OK, so if anyone asks...this is what i would love for my Birthday!!!

Hara Diagnosis: Reflections on the Sea (Paradigm Title) (Hardcover)

by Kiiko Matsumoto and Stephen Birch

JD Carmona and Reece Johnson

Married August 16, 2008

Hip, Hip Hooray!

To work with changes now, in life: That is the real way to prepare for death. Life may be full of pain, suffering, and difficulty, but all of these are opportunities handed to us to help us move toward an emotional acceptance of death. It is only when we believe things to be permanent that we shut off the possibility of learning from change. Sogyal Rinpoche

What most of us need, almost more than anything, is the courage and humility really to ask for help, from the depths of our hearts: to ask for the compassion of the enlightened beings, to ask for purification and healing, to ask for the power to understand the meaning of our suffering and transform it; at a relative level to ask for the growth in our lives of clarity, peace, and discernment, and to ask for the realization of the absolute nature of mind that comes from merging with the deathless wisdom mind of the master.

Sogyal Rinpoche

The Valley of the Quest

When you begin the Valley of the Quest
Misfortunes will deprive you of all rest,
Each moment some new trouble terrifies,
And parrots there are panic-stricken flies.
There years must vanish while you strive and grieve;
There is the heart of all you will achieve --
Renounce the world, your power and all you own,
And in your heart's blood journey on alone.
When once your hands are empty, then your heart
Must purify itself and move apart
From everything that is -- when this is done,
The Lord's light blazes brighter than the sun,
Your heart is bathed in splendour and the quest
Expands a thousandfold within your breast.
Though fire flares up across the path, and though
A hundred monsters peer out from its glow,
The pilgrim driven on by his desire
Will like a moth rush gladly on the fire.
When love inspires his heart he begs for win,
One drop to be vouchsafed him as a sign --
And when he drinks this drop both worlds are gone;
Dry-lipped he founders in oblivion.
His zeal to know faith's mysteries will make
Him fight with dragons for salvation's sake --
Though blasphemy and curses crowd the gate,
Until it opens he will calmly wait,
And then where is this faith? this blasphemy?
Both vanish into strenghless vacancy.

Farid ud-Din Attar

Love

Fragile as a spider's web
Hanging in space
Between tall grasses,
It is torn again and again.
A passing dog
Or simply the wind can do it.
Several times a day
I gather myself together
And spin it again.
Spiders are patient weavers.
They never give up.
And who knows
What keeps them at it?
Hunger, no doubt,
And hope.

~May Sarton

From the blossoming lotus of devotion, at the center of my being, Rise up, O compassionate master, my only refuge! I am plagued by past actions and turbulent emotions: To protect me in my misfortune Remain as the jewel-ornament on the crown of my head, the mandala of great bliss, Arousing all my mindfulness and awareness, l pray! JIKMé LINGPA

Hope abides; therefore I abide.
Countless frustrations have not cowed me.
I am still alive, vibrant with life.
The black cloud will disappear,
The morning sun will appear once again
In all its supernal glory.

- Sri Chinmoy

(quote donation from my Mom)

Don't we know, only too well, that protection from pain doesn't work, and that when we try to defend ourselves from suffering, we only suffer more and don't learn what we can from the experience? -Sogyal Rinpoche As Rilke wrote, the protected heart that is "never exposed to loss, innocent and secure, cannot know tenderness; only the won-back heart can ever be satisfied: free, through all it has given up, to rejoice in its mastery."

Join me in a community drum circle!

Bring drums, shakers, chairs, friends and family to this beautiful
space and support a community circle here in Santa Fe!

Where: Cross of the Martyrs
600 Paseo de Peralta, Santa Fe, NM

When: Sundays at 2pm...ongoing.

(some drums provided!)

Thanks,
and i hope to see you there.

Karen

As Tibet's famous poet-saint, Milarepa, said: "My religion is to live - and die - without regret."

Water has a very important message for us. Water is telling us to take a much deeper look at our selves. When we do look at our selves through the mirror of water, the message becomes amazingly, crystal, clear. We know that human life is directly connected to the quality of our water, both within and all around us....

Water is a very malleable substance. Its physical shape easily adapts to whatever environment is present. But its physical appearance is not the only thing that changes, the molecular shape also changes. The energy or vibrations of the environment will change the molecular shape of water. In this sense water not only has the ability to visually reflect the environment but it also molecularly reflects the environment.

Masura Emoto has been visually documenting these molecular changes in water by means of his photographic techniques. He freezes droplets of water and then examines them under a dark field microscope that has photographic capabilities. His work clearly demonstrates the diversity of the molecular structure of water and the effect of the environment upon the structure of the water.

This is water looks like when confronted with the words "Thank you".

(Montana 2000 Rainbow Gathering...where i first met Ram Dass!)

O you who dwell In the house made of the dawn,

In the house made of the evening twilight . . .

Where the dark mist curtains the doorway,

The path to which is on the rainbow . . .

I have made your sacrifice.

I have prepared a smoke for you.

My feet restore for me.

My limbs restore for me.

My body restore for me.

My mind restore for me.

My voice restore for me.

Today, take away your spell from me.

Away from me you have taken it.

Far Off from me you have taken it.

Happily I recover.

Happily my interior becomes cool.

Happily my eyes regain their power.

Happily my head becomes cool.

Happily my limbs regain their power.

Happily I hear again.

Happily for me the spell is taken Off.

Happily I walk.

Impervious to pain, I walk.

Feeling light within, I walk . . .

In beauty I walk.

With beauty before me, I walk.

With beauty behind me, I walk.

With beauty below me, I walk.

With beauty all around me, I walk.

It is finished in beauty.

It is finished in beauty.

It is finished in beauty

Navajo Prayer

As the man and the woman in me

by Lalan

As the man and the woman in me
Unite in love,
The brilliance of beauty
Balanced on the bi-petalled
Lotus bloom in me
Dazzles my eyes.
The rays
Outshine the moon
And the jewels
Glowing on the hoods of snakes.

My skin and bone
Are turned to gold.
I am the reservoir of love,
Alive as the waves.

A single drop of water
Has grown into a sea,
Unnavigable...

Whoever finds love
beneath hurt and grief
disappears into emptiness
with a thousand new disguises

Rumi

The Everlasting Voices

O sweet everlasting Voices, be still;
Go to the guards of the heavenly fold
And bid them wander obeying your will,
Flame under flame, till Time be no more;
Have you not heard that our hearts are old,
That you call in birds, in wind on the hill,
In shaken boughs, in tide on the shore?
O sweet everlasting Voices, be still.

William Butler Yeats

Since pure awareness of nowness is the real buddha, In openness and contentment I found the Lama in my heart. When we realize this unending natural mind is the very nature of the Lama, Then there is no need for attached, grasping, or weeping prayers or artificial complaints, By simply relaxing in this uncontrived, open, and natural state, We obtain the blessing of aimless self-liberation of whatever arises. DUDJOM RINPOCHE

In stubborn stupidity, I live on alone
befriended by trees and herbs.
Too lazy to learn right from wrong,
I laugh at myself, ignoring others.
Lifting my bony shanks, I cross the stream,
a sack in my hand, blessed by spring weather.
Living thus, I want for nothing,
at peace with all the world.

Your finger points to the moon,
but the finger is blind until the moon appears.
What connection has moon and finger?
Are they separate objects or bound?
This is a question for beginners
wrapped in seas of ignorance.
Yet one who looks beyond metaphor
knows there is no finger; there is no moon.

~Ryokan

*photo of Libya Solar Eclipse by mi padre Kyle Carmona

The Poet's Obligation
To whoever is not listening to the sea
this Friday morning, to whoever is cooped up
in house or office, factory or woman
or street or mine or harsh prison cell:
to him I come, and, without speaking or looking,
I arrive and open the door of his prison,
and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent,
a great fragment of thunder sets in motion
the rumble of the planet and the foam,
the raucous rivers of the ocean flood,
the star vibrates swiftly in its corona,
and the sea is beating, dying and continuing.

So, drawn on by my destiny,
I ceaselessly must listen to and keep
the sea's lamenting in my awareness,
I must feel the crash of the hard water
and gather it up in a perpetual cup
so that, wherever those in prison may be,
wherever they suffer the autumn's castigation,
I may be there with an errant wave,
I may move, passing through windows,
and hearing me, eyes will glance upward
saying, "How can I reach the sea?"
And I shall broadcast, saying nothing,
the starry echoes of the wave,
a breaking up of foam and of quicksand,
a rustling of salt withdrawing,
the grey cry of sea-birds on the coast.

So, through me, freedom and the sea
will make their answer to the shuttered heart.

~Pablo Neruda

The Celestial Fire: Yannai

Now an angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in a blazing fire --

a fire that devours fire;
a fire that burns in things dry and moist;
a fire that glows amid snow and ice;
a fire that is like a crouching lion;
a fire that reveals itself in many forms;
a fire that is, and never expires;
a fire that shines and roars;
a fire that blazes and sparkles;
a fire that flies in a storm wind;
a fire that burns without wood;
a fire that renews itself every day;
a fire that is not fanned by fire;
a fire that billows like palm branches;
a fire whose sparks are flashes of lightning;
a fire black as a raven;
a fire, curled, like the colours of the rainbow!

This rare and heavenly creature

This rare and heavenly creature
alone without peer
look and it's not there
it comes and goes but not through doors
it fits inside a square-inch
it spreads in all directions
unless you acknowledge it
you'll meet but never know

~Han-Shan (Cold Mountain)

Last night was clear and i fell asleep to the stars gleaming through my closed eyelids.
Last night i danced 'eighties' style before embracing in a sacred hug with a group of friends; i gave an hour long massage as the person on my table wept; i played tickle monster with baby Theo long after he tired of it (but i had not!)
This June day is my Mom's birthday.
What a gift that she is!
i have her heart. i have her sensitivity. i have her love for babies.

This June morning i awoke to the sounds of hail upon my window.
It reminds me that each day the flavors are different;
while some days are 'good' and others may be 'bad'
always, always, always
i can feel my mother's heart
and i know
in the end
everything will be just fine.

Happy Birthday Mamacita! karen Loves you!

painting by Liang Kai

Emptiness is a long story

Emptiness is a long story
that swallows up heaven and earth
a splash of ink turns into two dragons
stray clouds become an azure dog

~Shih Shu

Hey! Lean to hear my feeble voice.
At the center of the sacred hoop
You have said that I should make the tree to bloom.

With tears running, O Great Spirit, my Grandfather,
With running eyes I must say
The tree has never bloomed

Here I stand, and the tree is withered.
Again, I recall the great vision you gave me.

It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives.
Nourish it then
That it may leaf
And bloom
And fill with singing birds!

Hear me, that the people may once again
Find the good road
And the shielding tree.

~Black Elk

---

First, you must let your heart
be broken open
in a way you have never
felt before,
cannot imagine.

You will
not know if what you are
feeling
is anguish or joy,
something predestined
or merely old wounds
flowing once more,
reminders of all that is
unfinished in your life.

Something will flood into
your chest
like air sweetened by
desert honeysuckle,
love that is too
strong.

You will stand there,
very still,
not seeing what this is.
Later, you will not remember
any of this
until the next time
when you will say,
yes, yes, I have known this before,
it has come again,
just as your eyes fold under
once more.

"Taken"
2006 Dorothy Walters

God is not unknown on account of obscurity
but on account of the abundance of brightness.
-- St. Thomas Aquinas

Ever in my life have I sought thee with my songs. It was they who led me from door to door, and with them have I felt about me, searching and touching my world.
It was my songs that taught me all the lessons I ever learnt; they showed me secret paths, they brought before my sight many a star on the horizon of my heart.
They guided me all the day long to the mysteries of the country of pleasure and pain, and, at last, to what palace gate have they brought me in the evening at the end of my journey?

~Tagore

You glide between the heart and its casing as tears glide from the eyelid.
You dwell in my inwardness, in the depths of my heart, as souls dwell in bodies.
Nothing passes from rest to motion unless you move it in hidden ways,
O new moon.

~Hallaj

FROM THE MOUNTAIN ASTROLOGER MAGAZINE

This is the second Full Moon in Scorpio-Taurus this year, heightening the contrast between what we want to cultivate and what we need to release.

With the Sun in Taurus, the first earth sign, the cosmic quiz is on matter. How are we doing in the world of form? How well are we taking care of our bodies, our resources, our planet?

Chiron, Mercury, and Neptune are all just days away from turning retrograde, amplifying their influence around this Full Moon.

On May 25, Chiron stations retrograde...the archetype of the Wounded Healer moves backward until October 25, encouraging the reclamation of our hopes and dreams.

On May 26, Mercury stations retrograde until June 19...the Messenger breaks up old mental patterning and fosters the reconfiguration of new neural pathways.

Also on May 26, Neptune stations retrograde...adding to Chiron's cosmic call for dreaming a new dream.

The Sabian symbols emphasize that this is a time of significant endings and beginnings. What are you living for? And what would you die for?

Remember that you are spirit playing in form.

"Be noble, for you are of the stars; be humble, for you are of the earth." (Slavic proverb)

"The Spirit of God, I realized, is exhaustless Bliss; His body is countless tissues of light." ~ Paramahansa Yogananda

Renunciation has both sadness and joy in it: sadness because you realize the futility of your old ways, and joy because of the greater vision that begins to unfold when you are able to let go of them. This is no ordinary joy. It is a joy that gives birth to a new and profound strength, a confidence, an abiding inspiration that comes from the realization that you are not condemned to your habits, that you can indeed emerge from them, that you can change, and grow more and more free. Sogyal Rinpoche

why fear this moment
when no thoughts come
at last I lie naked
in the arms of experience
why fear this moment
when no words come
at last I find rest
in the lap of silence
why fear this moment
when love finds itself alone
at last I am embraced
by infinity itself
why fear this moment
when judgment falls away
at last my defenses
fail to keep intimacy at bay
why fear this moment
when hope is lost
at last my foolish dreams
are surrendered to perfection


-- from the Gifts with No Giver: a love affair with truth, by Nirmala

The Dalai Lama has said: "There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; my philosophy is kindness."

At Tower Peak

Every tan rolling meadow will turn into housing
Freeways are clogged all day
Academies packed with scholars writing papers
City people lean and dark
This land most real

After a long day's walking
Packing burdens to the snow
Wake to the same old world of no names,
No things, new as ever, rock and water,
Cool dawn birdcalls, high jet contrails.
A day or two or million, breathing
A few steps back from what goes down
In the current realm...

A kind of ice age, spreading, filling valleys
Shaving soils, paving fields, you can walk in it
Live in it, drive through it then
It melts away
For whatever sprouts
After the age of
Frozen hearts...

Twenty million human people, downstream, here below.

Gary Snyder
(some lines have been omitted)

"Night Mirror"

Li-Young, don't feel lonely
when you look up
into great night and find
yourself the far face peering
hugely out from between
a star and a star. All that space
the nighthawk plunges through,
homing, all that distance beyond embrace,
what is it but your own infinity.

And don't be afraid
when, eyes closed, you look inside you
and find night is both
the silence tolling after stars
and the final word
that founds all beginning, find night,

abyss and shuttle,
a finished cloth
frayed by the years, then gathered
in the songs and games
mothers teach their children.

Look again
and find yourself changed
and changing, now the bewildered honey
fallen into your own hands,
now the immaculate fruit born of hunger.
Now the unequaled perfume of your dying.
And time? Time is the salty wake
of your stunned entrance upon
no name.

~Li-Young Lee

"Parting" by Li Po

Green mountains rise to the north;
white water rolls past the eastern city.

Once it has been uprooted,
the tumbleweed travels forever.

Drifting clouds like a wanderer's mind;
sunset, like the heart of your old friend.

We turn, pause, look back and wave,
Even our ponies look back and whine.

Because the flowers blooming
In our original home
Are everlasting,
Though springtimes may come and go
Their colors do not fade.

~Dogen

Rest in natural great peace
This exhausted mind
Beaten helpless by karma and neurotic thought,
Like the relentless fury of the pounding waves
In the infinite ocean of samsara.

Rest in natural great peace.

NYOSHUL KHEN RINPOCHE

WELCOME HOME MOM AND DAD! I LOVE YOU!

Is there anyone in the universe,
among heavenly or earthly beings,
who can understand what Kali is?
The systems of all traditions
are powerless to describe Her.
Is Mother a feminine being
or greater than Being itself?

Chanting Her transforming Name --
OM KALI OM KALI OM KALI,
empowers Lord Shiva,
Who is transcendent Knowledge,
to drink the negativity of all beings,
turning His Throat dark blue.
With Her protection
such poison would be deadly,
even to the highest Divinity.

More than Creator and creation,
Mother is sheer Creativity
beyond the notion of duality.
Universe and Father-God
are thrilling glances
from Her seductive Eyes.
Always pregnant with ecstasy,
She gives birth to manifest Being
from Her Womb of primal Awareness,
nursing it tenderly at Her Breast,
then playfully consumes Her Child.
The world dissolves instantly
upon touching Her white Teeth,
attaining the realization
of Her brilliant Voidness.

The various Divine Forms
that manifest throughout history
take refuge at Her Lotus Feet.
The Essence of Divinity,
the Great Ground of Being,
lies in ecstatic absorption
beneath Her red-soled Feet.

Is Mother simply a Goddess?
Does She need a male consort
to protect or complete Her?
The cycle of birth and death
bows reverently before Her.
Is She simply naked
or is She naked Truth?
No veil can conceal Her.
Her naked radiance slays demons
not with weapons but with splendor.

If Mother is a conventional wife,
why is She dancing fiercely
on the breast of Shiva?
Her timeless play destroys
conventions and conceptions.
She is primal purity,
Her ecstatic lovers are purity.
Purity merges into purity,
with no remainder.

I am totally inebriated
by Her wine of timeless bliss.
The wine cup is Her Name --
OM KALI OM KALI OM KALI.
Those drunk on ordinary wine
assume I am one of them.

Not everyone will encounter
the dazzling darkness
called Goddess Kali.
Not everyone can consciously receive
the infinite treasure of Her Nature.
The foolish mind refuses
to perceive and accept
that She alone exists.
Even the noble Lord Shiva,
most enlightened of beings,
can barely catch a glimpse
of Her flashing crimson Feet.

The wealth of world-emperors
and the richness of Paradise
are but abject poverty
to those who meditate on Her.
To swim in a single Glance
from Her three Cosmic Eyes
is to be immersed
in an ocean of ecstasy.

Not even Shiva, prince of yogis,
can focus upon Her dancing Feet
without falling into trance.
Yet the worthless lover
who sings this mad song
aspires to conscious union with Her
during waking, dream, and deep sleep.

~Ramakrishna

You stop to point at the moon in the sky,

By Ryokan
(1758 - 1831)

English version by Sam Hamill



You stop to point at the moon in the sky,
but the finger's blind unless the moon is shining.

One moon, one careless finger pointing --
are these two things or one?

The question is a pointer guiding
a novice from ignorance thick as fog.

Look deeper. The mystery calls and calls:
No moon, no finger -- nothing there at all.

Since everything is but an apparition,
Perfect in being what it is,
Having nothing to do with good or bad,
Acceptance or rejection
You might as well burst out laughing!

LONGCHENPA

Sunrise

By Mary Oliver
(1935 - )



You can
die for it--
an idea,
or the world. People

have done so,
brilliantly,
letting
their small bodies be bound

to the stake,
creating
an unforgettable
fury of light. But

this morning,
climbing the familiar hills
in the familiar
fabric of dawn, I thought

of China,
and India
and Europe, and I thought
how the sun

blazes
for everyone just
so joyfully
as it rises

under the lashes
of my own eyes, and I thought
I am so many!
What is my name?

What is the name
of the deep breath I would take
over and over
for all of us? Call it

whatever you want, it is
happiness, it is another one
of the ways to enter
fire.

here is the Bio i posted at a show that starts tonight at Java Joes...
it will be up for a month!

Artist: Karen Carmona

Karen Carmona is a contemporary painter who presently lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She grew up in the rolling hills of Southern California and then moved to Washington where she earned her BFA in Fine Arts. Karen mainly does oil paintings and acrylic paintings but has tampered in sculpture and printmaking.
Currently Karen Carmona is teaching art in Santa Fe Public Schools and is involved in the healing arts as a massage therapist.

Abstract art, in which objects are not depicted in their original state but rather as shapes and colors in a non-objective way, has influenced her a lot. Most of her paintings are abstract in form and depict her freedom of expression. She mainly uses very bright and bold colors in her acrylic and oil paintings. She mostly does her paintings on canvas, yet some of her pieces exhibited here are painted on wood panels; these pieces express her intrigue with recycled materials.

Karen Carmona mainly presents images from her dreams and imagination. She allows her thoughts to flow in a free manner and that is what forms the base of most of her paintings All the paintings of Karen Carmona clearly depict her expressionism and inner thoughts. It is the artist's intention that her paintings may be hung in multiple directions. There are online shops where one can order and buy the paintings of Karen Carmona.


"My images are created from
moments: forms found in
glimpses of self-realization.
Images are fluid in experience
and created in a process from
within."...


Please feel free to contact the artist or visit her website:

www.karmona.us

(818) 857-9857

painting by beloved Bill Matthews

Anyone looking honestly at life will see that we live in a constant state of suspense and ambiguity. Our minds are perpetually shifting in and out of confusion and clarity. If we could be confused all the time, that would at least make for some kind of clarity. What is really baffling about life is that sometimes, despite all our confusion, we can also be really wise!

This constant uncertainty may make everything seem bleak and almost hopeless; but if you look more deeply at it, you will see that its very nature creates "gaps," spaces in which profound chances and opportunities for transformation are continuously flowering ­ if, that is, they can be seen and seized.

Sogyal Rinpoche

"each image painted
on the canvas of existence
is the form
of the artist himself.
Eternal Ocean
spews forth new waves.
"Waves" we call them;
but there is only the Sea."

~Fakhruddin Iraqi

He's there among the scented trees,
playing the notes he has taught you.
Too late for embarrassment, shy doe
nibbling at the forest's edge,
shawled in deep blue shadows.
He's calling you. The flower of your soul
is opening, little deer.
The river of scent will lead you
deep into the trees where he waits.
The bihanga also plays tonight --
do you hear his more distant flute?
Black bees carry the moon's luster
from flower to flower.
The rest of the grove will bloom tonight, I think.
How he looks at you, young animal.
He shames the moon with his own dark light.

Let's bow down before the young Lord,
the deep blue flowers at his feet.

~ Tagore

"Still"

I said I will find what is lowly
and put the roots of my identity
down there:
each day I'll wake up
and find the lowly nearby,
a handy focus and reminder,
a ready measure of my significance,
the voice by which I would be heard,
the wills, the kinds of selfishness
I could
freely adopt as my own:

but though I have looked everywhere,
I can find nothing
to give myself to:
everything is

magnificent with existence, is in
surfeit of glory:
nothing is diminished,
nothing has been diminished for me:

I said what is more lowly than the grass:
ah, underneath,
a ground-crust of dry-burnt moss:
I looked at it closely
and said this can be my habitat: but
nestling in I
found
below the brown exterior
green mechanisms beyond the intellect
awaiting resurrection in rain: so I got up

and ran saying there is nothing lowly in the universe:
I found a beggar:
he had stumps for legs: nobody was paying
him any attention: everybody went on by:
I nestled in and found his life:
there, love shook his body like a devastation:
I said
though I have looked everywhere
I can find nothing lowly
in the universe:

I whirled though transfigurations up and down,
transfigurations of size and shape and place:

at one sudden point came still,
stood in wonder:
moss, beggar, weed, tick, pine, self, magnificent
with being!

-A.R. Ammons

today i slid down my driveway on a cardboard box...what FUN!
May all beings try it something new today!

distractions.

so my year started a little late and better than ever: so many simple goals have been sustained and so many blessings have shined their way into my life. it is amazing how many times we can start over. some of my goals include staying away from the things that do not uplift my higher self, getting closer to the things that i love, and using better judgment. so far so good. may your year be as blessed. cheers!