in this moment of pregnant pause, i see us standing still and simultaneously moving at the speed of light on a high dune dedicated to free flight and deep dives into blessing this belonging space we share… this on the brink of a new world space where we realize there is no separation… this stillpoint at the center of our circle, the hub of the wheel where all that is, is still, where everything is oh so real, where the peace that passeth all understanding is palpable calling us into deep silence…. listen, listen to the cosmic hum… listen, listen to our heartbeat’s drum… listen, listen for the sound of the bell syncing our breathing to the mantra of all is well… deep peace of the running wave to you, deep peace, deep peace, deep peace…

thousandfold thanks for sharing this journey along the buen camino, the rainbow trail, for coming home to our one heart flowing in rhythm with mystery, dancing and singing in harmony and shining the light of divine love so brightly…

may we all awaken to the beauty of whom we are… one cosmos, one web, one tribe, one family, one being, one ocean, one underground/aboveground wellspring of the river of joy, one love, one…

how fitting that today is world meditation day on this moment of closing the circle on the magical, magnificent, meditative, merry, miraculous, momentous, musical, mysterious moon of mystical may… a month of continuous contemplation, of mindful meditation, of  beautiful silence and stillness alive every breath with the birth of dancing stars, of being gentle breeze… flowing waters… sheltering arms… deep roots… rising sun of awakening… setting sun of rainbow colors… breathing in and out like the rhythm of waves, like the waxing and waning luna of dreams…

entering the gate, the doorway to our one heart, letting go into true emptiness, meditating this moment of peace fully, meeting it as our friend, home, belonging space, sat nam, true identity, every breath and step an arrival, deeper and deeper homecoming into great mystery, the quantum field of unity where every vibration flows into the one cosmic hum… we, all relatives, have arrived… we, all relatives, are home…

Call Me by My True Names

Do not say that I’ll depart tomorrow
because even today I still arrive.

Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and
death of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,
and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time
to eat the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,
and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence,
feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to
Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea
pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and
loving.

I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my
hands,
and I am the man who has to pay his “debt of blood” to, my
people,
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all
walks of life.
My pain if like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.

Thich Nhat Hanh

blessing the space between us as we journey deeper into  sacred mystery walking each other home, the pilgrimage to our one heart…

what a beautiful synchronicity… this day, the last day of awesome april, walpurgis eve, is also the day we bless the space between us as we close the circle on another moon or month of turning around the sun…

let us all take this moment, this beautiful moment to bless this space we share… this deep space of awakened  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 as we contemplate the space between us…

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

how fitting that today is world meditation day on this moment of closing the circle on the magical, magnificent, meditative, merry, miraculous, momentous, musical, mysterious month of mahalo may… a moon of continuous contemplation, of mindful meditation, of  beautiful silence and stillness alive every breath with the birth of dancing stars, of being gentle breeze… flowing water… sheltering arms… deep roots… rising sun of awakening… setting sun of rainbow colors… breathing in and out like the rhythm of waves like the waxing and waning luna of dreams…

entering the gate, the doorway to our one heart, letting go into true emptiness, meditating this moment of peace fully, meeting it as our friend, home, belonging space, sat nam, true identity…

Call Me by My True Names

Do not say that I’ll depart tomorrow
because even today I still arrive.

Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and
death of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,
and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time
to eat the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,
and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence,
feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to
Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea
pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and
loving.

I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my
hands,
and I am the man who has to pay his “debt of blood” to, my
people,
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all
walks of life.
My pain if like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.

Thich Nhat Hanh

blessing the space between us as we journey deeper into  sacred mystery walking each other home, the pilgrimage to our one heart…

Journeys bring power and love back into you. If you can’t go somewhere, move in the passageways of the self. They are like shafts of light, always changing, and you change when you explore them.

~ Rumi ~

This is the bright home
in which I live,
this is where
I ask
my friends
to come,
this is where I want
to love all the things
it has taken me so long
to learn to love.

This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.

There is no house
like the house of belonging.

~ David Whyte ~

there is no space like the space between us,

boundless love, beloveds…

here we are on the last day of this magical  moon of journeying january and what a magical mystery tour it is… with a trifecta of celestial synchronicity – our second full moon in this month, a supermoon and a blood moon/full lunar eclipse – this rare event hasn’t happened since 1866

today, may we celebrate the radiance of  light uplifted by the rising tide, the surging flow of divine feminine energy flooding the streets, the town squares, the reservations, the nerve centers, the halls of justice, the national parks, parliaments, legislatures, backyards, schools, hospitals, nursing homes, the market place, churches, temples synagogues and on and on and on…

and as spontaneously as we are pulled by a magnetic force to gather together, i hear the same conversation echoing again and again…. how are we to be, who are we to be… and on this day of the turning of the wheel contemplating what is truly real, asking what are we choosing to birth, for what do we choose to stand?

i turn to the courageous, the valorous voice booming from standing rock where they stand as a rock that will not be moved, will not stray from being loving presence and speaking truth…

the people of standing rock are asking for our prayers, our presence, our profound direct action for the next seven generations… they ask us now to come stand in what may be the final hour saying the time is now to stand together…

We Stand for the Earth.
We Stand for the Water.
We Stand for the Children!

Share and say I Stand!

standing together being loving presence always…

on this day of sanctity, in this moment, this moon, this pilgrimage, this life of being in the unknowable, let us bless this space between us, this numinous space, this sacred space of openness where the spirit of all that is always flows through us, where we are one heart always being love…

blessing this space, this unified field of the divine, this pilgrimage of awakening with one small step and another and another, this journey of healing becoming more and more whole as we transmute the holes into the holy, the wholeness we are…

thanks be for it all for everything is the teacher bringing us to this moment of peace, of love, of joy… thanks be for you and your amazing gifts of kindling fire, the inner flame of spirit, of inspiration, of breath, of our breathing together through our one heart…

today is such a special blessing the space moment as we close this sacred moon of september, a moon of  being silently drawn  by the pull of love – thank you, dear Rumi, and happiest of turns around the sun…

blessing the space of a moon of our witnessing the world turned upside down on both inner and outer planes, one long moon moment of resetting…

join me now on this high sand dune with panoramic water views to celebrate the fire dissolving into water, to savor the harvests of the trials faced, the suffering now seen as the grace of awakening, the bittersweet letting go of the small protective self in service to the higher purpose of the all that is…

thank you for sitting with the council of elders around the central sun as we reflect upon and share the full filling moments that live forever…

 A Brave And Startling Truth

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth
And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.

~ Maya Angelou ~

may we all awaken today…

in this moment of pregnant pause, i see us standing still and simultaneously moving at the speed of light on a high dune dedicated to free flight and deep dives into blessing this belonging space we share… this, on the brink of a new world, space where we realize there is no separation… this stillpoint at the center of our circle, the hub of the wheel where all that is, is still, where everything is oh so real, where the peace that passeth all understanding is palpable calling us into deep silence…. listen, listen to the cosmic hum… listen, listen to our heartbeat’s drum… listen, listen for the sound of the bell syncing our breathing to the mantra of all is well… deep peace of the running wave to you, deep peace, deep peace, deep peace…

may we all awaken to the beauty of who we are… one cosmos, one web, one tribe, one family, one being, one ocean, one love, one…

how can it possibly be the last day of joyfull june? what a space overflowing with so many blessings as this moon’s pilgrimage transported us deeper and deeper into the heart of silence, the stillpoint of creation where the generative energy of creativity creates creation in the blessed space between us…

today als0 marks the opening of a new journey… of course, the same could be said with every breath… we are always on an endless voyage into the great unknown… let’s pause in this beautiful moment to bless this space between us…

For the Traveler

Every time you leave home,
Another road takes you
Into a world you were never in.

New strangers on other paths await.
New places that have never seen you
Will startle a little at your entry.
Old places that know you well
Will pretend nothing
Changed since your last visit.

When you travel, you find yourself
Alone in a different way,
More attentive now
To the self you bring along,
Your more subtle eye watching
You abroad; and how what meets you
Touches that part of the heart
That lies low at home:

How you unexpectedly attune
To the timbre in some voice,
Opening in conversation
You want to take in
To where your longing
Has pressed hard enough
Inward, on some unsaid dark,
To create a crystal of insight
You could not have known
You needed
To illuminate
Your way.

When you travel,
A new silence
Goes with you,
And if you listen,
You will hear
What your heart would
Love to say.

A journey can become a sacred thing:
Make sure, before you go,
To take the time
To bless your going forth,
To free your heart of ballast
So that the compass of your soul
Might direct you toward
The territories of spirit
Where you will discover
More of your hidden life,
And the urgencies
That deserve to claim you.

May you travel in an awakened way,
Gathered wisely into your inner ground;
That you may not waste the invitations
Which wait along the way to transform you.

May you travel safely, arrive refreshed,
And live your time away to its fullest;
Return home more enriched, and free
To balance the gift of days which call you.

~ John O’Donohue ~