heartsteps

The seed of God is in us. Given an intelligent and hard-working farmer, it will thrive and grow up to God, whose seed it is; and accordingly its fruits will be God-nature. Pear seeds grow into pear trees, nut seeds into nut trees, and God-seed into God.

Meister Eckhart

Meister Eckhart 1260-1328

When I dwelt in the ground,
in the bottom, in the stream, and
in the source of the Godhead,

No one asked me where I was going or
what I was doing.

Back in the womb from which I came,
I had no God
and merely was myself.

And when I return
to God and to the core, the soil, the ground, the stream and the source of the Godhead,
No one asks me wher I am coming from
or where have I benn.

For no one misses me
in the place
where god ceases to become.

Now the moment I flowed out from the Creator
all creatures stood up and shouted:
“Behold, here is God!”

They were correct.
For you ask me: Who is God? What is God?
I reply: Isness,
Isness is God.

Where there is Isness, there God is.
Creation is the giving of isness from God.
And that is why
God becomes
where any creature expresses God.

Meister Eckhart

As swimmers dare
to lie face in the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.

Denise Levertov

And a poet said, “Speak to us of Beauty.”
Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide?
And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech?
The aggrieved and the injured say, “Beauty is kind and gentle.
Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us.”
And the passionate say, “Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread.
Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us.”
The tired and the weary say, “beauty is of soft whisperings. She speaks in our spirit.
Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light that quivers in fear of the shadow.”
But the restless say, “We have heard her shouting among the mountains,
And with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the beating of wings and the roaring of lions.”
At night the watchmen of the city say, “Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the east.”
And at noontide the toilers and the wayfarers say, “we have seen her leaning over the earth from the windows of the sunset.”
In winter say the snow-bound, “She shall come with the spring leaping upon the hills.”
And in the summer heat the reapers say, “We have seen her dancing with the autumn leaves, and we saw a drift of snow in her hair.”

All these things have you said of beauty.
Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of needs unsatisfied,
And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy.
It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth,
But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.
It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear,
But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears.
It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw,
But rather a garden forever in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight.
People of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.
But you are life and you are the veil.
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and you are the mirror.

Kahlil Gibran

This being human is a guest house, every morning a new arrival…a joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all.

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows who violently sweep the house empty of its furniture.

Still, treat each guest honourably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whomever comes because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

Rumi

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott

I am of the nature to grow old.
There is no way to escape growing old.

I am of the nature to have ill-health.
There is no way to escape having ill-health.

I am of the nature to die.
There is no way to escape death.

All that is dear to me and everyone I love
are of the nature to change.
There is no way to escape being separated from them.

My actions are my only true belongings.
I cannot escape the consequences of my actions.
My actions are the ground on which I stand.

Buddha

In the point of rest at the centre of our being, we encounter a world where all things are at rest in the same way. Then a tree becomes a mystery, a cloud a revelation, each man a cosmos of whose riches we can only catch glimpses. The life of simplicity is simple, but it opens to us a book in which we never get beyond the first syllable.

Dag Hammarskjold

Dear God.
As I rise up, I thank you for the opportunity to be on this earth.
I thank you for my mind and body,
I thank you for my life.
please bless my body and use it for Your purposes.
May I rise up strong today, and may my body and soul radiate Your love.
May all impurities be cast out of my mind, my heart, my body.
May every cell of my being be filled with Your light.
May my body and mind be illumined for Your sake and for the sake of all the world.
Amen.

Marianne Williamson

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a
living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your
heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a
fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are
squaring your moon…
I want to know if you have touched the
centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shriveled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your
fingers and toes
without cautioning us to
be careful
be realistic
remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are
telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live or how much money
you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with
whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It is now. Right now.
You and I are facing
each other – you are
reading these words, I
within the page. May I
be so bold to offer you a
gift? If I may, read on.
I gift you with the courage
to be, to know deeply the
divine design of your life. I
gift you with passion for the
possible and the willingness to
bring this possibility into time.
You are more than you think you
are, and something in you knows
it. All the hurts and failures, all
the wanderings, losings, dyings,
and forgettings were but a part of
gaining of the rich material of your
life. By being wounded, you became
vulnerable and available; by being
lost, you were able to be found;
by dying, you learned the power
of new birth; by forgetting, you
gained the joy of remembering.
Now I call all parts of you back,
a mighty crew, seaworthy and
well stocked, to set sail for new
continents of spirit, shores of
incredible lands where the fractal
waves of many people and many
times arrive at last, and you
know that you have gained your
birthright. Welcome home, god
and goddess, no longer in hiding.

Anon

A "Way of the Cross" by Kathrin Burleson

You feel fatigued. You doubt your strength. Put aside such anxieties. Count on me for your resilience. Come to me for your strength.

I am the one mind. All things are made from me. Your body is fashioned from my energy. My energy sustains its health. Come to me for your greater well-being. Come to me as infinite resource. Do not rely on your own limited resources. Rely instead on my infinite fund of energy. Allow me to restore you. Allow me to bring you vital energy. I am your stamina. I am your strength.

Do not feel fatigued. Rest in me. Allow me to work through you. Allow me to perform whatever task feels difficult for you. I am boundless energy. I flow outward to you and I am available for your use. Think of me as spiritual electricity, a unique power that flows just where it is needed. Trust my energy to flow through you now.

Ask to be a channel for my power and grace. Open yourself to me. Give me your heart and your mind. Give me your will and your life. As you give yourself to me, I give myself to you. All your prayers are answered prayers as I come to you, ready to meet your every need. Trust me as your divine source. My energy is yours to use.

Julia Cameron

Friend, you lie quiet,
watching the dawn light color your heart,
dreaming of healing for your hurt body
lying there unanswerable to your will.
You breathe deep and your breath has two sides:
inside and outside. You are on both, being breathed.
The future approaches. You will heal or
you will go back to being God.
Which will you do?

Oh by all that is beautiful -
May it be that you live!
May your body heal happy and whole!
May energy fill and delight you!
May we join the dance your presence gives!
May you live!

And if you die?
Oh dear self, by all that is beautiful,
Know you are Safe! Everything is All Right
Forever and Ever and Ever!
The most wonderful, exquisite, familiar
Truth is what is True, and welcomes you.
It will be very easy.

You lie quiet now, praying.
A great healing is coming
and you want to be ready.
The colors of your heart blend
with the light of the morning.
You are blessed.

Elias Amidon

There were times when I could not afford
to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment
to any work, whether of head or hands.
Sometimes, in a summer morning,
having taken my accustomed bath,
I sat in my sunny doorway
from sunrise til noon, rapt in a reverie,
amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs,
in undisturbed solitude and stillness,
while the birds sang around.
I grew in those seasons
like corn in the night,
and they were far better
than any work of the hands would have been.
They were not time subtracted from my life,
but so much over and above my usual allowance.

Henry David Thoreau

Gordian Knot

Releasing the separate one
is a difficult knot.

Finding yourself is something
only you can do.

Imagine yourself coming back
10 years from today

Through time, to help you
where you must now be.

Jim Cohn

Art when really understood is the province of every human being.

It is simply a question of doing things, anything, well. It is not an outside, extra thing.

When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressing creature. He becomes interesting to other people. He disturbs, upsets, enlightens and he opens ways to a better understanding. Where those who are not artists are trying to close the book, he opens it, shows that there are still more pages possible.

The world would stagnate without him, for he is interesting to himself and he is interesting to others. He does not have to be a painter or a sculptor to be an artist. He can work in any medium. He simply has to find the gain in the work itself, not outside it.

Museums of art will not make a country an art country. But where there is art spirit there will be precious works to fill museums. Better still, there will be the happiness that is in the making. Art tends toward balance, order, judgment of relative values, the laws of growth, the economy of living – very good things for anyone to be interested in.

Robert Henri

Rainer Maria Rilke, German poet, 1875-1926

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart
and try to love the questions themselves…
Don’t search for the answers,
which could not be given to you now,
because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is, to live everything.
Live the questions now.
Perhaps then, someday far in the future,
you will gradually, without even noticing it,
live your way into the answer.

Rainer Maria Rilke

A Perfect One was traveling through the desert.
He was stretched out around the fire one night
And said to one of his close ones,

“There is a slave loose not far from us.
He escaped today from a cruel master.
His hands are still bound behind his back,
His feet are also shackled.

I can see him right now praying for God’s help.
Go to him.
Ride to that distant hill;
And about a hundred feet up and to the right
You will find a small cave.
He is there.

Do not say a single word to him.
Bring the man to me.
God requests that I personally untie his body
And press my lips to his wounds.”

The disciple mounts his horse and within two hours
Arrives at the small mountain cave.

The slave sees him coming, the slave looks frightened.
The disciple, on orders not to speak,
Gestures toward the sky, pantomining:

God saw you in prayer,
Please come with me,
A great Teacher has used his heart’s divine eye
To know your whereabouts.

The slave cannot believe this story,
And begins to shout at the man and tries to run

But trips from his bindings.
The disciple becomes forced to subdue him.

Think of this picture as they now travel:

The million candles in the sky are lit and singing.
Every particle of existence is a dancing altar
That some mysterious force worships.

The earth is a church floor whereupon
In the middle of a glorious night
Walks a slave, weeping, tied to a rope behind a horse,
With a speechless rider
Taking him toward the unknown.

Several times with all of his might the slave
Tries to break free,
Feeling he is being returned to captivity.
The rider stops, dismounts – and brings his eyes
Near the prisoner’s eyes.
A deep kindness there communicates an unbelievable hope.
The rider motions – soon, soon you will be free.
Tears roll down from the rider’s cheeks
In happiness for this man.

Anger, all this fighting and tormenting want,

Sweetheart,
God has seen you and sent a close one.

Sweetheart,
God has seen your heart in prayer
And sent me.

Hafiz

We have seen the highest circle of spiraling powers. We have named this circle God. We might have given it any other name we wished: Abyss, Mystery, Absolute Darkness, Absolute Light, Matter, Spirit, Ultimate Hope, Ultimate Despair, Silence. But we have named it God because only this name, for primordial reasons, can stir our hearts profoundly. And this deeply felt emotion is indispensible if we are to touch, body with body, the dread essence beyond logic.

Nikos Kazantzakis

 

Lordess Sakthi, the Hindu divine mother of Universe

Divine Mother does not force you to love and be loved. 
She merely offers you the opportunity.
She invites you to be present and accept the gift of Her love.

Once you have received this gift, 
it will vibrate in your body and in your consciousness, 
expanding outward to embrace your life and everyone in it.
All that you do or say will be done with this energy 
and contained gently within it. 

As you receive, so will you give. 
The reactive cycle of fear 
will be replaced by the creative cycle of love. 

You will become part of a world-wide healing ministry 
that will transform consciousness on the planet.

Paul Ferrini

Noel Counihan's "Laughing Christ"

The great statements of Jesus Christ were never spoken from the personal, but always from the impersonal. No truth ever sprung from the personal mind because it is only the impersonal that can touch the universal, and it is only in the universal that absolute truth can be found. When the mind enters the impersonal state, consciousness comes in touch with the cosmic state of being, and in that state we realize the “I am” way of being. We discern what the “I am” actually is, and we find that the consciousness of the “I am” is the open door to the limitless vastness of the spiritual universe. “I am the door.” Enter through the door of “I am” and we pass into that immense world that is found on the upper side, or the divine side of sublime existence.

Christian Larson, 1911

Lord I sing your praise
the whole day through, until the night.
Dad’s nets are filled; I have helped him.
We have drawn them in, stamping the rhythm with
our feet,
the muscles tense.
We have sung your praise.

On the beach there were our mammies,
who brought the blessings out of the nets,
out of the nets and into their basins.
They rushed to the market, returned and bought again.
Lord, what a blessing is the sea, with fish in plenty.
Lord, that is the story of your grace:
nets tear, and we succumb because we can not hold
them.
Lord, with your praise we drop off to sleep.
Carry us through the night.
Make us fresh for the morning.
Hallelujah for the day!
And blessing for the night! Amen

O God, you have prepared in peace the path I must follow today. Help me to walk on that path. If I speak, remove lies from my lips. If I am hungry, take away from me all complaint. If I have plenty, destroy pride in me. May I go through the day, calling on you, you, O Lord, who know no other Lord.

Galla, Ethiopia

   

Guanyin, Chinese goddess of mercy, Five Dynasties (907-960)

The quality of mercy is not strained. 
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven 
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: 
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. 
Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes 
The throned monarch better than his crown. 
His scepter shows the force of temporal power, 
The attribute to awe and majesty, 
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings. 
But mercy is above this sceptered sway; 
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings; 
It is an attribute of God himself; 
And earthly power doth then show like God’s 
When mercy seasons justice.

William Shakespeare

The healing power of love does not belong to any religion.
It is not Christian, or Jewish, or Buddhist or Hindu.
It is not exclusive or protective of itself.
It spontaneously opens to bless, surround and inspire any human being
who is ready to give it and receive it.

Your willingness to feel this energy of unconditional love in and around you
will transform your life and the lives of the people you know.
It will speed up the vibration of your life
and at the same time slow down your mental activity
so that you feel bliss you have never felt before.

It will be as if you are riding in a cocoon of positive energy.
Soon you will no longer feel that you can support or participate in
the negative fear-based patterns that you encounter.
You won’t want to judge or complain, blame or shame.

You will do what resonates with the energy of pure LOVE
and stop doing what doesn’t.
There will be no force or sacrifice in this.
What no longer serves you will simply drop away
as you more deeply attune to
and vibrate with the truth of who you are.

Paul Ferrini

Gentle me,
Holy One, into an unclenched moment,
  a deep breath,
     a letting go
        of heavy experiences,
          of shriveling anxieties,
            of dead certainties,
that, softened by the silence,
   surrounded by the light,
     and open to the mystery,
I may be found by wholeness,
   upheld by the unfathomable,
      entranced by the simple,
        and filled with the joy
            that is you.

Ted Loder

sundog

At each moment she starts upon a long journey and at
each moment reaches her end…All is eternally present
in her, for she knows neither past nor future.
For her the present is eternity.

Yet not in torpor would I find,
Awe is the finest portion of mankind.
However scarce the world may make this sense -
In awe one feels profoundly the immense.

Goethe

  

The word Allah in Arabic begins with a strong downward mark.

Light dawns, and any talk of proof
resembles a blind man’s cane at sunrise.

Remember the passage,
We are with you wherever you are.

Come back to that.
When did we ever leave it?

No matter we’re in a prison of forgetting
or enjoying the banquet of wisdom,
we are always inside presence.

Drunkenly asleep, tenderly awake, clouded with grief, laughing like lightening,
angry at war, quiet with gratitude, we are nothing
in this many-mooded world of weather
but a single brushstroke down,
speaking of presence.

Rumi

O Great Life-giving Spirit
whose commanding voice I hear in the winds
and whose warm breath gives life to all in the world
Hear me
one six-billionth of the humans on the planet earth.
I am a natural part of the universe -
as natural and necessary as the rocks,
the trees, the birds and the mice
no more important – nor any less.

Let me walk in beauty
let my spirit see the dynamic spirit of life in all that exists
with no prejudice or malice toward any creation.
May I begin to remember who I am in the natural order of things
May I come to know what time it is
in my life and in all life.

Great Spirit of Love,
Connect my heart to my head
Make me wise
that I may understand the things you have taught all people.
in every heart close or far from my own.
Make me courageous when the cold winds of life fall upon me.
Give me strength and endurance for everything that is harsh
everything that hurts
everything that makes me squint and wince.

I seek strength not to be greater or lesser than my brother or sister
but to remove the tough and slimy obstacles to equality
that have made their home inside myself.
Prepare me to move through life ready to take what comes.
Comfort me and caress me when I am tired and cold.
Unfold me
the way your gentle breezes unfold the leaves on trees.

Oh Spirit of Creation
make me always ready to come to you with clean hands
and straight eyes
so when life fades as the fading sunset
my spirit may come to you without shame.
Let me remember every day that the moment will come
when my sun will go down
my river will join the vast ocean
and this rock which has bounced along so many bumps
will finally come to rest.
Give me a great sky for setting inot
a crystal-clean ocean for flowing into
and an unpolluted earth for my final resting place.
And when it is time to for me to join the earth again
may I come steadily and with glory.

Fran Peavey