2017

Posted on April 30, 2017 by Jo Beall

what a beautiful synchronicity… this day, the last day of awakened april, walpurgis eve, the day we bless the space between us as we close the circle on another moon or month of turning around the sun is also the day of sharing an image that shows the astonishing light of being and what better image than this quintessential tree of abundance to transmit who you are…

let us all take a moment, a beautiful moment to bless this space we share… this deep space of awakening the fire as the sun shone through aries moving into grounding profoundly in the core of our being, dropping down into the rich nurturing earth of taurus…

this space of listening deeply as great mystery hums our soul song through us and we echo it to each other… to return, return, return to love by opening our one heart to divine flow’s breathing us, dreaming us, singing us, praying us, dancing us, comforting us, supporting us, freeing us, animating us, blessing us, consecrating us in this moment, this beautiful moment, in every moment, every beautiful moment…

may we dance rainbow mystery devotedly

may we be more loving than ever before for the well being of all

may we be more compassionate than ever before for the well being of all

may we be more harmonious than ever before for the well being of all

with every breath, may we all be liberated

with every step, may we all come home to true refuge dwelling in our one heart

~

namaste, beloveds…

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 134 Days – 4/29/2017

Posted on April 29, 2017 by Jo Beall

happy next to last day of awakened april, the day i thought is arbor day only to real-eyes tonight that it’s not always april 29 but rather the last friday in april which was yesterday…

still, i like celebrating it today as earh stewards all over the planet march for climate on this the 100th day of a new administration in the united states which keeps calling us to stand in love re-cognizing our interconnectedness as one great tree of life…

the trees are our breath teaching us generosity, the mothers of nourishment creating one vast network of trillions and trillions of roots intertwined as one flooding the struggling with juice, receiving the dying standing talls’ marrow…

not i, only we, this network of generosity, this unfolding synarchy… let’s breathe deeply filling ourselves with each in breath and letting go/ surrendering/softening through our soles with each outbreath…

smiling, we come deeper and deeper home with every breath… allowing… accepting… embracing

now, feel your soles on the warm, mossy forest floor syncing into the soil below while our limbs are outstretched toward heaven… open deeply to presence as we bathe in the stillness and dance of the forest field…

let’s bow deeply to all our relations thanking each other for the sacred circle of life we are…

namaste’…

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 133 Days – 4/28/2017

Posted on April 28, 2017 by Jo Beall

“Attempt what is not certain. Certainty may or may not come later.”

~ Richard Diebenkorn ~

~

“One doesn’t arrive… by necessarily knowing where one is going… In every work of art something appears that does not previously exist, and so, by default, you work from what you know to what you don’t know.”

~Ann Hamilton~

~

the poetics of not knowing

it’s still the moon of awakened april, national poetry month, so i continue with celebrating poets by posting some of the great Polish poet’s, Wislawa Szymborska, acceptance speech when she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1996…

Inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists generally. There is, has been, and will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It’s made up of all those who’ve consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination. It may include doctors, teachers, gardeners — and I could list a hundred more professions. Their work becomes one continuous adventure as long as they manage to keep discovering new challenges in it. Difficulties and setbacks never quell their curiosity. A swarm of new questions emerges from every problem they solve. Whatever inspiration is, it’s born from a continuous “I don’t know.”

…I value that little phrase “I don’t know” so highly. It’s small, but it flies on mighty wings. It expands our lives to include the spaces within us as well as those outer expanses in which our tiny Earth hangs suspended. If Isaac Newton had never said to himself “I don’t know,” the apples in his little orchard might have dropped to the ground like hailstones and at best he would have stooped to pick them up and gobble them with gusto. Had my compatriot Marie Sklodowska-Curie never said to herself “I don’t know”, she probably would have wound up teaching chemistry at some private high school for young ladies from good families, and would have ended her days performing this otherwise perfectly respectable job. But she kept on saying “I don’t know,” and these words led her, not just once but twice, to Stockholm, where restless, questing spirits are occasionally rewarded with the Nobel Prize…

~

yes, it is the surrender to not knowing that seeds astonishment, awe and wandering in wonder… happy trails, beloveds!

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 132 Days – 4/27/2017

Posted on April 27, 2017 by Jo Beall

ah, today is one of those days when the currents of the river of life took me in a direction i didn’t see coming… a day when everything is moving slowly along, a day of smelling the roses moments until suddenly and unexpectedly the earth begins to move and shake and crack wide open right under your feet…

there is nothing to do, only be surrendered to source and sit in the rupture feeling the pain of all our relations re-membering we live in a gift ecology receiving what is needed in exactly the right moment, giving what is needed in exactly the right moment…

what flows through this cell of beingness today is what i’ve been living the last many moons… the pathway of transforming rupture into rapture, transmuting broken heart into heart broken wide open, ruptured eye/i into eye/i wide open…

as we hold the rupture compassionately, awareness, like a rose, blossoms into rapt attention, beholding in awe, into rapture, the ecstatic joy always present in the core of our being, patiently awaiting the perfect moment to ripple through and fill the air waves with natural true beingness…

mahalo for this moment, this beautiful moment of sharing the milagro field, the field of giving and receiving, the unitive field of abundance created together… namaste’

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 131 Days – 4/26/2017

Posted on April 26, 2017 by Jo Beall

on this day of dark moon, join me in one of the most serene places on the planet allowing the deep peace of this sacred space to breathe us, to enter every cell of our being… in this moment, drop down into the core, the well of profound joy and stillness feeling the ever present ancestors and allies guarding the great silence, watching over all that is… drop down a little deeper into the mystery of the great beyond…

I love the dark hours of my being.
My mind deepens into them.
There I can find, as in old letters,
the days of my life, already lived,
and held like a legend, and understood.

Then the knowing comes: I can open
to another life that’s wide and timeless.

So I am sometimes like a tree
rustling over a gravesite
and making real the dream
of the one its living roots
embrace:

a dream once lost
among sorrows and songs.

~ Ranier Maria Rilke ~

~

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 130 Days – 4/25/2017

Posted on April 25, 2017 by Jo Beall

on this last day of the fourth moon of this turn around the sun, the moon of peace and healing, i want to share a healing talisman always with me… accompanying me to all healing temples, blue medicine painted pony sees me through everything and forms healing community wherever she is…. mary iron eyes worked overtime to complete her vision and prayer, blue medicine, before passing over in 2003…

in celebration of peace and healing moon, some wisdom of the first peoples….

The Earth is our Mother, care for her.
Honor your ancestors through your actions.
Open your heart and soul to Great Spirit.
All life is sacred; treat all beings respectfully.
Take from Earth what is needed and nothing more.
Put the good of all before your own interests.
Give constant thanks for each new day.
Speak the truth, but only of good in others.
Follow the rhythms of nature; rise and retire with sun.
Enjoy life’s journey, leave no tracks.

Namaste…

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 129 Days – 4/24/2017

Posted on April 24, 2017 by Jo Beall

circle of color

water flowing home to source

reflecting beauty

~

on this day of celebrating the earth during this moon of awakened april, i watch the documentary AWAKE about the earth people rising to stand for our first mother – water…

mni wiconi… mni wiconi… mni wiconi…

water is life… water is life… water is life…

calling us to stand in love for water

to awaken to the dream bubbling up from the river below

will you stand in praise of water? will you awaken to the dream? will you join our dream of all our relations gathered in peace? will you join us? will you gather with us in peace to protect our sacred mother waters?

In Praise of Water

Let us bless the grace of water:

The imagination of the primeval ocean
Where the first forms of life stirred
And emerged to dress the vacant earth
With warm quilts of color.

The well whose liquid root worked
Through the long night of clay,
Trusting ahead of itself openings
That would yet yield to its yearning
Until at last it arises in the desire of light
To discover the pure quiver of itself
Flowing crystal clear and free
Through delighted emptiness.

The courage of a river to continue belief
In the slow fall of ground,
Always falling farther
Toward the unseen ocean.

The river does what words would love,
Keeping its appearance
By insisting on disappearance;
Its only life surrendered
To the event of pilgrimage,
Carrying the origin to the end,

Seldom pushing or straining,
Keeping itself to itself
Everywhere all along its flow,
All at one with its sinuous mind,
An utter rhythm, never awkward,
It continues to swirl
Through all unlikeness,
With elegance:
A ceaseless traverse of presence
Soothing on each side
The stilled fields,
Sounding out its journey,
Raising up a buried music
Where the silence of time
Becomes almost audible.

Tides stirred by the eros of the moon
Draw from that permanent restlessness
Perfect waves that languidly rise
And pleat in gradual forms of aquamarine
To offer every last tear of delight
At the altar of stillness inland.

And the rain in the night, driven
By the loneliness of the wind
To perforate the darkness,
As though some air pocket might open
To release the perfume of the lost day
And salvage some memory
From its forsaken turbulence

And drop its weight of longing
Into the earth, and anchor.

Let us bless the humility of water,
Always willing to take the shape
Of whatever otherness holds it,

The buoyancy of water
Stronger than the deadening,
Downward drag of gravity,
The innocence of water,
Flowing forth, without thought
Of what awaits it,
The refreshment of water,
Dissolving the crystals of thirst.

Water: voice of grief,
Cry of love,
In the flowing tear.

Water: vehicle and idiom
Of all the inner voyaging
That keeps us alive.

Blessed be water,
Our first mother.

~ John O’Donohue ~

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 128 Days – 4/23/2017

Posted on April 23, 2017 by Jo Beall

for this week’s celebration of sharing a picture worth a thousand words of the astonishing light of your being, i am going to piggyback on earth day since we know every day is earth day and bring into this moment a beautiful memory of when His Holiness was in Portalandia for an Earth Summit…

when i see the Dalai Lama with that characteristic grin on his face and feel the bubbling joy of his being, i re-member a my relations carry the divine spark within the ground of our being…

when tired or lonely or in darkness, may we remember the Dalai Lama’s thoughts, words, and smiling joy on awakening….

May I Be a Guard

May I be a guard for those who need protection
A guide for those on the path
A boat, a raft, a bridge for those who wish to cross the flood
May I be a lamp in the darkness
A resting place for the weary
A healing medicine for all who are sick
A vase of plenty, a tree of miracles
And for the boundless multitudes of living beings
May I bring sustenance and awakening
Enduring like the earth and the sky
Until all beings are free from sorrow
And all are awakened.
~

Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others; to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can.

~

in closing, as i close each day…

From today onward
Until the attainment of enlightenment
May I be willing
To live with my chaos and confusion
And that of all other sentient beings.

May I be willing
To share our mutual confusion
And work incessantly and humbly
To help and elevate everyone without exception.

Tibetan Prayer from Light the Flame

~

dancing in the center of the still point, the heart medicine wheel

always whirling and twirling in the rhythm of the divine cosmic reel…

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 127 Days – 4/22/2017

Posted on April 22, 2017 by Jo Beall

earth day 2017… forty-seven years of our consciously walking the green path… in this moment, this beautiful moment, i’m re-membering the first one in 1970 and feeling the passion and excitement of that day right here, right now… i turn to another Berry today on this day of praising the earth, another eco poet, environmental activist and sacred sage of farsightedness to walk with us home along the green path into beloved community…

may we live the dream of the earth…

Evening Thoughts: Reflecting on Earth As Sacred Community

“It takes a universe to bring humans into being, a universe to educate humans, a universe to fulfill the human mode of being. More immediately, it takes a solar system and a planet Earth to shape, educate, and fulfill the human.

We can explain nothing if we cannot explain the whole. Our explanation of any part of the universe is integral to our understanding of the universe itself.

…we must think about and respond to the urgency of a renewal of the integral community of life systems throughout the Earth. Renewal is a community project.

What is needed is a new pattern of rapport with the planet. Here we come to the critical transformation needed in the emotional, aesthetic, spiritual, and religious orders of life. Only a change that profound in human consciousness can remedy the deep cultural pathology manifest in such destructive behavior. Such change is not possible, however, so long as we fail to appreciate the planet that provides us with a world abundant in the volume and variety of food for our nourishment, a world exquisite in supplying beauty of form, sweetness of taste, delicate fragrances for our enjoyment, and exciting challenges for us to overcome with skill and action. The poets and artists can help restore this sense of rapport with the natural world. It is this renewed sense of reciprocity with nature, in all of its complexity and remarkable beauty, that can help provide the psychic and spiritual energies necessary for the work ahead.

We come into being in and through the Earth. Simply put, we are Earthlings. The Earth is our origin, our nourishment, our educator, our healer, our fulfillment. At its core, even our spirituality is Earth derived. The human and the Earth are totally implicated, each in the other. If there is no spirituality in the Earth, then there is no spirituality in ourselves.

We need a spirituality that emerges our of a reality deeper than ourselves, a spirituality that is as deep as the Earth process itself, a spirituality born out of the solar system and even out of the heavens beyond the solar system. For it is in the stars that the primordial elements take shape in both their physical and psychic aspects. Out of these elements the solar system and Earth took shape, and out of Earth, ourselves.

In our contemplation of how tragic moments of disintegration over the course of the centuries were followed by immensely creative moments of renewal, we receive our great hope for the future. To initiate and guide this next creative moment of the story of the Earth is the Great Work of the religions of the world as we move on into the future.”

Thomas Berry

Poetic PEACE Pilgrimage – Year 4 – Day 126 Days – 4/21/2017

Posted on April 21, 2017 by Jo Beall

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry

in celebration of earth day today, i venture out to see the Portland premiere of Look and See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry which is beautifully filmed in the land of Berry’s birth where he makes his life as a farmer, writer, poet, and environmental activist… such a lovely honoring of earth…

Abundance Created Together (ACT)

This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love; the more they give, the more they possess. – Rainer Maria Rilke –

Monthly Archives: April 2017