Feb 1 - Back at it

It's been a crazy few weeks, and I didn't do this the way I wanted. No excuses- I'm back at it.

Gamble Everything for Love

If you want what visible reality
can give you, you're an employee.

If you want the unseen world,
you're not living your truth.

Both wishes are foolish,
but you'll be forgiven for forgetting
that what you really want is
love's confusing joy.

--

Gamble everything for love,
if you're a true human being.

If not, leave
this gather.

Half-heartedness doesn't reach
into majesty. You set out
to find God, but then you keep
stopping for long periods
at mean-spirited roadhouses.

--

In a boat down a fast-running creek,
it feels like trees on the bank
are rushing by. What seems

to be changing around us
is rather the speed of our craft
leaving this world.

Today's Mantra: Memento mori
Remember you are mortal. This life is fleeting, and will come to an end. Rather than being depressing or fatalistic, though, it is a call to concentrate on what is important. We have finite time on this world. We must remember to show love to those around us, take chances to get where we want to be, and appreciate the beauty of this world.

Off the wagon

So in the hectic move and drive across the country (3119 miles in 6 days), meditating got lost in the shuffle. I'm going to be back at it tomorrow morning.

Jan 9

I missed yesterday. I'm picking back up today, though.

I Have Five Things to Say

The wakened lover speaks directly to the beloved,
"You are the sky my spirit circles in,
the love inside love, the resurrection-place.

Let this window be your ear.
I have lost consciousness many times
with longing for your listening silence,
and your life-quickening smile.

You give attention to the smallest matters,
my suspicious doubts, and to the greatest.

You know my coins are counterfeit,
but you accept them anyway,
my impudence and my pretending!

I have five things to say,
five fingers to give
into your grace.

First, when I was apart from you,
this world did not exist,
nor any other.

Second, whatever I was looking for
was always you.

Third, why did I ever learn to count to three?

Fourth, my cornfield is burning!

Fifth, this finger stands for Rabia,
and this is for someone else,
Is there a difference?

Are these words or tears?
Is weeping speech?
What shall I do, my love?"

So he speaks, and everyone around
begins to cry with him, laughing crazily,
moaning in the spreading union
of love rand beloved.

This is the true religion. All others
are thrown-away bandages beside it.

This is the sema of slavery and mastery
dancing together. This is not-being.

Neither words, nor any natural fact
can express this.

I know these dancers.
Day and night I sing their songs
in this phenomenal cage.

My soul, don't try to answer now!
Find a friend, and hide.

But what can stay hidden?
Love's secret is always lifting its head
out from under the cover,
"Here I am!"

Today's mantra: Open. Shine.

Jan 7

The Lame Goat

You've seen a herd of goats
going down the the water.

The lame and dreamy goat
brings up the rear.

There are worried faces about that one,
but now they're laughing,

because look, as they return,
that goat is leading!

There are many kinds of knowing.
The lame goat's kind is a branch
that traces back to the roots of presence.

Learn from the lame goat,
and lead the herd home.

Today's mantra: Breath. Release.

Jan 6

Same poem as yesterday, same mantra. Different thoughts.

I'm going to a conference in San Diego this weekend. I'm really going to have to keep on myself to do my meditation every day, but I think I can do it!

Jan 5

I feel like I cut this one short tonight- I plan to come back to it tomorrow.

A Community of the Spirit

There is a community of the spirit.
join it, and feel the delight
of walking in the noisy street,
and being the noise.

Drink all your passion,
and be a disgrace.

Close both eyes
to see with teh other eye.

Open your hands,
if you want to be held.

Sit down in this circle.

Quit acting like a wolf, and feel
the shephard's love filling you.

At night, your beloved wanders.
Don't accept consolations.

Close your mouth against food.
Taste the lovers' mouth in yours.

You moan, "She left me" "He left me."
Twenty more will come.

Be empty of worrying.
Think of who created thought!

Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?

Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.

Flow down and down in always
widening rings of being.

--

There's a strange frenzy in my head,
of birds flying,
each particle circulating on its own.
Is the one I love everywhere?

--

Drunks fear the police,
but the police are drunk too.

People in this town love them both
like different chess pieces.

Today's mantra: Be empty of worrying.

Jan 4

Story Water
A story is like water
that you heat for your bath.

It takes messages between the fire
and your skin. It lets them meet,
and it cleans you!

Very few can sit down
in the middle of the fire itself
like a salamander or Abraham.
We need intermediaries.

A feeling of fullness comes,
but usually it takes some bread
to bring it.

Beauty surrounds us,
but usually we need to be walking
in a garden to know it.

The body itself is a screen
to shield and partially reveal
the light that's blazing
inside your presence.

Water, stories, the body,
all the things we do, are mediums
that hide and show what's hidden.

Study them,
and enjoy this being washed
with a secret we sometimes know,
and then not.

Today's mantra: Breathe. Release.

Jan 3

Though I started off in a sitting meditation stance, as I began I realized that today needed an active meditation. I did a sunflower/moonflower flow, still chanting on the inhale and exhale. (forgive the terrible pictures of the yoga poses, they're the best I could quickly find.)

To me, this poem is about expression, joy, pain, love, and most of all, living to the fullest.

Each Note
Advice doesn't help lovers!
They're not the kind of mountain stream
you can build a dam across.

An intellectual doesn't know
what the drunk is feeling!

Don't try to figure
what those lost inside love
will do next!

Someone in charge would give up all his power,
if he caught one whiff of the wine-musk
from the room where the lovers
are doing who-knows-what!

One of them tries to dig a hole through a mountain.
One flees from academic honors.
one laughs at famous mustaches!

Life freezes if it doesn't get a taste
of this almond cake.
The stars come up spinning
every night, bewildered in love.
They'd grow tired
with that revolving, if they weren't.
They'd say,
"How long do we have to do this!"

God picks up the reed-flute world and blows.
Each note is a need coming through one of us,
a passion, a longing-pain.
Remember the lips
where the wind-breath originated,
and let your note be clear.
Don't try to end it.
Be your note.
I'll show you how it's enough.

Go up on the roof at night
in this city of the soul.
Let everyone climb on their roofs
and sing their notes!

Sing loud!

Today's mantra: Be. Shine!

Jan 2

I sought out this poem as it was especially apt for me this morning. I was thinking about and longing for old friends, feeling the loss of them. This poem reminded me that, just like happiness, sadness is passed from person to person.

Sometimes I Forget Completely
Sometimes I forget completely
what companionship is.
Unconscious and insane, I spill sad
energy everywhere. My story
gets told in various ways: a romance,
a dirty joke, a war, a vacancy.

Divide up my forgetfulness to any umber,
it will go around.
These dark suggestions that I follow,
are they part of some plan?
Friends, be careful. Don't come near me
out of curiosity, or sympathy.

Today's mantra: Feel the sadness. Accept release.

Jan 1

Who Says Words With My Mouth?

All day I think about it, then at night I say it.
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.

This drunkenness began in some other tavern.
When I get back around to that place,
I'll be completely sober. Meanwhile,
I'm like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.
The day is coming when I fly off,
but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?
Who says words with my mouth?

Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?
I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.
I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way.
Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.

This poetry. I never know what I'm going to say.
I don't plan it.
When I'm outside the saying of it,
I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.

-

We have a huge barrel of wine, but no cups.
That's fine with us. Every morning
we glow and in the evening we glow again.

They say there's no future for us. They're right.
Which is fine with us.


Today's mantra: Wonder. Be.

Beginnings

My project for the year is to meditate once a day, every day. Realistically, I know I'll probably miss a few, but that is okay- part of accepting yourself is accepting your failings as well. Also, I wont necessarily post a blog for every day, but I'll do my best.

Notes on meditation:
Meditation (to me) is a state of quiet understanding of yourself, your mind, and your surroundings. It takes different forms for different people, but I like to sit with my legs folded, hands on my knees, and eyes closed. It begins with steady breathing, concentrating on the sound and feeling of the inhale and exhale. I often link words to the inhale and exhale- the most basic is just an "Om," but my favorite fallback is "Breathe - Release." I know I have reached a meditative state when my body feels heavy but my mind feels light, and everything else fades except my breath. I like to hold this state as long as I feel I need.

This year, I will be beginning my meditations with a poem by Rumi. If I feel so led, I will choose my meditative words from that day's poem.

The poems come from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, New York: HarperCollins, 1995.