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Spring Forward March 13 2011

Spring ahead, as spring is doing.

It’s about the time and seasons –

About changing opportunity.

Time is marked by man –

Humanity’s invention.

Today we change our rhythms

As we’re told;

We’re trying to keep up with ticking time

That bends our lives to measured moments,

Belying the eternal Truth.  

Reflection

“The Zone.”  “ Peak Experience.”   Transcendence.  What they share is their escape from the fetters of time and clocks.  Today, as I feel  the dissonance between my inner clock and the clock face on the wall, I realize that physically we are indeed creatures of time and schedule.  Its almost 2, and I’m not at all hungry, because my body says it’s not lunch time yet (and yesterday at this hour it was barely time for lunch.  I’ll adjust and the new time will feel normal in a couple of days – it’s a form of stationary jet lag. 

But experiencing it reminds me of all the truly important insights and experiences that have nothing to do with the regularity of ticking seconds, minutes, and hours.  In spirit, we are one, united with all creation.  But we also really are, in our physical selves, creatures of time, day and night,  space and gravity – measured,  weighted, subject to the rules of age , emotion, change – creatures of duality, knowing that there’s good and evil.  Duality is human, physical.  We keep thinking that we’re separate, hemmed in by boundaries.  We’re exactly like those field/ ground drawings – from one angle we see the crone who from another viewpoint suddenly transforms into the beauty; from one angle, we are subject to time, and from another we’re eternal.   How strange! 

Ash Wednesday March 9 2011

“Dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return.”

Tonight we got a smudge of black

Upon our foreheads – symbolic “dust.” 

I felt drawn back to childhood –

And felt again my  school-aged self –

Impressionable red-headed child  

Thinking about dying, about becoming dust—

Feeling chilled and fearful,

My colored life turned suddenly to gray, that ashen color.

What about living?  About joy? 

About my hopeful heart that wished so hard for light and love? 

“Remember, Man, that thou art Dust!” – Only dust, no more.

But tonight, an old woman — graying crone —

I patted on the head that little inner child;

I hugged her close, and whispered in her ear

That the words she’d found so fearful

Meant something other than they seemed –

That  they were words of joy reminding how

We’re one  with earth, the universe, and every creature.

God’s dust is shared by all of us,

Reflecting motes of splendor outward –

Infinitely  glorious mantle of  divinity.

Reflection

In recent weeks, while studying forgiveness, I’ve alternated between gray repentance and atonement on the one hand, and  joyful surrender on the other.  I’ve learned to acknowledge more than I ever have before the ways in which my human traits – my attachment to ego, to self – have led me thoughtlessly to cause pain to others.  I haven’t intended this pain.  I’ve barely been conscious of it.  I’ve been much more aware of my alibis – the persons, actions or circumstances that have tricked me into believing that I had to protect myself.  At the same time, I’ve been learning, for the first time, the importance of truly trusting that I am not really ego but a part of universal spirit.  I’ve gotten fleeting glimpses of the universal nature of spirit and love – the immutable Truth that never varies, that can never vary.  If this is so, my fear for my safety is actually a bad dream, from which I can awaken into light and joy. 

I do need to remember that my ego – seemingly so real – is fleeting;  it’s as meaningless as dust.  I also need to come fully into the real picture –increasing my awareness that the shared cosmic soul-stuff truly is my spirit’s nature, that I truly am one with infinite light and happiness.  I can imagine this shared soul as golden light particles suffusing all creation – resembling the particles of dust that appear in a sunbeam.  It’s such a different way of looking at the reality behind the dream of day to day life than the vision I had as a child experiencing Ash Wednesday and the church’s reminder of what’s real.  It’s such a different view of “dust.”

Luna    February 17 2011

As moths are drawn to light,

We troop outside looking upward,

Seeking through  the Carolina winter trees

A perfect lunar orb – Full moon.

We share our awe, drawn closer

Feeling kin as earthlings

Bound to this globe in part

By ebb and flow of tides and

Governed unaware by Moon’s reflected  beams .

Upon returning home, I find a message

From a friend, telling of his awe

As, meditating, he feels thralled

Watching from his high rise window

The perfect lunar light illumining Manhattan.

The silver glowing threads of Moon

Captivate us all together –  

The earth is tiny after all –

The miles a mere illusion. 

Reflection

We were taking a “biobreak” from class, when someone mentioned that the moon was full.  The whole class, as one, poured from the building.  Though winter’s grip is starting to relax, the trees were still bare.  In this Carolina forest, we were able to peer up and find a space among the branches where we could contemplate, in silence, the awesome view of a perfect silver orb.  We spent our class break outdoors, coatless, a bit chilly, caught in the spell of the recurrent Full Moon – united with all who had experienced its magic since the earth’s creation. 

When I arrived home later this evening,  I was surprised to find an email from a close friend In New York, commenting on how beautiful was the light of the full moon viewed looking down West End Avenue from his fourteenth floor apartment.  I had felt a strong bond with my classmates as we had experienced the full moon together amid the trees.  This email from New York made it clear that we were united with friends, family, and strangers  whom this night’s moonlight had reminded of our shared tenure on earth this day, this month, this year.  We were neither New Yorkers nor Carolinians.  We were all, at that moment,  simply Earthlings.

Sufi Dance February 5 2011

We chant and move, move and chant.

All of us together – step step step step

Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah

We bow, we turn, we move – always moving.

The hours pass.  The chant goes on.

My legs ache –

They drag, they plead with me to stop.

I keep on stepping – step step step step Allah Allah Allah Allah.

My mind empties of all content.

Suddenly I’m free – I can feel my dance, but not my body.  The pain is gone. 

I’m  expanding, outside all containers.

We move in synchrony.

We are not many – we are one –

All are one with God, Allah.  

My chanting echoes in my ears.

I hear my voice – yet not my voice –

Instead,  I now hear it as the voice of God.

My heart is open, like my arms –

Wider, wider.

Angels pour into the void —

They’re filling me with God;

They carry me.

I only know the heart of God, the light of God.

The universe is love and joy. 

My tears flow down my cheeks.

I am at peace!

Reflection

Seeking an out-of-body personal experience of God is not often high on my list of priorities.  Like most of us, I live by my calendar —  shopping, reading, studying, answering emails, doing the myriad daily activities that compose a modern life.  Even in prayer and meditation,  I’m often not really clear about  myself in relation to God.  I say words, I think thoughts, I feel this pain, that itch, the random twitch, the noises,  smells,  visual distractions….  I am myself, experiencing the solitary perceptions of an independent personality.  I am very much of and in my body, no matter that I seek no-mind.   

Today’s dance gave me a taste of disembodiment – of union with the divine, of bliss unmeasured – a taste of being wholly in and of the Spirit.  I didn’t want to come back.  That loving freedom was a golden nectar.  It was home. 

I wondered “Why come back?”  And then I knew that my embodied life is a transcendent gift of God, a chance to learn, to act, to choose — not only to know but also to express the love of God.  The distance embodiment gives me from God is a unique and irreplaceable opportunity to offer praise and worship.  We are all God worshipping God.  Freely choosing to do so is a miraculous gift of being in this lifetime.  I am grateful.