Last night, Dr. Shakti
performed a full moonoscopy on my
fontanelle, separating the tectonic
plates in my skull, re-opening the soft spot I
had when I was a baby. Then She poured seven
galaxies down my backbone. It went well and I feel great
this morning. Each breath is a string of hollow diamonds, ringing.
My religion is simple.
Let us pray.
No Savior but the second coming
of a scavenger kitten
trembling in my flashlight beam
by the pantry door.
No Holy Mother,
just the crone selling cherry bombs
on the Third of July
at the Thunderbird Tribal Casino.
No patron Saint
but the half-blind abuelo
carefully cramming cages of hens
into the luggage rack
on the midnight flight from
Newark to San Juan.
No Revelation, only the wail
of the newborn citizen
whose mother crossed over
in the hour before dawn,
her final breath a one-word prayer,
“Al Norte.”
I believe in the Last Judgment.
It is an infant’s tear
without circumference.
The sound of a wood thrush
is the end of time, a Parousia
in each dogwood blossom.
I am a fallen creature
plummeting into grace.
From what should I be saved?
I was never lost.
The mountaintop is wherever I am.
I vow to wander.
My Pilgrimage will be a journey
into the backyard.
Angels of dew in a wilderness of moss,
clover cathedrals, the priestess
a ladybug, the starry empyrean
whirling in black loam,
grand epiphanies
for the eremitic visionary earthworm.
Let us dig.
You can sweep up the dust of a thousand ruined civilizations in this breath. You can gather the ashes of your ancestors in this breath. Whisk the DNA from all the microbes that ever swarmed the gut or swam the blood of rodent, honeybee, or leprous medieval peasant in this breath. You can reap the protein from each virus, from each chromosome fossilized in fissures of a meteorite; you can harvest molecules of leopard scat and mastodon, maggot and wolverine, the very color code of parrots in this breath; or learn the secret gene-Om of a black hole humming from the core of the galaxy. And in this breath, you can distill the tears of your enemies, the wild scent of your first love, the healing elixir in all rain-forest herbs, the dew in the eyes of your unborn children for a thousand generations to come. You can taste the nectar of atoms that Jesus breathed in this breath. Now hold it, friend. Just for a moment, cherish and hold this breath, sweeping up the stories, the grievances, the blame and forgiveness, transmuting all that ever was or will be into Sparkling Awareness. Yes, into the empty infinite free energy of your own Sparkling Awareness. Now breathe out.
NASA photo of the 'Flame Nebula,' an embodied Goddess pointing out there, toward the ever expanding rim of your last exhalation.
Who told you you were “white,”
that disdain for shadows,
color of the fear of falling ?
You are not
white, you are oak,
apple wood and dandelion.
Make a barrel
of your bones.
Make wine of yourself.
Acquire the flavor of your ancestors.
Who told you you were “black,”
that abstraction of laughter and tears?
You are more than black.
Seeds of the sun are sown
in your cheek furrows.
You are banyan and mahogany,
kola nut and cocoa bean,
kinnikinnik of the sacred pipe.
You are the olive night.
Voracious love has dipped us both
in honey, meshed our chromosomes
in darkest cilia, netted our dendrites
like mushrooms in sweet loam,
the wild manure of one dragon.
Dust in a wrinkled rainbow,
whorled pallet of earth tones,
ginger, sorrel, burnt sienna...
We're one human juice
pulsing through a pungent root
toward starlight.
West African Earth Goddess Ala, image
shared on Pinterest, artist unknown.
You are made of the medicine
that heals you.
Soil, water, light and air
are powerful immunities.
At night, feel moonbeams
penetrate your brain,
gently massaging your
pituitary, amygdala,
and hypothalamus.
Close your eyes and taste
The champagne prana
sparkling in your neurons.
Distant stars spill over
the cup of each vertebra,
soaking into the loam
through your naked soles.
Your root pulls you deeper.
Only allow the sea-grace
of the Dark to do her work.
When the wave comes, rise higher.
When the trough comes, sink deeper.
This is the only way to become
the whole ocean.
At dawn, cleanse your lungs
with sunbeams.
Breathe out yesterday.
Every cell of your body,
like a robin's egg,
the endless circle
of the clear blue sky.
Are you hungry?
Break your fast.
You are the bread you hunger for.
You are the yeast of love
Arisen in the night.
Never forget
that the energy of God
is your body.
Painting from 'Four Elements' by Elena Kotliarker
This mad little Gnostic reflection of mine was just published in 'The Braided Way,' a wonderful journal of spirituality. I am grateful. LINK
New archeological evidence proves conclusively that Buddha never sat in the lotus posture! The lotus was invented by Christian missionaries because they thought Buddhism sounded too easy.
The missionaries taught the Indians that no one gets saved without a crucifixion. Though he is a very loving God, God is also very angry, and he has to take out his anger on somebody. To prove it, they told horrific stories about Jesus in agony, hanging on a cross to please his father. But the Indians just shrugged their shoulders and replied, “Our savior smiles a lot. If we want to get saved, we just breathe.”
So the missionaries drew pictures of Sakyamuni tying his legs in knots and sitting on them so he would look miserable, just like a missionary. The truth was, Buddha had chronic lower back pain. When he wanted to rest, he just laid on a big pillow, propped his chin on his elbow, and ate grapes. That too was meditation. After a long day, he and his friends would lounge on pillows, mindfully munching their snacks.
The goal of the meditation was to eat a grape without one thought in your head: just sweetness. If you started talking, Buddha would wave you off with a flower. Twirling a flower in his hand had no meaning whatsoever. It was just his way of saying, “Be quiet! Can’t you see I’m trying to eat?”
Interesting how, in every world religion, the whole damned business always comes down to one thing: sharing a meal with your friends. So if you get tired of carrying your cross or sitting in the lotus posture, just lie on a big pillow with a friend and prayerfully eat some grapes. Or some pizza. You may or may not experience Nirvana. But your knees will feel a lot better.
Better than a thousand days
of disciplined sitting
is ten minutes
of surrendered prayer,
one moment of
unquenchable praise,
a single breath
of wonder
if you have been touched
by the madness
of Grace.
Assume that thisexhalation is the last,
and you are on the slope
of a final heartbeat.
Befriend entropy.
Fall into the groundless.
Rising only by surrender,
be a wing
that glides on gravity,
never quite knowing
how the melody is made
from listened silences.
Perhaps there are more
than a million reasons
for you to be unhappy,
but not one of them
is this
apple blossom.
The space beyond the sun
at the far end of the Milky Way
is the hollow in the mustard seed
that was planted in the furrow
of your missing rib.
Therefor breathe the night.
You are so ancient.
Your glow is still approaching
like a promise, a pilgrim God,
and you are still receiving
your name.
How do I know this?
I don't. I taste it.
Someone touches
the soft spot on my crown
and pours the nectar of emptiness
down my bones.
I won’t say who,
but her scent is pungent
with silence.
Her breath shimmers
with the radiance of the dark.
If I were one of those soul merchants
Who sell keys to the door
that is always open,
I would bottle her perfume
and call it
"Bewilderment."
"The wind blows where it pleases. You hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is for everyone who is born of the spirit." (John 3:8)
If we carefully examine the details of this verse, we find that it contains Jesus' meditation teaching on the breath.
Biblical Greek employs the same word for Breath, Wind, and Spirit. More than once, Jesus makes a wise pun on this Greek word, 'pneuma.'
The wind blows where it pleases. Your breath is moved by a mystery, not by your will. Simply noticing that your next inhalation is given, not taken, turns breathing into Grace.
You hear its sound. Listening within, you sense a subliminal whisper in your breath, the sound that Elijah the Prophet called 'a subtle murmur of silence.' In Hebrew, this is 'qol daqah d'mamah.' 'Daqah' literally means 'finely ground or atomized.' The whisper Elijah heard was the vibration of the cosmos at the finest level of creation, where particles emerge from the vacuum. In Jewish mysticism, this sound of cosmic breath is the most holy name of God, יהוה , so sacred and interior that it cannot be pronounced aloud.
The first syllable of this Name is the inhalation, the second syllable the exhalation. These mantric syllables, 'Ya' and 'Hu,' both divine names in Hebrew mysticism, are also sacred seed-mantras in Islamic Sufism, Tibetan Buddhist meditation, and the Hindu tradition of Yoga.
Practicing what they called 'the Prayer of the Heart,' early Christian mystics found these same seed-syllables in the name of Jesus, conjoining the Lord's name with their breathing to guide attention into the heart center. Their classic manual of prayer, the Philocalia, teaches that you may 'enter the heart by means of breathing: therefor, Let Jesus be your breath.' (Hesychius of Jerusalem, 5th C.)
The subtle sound that vibrates through the breath is the very Word of creation. 'In the beginning was the Word,' says the Gospel of John. This creative sound-energy is called 'shabda' in Sanskrit. A Vedic verse declares: 'Adau bhagavan shabda rasahih: In the beginning, the Lord manifested the creation through a current of sound.'
Thus, like a tuning fork, the gentle sound of the divine Spirit in your own breath calls your Being back into harmony with creation's source.
But you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. The experience of creation's source is not a mere intellectual concept. This is not a philosophy, but a direct experience that conceptual thinking cannot fathom. Inhalation arises, but from where? Exhalation returns, but to where? Who is breathing you?
Though our intellect cannot grasp the abyss at the heart of creation, we taste its goodness in our breath: the absolute goodness called 'tova' in Hebrew. The refrain of the Biblical creation story is, 'God saw that it was good.' The goodness of 'tova' is no relative good, in relation to something bad. In the creation hymn of Genesis 1, there is nothing bad, no evil whatsoever. 'Tova' is unfathomable bliss, called 'ananda' in Sanskrit. Absolute bliss permeates every particle of creation with the goodness of God.
Thus Jesus teaches the same ancient secret of the breath that we find in the Yogic classic, Vijnana Bhairava: 'By resting awareness in the space of the heart, between the descending and ascending breaths, one experiences Bhairava, the source of creation.'
So it is for everyone who is born of the Spirit. Can we be born again, re-created through the power of the breath? As stated above, 'Spirit' also means 'breath' in the Bible. Each breath we take recapitulates, in our intimate microcosm, the cycle of cosmic creation and dissolution.Breathing is death and rebirth, moment by moment. Breathing out, we abandon ourselves to dissolution in the void. We merge in divine darkness, the silence that was there before God said, 'Let there be light.' Completely surrendering through our exhalation, we enter a moment of unbounded stillness before the next inhalation arises. Yet this moment is permeated by eternity.
This tiny dimensionless 'bindhu' ('dimensionless dot' in Sanskrit) is the space where worlds are born. In Jewish mysticism it is called the 'ayin soph aur,' the point of no-thing from which light irradiates creation.Between exhalation and inhalation, between inhalation and exhalation, a spaceless silence encapsulates the boundless ocean of divine energy. And this tiny bindhu is the real 'Noah's ark,' carrying us through the waters of dissolution into the next creation. In Sanskrit symbolism, it is called 'Hiranyagharba,' the 'Golden Egg' that floats between creations on the sea of silence. Cosmic energy is concentrated in this golden point until it is born again as the next universe.
These mythologies not only describe a macrocosmic dissolution and re-creation, but the intimate rebirth that happens in each of us through our breathing. There is an ocean of silence between each breath, where the Spirit of God stirs the un-created waters of the void with a gentle breeze. The second verse opening verses of the Bible wonderfully describe this experience: 'Earth was formless and void, darkness was upon the surface of the Deep, and the Spirit (Breath) of God hovered over the waters.'
What is 'the Deep'? ('Tehom' in Hebrew) Is it not the vibrant vacuum described by quantum physicists, where all sub-atomic particles pre-exist as 'fluctuations' and 'probability waves' before they spill into material form?
Thus, by the grace of breathing and not by our own effort, a single exhalation carries us back to the source of creation, where we are 'in the beginning' with God. Then, from that ocean of living silence, the next inhalation arises as a gift. With each breath, we are created again. All that is required is to pay attention.
When you were a child
you practiced no
esoteric tantra,
held no concept of a "path."
You were an orchid opening
in equatorial wilderness,
bending toward warmth,
veering from chill.
You smiled on the stranger
who made your chest glow,
turned away from one
who made it shrink,
inching by degrees
of swell and contraction.
You could grow this way again.
Obey the sacred scripture
of your body.
Move through the forest
at midnight
holding the candle
of each breath.
Near-sighted, step
into the next lit pool
of silence.
Way will open.
No need to see far.
Just bend toward warmth
and smile
on the perfect stranger.
Depart from the kingdom of fear
and enter the golden palace
of your Self.
