heartsteps

What keeps us alive, what allows us to endure?
I think it is the hope of loving,
or being loved.

I heard a fable once about the sun going on a journey
to find its source, and how the moon wept
without her lover’s
warm gaze.

We weep when light does not reach our hearts. We whither
like fields if someone close
does not rain their
kindness
upon
us.

Meister Eckhart

When the ripe fruit falls
its sweetness distills and trickles away
into the veins of the earth.

When fulfilled people die
the essential oil of their experience enters
the veins of living space, and adds a glisten
to the atom, to the body of immortal chaos.

For space is alive
and it stirs like a swan
whose feathers glisten
silky with oil of distilled experience.

D.H. Lawrence

"Dance of Joy" by Mary McEwan

What is the difference
Between your experience of Existence
And that of a saint?

The saint knows
That the spiritual path
Is a sublime chess game with God

And that the Beloved
Has just made such a Fantastic Move

That the saint is now continually
Tripping over Joy
And bursting out in Laughter
And saying, “I Surrender!”

Whereas, my dear,
I’m afraid you still think

You have a thousand serious moves.

Hafiz

We are the earth.

Earth is stardust-come-to-life, a magic cauldron where the heart of the universe is being formed. In me, the Earth and its creatures find their voices. Through my eyes the stars look back on themselves in wonder. I am the earth. This is my body.

We are the air.

Air is the breath of the Earth, the movement of life, the quick violent storm, and the slow, caressing breeze. In my breathing, life is received and given back. My breath unites me to all things, to the creatures that make the oxygen, and to the people that share the same breath: yesterday, a victim of AIDS; today a soldier in the Middle East; tomorrow, a poor woman in the Third World. I am air. This is my breath.

We are fire.

Fire is the energy of the universe, the source of power and new life. In my thoughts burn the fires of the original eruption of life; in my emotions, lightning flashes; in my love, new life is conceived. I participate in power. I share in the energy of the universe, to keep warm, to fuel my body, to create my relationships. I am fire. This is my power.

We are water.

Water is the womb of the earth, from which all life is born. The oceans flow through the Earth, bringing abundance; the oceans flow through me, carrying food, recycling waste, expressing emotions. I am water. This is my life.

Daniel Martin

"Resurrection" by Kathrin Burleson

Ironic, but one of the most intimate acts
of our body is
death.

So beautiful appeared my death – knowing who then I would kiss,
I died a thousand times before I died.

“Die before you die,” said the Prophet
Muhammad.

Have wings that feared ever
touched the Sun?

I was born when all I once
feared – I could
love.

Rabia

At a certain point, you say to the woods, to the sea, to the mountains , the world, Now I am ready. Now I will stop and be wholly attentive. You empty yourself and wait, listening. After a time, you hear it: there is nothing there. There is nothing but those things only, those created objects, discrete, growing or holding, or swaying, being rained on or raining, held, flooding or ebbing, standing, or spread. You feel the world’s word as a tension, a hum, a single chorused note everywhere the same. This is it: this hum is the silence…

The silence is all there is. It is the alpha and the omega. It is God’s brooding over the face of the waters; it is the blended note of ten thousand things, the whine of wings. You take a step in the right direction to pray to this silence, and even to address the prayer to “World.” Distinctions blur. Quit your tents. Pray without ceasing.

Annie Dillard

I quietly gaze into the depths of a forest
and see nothing save beauty and peace.
Birdsong fills my ears.
A gentle breeze brushes against my cheek.
Seeing from inside the seeing.
I drink the dark riches of the woods.

Would it be that every day
I could see my own face so clearly in these still waters,
And meet the emptiness which is also my very own heart -
that is carried in the boughs of pines and in the gentle
music of crickets.

Cass Adams

Individual happiness can contribute in a profound and effective way to the overall improvement of our entire human community.

Because we all share an identical need for love, it is possible to feel that anybody we meet, in whatever circumstances, is a brother or sister. No matter how new the face or how different the dress and behaviour, there is no significant division between us and other people. It is foolish to dwell on external differences, because our basic natures are the same.

Ultimately, humanity is one and this small planet is our only home, If we are to protect this home of ours, each of us needs to experience a vivid sense of universal altruism. It is only this feeling that can remove the self-centered motives that cause people to deceive and misuse one another.

If you have a sincere and open heart, you naturally feel self- worth and confidence, and there is no need to be fearful of others.

I believe that at every level of society – familial, tribal, national and international – the key to a happier and more successful world is the growth of compassion. We do not need to become religious, nor do we need to believe in an ideology. All that is necessary is for each of us to develop our good human qualities.

I try to treat whoever I meet as an old friend. This gives me a genuine feeling of happiness. It is the practice of compassion.

Dalai Lama

May those
whose lives are gripped in the palm of suffering
open
even now
to the Wonder of Life.
May they let go of the hurt
and Meet the True Self beyond pain,
the Uncarved Block
that is our joyous Unity with Wholeness.

May they discover through pain and torment
the strength to live with grace and humour.
May they discover through doubt and anguish
the strength to live with dignity and holiness.
May they discover through suffering and fear
the strength to move toward healing.

Rabbi Rami M. Shapiro

From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives forever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

A female humpback whale had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines. She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, a line tugging in her mouth.

A fisherman spotted her just east of the Faralon Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and radioed for help.

Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her – a very dangerous proposition. One slap of the tail could kill a rescuer.

They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her.

When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, nudged them and pushed gently, thanking them. Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives. The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth says her eye was following him the whole time and he will never be the same.

May you, and all those you love, be so fortunate…To be surrounded by people who will help you get untangled from the things that are binding you. And may you always know the joy of giving and receiving gratitude.

Life is short. Forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably…and never regret anything that made you smile.

Anonymous

Mirabai, poet-saint of India, 1498-1550

I know a cure for sadness:
Let your hands touch something that
makes your eyes
smile.

I bet there are a hundred objects close by
that can do that.

Look at
beauty’s gift to us -
her power is so great she enlivens
the earth, the sky, our
soul.

Mirabai

Fire has a love for itself -
It wants to keep burning.

It is like a woman
Who is at last making love
To the person she most desires.

Find a Master who is like the Sun.

Go to His house
in the middle of the night.

Smash a window.
Act like a great burglar -
Jump in.

Now,
Gather all your courage -
Throw yourself into His bed!

He will probably kill you.

Fantastic -
That’s the whole idea!

Hafiz

When I die if you need to weep
Cry for your brother or sister
Walking the street bedside you
And when you need me to put your arms around anyone
And give them what you need to give me.

I want to leave you something
Something better than words or sounds.

Look for me in the people I have known or loved
And if you cannot give me away
At least let me live in your eyes and not on your mind.

You can love me most by letting hands touch hands
By letting bodies touch bodies
And by letting go of children that need to be free.

Love doesn’t die; people do
So when all that’s left of me is love
Give me away.

Anonymous

Francis of Assisi portrait by Nikosz Kazantzakisz

So
precious
is a person’s faith in God.
so precious;

never should we harm
that.

Because
He gave birth
to all

religions.

Francis of Assisi

We are living in a world of continual change, a world in which thought, thing, and experience are all in a constant state of flux. It is the very nature of the universe that there should be continual change and variation. It is a living world, the creation of a living creative Intelligence, not a static world created by a God now dead or departed who has left it to decay. No. It is vital and alive. The Mind that created it is not apart from it, but is always active in and through it.

But behind that which changes, behind that which causes the change, we have found that there is something stable and changeless, something eternal upon which all external events depend for their very existence. Behind the endless process of change and the infinite variety of experience and expression there is That which does not change.

We should never be afraid of change, never fearful of what will come. Instead we should bring to bear on each new event the influence of the creative nature of our thought—an influence that is founded on an inward calm, a sense of certainty and peace, which will reflect itself in the changing scene of our everyday lives.

As we look for and discover the nature of the Infinite which does not change, we find that we develop a complete trust in Its integrity. We are again reminded of Einstein’s remark that “God does not play dice with the cosmos.” And we then come to possess a feeling of security which is enhanced by the knowledge that each of us has a personal and intimate relationship with the Infinite. It is from this inward basis of certainty—this sense and awareness of our relationship to God, who is changeless but from whom flow infinite expressions—that all our thoughts should flow.

In our daily living we encounter infinite variety in all things. But behind the expression there is a pattern or form which is the foundation. There is a unity, but not a uniformity, that exists between all similar expressions, a unity that resides in the ultimate creative nature of the Universe, a unity that allows freedom of individual expression.

An obvious lesson can be learned if we look at ourselves, our families, our friends. We discover that we are all human beings, all pretty much the same. A head, two eyes, two ears, a nose, a mouth, a body, arms, and legs. And as we look farther afield at the entire human race, we find some races are tall, others short—some white, others black, yellow, or red. But behind every person, every race, there is the basic pattern, a pattern that is individually expressed. If there were not the possibility of variation of expression, life could never have developed its infinite variety. And if there had not been a basic pattern behind the development of humankind, there never would have been any way for it to develop.

One of the most amazing events in the development of humankind into its present physical form occurred in the early stages of its existence. According to anthropologist Loren Eiseley, humans at that time, in physical structure and general appearance, gave evidence of the people to come. The pattern existed. But through infinite changes and variations, a fuller and more perfect expression occurred. Then an amazing thing happened. For no reason that scientists have been able to determine, humans developed an enlarged brain—a brain far beyond the capacity needed for the containment of cells necessary for the operation of the senses for survival and the automatic functioning of the physical body. Without any previous indication, without any comparable thing occurring elsewhere in any living thing, humans suddenly (in terms of geological time) possessed a brain that was capable of functioning far beyond any demands that could ever be made on it by the physical body. It was an elaborate instrument that was capable of being a channel for thought, creative thought.

Why did it appear? What caused it to appear? What was its purpose? There is no academic answer forthcoming through the strict limitations science places upon itself. But those who have devoted their lives to science sometimes step outside their laboratories, for a moment turn aside from their microscopes, and say what they think.

Some scientists say that with the advent of this unpredictable development in humankind, something new appears to have been injected into God’s creation. Something different had been brought into creation by the Mind behind all creation—a unique expression of Itself. Thus we were freed from many of the instinctive limitations of our physical bodies. We were aware of ourselves! We could think! Infinite Mind is the only thing that can be ascertained to have thought, consciousness, and intelligence, and now It established for Itself, in and through humankind, a means of awareness, creativeness, and consciousness of what It had created. With the development of the larger brain in humans, Mind came forth anew into Its creation, ushering in a whole new era, the future of which we but little realize. We now need to learn to free ourselves from the complete domination of the instinctive functioning of the nervous system, although it serves our physical body well and has brought it to the high degree of perfection which it now exhibits.

The physical body has always faced a threat in one of two ways: either to fight or to escape through flight. This same instinctive reaction is of value to us today, but we need to place a limitation on its action. We deal largely with ideas in our daily lives, and when we encounter one we do not like, our bodies are whipped up to engage in combat or prepared for flight. Even though the body is never able actually to do anything about either fighting or fleeing from an idea, the resulting wear and tear are most disastrous.

We now need to discover that new thing which resides within us and is ever seeking fuller expression through us, and we shall find that it is the individualization in us of the infinite conscious creative Intelligence.

We generally seem to resist change, even that which is better for us. We also appear to resist being what we really are. We need to learn carefully and surely to permit ourselves to accept the fuller expression of the Mind that is within us. Against this there must be no resistance. For in Its creative flow through us rests our entire future—the greater person we may be and the richer life we desire to enjoy.

When we establish within our thought a nonresistance to that Power which is greater than we are, we are at the same time accepting within ourselves a stability that is the stability of the universe. We find ourselves secure, for we know that we are part of That which causes change but is never affected by any of the changes. As we gradually attain this sense of security, we will find that we view the changes occurring about us in a proper perspective. We will have stopped letting ourselves be blown about like straws in the wind or tossed helplessly about in a turbulent sea whose waves are doubt and fear and anxiety.

We may liken ourselves to the atom, whose center or nucleus is relatively stable. Around it revolve the electrons in orderly, harmonious orbits. In much the same way, once we discover the stable center that resides within us, all our experiences will revolve around us in an orderly way. Once our consciousness becomes stabilized through security founded on a conviction of the nature of God, and we come to have an inner awareness that the Creative Intelligence of the universe resides at the center of us, then will our experiences take on a pattern of harmony—a natural outflowing of our inner security.

Ernest Holmes

The sage is illumined

by an inner light
glowing the awareness
of the Tao,

Knowing giving
is the same as receiving,
and truth teaching
is the job of living,

In raising collective consciousness
to new levels of conduct
where compassion is spread impartially,
all inclusively, spontaneously,
to cover all possible scenarios,

Realizing the bad man is but
the good man’s opportunity
to do love’s duty,
instructing while conveying respect,
without judging,

One thought,
one action
at a time,
making the universe
a better place.

Gordon Neumann

"Plague Doctor" by Graham Corcoran

What a cruel act to be untruthful.
Earthquakes happen in the heart that hears sounds
that are amiss.

Havoc is created in the mind that can no longer trust someone
once loved, and schisms devour alliances
that help support
our life.

Words can enrich and be wonderful spices mixed into days
we imbibe with all our senses.

There are fields in the soul – lush organic meadows, though sounds
and words that fall there
can be, at times, a
poison.

A plague is spread by one
who cannot tell
the truth.

Meister Eckhart

Once the wrongdoer has confessed and the victim has forgiven, it does not mean that is the end of the process. Most frequently, the wrong has affected the victim in tangible, material ways. Apartheid provided the whites with enormous benefits and privileges, leaving its victims deprived and exploited. If someone steals my pen and then asks me to forgive him, unless he returns my pen the sincerity of his contrition and confession will be considered nil. Confession, forgiveness, and reparation, wherever feasible, form part of a continuum.

We have had a jurisprudence, a penology in Africa that was not retributive but restorative. In the traditional setting, when people quarreled the main intention was not to punish the miscreant but to restore good relations. For Africa is concerned, or has traditionally been concerned, about the wholeness of relationship. That is something we need in our world, a world that is polarized, a world that is fragmented, a world that destroys people. It is also something we need in our families and friendships, for restoration heals and makes whole while retribution only wounds and divides us from one another.

Only together, hand in hand, as God’s family and not as one another’s enemy, can we ever hope to end the vicious cycle of revenge and retribution. This is the only hope for us and for making God’s dream a reality. Because God truly only has us.

Desmond Tutu

“God is the shadow of man,” was commented upon by the Baal Shem as follows: just as a shadow follows the gestures and motions of the body, God follows those of the soul. If a man is charitable, God will be charitable too. The name of man’s secret is God, and the name of God’s secret is none other than the one invented by man: love. Who loves, loves God. And what is love if not a creative act, in which two beings fuse into a single consciousness scarred and healed a thousand times? Love’s mystery resides in oneness, and so does God’s. “Whatever is above is also down below.” Between the present concrete world and the other, the one to come, there is a link between source and reflection. God does not oppose humanity, and man, though vulnerable and ephemeral, can attain immortality in the passing moment. In man’s universe, everything is connected because nothing is without meaning.

Elie Wiesel

All of us are only one living being, and we come from the same place. There is no difference between any of us; we are the same. You can look at your hand and see that there are five fingers. If you focus your eyes on one finger at a time, you might believe that they are different, but it’s only one hand. It’s the same thing with humanity. There is only one living being, and that being is a force that is moving each of us like a finger on a hand. But all of the fingers belong to one hand. Humans share the same spirit; we share the same soul. There is no difference between me and you – not in my eyes. I know that I am you, and I have no doubt at all because I can see that way.

Don Miguel Ruiz

Each of us has an inner compass. Its voice calls us to our highest good. Sometimes it requires that we alter a long-standing but stifling situation. It is difficult to face the severing or alteration of a relationship even when we know such change is for the highest good. Faced with a divorce or separation, faced with the need to terminate a long-standing friendship, I must remind myself that sometimes the most loving involvement is a non-involvement. It is tempting, always to try to go back, to hold onto what once was rather than face what that relationship has now become. I resolve with a loving heart to accept appropriate endings. I do not grasp at straws when the reality is difficult but clear. Instead, I release the past, bless it and turn with resolution to the future. I listen to the dictates of my conscience, knowing that it’s voice calls me home. Today, I place my humbled heart in universal care, asking for healing and direction.

Julia Cameron

“The changes in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience.” Leo Tolstoy

When each day
is sacred

when each hour
is sacred

when each instant
is sacred

earth and you
space and you
bearing the sacred
through time

you’ll reach
the fields of light.

Guillevic

May you be for us a moon of joy and happiness. Let the young become strong and the grown man maintain his strength, the pregnant woman be delivered and the woman who has given birth suckle her child. Let the stranger come to the end of his journey and those who remain at home dwell safely in their houses. Let the flocks that go to feed in the pastures return happily. May you be a moon of harvest and of calves. May you be a moon of restoration and of good health.

Mensa, Ethiopia

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Marianne Williamson

Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed, and growing sweet–
all this universe, to the furthest stars
all beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.

Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
your vast shell reaches into endless space,
and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow.
Illuminated in your infinite peace,

a billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.

Rainer Maria Rilke

The winter evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o’clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves about your feet
And newspapers from vacant lots;
The showers beat
On broken blinds and chimney-pots,
And at the corner of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.
And then the lighting of the lamps.

II

The morning comes to consciousness
Of faint stale smells of beer
From the sawdust-trampled street
With all its muddy feet that press
To early coffee-stands.

With the other masquerades
That time resumes,
One thinks of all the hands
That are raising dingy shades
In a thousand furnished rooms.

III

You tossed a blanket from the bed,
You lay upon your back, and waited;
You dozed, and watched the night revealing
The thousand sordid images
Of which your soul was constituted;
They flickered against the ceiling.
And when all the world came back
And the light crept up between the shutters,
And you heard the sparrows in the gutters,
You had such a vision of the street
As the street hardly understands;
Sitting along the bed’s edge, where
You curled the papers from your hair,
Or clasped the yellow soles of feet
In the palms of both soiled hands.

IV

His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.

I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.

Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.

Thomas Stearns Eliot

The woman
whose speech and actions are the same -
her feet become worthy of
worship.

Keeping our word is the alchemy to become free
and whole.

Try and make amends for any broken hearts
or broken promises;

if you cannot do so in form
than prayer can heal a debt with the light you can send,

and even a man can become
this precious
gold.

Tukaram

Don’t look back,
battered child
Time then hurt you.
Let time heal you.
Don’t look back.

Don’t look back,
beaten child.
They knew not what
they did except what
was done to them.
Don’t look back.

Don’t look back,
abandoned child,
abused, neglected child.
     Denial is salt in your wounds.
     Dwelling is repeating
     the deliberate disappearance
     of your soul.
     Don’t perpetuate this harm.

           Break the cycle,

                            wait - 

                                           stop it here.

Speak out the paralyzing secret
and begin to come back to yourself.
Cry it out to compassionate ears
and be held in the hearts of your witnesses.

The truth shall make you free
but first it will shatter you.
What was broken can be mended,
what was lost, restored.
Find yourself, then,
pure and whole, a child of God.
Look back long enough to let go.

Alla Renee Bozarth

Let my words
be bright with animals,
images the flash of a gull’s wing.
If we pretend
that we are at the centre,
that moles and kingfishers,
eels and coyotes
are at the edge of grace,
then we circle, dead moons
about a cold sun.
This morning I ask only
the blessing of the crayfish,
the beatitude of the birds;
to wear the skin of the bear
in my songs;
to work like a man with my hands.

Joseph Bruchac