Uradiance

From time to time with shamanic elegance you must disappear. Leave speech behind and rest in the place  where words began. Abandoning images, become the mirror itself. Drop the oars of believing, left and right. Let the sail of your religion be shredded by the winds of Grace. The mind is a little boat without a rudder. Why not step out upon the deep? The ocean of silence where you were at home before you drew your first breath, where waves of wonder uplift you, a gilded moon-path leads you  to the midnight horizon, and a new land appears beneath every step. Mary Magdalene on the shore in Provence, painted by Sue Ellen Parkinson, also the cover of my book, 'Strangers & Pilgrims.'

  I lost the heavy       burden of lack             when I embraced                  my emptiness.       Now I am full.             My breathing pitches       her tent on every star. Each cell of my body                   is her palace.       One atom of me contains             swirling Andromeda. I lack no thing because             I possess nothing.       Possessing no thing        ...

  To remind you of       the soft explosion            in your chest, Emptiness invented flowers.      When you gaze into them            you return      to her diamond womb where orbits sing planets            through the dark           and angels churn                the milky vacuum      into golden butter,                     your body... Now grieve away the veil      of doubting                and dive naked...

  On this Autumn night I gaze up at ten million stars. I do not bow my head, I tilt it back in wonder. I want to pray, but there is nothing to ask, nothing to desire. Yet I want to pray. I am not silent. I use words. "I love you." To whom do I pray? To whom do I say, "I love you"? I don't know. It doesn't matter. I merely gaze into the stars, into the infinite space between and beyond the stars, which is the space between my thoughts, and the space in every atom of my flesh. "I love you." Then, perfect silence. Are we one or two? It doesn't matter. The intellectual, the theologian, the philosopher, cannot fathom my foolishness. My happiness. Photo, NASA Hubble, star clusters

When I was in seminary, a "famous theologian" gave a big speech. During the question and answer period, I raised a point. "If God is absolute Being, and I Am, then my being is God, isn't it? Not just me, but a flower. God is the being of every flower. And God is the being of a fly on the window." Everyone in the lecture hall was shocked and silent. I guess we weren't allowed to ask questions like that. Then the theologian explained that, while God's Being is absolute, our being is only "contingent being." I just stared at him, saying to myself, "WTF is contingent being?" I sat down. People wouldn't join me in the dining hall. They thought I was a heretic. They whispered, "universalist." I asked, "What is a universalist?" They said it was someone who believes that God's grace pours equally upon all, no matter what their religion, whether they confess the Apostle's Creed or not. I said, ...

                              The Vedas declare, "Ano-raniyan mahato-mahiyan: One particle of the smallest is greater than the greatest." Little things are much more important than big things, because big things are made out of little things. You are not your nation, your religion, your political party, or your race. Only 1% of your genes come from your parents. The other 99% belong to microbes. You are the sum of the myriad guests you host in your cells and chromosomes. The protons in your atoms are pilgrims from the stars. When you know how infinitesimal you are, you become vast. You become a child of the galaxy. Hubble:galaxy NGC1961

  I am a person. The Goddess is a person. We tried oneness and non-duality, but that was no fun. So I and Thou just dance. Advaita blossoms in the play of lovers. We flower in the dark, the moon and I. There are not enough stars to fill our cup,  so we drink from the ancient beauty  of emptiness. This merging and re-emerging of Lover and Beloved is a pulsation  in the silence of the heart that creates every particle out of the void. I simply let Her be  my breath and forget all the rules  but Joy and Kindness. Photo by Bahman Farzad

Life became           more soft                and radiant,      luxurious           and interesting when I stopped      preferring This                to That. Green tea,      black tea.           Yes please.      When I discovered the ocean of diamonds                in this breath,      the mountain of silence           in a gentle                footstep.  ...

Thin down, hollow out. Give away your fruit to the wandering Shekinah who comes to dwell in the meadows of your flesh. Wherever her naked feet touch, gashes open,  secret wounds ripen,  exuding the fragrance  of their own healing. Her absence was the deepest wound of all. You sang of it in summer light and thought you were happy. Voices bled until she appeared, hungry, ordinary, poor. Now celebrate the withering of old stories. Your land is ripple and reflection, a shattered mirror of loam,  grape and plum clusters left unplucked  on the margins where  strangers appear, their faces  your own. The cost of communion? You are not just you. In the sukka, the sound of weeping. All around you the crushing of the wine dance. You were a wanton sower scattering seed in the furrow between thoughts, extravagantly wasting dark energy, al...

  Merge with your doubt. Drown in bewilderment. Though the non-existent past and future are  too heavy to bear, take heart. This empty sky fills every atom of bone and flower, the stone in the path, the eye of the ornamental owl guarding the gates of an abandoned sanatorium. At home with loss, you too are weightless, a golden mountain dancing in the void. Ever moved by the stillness of your Mother's breath, just fall into dancing and sing, "I don't know!" Portrait of Hafiz by Bahman Farshchian

  Brahma-Muhurta in yogic meditation practice is the hour before sunrise when the atmosphere is most highly charged with Prana, spiritual energy, and the ideal time for meditation. It is also known as Nabasvan, the Breath of Dawn. I am addicted to light. I drink from the oblation of the moon. Forgive my habit. Naked I wake after midnight craving stars, stealing downstairs barefoot, tiptoe past the refrigerator with its cargo of pudding and stew, wander out to the edge of the forest making footprints in frost, brittle grass crunching under me. I sway hollow as a dry reed quaffing the whirlwind of stars, turned by the Godslow galaxy,  face a grail up-tilted,  eyes half closed, open brow,  throat, belly, shamelessly imbibing  the secret nectar of blackness, until my roots have wound and tingled down to the center of the planet, and my crown is gli...

When you woke up this morning, did you really? Are you certain? Have you tasted the light? Have you sated your breath on the emptiness of a vast blue grail? Then surely you feel like dancing! Photo: Mt. Tahoma in her gown of new snow from a hill near my home.