Uradiance

  I feel the madness of the full moon coming on. When I laugh, when I weep, when I sing, when my mind evaporates in the silence of meditation, I have no chakras. My natal chart is a blank page where I scrawl unborn stars and erase the ones I no longer want. The sun expands and contracts in my diaphragm. The rising and falling of my belly turns the wheel of the planets. Floating between my eyebrows, the strawberry moon. A Milky Way pours down my spine into the chalice of my heart. My flesh is spun from supernova dust. The amethyst of Christ burns a black hole deep inside my brain, precisely the same black hole at the center of every galaxy. Lit with golden flames, my pituitary hangs like a chandelier in that secret chamber of darkness. My pineal gland is a Christal Eye that beams sweet fire into every cell of my body, overflowing into forests, rivers, clouds, and thirsty streets. It  is the Single Eye that Jesus called a pearl of great price, that Buddha called the diamond...

 

     The world is quite capable of existing without you. Grok this. Step back and repose in a sabbath of pure awareness. Creation flowers without your attempt to improve it. And you too are infinite, without any effort to improve yourself. Grok this. Un-clutch the world, release your clasp, relinquish the holding in your shoulders, your chest and belly, even for a single exhalation, even for the pause in a pulse of your left ventricle. Be “in the beginning” again. The last step is returning to the first. In original innocence, attention comes home. An ineffable sound arises, so softly, from the empty bell, ringing in your solar plexus since before creation, prior to any Word that divided matter from anti-matter, God from Man, Goddess from Woman. This is the music of the heart, Anahata, the unstruck sound that heals before any wounding. Take a sabbatical from the effort to untie the knot. You ARE the entanglement of all in all, and it is untangled by its own Wholene...

   Before the invention of thoughts we sang ourselves to sleep.The day melted back into humming, the humming into silence, silence into a breath of the Beloved. Of course the stars were not yet born, and the moon was still inside you. Lay your head on my shoulder now. Listen with all your heart, and I will teach you nothing. A Vedic text declares: “Adau Bhagavan Shabda rasahi: in the beginning, the Lord created the universe through a stream of sound.” I know you have a very subtle esoteric sadana to practice, but before you meditate, don’t forget to Hum. Om is too stuffy, just Hum like a bee. Hum beyond thinking, shattering the chrysalis of your intellect. Hum through every atom of your body, every photon of your light. Humming will strengthen your immune system, and dissolve your weary mind, so that above is below, and without is within. Hum the catastrophic dissolution of all distances into the nectar of bliss. ...

Saint Julian Press is proud to release Die Taverne des Erwachens, The Tavern of Awakening, by Alfred K. LaMotte, poems for meditation selected and translated by Otto Raich ( https://raich-trauner.com/ ).    The Tavern of Awakening invokes images and inspirations from across humanity's contemplative traditions. The translator is one of the foremost mindfulness-meditation teachers in Europe, who uses these poems with students as tools of spiritual practice. With German and English on facing pages, this book is an ideal companion for your space of prayer or mindfulness practice, whether you speak German or English. Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. Here are some reviews: 'Poetry is the closest written expression to the Unutterable.    Translating a poem requires settling down in the silence of the heart and letting oneself be taken in by the subtle music of the poem. Otto's talent and profound sensitivity enable...

      Everything in this world is a message from that one. And where is the world with its protest of towhees and kingfisher’s scold, first scent of lilac and wisdom pulse of ancient stone? Deep inside your chest. Is this not where the wings  of a hummingbird churn a blinding sunbeam into billions of love atoms, and your heartbeat whispers, “I Am You, I Am You”? Who shall breathe in the desolation of Gaza, the playground littered with infected needles? Who shall hold them and anoint them  in the alchemy of silence, then breathe out meadows,  anemones, rivers and clouds? Who shall breathe the moon? Do your duty, friend. Create a new earth from the flames that pour out of your wound. Image: wallpaper from Stockcake

  Just below the heart and just above the solar plexus, to be precise, is a temple in the valley of grace. And here, two fingers' width in front of your chest, to be precise, is a flame that does not burn but gives sweetness. It is like cotton spun from fibers of starlight. All triangles point here. All equations are balanced by the breath this space holds. The constellations, those beasts of silence, gather to drink from this spring which Jesus called the well of everlasting life. Milarepa called it the jewel at the center of the lotus, this flower of the Self that falls in love with its own bee-drowning fragrance, this jewel whose ineffable proportions drive mathematicians mad in search of beauty. Perhaps the name of "Krishna" will draw you here, perhaps the name of "Jesus," or the secret name of the Goddess born on vapors of surrender. All such names are just the sound of your heartbeat...

     Do you feel it? The shift that happened at the solstice? The husk has been peeled off our star, and the divine glow of the inner sun, Christ Consciousness, now shines from the sky above. The light of love is dissolving the veil between inner and outer, heaven and earth. And our heartbeat is whispering, "I Am You, I Am You."

"Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep. All these with ceaseless praise his works behold Both day and night: How often from the steep Of echoing hill or thicket have we heard Celestial voices to the midnight air, Sole, or responsive each to others note, Singing their great Creator? oft in bands While they keep watch, or nightly rounding walk, With heavenly touch of instrumental sounds In full harmonic number joined, their songs Divide the night, and lift our thoughts to Heaven." ~Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IV If you are awake you can never be alone. Intimacy is the heart of the cosmos. This is the good news: consciousness is never merely I Am, but I-Thou. In Self-awareness there are two, not one. Awareness reflects itself, groks itself, and vibrates not merely as vast oneness, but as an intimate relationship of Lover and Beloved. So intimate, indeed, that the wedding of the Two happens in t...

To be human is a gift. To be on earth is a gift, especially now, the worst of times, the best of times. The greatest gift you can receive is the gift of paradox. To spread your arms and open your heart in the cruciform gesture of early Christian prayer, the "orant posture," is precisely how a Lakota warrior stands in the Hanbleceya, crying for a vision, facing the dawn; and exactly how a Taoist warrior of peace, in Qigong meditation, stands tall, spreads her arms, and embraces the rushing winds of time. The gift of paradox is your flesh. Stumble akimbo, wildly widely hugging. Let East and West kiss in the chuppah of your heart. From your crown to your feet, let the lightning in your spine unite the North and South. Let shadows and suns from every end of the cosmos merge in your chest. Be the antipodes. When you cling to the light, you are lost. When you cling to the dark, you are lost. Don't be a fist, be an open palm. Heavenly beings envy your human birth. They ...

 In this meditation, let's enter the mysterious heart of I Am, where I Am   becomes Lover and Beloved in the unity of Being.  

       You did not come to this planet to worship a pair of sandals or a white robe. You did not come to this planet to be on the left or the right, to be a believer or a non-believer, to be the color "white" or the color "black." You did not come here to get angry at reflections in a mirror or prepare for disasters that never happen. No friend, you came to be astonished by a dust mote. You came to be torn in two by laughter and pain, then made whole again by the tang of a berry on your wild tongue. Why waste another moment arguing for or against when you could slide down this beam of breath, soft as moonlight, into the radiance you are?

It happened so softly you thought it was a robin's egg, tiny, edgeless, blue. But it was the sky in your chest. Photo: Edward Fielding