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!

Free Glitter Graphics

if i know anything, it is about starting over... and what better time then Now! May all beings follow their bliss, their heart, and their higher way.

Sitting alone in peace before these cliffs
the full moon is heaven's beacon
the ten thousand things are all reflections
the moon originally has no light
wide open the spirit of itself is pure
hold fast to the void realize its subtle mystery
look at the moon like this
this moon that is the heart's pivot

~Han-shan

He who binds himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy.
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sun rise.

~William Blake

Your world and My world,
On every side of the Star,
Fit like a puzzle.

Gaurdian Angel

* dedicated to Coach Steve Ilg
www.wholisticfitness.com

I am the bird that flutters against your window in the morning,
and your closest friend, whom you can never know,
blossoms that light up for the blind.

I am the glacier shining over the woods, so pale,
and heavy voices from the cathedral tower.
The thought that suddenly hits you in the middle of the day
and makes you feel so fantastically happy.

I am the one you have loved for many years.
I walk beside you all day and look intently at you
and put my mouth against your heart
though you're not aware of it.

I am your third arm, your second
shadow, the white one,
whom you cannot accept,
and who can never forget you.

~Rolf Jacobsen

In Loving Memory of Scooter Boy


"We Must Die Because We Have Known Them"

The Moment

And not once,
but many times over,
again and again,
how we disappeared
into that deep well
of darkness, shuddering beneath that load of silence,
clinging to our narrow ledge.

Yet the darkness, sometimes,
unfolded as light.
Our atoms dissolved in it,
each separate molecule opening
into a radiant disk of feeling.

How still we became,
witness and thing seen,
spectacle and observer,
each point admitting an untrammeled flood.

by Dorothy Walters

Doubt is not a disease but merely a symptom of a lack of what we in our tradition call the View, which is the realization of the nature of mind, and so of the nature of reality. When the View is there completely, there will be no possibility for the slightest trace of doubt, for then we'll be looking at reality through its own eyes. But until we reach enlightenment there will inevitably be doubts, because doubt is a fundamental activity of the unenlightened mind, and the only way to deal with doubts is neither to suppress nor indulge them.

~Sogyal Rinpoche

Middle of the night
Trying to express mySelf,
It's total madness.

Rama Ramkali

The ira-vein,
the pingala-vein,
the sukhmana-vein --
these three
converge at one spot.
Where the three rivers meet,
there is found holy Prayag --
and it is there
that the heart bathes
and becomes clean.

O you saints,
it is there that you find
the faultless Ram.
Only the fortunate few
who follow the guru's path
understand this truth:
the eternal Ram
is forever blended therein.

What are the manifestations
of Deva's abode?
There,
resounds the Word unspoken.
There,
neither moon nor sun,
air nor water exist.
Those who follow
the guru's words
know all this already.

Divine wisdom awakens
and hard-heartedness
melts away;
sweet ambrosia
soaks and wets
the inner sky.
Those who know the secret
of this discipline
will surely meet
the primal Gurudeva.

Beyond the Tenth Door
is the abode
of the inaccessible,
the unfathomable
Primal Being.
Above the body,
upon the body
is an alcove.
Within this alcove
is His abode.

Be vigilant;
do not fall asleep.
Attain that stage
wherein the three qualities
and the three worlds
count for nothing.
Place the seed-mantra
within your heart.
Turn back your mind
and fix it upon Silence.

Be vigilant;
do not dwell in falsehood.
Restrain and hold back
the five senses.
Place the guru's teaching
in your thoughts,
and lay your body
and your soul
as an offering
to Krishna's love.

Deem your hands and fingers
as branches of a tree:
do not lose your life
as in a gambling match.
Well up the spring that feeds
the stream of evil deeds;
drive the sun away from the west.
Restrain what cannot be restrained,
and let the spring gush forth:
thus converse with Jaganath.

A lamp
with four wicks
illumines the Tenth Door:
countless petals surround
the flower's cup.
Therein dwells
the Lord Himself,
holding all His power:
a ruby hidden
by another precious ruby.

In the brain
is the lotus
encircled by diamonds.
Therein is Niranjan,
the Holder
of the three worlds.
All the five types of instruments
play sweetly on;
the fan sways;
the conch forever resounds.

The guru's enlightenment
tramples all demons underfoot:
Beni begs for Your name.

~Beni
(14th century)

For six years sitting alone
still as a snake
in a stalk of bamboo
with no family
but the ice
on the snow mountain
Last night
seeing the empty sky
fly into pieces
he shook
the morning star awake
and kept it in his eyes

~Muso Soseki

Samadhi

Vanished the veils of light and shade,
Lifted every vapor of sorrow,
Sailed away all dawns of fleeting joy,
Gone the dim sensory mirage.
Love, hate, health, disease, life, death,
Perished these false shadows on the screen of duality.
Waves of laughter, scyllas of sarcasm, melancholic whirlpools,
Melting in the vast sea of bliss.
The storm of maya stilled
By magic wand of intuition deep.
The universe, forgotten dream, subconsciously lurks,
Ready to invade my newly wakened memory divine.
I live without the cosmic shadow,
But it is not, bereft of me;
As the sea exists without the waves,
But they breathe not without the sea.
Dreams, wakings, states of deep turiya sleep,
Present, past, future, no more for me,
But ever-present, all-flowing I, I, everywhere.
Planets, stars, stardust, earth,
Volcanic bursts of doomsday cataclysms,
Creation's molding furnace,
Glaciers of silent x-rays, burning electron floods,
Thoughts of all men, past, present, to come,
Every blade of grass, myself, mankind,
Each particle of universal dust,
Anger, greed, good, bad, salvation, lust,
I swallowed, transmuted all
Into a vast ocean of blood of my own one Being!
Smoldering joy, oft-puffed by meditation
Blinding my tearful eyes,
Burst into immortal flames of bliss,
Consumed my tears, my frame, my all.
Thou art I, I am Thou,
Knowing, Knower, Known, as One!
Tranquilled, unbroken thrill, eternally living, ever new peace!
Enjoyable beyond imagination of expectancy, samadhi bliss!
Not a mental chloroform
Or unconscious state without wilful return,
Samadhi but extends my conscious realm
Beyond the limits of the mortal frame
To farthest boundary of eternity
Where I, the Cosmic Sea,
Watch the little ego floating in me.
The sparrow, each grain of sand, fall not without my sight.
All space like an iceberg floats within my mental sea.
Colossal Container, I, of all things made.
By deeper, longer, thirsty, guru-given meditation
Comes this celestial samadhi
Mobile murmurs of atoms are heard,
The dark earth, mountains, vales, lo! molten liquid!
Flowing seas change into vapors of nebulae!
Aum blows upon the vapors, opening wondrously their veils,
Oceans stand revealed, shining electrons,
Till, at last sound of the cosmic drum,
Vanish the grosser lights into eternal rays
Of all-pervading bliss.
From joy I came, for joy I live, in sacred joy I melt.
Ocean of mind, I drink all creation's waves.
Four veils of solid, liquid, vapor, light,
Lift aright.
Myself, in everything, enters the Great Myself.
Gone forever, fitful, flickering shadows of mortal memory.
Spotless is my mental sky, below, ahead, and high above.
Eternity and I, one united ray.
A tiny bubble of laughter, I
Am become the Sea of Mirth Itself.

~Paramahansa Yogananda

Listen, my friend, this road is the heart opening,
Kissing his feet, resistance broken, tears all night.

If we could reach the Lord through immersion in water,
I would have asked to be born a fish in this life.
If we could reach Him through nothing but berries and wild nuts,
Then surely the saints would have been monkeys when they came from the womb!
If we could reach him by munching lettuce and dry leaves,
Then the goats would surely go to the Holy One before us!

If the worship of stone statues could bring us all the way,
I would have adored a granite mountain years ago.

Mirabai says: The heat of midnight tears will bring you to God.

~Mirabai

A fiery chariot borne on nimble wings (from Faust)


A fiery chariot borne on nimble wings
approaches me. I am prepared to change my course,
to penetrate the ether's high dominions
toward novel spheres of pure activity.
Do you, scarcely better than a worm, deserve
this lofty life and heavenly delight?
Now be resolute and turn your back
on our earth's endearing sun!
Be bold and brash ad force the gates
from which men shrink and slink away!
The time has come to prove by deeds
that man will not give in to gods' superior might
and will not quake before the pit where fantasy
condemns itself to tortures of its own creation
when he advances to the narrow passageway
about whose mouth infernal flames are blazing.
Approach the brink serenely and accept the risk
of melting into nothingness.