Uradiance

Scatter your petals. Wither down, up root. Become something hollow for my breath to play. An empty cruet full of moonbeams. The golden bellows of a gourd. Let the season subtract you. What is Not makes a dragonfly wing more useful. So frail it holds  all my  starlight. I need your Autumn for my Spring. Stop trying to write  your name on water. Just be the water. I wrote this poem for a Sunday morning just now  upon seeing this wonderful painting by my dear  old friend, Ellie Fishwick McLean.

When I lie there dying, or here, for it is always here that we end, let me not discover at last, My God, it was the little things! It wasn’t about the party I voted for, or whether I grokked nonduality. It wasn’t about the vegan diet, or how many protests I attended. It had nothing to do with karma, or which Guru I followed. It wasn’t about becoming a Christian, or a Muslim, or having any Way at all. It was about gazing into the face of a baby at Rite Aid. It was the moment I caught and held the eye of the fourth grade boy behind the dark school bus window, and said to him clearly, without words, “I know how loneliness feels. Therefore you are not alone.” It was about finding the frog who lived in my umbrella at the corner of the porch. The first Autumn rain, when I unfolded it, spilling him into my hand, and took him over to the rose pot, placing him among the withered petals, speaking clearly, with clear words, “You may live here all Winter. I will listen for you every evening.” It w...

  Real meditation does not by-pass pain. Real meditation penetrates into the nectar of pain. Meditators do not rise above trauma, they surrender to its core. At the center of sorrow is the flowering of boundless energy. The same sap pervades both rose and thorn. The rose is joy, the thorn is grief, the sap is Ananda. Bliss is no passing mood, but the juice of pure existence. Glowing in the dark, the beyond within. Transcendence is not above. It is the hollow in the seed. Photo by Aile Shebar

  The orgasm that matters is the one that lasts forever. The others were just signs, intimations of some darker elegance at the center of a whirling flame. You burst your fontanelle, God’s names pour out. They become stars so far away, they are not yet created. Thoughts dissolve in the bee-hum of an ungleaned garden, galaxies of milkweed, relics of rusted armor among wild aster, husks of some forgotten battle in your body. Helmet full of sod, breastplate shot with Autumn crocuses: they teach you ancient tears. Nothing has its word upon it now. This is the meadow of echoes. You navigate by fragrance, guided among blossoms  by a longing that over-foams the brim of contentment  like mead, the honeyed wine that Jesus shared with Mary from the cup of his gaze. A kiss that is everywhere needs no lips. "I" no longer need to whisper "Thou." Your veil is the wilderness itself. Down where roots entangle, the wedding h...

Take refuge in this moment. One lightning bolt of wonder through the heart of a child incinerates ten thousand books of philosophy. All the speeches of politicians burn to tasteless ash in the diamond eye of a lover. A wild mushroom springs from the manure pile, pungent as the breath of a dark angel. There is no war in this meadow. Stars long to fall here and become wild crocuses on a gold September morning.

    Prepare for the end of time. Practice the mysterious art of bewilderment. Spread your translucent tear-stained wings and pulsate at a frequency so fast it stills you. This is how you rise into the kingdom of the hummingbird, far above the ministry of fear. This is how you enter the holographic quantum crystal of forgiveness, a sphere of gratitude with no entropy, no mind-leak into past and future, which are only thoughts. Here's the secret: tell everyone! The end of time is this breath. Have you shattered the ampule of your wound-fragrance? Somewhere in these petals of fire there is nectar for the one who is not afraid of drowning. Dwell in the uncertain and call it possibility. Drink from the unknown and call it wine. Savor a silent inhalation through your broken heart and call it bread. This feast is better than a thousand right answers. ______ Link to the book here: 'Strangers & Pilgrims' 

Still in love with light, incline toward darkness now, the mothering empyrean. Settle in the cleft of seasons, see through the golden shadow. Tugged no longer by the sun, let your umbilicus run back into the marrow between stars. Night motivates your bones, your melancholy made of Winter and pearl. It only takes one breath to change the world. Don't be too sure you ever got out of the egg. Art by A. Gokhan Gultekin

यावान्वा अयमाकाशस्तावानेषोऽन्तर्हृदय अकाश उभे अस्मिन्द्यावापृथिवी अन्तरेव समाहिते उभावग्निश्च वायुश्च सूर्याचन्द्रमसावुभौ विद्युन्नक्षत्राणि यच्चास्येहास्ति यच्च नास्ति सर्वं तदस्मिन्समाहितमिति ॥ ८ . १ . ३ ॥ “Vast as the space without Is the tiny space within your heart: Heaven and earth are found there, Fire and air, sun and moon, Lightning and the constellations, Whatever belongs to you here below And whatever does not, All is gathered in that tiny space Within your heart.” ~ Chandogya Upanishad 8.1.2-3 In this invigorating moment of pause and regeneration that is the Equinox, it is good to take stock of our true mission here, especially in this time of transfiguration, when Glory infuses the earth. Of course our avocation is to do what is needed to support ourselves and our families. But our vocation, our true calling, is to pour a New Creation through the Hridaya, the heart chakra, putting into practice this ancient Upanishad, which is ...

Don't shout, speak softly. So softly the stars can hear you. Their glistening silence echoes your whisper with the message each waking heart needs to hear. Barely stirring a feather of milkweed, a woolly bear caterpillar's fur, your breath encircles the spheres, and your ineffable exhalation touches other souls. Even more softly, friend. Prayer is the secret government of the universe. Photo by Neil Dicke

Meditation cannot be taught or practiced. But the breath of Grace may be poured into a grateful heart. One calls herself  'teacher,' one calls himself 'practitioner,' but who planted the doing-seed? To Be is the teacher. To Be is the practice. This is called 'wu wei.'  There is no mystery. From depth to depth flows one ancient breath. Between my chest and yours flows one ancient river of Joy. Photo by Laurent Berthier

Political argument only polarizes my vitality. The transforming energy that surges through the earth now vibrates faster than my pitiful intellect could ever conceptualize. There is a better way for me to seek guidance, the Way of Intuition. Like a camel in the desert when the rider drops the reign, the wise animal of my heart leads me directly to the wellspring. It is not necessary for me to identify with all the chaos and hatred bubbling up to the surface of the world, the dregs of purgation. Negativity stuffed inside the human psyche for centuries is spilling out, dissolving into thin air. This is a temporary phase-transition, cleansing channels for the light. As Shakespeare wrote, "Hell is empty and all the devils are here." Let the devils pass through, like clouds through the sky. I don't give them substance by clinging to outrage. This only makes me look more like them, which is exactly what they want. The demonic is maki...

The Hamsah swan alights without a whisper on the still heart's lake. You received this sound at the highest initiation, your birth. Hamsah means both swan and soul in the first language,  the language of mantra. Breathe in Aham, I Am. Welcome the grace of your existence, for Being is nothing but grace. Breathe out Sah, She who  danced with Creator before the beginning. Gift yourself to the Giver. Why are you here? To make an offering of your body to the one who enfolds each atom with a kiss and kneads each  particle of silence into gristle and bone. Take a journey of one exhalation into the humble valley under your breastbone. Plant a seed in this dark loam, teeming with ancestors. Fold these wings. Let Ham and Sah dissolve into feathered emptiness. Before there was light, every creature rested here, You in I, I in You. And with each exhalation, we return. It's no secret, friend: ...

  I cannot define "Christian," and I am not a member of any church. But I never underestimate the transforming power of Christ, or the healing grace in the name of Jesus. As the energy of the Sun pervades the entire solar system, penetrating the loam to awaken each seed, greening, nurturing the forest, reflecting its terrible gaze upon the gentler mirror of the moon, to stir the tides and signal planting time, so our mighty Sun also has a conscious and personal depth. It is not mere blinding light, but a radiant archangelic presence who visits the earth with Wisdom, purifies our confusion with peace, strengthens our will to do good, and walks beside us as a brother on our path of dust. When my over-educated intellect gets out of the way, I can feel his hand on my shoulder, his guidance in my breath, and the spirit of his love ever so softly touching my chest, awakening my heart. Thank you. Your name is powerful, yet sweet. I know you will understand, Jesus, ...

  I did not come here to get angry. I did not come here to be sad. I did not come to carry the bones of old stories in my skin. I came to find a forest place, the glade of moonlight we only discover when we're lost, where animal guides gather to burrow down and heal, and ice crystals sparkle with the silent echo of Spring flowers. I came to fail in every endeavor where I might have imagined myself in control. I came to feel the waves of joy that swell from the grief ocean. The secret of my blood is the moon.  The wave is empty, the trough is full. I came to hover over the frailest boundary until it disappears. My heart is the caesura between breaths where light sheathes in darkness. Here my lover is waiting to step from her veil. Look, friend! A hollow stem is sprouting out of my breastbone, unfolding ten thousand  jasmine-petaled galaxies so quietly! ~Equinox art by Sue Wookey

The poet Shelly writes: Life, like a dome of many-colored glass, stains the white radiance of eternity. Mad Kerouac declares: Telepathizing, all thoughts meet in the crystal chandelier of eternity. And in the Gnostic Gospel of Mary, the Magdalene whispers: Henceforth I travel toward repose, where time rests in the eternity of time; I go now into Silence. So I must ask: What if, on an ordinary Sabbath morning, calm as any morning, the blue sky ruptures, rent like the temple veil, and a terrible heaven bursts into the world? Are we prepared? Are we ready to dwell in the miraculous, to live on an earth where nothing, not one atom or one grain of sand, is ordinary anymore, every point and particle of matter filled with that Christal eternity? Last night – but there is never a last night - I dreamed I discovered a lost page of scripture, half burnt, torn from some common book of prayer. Upon it was written: At the center of the forest is not a house, ripped from nature’s wood and stone, ...

There are those who divide humanity into warring parties, left and right, because they have not yet softened their hearts with the wisdom that unites the opposites... Breathe down trillions of stars through the soft spot in your crown. Pour healing beams of love through your heart. You Are the dialog between heaven and earth, the tuning fork between the crystal spheres and the thirsty soil. Let the silent Hum of God’s name flow down your spine, then out through your solar plexus into the world, greening the parched land, touching the fevered brow of every angry or anxious wanderer. This is the true purpose of breathing.   The ray of your whisper may seem faint, but it contains the golden chorus of the galaxies. Your stream enters the river of collective healing, the ocean of radiance that now surges over the planet. Your are the Word that creates. You speak from the heart of tenderness to those trapped in density, so that they may soften, and smile, and burst into Autumn tears. You...