for many nights, i go so deeply into dreamtime and travel the pathless path into unknown landscapes populated with such lucid images be-wilder-ing to me and when i awaken in liminal space to contemplate, i hear jung whispering to pull back the projections into myself which takes me to a favorite quotation from beloved rilke:

“The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you.”

on this day when the spirits are right at hand, i continue contemplating these last few days of re-membering and releasing the work of outer vision during this profound portal of collective death and rebirth and with Rilke’s words still singing me, i hear the old story of there’s a spirit in everything… and this musing takes me right to Michelangelo:

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.

Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”

aren’t all these expressions excellent sacred instructions on how to align with great spirit, rainbow mystery, the one heart, creative process, the soulful self, authenticity?…

yes, listen, listen, listen ever more deeply to our heartsong… release the spirit of the wise pilgrim navigating the journey, the genie always within every bottle/body… and then, may we all proclaim, free at last, free at last, free at last to be the fullest expression of whom we are destined to be…

let’s close this sacred space of ceremony with a beautyway blessing into the sacred fire within, the inner light of great spirit residing in all our relatives:

may this day be blessed with gifts, lessons, understanding and friends… may our energy be a gift to all we meet… let us be centered, healing and open facing the day with courage, kindness, insight and compassion… may we honor this day with the astonishing light of the boundless love of our interbeing…

Happy 95th Day of Continuation, Thay!

i love Thay’s 95th Day of Continuation falling on this moment of eternity of celebrating the astonishing light of interbeing, yes, i real-eyes his birthday is the 11th but it is already the 11th in Vietnam and every day is a day of celebrating the life of this wise teacher… thousand fold thanks for a lifetime of teaching us and showing us the way, of being peace, of walking our talk and being an example for others, for introducing us to the miracle of mindfulness, for always being love and being present in the present moment, wonderful moment… may we all mindfully breathe with you in every precious moment… may we re-member we have arrived and are home in beloved community… let’s anchor this beautiful moment  of celebrating the astonishing light of interbeing with Thay’s words from The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra…

“If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are. “Interbeing” is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix “inter-” with the verb “to be,” we have a new verb, inter-be. Without a cloud and the sheet of paper inter-are.

If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, the forest cannot grow. In fact, nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look, we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And we see the wheat. We now the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. And the logger’s father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way, we see that without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist.

Looking even more deeply, we can see we are in it too. This is not difficult to see, because when we look at a sheet of paper, the sheet of paper is part of our perception. Your mind is in here and mine is also. So we can say that everything is in here with this sheet of paper. You cannot point out one thing that is not here-time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river, the heat. Everything co-exists with this sheet of paper. That is why I think the word inter-be should be in the dictionary. “To be” is to inter-be. You cannot just be by yourself alone. You have to inter-be with every other thing. This sheet of paper is, because everything else is.

Suppose we try to return one of the elements to its source. Suppose we return the sunshine to the sun. Do you think that this sheet of paper will be possible? No, without sunshine nothing can be. And if we return the logger to his mother, then we have no sheet of paper either. The fact is that this sheet of paper is made up only of “non-paper elements.” And if we return these non-paper elements to their sources, then there can be no paper at all. Without “non-paper elements,” like mind, logger, sunshine and so on, there will be no paper. As thin as this sheet of paper is, it contains everything in the universe in it.”

may we all re-member the truth of our interbeing and thousand fold thanks for being an astonishing light of our one cosmic heart…