Body

 

I hear a lot
about embodiment.

But what if the molecules

of your pituitary

are made of galaxies

so distant that their light

is only now arriving

as your flesh?

What if they are

hanging in a spacious

ballroom of awareness

like a chandelier?

Wouldn't you begin

to waltz

for no reason?

Look for a partner,

anyone, anything.

Bow to this crocus,

who wears her

heirloom crystals

and her mother's

purple gown.

She is so still and new,

just risen from

this fertile tomb,

the Imbolg caesura

between Winter

and Spring.

Now enter her silence.

Speak these words

only in your heart,

"Shall we dance?"

The Practice of Winter

 

No more mountain tops.
I yearn for a valley that smells of rain.
I like to touch the sky in dark springs.
So I wander Winter woods,
a lover's breath warming my solitude.
This is my weather, my way
ever vanishing in wolf-gray mist,
a path chosen by deer for its stillness.

Whatever is delicious,

whatever is astounding,

whatever brings tears,

ripens and dies this moment.

I like to touch fern

and hemlock silences,
bejeweled and wildering.

I like to hear the vireo break them

like frail ice.

The practice of Winter requires

no effort.

Simply do not fear the hollow places.

Give thanks for what's left in the gourd,

the gift of withering,

your persimmon cheeks,

your open palms so full of stars

that you must find

another word for emptiness. 

Photo: Took this hiking in the rain at Mt. Rainier

Spill

 

Just ripen,

burst open like

a pomegranate,

and let all

the opposites

spill out.

They are your seeds.

Don’t mind the
splitting, opening,
darkening sweetness
of the bruise.
The juice is more
essential than
the shape.

You include
everything, the sour
and the ripe,

the bloody and

the radiant.

Don't you know

that every breath

is full of grace

because it is

choiceless?

 

 

Photo from gardeningknowhow.com

Message From Finn

 

Finn, my noble red poodle, is a reincarnated Tibetan lama being tested in his final lifetime by taking birth as a dog. It is my duty to sponsor him on earth, feeding him, making sure he doesn't hump people, etc. I am learning to listen to him, which is a wonderful new art because he speaks with his eyes, and through his cinnamon hair. This morning, just before dawn, he gave me this silent transmission, which I have tried to put into words.

'Mindfulness? I prefer Mind-Emptiness. Mind is the problem, not the solution.

'We look at the earth through the gray dusty window of the mind and wonder why the world is gray and dusty. We do not see the ineffable radiance that shines from every atom. We do not smell the musk of the present moment.

'Mind invents religion. Then it invents politics. Then it invents the "news." The mind's greatest invention is time. Out of the past and future, which only exist in the mind, fear is woven.

'The great insights, inventions and breakthroughs in science, technology, and art do not come from the mind. They come from your intuition, the timeless sky of wonder beyond the mind. Geniuses of all ages are those who knew how to tap into wonder, into the silent field of intuition, where solutions flash out like lightning.

'Mind is a useful tool to carry in your pocket for solving logical or mathematical problems, but don't take it to bed with you, and don't try to eat or make love with it, and please don't let it ruin your life with constant whining. You humans are always whining instead of living. Whining is the supreme triumph of your mind: whining about who is to blame for your situation, why you are always the victim, and how much you lack.

'Above all, don't mistake your mind for the world. To see the world as it truly is, to touch the world and feel its electric fur, you must go out of your mind. I recommend going out of your mind several times a day." ~Finn

Workshop

O friend, how many
workshops must you attend,
how many ashrams and institutes
of spiritual healing must you visit
before you learn the truth?
Every dimensionless point in space
is filled with 10 thousand suns
that you just don't see
because you're living on
all of them at once.
This is called 'consciousness.'
Now here is the final spiritual practice.
You won't need any other.
I learned it from a fat golden poodle.
When anyone approaches, friend or foe,
throw yourself on
the ground before them.
Lie on your back with a vast
empty smile and invite them
to rub your belly.
This is the only way.

Don't Underestimate Your Birth

The Savior was pure silence.
Then he put on flesh, like yours.
To touch the Christ, look deep
into your body.
Underestimating your glory
is the only sin.
Now drink up the rest of this day:
bask in yourself and squander the kingdom!
A fountain of something like starlight
will rise up your spine,
spilling over, showering the world
with burning seeds of wonder,
gold as the stuff in Mary's womb...

The 2nd Century Gnostic, Valentinus, defined the Virgin Mother of God as “mystical eternal silence.” St. Hesychius of Jerusalem called this mystery, “The heart’s silence, unbroken by any thought.” Inward silence is the untainted virgin who dwells at the center of your soul. Resting there, you give birth to Light.

Of this archetypal event, St. Bonaventure wrote, "You too must become a Mary if you would give birth to the Light of God's Son in your soul." The 12th century mystic, Meister Eckhart, said, "The birth which happened two thousand years ago is meaningless until it happens in me."

There is a spacious silence in the depths of your awareness. This silent space is untouched, unsullied by any thought, sense impression, memory or desire. This is the space of meditation. When your mind is full of thoughts, and you become frustrated because, "I am having too many thoughts!" how do you know that you are thinking? There must be a witness who sees your thoughts. But the witness cannot be a thought. The witness is pure silence. Behind all your thoughts, the silence just watches. The witness is pure awareness. She is the Virgin.

We call her “Ever” Virgin because the witness is timeless. Thinking creates time. Past and future are nothing but thoughts. When thought is silent, time is not. The silence of pure awareness is eternity.

Christian mystics speak of the "divine darkness." This all-mothering dark is the "formless void" of Genesis 1, "the deep" where the Word of creation is born. St. Paul wrote: "The same God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts..." So the inner Virgin is not only a Mystery of contemplative prayer, but a cosmic Mystery. When we touch her silence, we have touched the source of creation.

It is good to celebrate the birth of Jesus at Christmas, or the birth of Buddha at the full moon of May: but please do not underestimate your own birth. The light of the knowledge of the glory of God, shining in the face of Christ, is born this very moment in the center of your soul!

Golden Teacher

Who is my teacher?
A small golden dog.
I love the dusty footprints
on clean sheets and pillows.
I love the furry scent
of unwashed Presence.
The way he runs in his sleep
and yelps at dream rabbits
reminds me of people who
think they are awake.
I love his disobedience.
Through cherishing
a small golden dog,
I learn how God loves me.
I have not learned so much
from any school.

No Chakras

When I laugh I have no chakras.

The sun is my heart.

When I cry the moon comes down

to caress my forehead

but finds no lotus to kiss open.

Breathing the Beloved's scent

clears my horoscope

of every planet and sign.

The astrologer is bewildered.

All he sees in me is an empty page

full of light.

Don't give me any more of your

esoteric books.

Grace has made me too stupid

to understand.

Photo by dear friend Kristy Thompson

A Good Place

Earth is a good place

to keep returning

until you become a horse,

a tree, the wind.

Let's say a horse for now,

ambling through alfalfa,

swishing flies.

Then, after a long time,

dare to be a willow,

or carry the rain

in your breath.

Whatever lone and lovely

perishing creature you become,

practice the four

Immeasurables:

Sit like a mountain.

Walk like a cloud.

Stand like a lightning flash.

Repose like a spring in the forest.

Even if you’re simply

whisking bugs away

with your deft magisterial tail,

you are here,

rooted by grace

in your luminous bones

to honor the darkness

of loam.

I took this photo from my brothers porch in Chester County PA.

Permission

Give yourself permission
to be human.
Polish your heart
with forgiveness.
Only you have
the authority.
Your beauty pervades
the sky, mountain brooks,
meadows and loam,
all wings like the breath
of dawn.
Today is the day the earth
bows up to touch
your face, and stars
confess that the longing
of their light for you
is unendurable.


Wiki image of Ruffled Grouse

Return

 

A problem cannot be solved on the level of the problem. The solution is always on a much subtler, more interior level, because the "problem" is an effect, not a cause. Trying to solve this nation's political problems with politicians, and economic problems with economics, is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The underlying cause of the problem must be clearly revealed, and that cause is the mind.

The essential problem is that we have identified our minds with the world. Projecting the mind into the world, as the world, we mistake the mind for the world.

Then we wonder why the world is so disturbed, and such a puzzle. But the world is ineluctably simple, clear, and radiant. It is the mind that is disturbed. It is the mind that is a puzzle to itself. The mind is like a spider entangled in its own web.

You are the spider, not the web. You are the vast night, not a star. Knowing that you are not your mind is the solution to the nation's problems.

If we just realized this, on both "sides" of the conflict, we could meet in the space at the center, where there is no ideology of the left or the right, no past to repair, no future to be anxious about. We could take the next step gently, in peace, because that step is where we walk right now. We could act not out of the mind, which is ever tangled up in time, but out of the body, which is ever present.

Let the nation turn away from whining, blaming, shouting, burning, and return to its center, to its body, to its beating heart. The act of returning is meditation. Meditation is letting go of the mind to repose in the Self. This is not an escape from action: it is action. Meditation is the act of centering that liberates the energy of presence.

Market

 

Everyone seems to be

marketing something.

But success eludes me.

I get straight F's in business,

giving it all away,

just hoping you might

give me something too.

I learned another kind

of wealth

from the reckless poinsettia.

Adorn your fleeting soul

in scarlet and set emeralds

of pollen in your

golden crown.

Lose all you thought was yours

in the marketplace

of amazement.

Now fling yourself at the sun!

Photo by Aile Shebar

Some Kind Of Flower

There's some kind of blossom
tangled in my ribs.
Who knows where it sprouted?
God's groin?
This dizzy wheel of splendor
didn't spring out of my subtle body:
I don't have one.
I'm all dark matter with a bittersweet
fermented chocolate tang
of my mother's placenta.
But it’s right here in my chest
between breathing out and in -
a radiance without a name.
I’m just a speck of pollen
on a flaming stamen’s tip
at the center of this
thousand-petaled now.  

Listen

Listen to evening fall.
Listen to darkness come.
Listen to the stars.
Beyond the farthest faintest sound,
listen to silence.
Listening cleanses
the mind of thought,
awakens the sparkling grace
of the present moment...
What was that troubled dream
of the world
swept away
by this breath?

Willy

This must be why we have "service animals." In the depths of night, when I wake in despair of the world, I reach out and touch the warmth of this little dog. As soon as I feel the golden softness, my negative energy discharges into some ancient ground beyond the ken of human intellect, and I fall back to sleep in peace. Once again I have been blessed by the Kingdom of the Fur, and redeemed by a Grace that flows, not from above, but from below. Thank you, Willy.

Standard Red Poodle

I am the first line in the poem from hell.
I am the wicked orchid of the id.
I have no ideology,
therefore I love you.
I am an existential threat.
WTF does that mean?
It means I eat Christmas cards.
My borders are fractals of fur
dissolving in the sparkles of your shadow.
You have been Me and will return.
One stroke of my tongue on your palm
erases all thought,
settling your awareness
in unfathomable silence.
Breathe me if your dare.
I am the flurry of popcorn galaxies
exploding from the golden pistil
between your chest and belly button.
I am the butter you crave.
I love you, did I say that?
I slobber.
I eat Christmas cards.
I am the enormous puppy of amour.
My thirst for companionship
is your thirst for companionship.
The saintly sinner you wanted to be.
The ineluctable quiddity of suchness
devouring fuzz off moldering tennis balls.
Yes, I transcend cleanliness.
I am the herald of an age without plastic.
I digest it all.
I will teach you to leap unwashed
into the peril of the next moment.
Leave the afterbirth behind.
Just pray to Me, your animal guru,
the gingerbread poodle of No Mind.

Photo: My giant seven month old poodle, Finn

Silence Marveling

Silence marveling at its own resplendent stillness, is God. Silence breathing, undulating, pulsing into particles of the Mater, is Goddess. The quantum physics of cosmic creation way too sexy for monks and astronomers. Shiva hugging Shakti, the heart merged with its longing. Shakti's vibrations in Shiva fermenting love-juice into wine that satisfies a divine thirst. The Beloved dancing in the space of the Lover's boundless Self-bewilderment, even while She bears the Lover in her womb of oceanic bliss, oceanic pain, waves and troughs of light and dark, each impossible without the other. The stillness of One inconceivable without the dance of Two.

You never left the egg. There was never a shell. The yolk of that moment embodied the eternal future, your ancestors, and your children’s children. The Embryo is All. A wise man follows the star in the eye of his own heart to the manger of the infant who was never born. The laughter of that baby is the dying exhalation of the crone. All these mysterious initiations transpire in the Ayin Soph, the Bindhu of that infinitesimal now. But what do I know?

Thought is futile in love's fiery amazement, the vast wilderness between breathing out and in. Here, at the last tremor of the bee glutted in the golden rose's cup, no trying, no discipline, no secret tantra bring the mystery to pass, for it has always already happened. Just repose in the annihilation of every effort. Drown your mind in the heart. Surrender to the catastrophe that ejaculates the universe. The next inhalation not taken, but given. Be grateful. This is the most naked prayer.

Winding

 

Give me a winding path
    that leads nowhere
        and I'll follow.
Give me the straight and narrow
    that leads right to the goal,
        I'll veer off-trail
where heather and woodbine
    thicken, and a thrush
        babbles no instruction.
Now is the first day of the year,
    oh so cold I'll follow my roots
        down into the hollow
where fur and larvae dream
    of flowers, and seeds
        lie awake in the dark,
witnessing the long
    quiet luminous breath
        of Winter.