today begins with contemplating so many dream images leading me to thinking of the odyssey we are all on and the metaphorical peace train that transports us and transforming our journey into a walk in beauty which leads to more compassion for us as humans real-eye-sing this unraveling time is necessary and this musing leads to my wanting to share once again a favorite image of the old woman who weaves the worlds as a beautiful tapestry which unravels and rather than melting down, she picks up one of the loose threads and begins weaving the more beautiful world we can all imagine and weave into reality and bringing up this image moves me to Mary Oliver and one of her poems i so love:

Halleluiah

“Everyone should be born into this world happy
and loving everything.
But in truth it rarely works that way.
For myself, I have spent my life clamoring toward it.
Halleluiah, anyway I’m not where I started!

And have you too been trudging like that, sometimes
almost forgetting how wondrous the world is
and how miraculously kind some people can be?
And have you too decided that probably nothing important
is ever easy?
Not, say, for the first sixty years.

Halleluiah, I’m sixty now, and even a little more,
and some days I feel I have wings.”

awe so, may we all have more and more moments of feeling we have wings and here is Walt Whitman with more sage words on walking in beauty:

“This is what you should do:
Love the earth and sun and animals,
despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks,
stand up for the stupid and crazy,
devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants,
argue not concerning God,
have patience and indulgence toward the people…
reexamine all you have been told in school or church or in any book,
dismiss what insults your very soul,
and your flesh shall become a great poem.”

~

each beautiful thing, each new day awakens in our soul the memory of whom we are, luminous beings, the shining ones… i am re-membering some words on beauty and wonder from Thay that help me to hear the voice of the soul:

“Dear Mother Earth,

Each morning when I wake up you offer me twenty-four brand new hours to cherish and enjoy your beauty. You gave birth to every miraculous form of life. Your children include the clear lake, the green pine, the pink cloud, the snowcapped mountain top, the fragrant forest, the white crane, the golden deer, the extraordinary caterpillar, and every brilliant mathematician, skilled artisan, and gifted architect. You are the greatest mathematician, the most accomplished artisan, and the most talented architect of all. The simple branch of cherry blossoms, the shell of a snail, and the wing of a bat all bear witness to this amazing truth. My deep wish is to live in such a way that I am awake to each of your wonders and nourished by your beauty. I cherish your precious creativity and I smile to this gift of life.

We humans have talented artists, but how can our paintings compare to your masterpiece of the four seasons? How could we ever paint such a compelling dawn or create a more radiant dusk? We have great composers, but how can our music compare to your celestial harmony with the sun and planets—or to the sound of the rising tide? We have great heroes and heroines who have endured wars, hardship, and dangerous voyages, but how can their bravery compare to your great forbearance and patience along your hazardous journey of eons? We have many great love stories, but who among us has love as immense as your own, embracing all beings without discrimination?

Dear Mother, you have given birth to countless buddhas, saints, and enlightened beings. Shakyamuni Buddha is a child of yours. Jesus Christ is the son of God, and yet he is also the son of Man, a child of the Earth, your child. Mother Mary is also a daughter of the Earth. The Prophet Mohammed is also your child. Moses is your child. So too are all the bodhisattvas. You are also mother to eminent thinkers and scientists who have made great discoveries, investigating and understanding not only our own solar system and Milky Way, but even the most distant galaxies. It’s through these talented children that you are deepening your communication with the cosmos. Knowing that you have given birth to so many great beings, I know that you aren’t mere inert matter, but living spirit. It’s because you’re endowed with the capacity of awakening that all your children are too. Each one of us carries within ourself the seed of awakening, the ability to live in harmony with our deepest wisdom—the wisdom of interbeing.

But there are times when we have not done so well. There are times when we have not loved you enough; times when we have forgotten your true nature; and times when we have discriminated and treated you as something other than ourself. There have even been times when, through ignorance and unskillfulness, we have underestimated, exploited, wounded, and polluted you. That is why I make the deep vow today, with gratitude and love in my heart, to cherish and protect your beauty, and to embody your wondrous consciousness in my own life. I vow to follow in the footsteps of those who have gone before me, to live with awakening and compassion, and so be worthy of calling myself your child.”

acknowledging the preciousness of each day is a wondrous way to walk in beauty…

~

today begins with contemplating so many dream images leading me to thinking of caterpillars and how their massively consumptive nature as they approach the end of their existence reminds me of where we humans are in part and i quickly say to caterpillars that i mean no offense and thank them for the role they play in transformation which leads to more compassion for us as humans real-eye-sing this unraveling time is necessary which leads to my wanting to share once again a favorite image of the old woman who weaves the worlds as a beautiful tapestry which unravels and rather than melting down, she picks up one of the loose threads and begins weaving the more beautiful world we can all imagine and weave into reality and bringing up this image moves me to Mary Oliver and one of her poems i so love:

Halleluiah

“Everyone should be born into this world happy
and loving everything.
But in truth it rarely works that way.
For myself, I have spent my life clamoring toward it.
Halleluiah, anyway I’m not where I started!

And have you too been trudging like that, sometimes
almost forgetting how wondrous the world is
and how miraculously kind some people can be?
And have you too decided that probably nothing important
is ever easy?
Not, say, for the first sixty years.

Halleluiah, I’m sixty now, and even a little more,
and some days I feel I have wings.”

awe so, may we all have more and more moments of feeling we have wings and here is Walt Whitman with more sage words on walking in beauty:

“This is what you should do:
Love the earth and sun and animals,
despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks,
stand up for the stupid and crazy,
devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants,
argue not concerning God,
have patience and indulgence toward the people…
reexamine all you have been told in school or church or in any book,
dismiss what insults your very soul,
and your flesh shall become a great poem.”

today begins with contemplating so many dream images leading me to thinking of caterpillars and how their massively consumptive nature as they approach the end of their existence reminds me of where we humans are in part and i quickly say to caterpillars that i mean no offense and thank them for the role they play in transformation which leads to more compassion for us as humans real-eye-sing this unraveling time is necessary which leads to my wanting to share once again a favorite image of the old woman who weaves the worlds as a beautiful tapestry which unravels and rather than melting down, she picks up one of the loose threads and begins weaving the more beautiful world we can all imagine and weave into reality and bringing up this image moves me to Mary Oliver and one of her poems i so love:

Halleluiah

“Everyone should be born into this world happy
and loving everything.
But in truth it rarely works that way.
For myself, I have spent my life clamoring toward it.
Halleluiah, anyway I’m not where I started!

And have you too been trudging like that, sometimes
almost forgetting how wondrous the world is
and how miraculously kind some people can be?
And have you too decided that probably nothing important
is ever easy?
Not, say, for the first sixty years.

Halleluiah, I’m sixty now, and even a little more,
and some days I feel I have wings.”

awe so, may we all have more and more moments of feeling we have wings and here is Walt Whitman with more sage words on walking in beauty:

“This is what you should do:
Love the earth and sun and animals,
despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks,
stand up for the stupid and crazy,
devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants,
argue not concerning God,
have patience and indulgence toward the people…
reexamine all you have been told in school or church or in any book,
dismiss what insults your very soul,
and your flesh shall become a great poem.”

children of the waters flow home to deep blue sea

where we dance with dolphins throughout infinite eternity

and we undulate with seahorses in the waves of light frequency

creating ever widening arcs of iridescent harmony…

~

a magical day in the metaphorical sea, in the timelessness of eternity stretching across the cosmos infinitely… contemplating, contemplating, real-eye-sing… circulating, circulating, ambulating… children of the waters flowing home to deep blue sea… return, return to be beloved’s breath and weave her threads into seamless blessing tapestry…

~

walking in beauty on the path today

breathing it in, i’m carried away

by whispering winds demanding their say

to behold the wonder of each moment this day

~

we all come from earth mother and to her we shall return

like a drop of rain flowing to the ocean

when we are sad and forlorn, we come to her to be reborn

like a drop of rain flowing to the ocean

grounding in deep earth, sacred space of rebirth

drops of rain flowing home to  ocean

~

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice–
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do–
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Mary Oliver