It is simple
Each of us is a moth
The flame we circle
Carries within it
The freedom we seek
But we must fly around
And around and around
In an ecstatic dance
Of courtship
Before the moment,
When the dance is at its wildest,
We yield to the inevitable
Pull of that burning
God is us, the flame, the freedom
And the dance of courtship.
My beloved, how shall we measure love
In the same way we measure the number of stars in the night sky
Or the way we measure the grains of sand on the beach
Shall we tether it with our feeble attempts to number everything
And fit it all into a box we understand
Shall we quantify love as we do everything else
Or shall we leave it as immeasurable, unknowable, uncountable
We clutch at description as though it were a safety net
Oh!, we say, when I know how many, when I can describe it,
Then I will own it and understand it and be safe
But friend, you will kill it in your attempts
Accept it, you know nothing
You are adrift in the unknown ocean
As we all are
Don’t worry about counting
Don’t worry about the false safety you seek
Just be in the vastness of it all
Dancing, laughing, crying, grieving and loving
When you open up in this way
The whole universe pours into you
And celebrates.
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
There is a flower
In the center of your chest
Feed it, cherish it, love it
And it will grow into something beautiful
Starve it, ignore it and turn away
And it will wither and die.
Image by Couleur from Pixabay
Consciousness is eternal
Form is temporary
We are that living juxtaposition
And between these two truths must we surf
Sometimes losing ourselves in the temporary
And sometimes resting in the eternal
There is no choice
But to relish this beautiful dance
Of apparent opposites
And to practice the deepest acceptance
Either that or grasp at one
At the expense of the other
Surrender to the truth my friend
And dance as if you had one foot in the world
And the other in eternity.
Image by Efes Kitap from Pixabay
Let all this knowing and awareness
Fall into the temple of the heart
And there, let the clarity of our seeing
Begin a process of cleansing
So that we meet all the demons and shadows
All the toxic beliefs and imaginations
And allow them to return to source
The purifying of the heart is a kind of emptying
In which, without knowing how or why,
The more empty it is
The more filled it becomes with the beloved
It is possible to shift
From being self centered
To being beloved centered
Without becoming religious
It has nothing to do with beliefs
Make space within your heart
And the beloved will move in.
Image by Devanath from Pixabay
There is a secret that only the wisest shamans know
It is that praise is what keeps beauty alive
But this praise is not superficial or of the self
It is true, heart pouring out praise of what is truly valued
Praise says ‘You are in the world and you mean something
You are beautiful and I see that beauty and honor it,’
This simple but openly joyous action
Is like pouring water on a parched garden
It brings everything to life
And allows it to shine
It can be praise of a human being
Or a flower or dog or a tree
Or nature itself
Everything will respond in the same way
Because everything is animated by the divine
My poetry is a celebration of this praise
It is the only way I know
To keep the beauty of things alive.
Image by Bruno /Germany from Pixabay
I stood under the eternal sky
And gazed upwards into infinity
There was no end to anything
It was all the divine
I sat with my own self
Turned my attention within
And saw the same infinity
And the same divine essence
Soon I understood
That within and without
Were exactly the same
And the only thing
That separated them
Was my mind’s insistence
On separation
That was the end
Of my mind’s dominance.
Image by WikiImages from Pixabay
Go ahead, search the world
You will find wonders and riches
Breathtaking vistas and majestic sights
You can climb all the mountains
Surf the highest waves
You can fly, dive and explore
Until you have seen everything
You can become a space traveler
And get to Mars
And that would be a wondrous thing
And bring you closer to the divine
But if there is an itch inside you
A longing for true freedom
You will never find it
In any of those things
For only the journey into inner space
To the center of the inner world
To the black hole of existence itself
That lies at the heart of each human being
Only that journey will bring you
The wisdom and peace you seek.
Image by Lumina Obscura from Pixabay
To find the truth
You must look deep into your own heart
Into your soul and into your deepermost being
The spiritual wayfarer who tries to find truth
By accumulating knowledge
Will, quickly or slowly, find themselves at a dead end
With nowhere left to go but in
That is a beautiful moment
For then the journey really begins
As the knots and the protective layers
That cover up vulnerability
Are met, embraced and dived into
A profound deepening happens
And a great tenderness arises
By and by this opening and tenderness
Reveals itself as the truth
Not as a mental construct
But as a flower that opens
When its time comes
As a lived reality.
Image by Bessi from Pixabay
Love is always trying to find you
But you resist and resist
Saying you are not ready
But you ARE ready
You have never been more ready
Love is beckoning you to its door
And into its kingdom
But you say ‘I need to resolve this
And I can’t let go of this,’
And you hesitate at the threshold
Imagining there is more you should do or know
Love, your true home,
Doesn’t care about what you think
Or what you imagine
It comes at you, beseeching, begging, demanding
Give yourself once and for all to this inner calling
What do you have to lose?
Only the remnants of clothes you once wore
With pride and pomp
Only the threads of your worldly robes
That no longer fit or even suit you
Love is trying to find you
Surrender once and for all
It will be such a relief.
Image by JamesDeMers from Pixabay
