ago, said:
We’re just like bugs in a bowl. All day going around never leaving their bowl.
I say, That’s right! Every day climbing up
the steep sides, sliding back.
Over and over again. Around and around.
Up and back down.
Sit in the bottom of the bowl, head in your hands,
cry, moan, feel sorry for yourself.
Or. Look around. See your fellow bugs.
Walk around.
Say, Hey, how you doin’?
Say, Nice Bowl! ~~~David Budbill
Because You love the Burning-ground,
I have made a Burning-ground of my heart —
That You, Dark One,
hunter of the Burning-ground,
May dance Your eternal dance.
~Bengali Hymn
Love After Love by Derek Walcott
The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
And say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the strangers who
has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
~Derek Walcott
Last Night, as I Was Sleeping
Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt–marvelous error!–
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?
Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt–marvelous error!–
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.
Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt–marvelous error!–
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth,
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.
Last night, as I slept,
I dreamt–marvelous error!–
that it was God I had
here inside my heart.
~Antonio Machado
The Quiet Power
I walked backwards, against time
and that’s where I caught the moon,
singing at me.
I steeped downwards, into my seat
and that’s where I caught freedom,
waiting for me, like a lilac.
I ended thought, and I ended story.
I stopped designing, and arguing, and
sculpting a happy life.
I didn’t die. I didn’t turn to dust.
Instead I chopped vegetables,
and made a calm lake in me
where the water was clear and sourced and still.
And when the ones I loved came to it,
I had something to give them, and
it offered them a soft road out of pain.
I became beloved.
And I came to know that this was it.
The quiet power.
I could give something mighty, lasting,
that stopped the wheel of chaos,
by tending to the river inside,
keeping the water rich and deep,
keeping a bench for you to visit.
~Tara Mohr
Once the soul awakens, the search begins, and you can never go back. From then on, you are inflamed with a special longing that will never again let you linger in the lowlands of complacency and partial fulfillment. The eternal makes you urgent. You are loath to let compromise, or the threat of danger hold you back from striving toward the summit of fulfillment.
~ John O’Donohue
Everything you see has its roots in the unseen world. The forms may change, yet the essence remains the same. Every wonderful sight will vanish; every sweet word will fade, but do not be disheartened: the source they come from is eternal, growing, branching out, giving new life and new joy. Why do you weep? The source is within you and based on vibrational harmony. And this whole world is springing up from it. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi
We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned,
so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
~ Joseph Campbell
May the light of your soul guide you.
May the light of your soul bless the work you do
with the secret love and warmth of your heart.
May you see in what you do the beauty of your own soul.
May the sacredness of your work
bring healing, light and renewal
to those who work with you and
to those who see and receive your work.
May your work never weary you.
May it release within you wellsprings of
refreshment, inspiration and excitement.
May you be present in what you do.
May you never become lost in the bland absences.
May the day never burden you.
May dawn find you awake and alert,
approaching your new day
with dreams, possibilities and promises.
May evening find you gracious and fulfilled.
May you go into the night
blessed, sheltered and protected.
May your soul calm, console and renew you.
~ John O’Donohue
NAMASTE’