Uradiance

  Yesterday was the Christian Feast of the Ascension (May 29). A radiant day. Yet today is even more radiant than yesterday, for our light is ever expanding. Perhaps we could call this day after the Feast of Ascension, the Feast of Alignment. For this is the day when I ascend into Am, when you ascend into You, when we ascend into our true Christ Self. There is so much Light pouring into the world, through Grace. The old order is passing away. Ah, but "Christ Consciousness" is not the end of the story, only the beginning... I have been drawn mysteriously to the fragrance of the name of Jesus for decades. The power and magnetism of his name has not diminished as I somehow evaporated into a more and more "cosmic" awareness. Quite the contrary. As I've continued to practice transcendental meditation over 55 years, the radiance and warmth emanating from my chest has grown more and more personal, until I have come to recognize this heart-glow as the friendship of Jes...

  Here's another informal chat from my porch...

    Use your own backbone. Sit up straight, stop leaning on planets. Sometimes Mercury, Venus and Jupiter align themselves, and sometimes they don’t.   Immersed in their dance, constellations circle and genuflect to one another, but not to you. Bow down to your own heart. Flow out of your center like a wheel.    Why trust fixed stars to observe your whirling? They have problems too. Just let them ponder the quandary of where light comes from.   The sun and moon kiss like ancient lovers in the chuppah between your heartbeats. Their mouths are colonies of microbes. Their passion is the crimson chaos of uncertainty.   Gossiping about rocks and trout, the snow-melt mountain stream has never listened to its source in crystal quietness. Have you?   Stars are beautiful because the darkness around them is deep. Though you are not your mother, your body is made of her body.   ...

"The refreshing moon of the Buddha travels in the sky of utmost  emptiness. When you arrange flowers, each flower needs some  space around it to radiate beauty and freshness. Human beings  are like flowers. Our meditation practice brings more space  inside us and around us, so that we can radiate beauty and  freshness." ~Thich Nhat Hanh     The Beloved said, "Drink my cup." What does it contain? "The ferment of namelessness." So I sipped sparkling silence tasting of the hour before dawn, full of thrush and sparrow, ruins of the moon with a finish of starless night. I tasted again, the black goddess leaping with fins of fire to spawn with my spine. A third taste, and I became nobody. "Now you know who I Am,"  She said, her eyes spiraling  a labyrinth that lead from the temple  to the wilderness, freeing  the captive heart from maps and signs. I gazed, beheld...

When you discover that each breath is nectar and the space between your heartbeats is the silence between stars and the one who encircles you with unfathomable compassion is inside and the luminous hollow of each nerve in your body echoes with the sound that created all things, then you are rich. You need nothing. You can prosper in the empire of moonlight,   the glut of honeysuckle,   diamond stimulants of dew on moss-bare feet. You can thrive in the sparkling transparency of the perishing moment.

Leave the kingdom of Should and settle in the land of Not Knowing, where the wise have broken their wine cups stumbling, falling in astonished laughter. Where pairs of opposites grow on a single vine and lovers squeeze amrit from thorns. Be done with this yearning for who you already are. This begging for what you have. This beating your breast like a weary pilgrim who can’t find the journey’s end in every footstep. Be done with masters of meditation who never whisper in your ear, “Enlightenment is a sacred joke.” Friend, don’t be so serious  about God. You might miss her scat singing. You might miss the wayless playfulness of death. If your teacher isn't a trickster, you’ve probably been tricked! The truly uncivilized Guru will lead you off trail into the wilderness of your heart. Painting by Susan Sedon-Boulet

Breathing in the darkness of grief; breathing out the light of compassion. Breathing in, I grieve for our fallen soldiers; breathing out, I remember that the present moment is a well of healing. Breathing in the cries of village children, terrified and maimed by our soldiers; breathing out flowers on their mothers' graves. Breathing in the burning greed of the arms merchant, I know that it is my own greed; breathing out forgiveness, I let go of blame. Breathing in the conflict, until the knot in my chest is loosened; breathing out a sparkling stream from the mountain, domed with a golden cloud. Breathing in the secret loneliness of the world leader, the fearful insecurity of the military officer; breathing out the clarity and boldness of the peace-maker. Breathing in, I clutch the stone of fear; breathing out, it pulses with love, it becomes a heart in my palm. Breathing in the pure light of the sun, I awaken warmth in my belly; breathing out, I kno...

  Why is a verse of the Qu'ran or the Bible or the Vedas more sacred than a dandelion?

Learned this lying belly-wise on sleeping poodles. Strip off armor thought, underwear commentary. Get down to naked no mind voluptuous transparency. Drop “Consciousness,” “Advaita,” “Source,” “One” like pebbles in a well. Then listen to the Wordless meander moan of underground streams. Be without jive gurgling guru astrologer marxist feminist life-coach ascended master channeling pleiadean 7th chakra hochma ayahuasca jaguar shaman high priestess bebop. Information overration. Truth is not informed but in the formless. Drown in choppy waters of Om Tat Sat 'neath amniotic wordle-wave man-splaining fem-splaining X-splaining Trump-splaining non-dual tantra-splaining pronoun-splaining twitter talk. Plop of Basho frog in slimy microbiome IS Om. Love space un-knowing where “I” dissolve in "Am." Bee hum pollen Ameen giving birth to tears. Let laughter spring up slick from greeny causeless wonder-loam where my old beaten heart keeps polishing ...

Can I risk falling inward, finally coming to rest in who I Am? The wild and intimate sky at the end of this breath? Perhaps I still fear my own heart, that lawless unbounded place where we meet and become each other. Please, take my hand. Come with me. Image from Olympicpeninsula.org

  Let us widen our capacity for the small. Our ability to delight in little things has as much to do with solving the environmental crisis as the regulation of industry or the introduction of new technologies. When we nurture the heart's joy, the mind is quiet enough to find sacraments in the ordinary -- a breath of wind on our cheek, the sound of raindrops, the taste of a locally grown strawberry. This will diminish our consumption of earth's resources as much as any government mandate. Our capacity for small delights is not a legal restriction, but the fruit of an inward spiritual practice essential for sustainable living. Emerald is the color vibration of the abundant heart, the contented heart. When the heart is green, the mind does not grasp for the wealth of the world. Environmental crisis is spiritual crisis. We consume our earth, desecrate wilderness, and make war on nations to fill our tanks with energy. But the tank that must first be filled is th...

This is how being awake nourishes greening. I meet you in the space between my thoughts. You meet me in the space between yours. Nobody here, nothing to say, only a gaze into what gazes. Yet when the tremor of our silence settles deep into the loam, every seed on Earth receives two wings.

Don't worry, restless cricket. Don't worry, dragonfly who can't quite get still on your sunlit cattail. Don't worry, implacable circling hawk, skittish rabbit, obsessed politician. Nor you, sleepless seed, smoldering all Winter with desire. I have surrendered on your behalf. I have immersed you in the beauty of this breath. A bud can't imagine what a petal is. The apple was the pain inside a flower. Neither stamen nor pistil, nor leaf nor pollen has an "I" who might say, "I am a rose." Therefore, enjoy your voice, O ye who have been selved! Your ego is a thing of beauty. Speak for those who don’t know how. Be the song of a wanderer heard in a dream. Let there be no outrage in the valley between your thoughts, only a well of compassion to heal ten thousand light-years of darkness. Listen to the stream of nectar oozing up your root. Witness the dance of scarlet poppies royally adorned in the meadow of your...

  The Divine has sent you a Comforter in the form of your own breath. She was the breath of the Almighty who played with God when the earth and stars were created. She was the one who made the waters of darkness dance with waves and lit them with the moon's path. She is Sophia, the Wisdom of the Lord, the Goddess Shakti who humbles herself gladly to dwell in the rising and falling of your chest. The form of the Teacher will perish, but She will be with you forever. Press out her nectar with each breath. What flows so gracefully can only be healing. Nothing is gained by listening to the voices of fear that others have sown in your mind. Listen instead to the music of So'ham pouring into every cell of your flesh. Inhalation is communion wine, exhalation is your offering of gratitude, surrender, kenosis. Merely to breathe is the mother of all worship. This beauty does not stream down from above. It murmurs from the well of Silence in your heart. Let the new earth flow from here. I...

Jesus said, "Be ye perfect, even as your father in heaven is perfect." (Matthew 5:48) Really? Would Jesus, who died of infinite forgiveness, tell people that they have to be "perfect"? This is one of the most tragic mistranslations of all time. The word in the Greek scripture is "teleos," which means "complete." It was an attempt to translate the Aramaic of Jesus's native language. In the Aramaic, this verse really says, "Ripen and be full. Let your personal fruitfulness embody the wholeness of the cosmos." We are not called to moral perfection, whatever that is. We are called to be ripe and juicy. Image: Face of Jesus by Rembrandt 

    Eight billion mirrors look alike until they are broken. But when they shatter into fragments of themselves no two reflect the wild rose window of the same world. Rejoice in the jagged chiaroscuro of your singularity, the havoc that makes you whole. The miracle is not to merge  with God and evaporate into One, but to be a Person. You are no image or likeness.  You are the Light reflected in a fallen shard  of Christ, spilling clarity and nakedness into the world. Each heart has its own way of breaking. Now take off your veil, then take off the veil beneath the veil. Show us the gaze of your most radiant wound. NASA photo: cosmic rosebud blossoming with new stars.