Deepa Khanna Sobti - Sweet Embrace

art and poem by Deepa Khanna Sobti

 Tears rolled down my cheeks
When I saw how life had been trying
All the time
To show me its beauty
In its loving embrace
The miracle of a tree growing through the cracks of a derelict concrete wall
Of the burst of colors and patterns in a simple leaf
The colors of the rainbow glistening on a perfect dew drop
Of a sweet melody in the buzzing of bees
Of a warm greeting in the chirp of a bird
Life showed me how it had been trying
To show me its sweet embrace

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Tracy Shaw - A Blessing for the Inward Way

moon “Luna” by Evelyn De Morgan (1885).

May you learn to dwell
Below the surface of the days
At home with the ebb and flow of
Your own heart’s tides.
May you find the womb space at the center of your Life,
There grow wise in the sacred rhythm
Of filling and emptying,
Emptying and filling.
There, held safe,
May you surrender to the unknown
As completely as the dark moon
Empties herself into the secret embrace of her Beloved, the Sun.
There may you cherish hope of renewal
As tenderly as the crescent moon
Cradles the dark in the curve of her arm,
Enfolding, quickening with life new born.
And may you always open to the flow of love
As voluptuously as the moon at full,
Until filled, overflowing, you pour
Love’s gifts out into the world.
So may you grow ever more intimate
With the inward way, the deepening way,
Where filling is emptying, emptying is filling ~
At one with the mystery, at one. 

 source 

 

Thich Nhat Hanh - If you are a poet

    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 … 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 know that 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 … 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 … As thin as this sheet of paper is, it contains everything in the universe in it.

source text 

 

Leonard Jacobson - The walk

picture radioarts

 A man went for a walk one day. As he walked, he became aware that he was feeling lost and alone. Rather than push the feelings away, he allowed them to be present with him. "I'm lost. I am all alone," he cried to himself. A deep sadness arose within him.

Suddenly a voice arose from a deeper level. "If you are lost, then where are you?" It was the voice of his Being. It was the voice of truth.

The man paused to consider the question. "If I am lost, then where am I?" he asked aloud. He sat down and as much as possible, he became present with his feelings.

"I am lost. I am all alone!" he repeated several times.

Once again the voice of his Being gently challenged him. "You say you are lost. Then where are you?"

The man tried to see where he was. Suddenly, it became clear to him.

"I am lost in my mind!" he cried.

It was so simple. He was lost in his mind. He was lost somewhere in his remembered past. Or somewhere in his imagined future. One thing was clear. He was not here now. He closed his eyes and became very still. He became very aware of his body and his breath. He became very aware of the sounds around him. He could feel the soft caress of the breeze upon his face. He became silent. He began to feel very present. The feeling of being lost and alone disappeared. He paused for a few moments in silent gratitude. He opened his eyes and his heart exploded with joy as a bird soared into the sky.

https://www.leonardjacobson.com/ 

 

Stephen Levine - What we sing about

There is a grace approaching
that we shun as much as death,
it is the completion of our birth.

It does not come in time,
but in timelessness
when the mind sinks into the heart
and we remember.

It is insistent grace that draws us
to the edge and beckons us surrender
safe territory and enter our enormity.

We know we must pass
beyond knowing
and fear the shedding.

But we are pulled upward
none-the-less
through forgotten ghosts
and unexpected angels,
luminous.

And there is nothing left to say
but we are That.

And that is what we sing about.

 

Anthony de Mello - One minute wisdom

"Tony de Mello used to tell the story of a spiritual seeker who had arrived at a deep and loving union with God. His disciples were intensely curious about what the experience was like, but the master was most reluctant to say anything about the matter. One day his own son tried to pry the secret from him, and in a rare moment of candor, the father shared his feelings.

"I felt like a fool," he said.
"Why?" asked the son.
"Because," the father replied,
"it was like going to enormous trouble to enter a house
by climbing a ladder and breaking the window,
only to realize afterwards that the front door
had been open the whole time"

(One Minute Wisdom, 177).

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 It will only take a minute to read each of the anecdotes that follow. You will probably find the Master’s language baffling, exasperating even downright meaningless. This, alas, is not an easy book! It was written, not to instruct, but to Awaken. Concealed within its pages (not in the printed words, not even in the tales, but in its spirit, its mood, its atmosphere) is a Wisdom which cannot be conveyed in human speech. As you read the printed page and struggle with the Master’ s cryptic language it is possible that you will unwittingly chance upon the Silent Teaching that lurks within the book, and be Awakened — and transformed. This is what Wisdom means: To be changed without the slightest effort on your part, to be transformed, believe it or not, merely by waking to the reality that is not words that lies beyond the reach of words.
If you are fortunate enough to be Awakened thus, you will know why the finest language is the one that is not spoken, the finest action is the one that is not done and the finest change is the one that is not willed.

 

Heather K. O’Hara - That I Have Knelt in Temples

That I have knelt in temples
of winter stars and daffodils;
that I have danced through summer gardens
and lingered there;
that I have seen eternity
in a flash of autumn gold;
that I have become
a listener of leaves, an adorer of dawn,
a lover of hidden music—
that I have chosen all-of-this to fill the edgeless hour,
leaves not a syllable of distance
between myself and God.

 from The Path of Songs

QuantumGrace 

John O’Donohue - The name of this day

No one knew the name of this day;
Born quietly from deepest night,
It hid its face in light,
Demanded nothing for itself,
Opened out to offer each of us
A field of brightness that traveled ahead,
Providing in time, ground to hold our footsteps
And the light of thought to show the way.

The mind of the day draws no attention;
It dwells within the silence with elegance
To create a space for all our words,
Drawing us to listen inward and outward.

We seldom notice how each day is a holy place
Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens,
Transforming our broken fragments
Into an eternal continuity that keeps us.

Somewhere in us a dignity presides
That is more gracious than the smallness
That fuels us with fear and force,
A dignity that trusts the form a day takes.

So at the end of this day, we give thanks
For being betrothed to the unknown
And for the secret work
Through which the mind of the day
And wisdom of the soul become one.