heartsteps

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

Possibly the only fear greater than death is love, real love. Finding out that you do love, that this is your nature, is the beginning of the end for everything in you that thinks it’s separate.

Adyashanti

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute.
Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion—put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Wendell Berry

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

There is only One Son of God
and You are He.
From Him, you receive.
To Him, you give.
When you look at yourself,
may you remember.
When you look at your brother,
may you also remember.
When you look away in fear,
remember only this:
Subject and Object,
Lover and Beloved,
are not two,
but one and the same.
What you give
and what you receive
are reflections
of each other.

Paul Ferrini

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

When I die if you need to weep

Cry for your brother or sister
Walking the street beside you
And when you need me put your arms around anyone
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, not in 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

As this year draws to its end,
We give thanks
for the gifts it brought
And how they became inlaid within
Where neither time
nor tide can touch them.
The days when the veil lifted
And the soul could see delight;
When a quiver
caressed the heart
In the sheer exuberance
of being here…
We bless this year
for all we learned,
For all we loved and lost
And for the quiet way
it brought us
Nearer to our invisible destination.

John O’Donohue

When will we learn,
O Lover of all creation
that self-diminishment is not a
prerequisite for the Christian life?

You do not ask us to
drag around our sad sack of sins,
raising clouds of dust in our footsteps
for all to see;
and you do not ask us to do one more
wretched thing from guilt -
particularly, serve you.

When will we learn,
O Tender One,
that all you ask is for us to open our hearts
and to love this precious planet
the love in your sacred heart?

Here, now,
we stopped running from the obvious -
we are:
Love enfleshed,
Love wounded,
Love crazed,
Lovesick;
and all that you ask
is for us to stop whatever it is we think we’re doing
and be who we are:
a sacred cosmos awakening to itself,
the mind of the planet fetching a new future,
your heart pulsing with possibility.
Amen.

Bruce Sanguin

Matthew 18:10-14

Holy One,
how long,
how long
until we realize that it is love
which set the stars in place
and binds the planets in their orbits?

How long until we understand that the cardinal’s whistle
is a love song,
a canticle of praise for the lover,
and that Earth’s long journey through this cosmos
is the time it is taken to awaken to Love’s embrace?

How long until we realize that we are here,
not to increase net worth,
but to awaken to our own intrinsic value
as Love’s progeny.
You are the hidden heart of the cosmos,
and when we turn our attention to the affairs of the heart,
there we find you,
smiling,
from everywhere and everyone,
joyous to know that another lost soul has been found.
Amen.

Bruce Sanguin