heartsteps

The light around your bones!
And the animals within you!
Oh, the millions, the blessed
beasts who feed your blood,
give life to your fluids,
swim in your waters, the myriad
birds, cataclysms of colors
of the animals! the animals!

I bless them for your life,
bless my own bright millions,
the brilliant dark and silent
creatures who live in the light
of my body, who sleep in my bones.

When we make love, worlds meet,
all our animals are married,
the beasts in our bones
become one in the light of our bodies.

Alla Renee Bozarth

Promise me,
promise me this day,
promise me now,
while the sun is overhead
exactly at the zenith,
promise me:

Even as they
strike you down
with a mountain of hatred and violence;
even as they step on you and crush you
like a worm,
even as they dismember and disembowel you,
remember, brother,
remember:
man is not our enemy.

The only thing worthy of you is compassion—
invincible, limitless, unconditional.
Hatred will never let you face
the beast in man.

One day, when you face this beast alone,
with your courage intact, your eyes kind,
untroubled
(even as no one sees them),
out of your smile
will bloom a flower.
And those who love you
will behold you
across ten thousand worlds of birth and dying.

Alone again,
I will go on with bent head,
knowing that love has become eternal.
On the long, rough road,
the sun and the moon
will continue to shine.

Thich Nhat Hanh

I have heard it all my life, a voice
calling a name I recognized as my own.
Sometimes it comes in soft bellied whisper.
Sometimes it holds an edge of urgency.
But always says;
wake up my love.
You are walking asleep.
There is no safety in that!

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

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

Good morning, Grandfather.
I entered this life a ways back
and put skin on to walk two-legged on this Creation —
and what a glorious time it was.
It taught me about breath
and about sensing and feeling and caring through my heart.
And I walked on around that Red Road,
looking and trying to understand more
about the mystery and the secrets She holds.
And You spoke to me through the wind,
and You sang to me through the birds.
And You brought challenges forth so that
I might listen to the message You bring me more sincerely.
And I kept walking down this road.
And I came ’round the bend
at the middle of that curve in the road
and I began to find a secret in the Spirit of my Self…

And still I walked on, sometimes blind and deaf,
and sometimes with pain.
But I fought with my fears and I embraced my unknowingness—
and still I walked on.
And my children and my family stood with me
and we came to know each other in those later years more than we
had before—for some of our falseness had fallen away—
and still I walked on.
And I kept walking on this road towards You,
towards that other world that grew closer to me with each step.
And as the door of the Great Spirit world came closer
my fear loomed up inside sometimes. . . .
But something called me forth—
the Morning Star rose with each day—
and my prayer became a centering—and still I walked on,
until I began to hear the Song of the Mother,
and Her arms embraced me so,
that instead of walking She carried me right to the door.
And as the door opened, I heard Her Song,
And Her Song lifted me up, so I could soar.

Jyoti

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.

Anonymous

Hand in hand with angels,
through the world we go;
Brighter eyes are on us
than we blind ones know.
Tender voices cheer us
than we deaf will own;
Never, walking heavenward,
can we walk alone.
Hand in hand with angels,
some are out of sight,
leaving us, unknowing,
into paths of light.

Lucy Laroom

Use all your faculties to appreciate God’s love. Use your soul to understand other souls. Use your body to sympathize with other people’s bodily experiences. Use your emotions of anger and revenge to understand war. Appreciate goodness by distinguishing it from evil. Enjoy every moment of life by constantly reminding yourself imminence of death.

Hildegard von Bingen, (1108-1179)

People take different
roads seeking fulfilment
and happiness.
Just because they’re not
on your road doesn’t
mean they’ve gotten lost.

Dalai Lama

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