So What

"I saw God in the forest / Teaching Tai Chi to the trees."

- Ben Sollee

So what if there is not one absorbent towel in the kitchen or the thermostat is set to 85 degrees and the television churns constantly while two huge fur-ball cats have full reign of the house.  After two weeks I notice a second-order beauty here in the small things which decorate her soul a full octave above photos of grandchildren and gone relatives.

Quan Yin stirs the soup while clucking laughter rises from everyday surprises in the kitchen.  Hidden flowers and small signs speak of compassion and acceptance on a level not seen elsewhere.  This begins to change me and I realize the holiest person in the ashram is the floor-sweeper.

So please know I heard you when you said, "I miss her words, 'what time will you be home?'"  And I stopped for many minutes while outwardly I went along with my other life when all I wanted was to sit with you and watch for signs of your holy one and hear your story.  Because it will someday become my story, too.

So what, when none of the flatware matches and cats lick the butter?  They're her cats.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Listen to:

Ben Sollee / Panning for Gold

Star Light, Star Bright

"This is where I watch for meteors," she said softly as they moved together into the late-summer evening.  Stars to infinity were visible and the world seemed upside down as the man leaned back to gaze, trying to still the scene.  Absorbing every detail.

"Do you see any?" he asked without moving.

"Oh, I've seen meteors...and I've seen lots of other things," she whispered, in tune with the moment and the beauty of it all and very aware that her answer would lead to more questions.  He turned with a smile and encouraged her, wanting to hear more.

"I saw a shooting star one night and as I watched, it split apart and two shooting stars continued on for a few seconds.  One of the most extraordinary things I've ever seen," she said, her eyes now closed.  "I was all alone.  I took it as a good sign."

The woman shivered not from the cool night air but from wonder.

"And did it turn out to be good fortune?" he asked, turning closer to her as they stood on the gravel path.  Under the stars.  Breathing together on a timeless summer night.

"Yes, it did," she smiled as she pulled him close at the very instant he leaned in.  "Very good fortune."

"The thing we tell of can never be found by seeking, yet only seekers find it."

 - Bayazid al-Bistami

*****

Bamboo Love

"Live without thought of dying for dying is not a truth."

- Catherine of Siena

summer bamboo | western north carolina | courtesy Emily

digital | slightly rendered

When it rains this way the bamboo shivers in the garden and the cat heads straight for the stove and the old man leans his body against a barn and stares.  

I dream I am among many people at a party; 

I am with a woman who glows crimson-orange from within.

Crooked bamboo leans on its sister and rests and waits while my body lays with the orange woman who does not speak.  

She hides behind me, moving away as I try to find her.

I wait and do not speak and think only of the color orange and the bamboo.  

Then the orange woman starts to sing psalms and I fall asleep.

Night comes early now and good rain washes the earth.  

**********

Blue Moon

"When you move into the level of dream consciousness, all the laws of logic change.  There, although you think you are seeing something that is not you, it is actually you that you are seeing, because the dream is simply a manifestation of your own will and energy - you created the dream and yet you are surprised by it.  So the duality there is illusory.  There, subject and object, though apparently separate, are the same." 

Joseph Campbell, Myths of Light, p. 70

august 2015 / western north carolina

digital - slightly rendered

Just by chance (or good fortune), I captured this image early Sunday morning August 1^st just as the full moon was disappearing over the western horizon.  Simply here / just outside the house / standing in the street / as the dogs sniffed.  And everything was quiet and cool and new.  

It is the ‘blue moon’ which appeared the night of July 31^st and everyone watched the heavens for.  

I love how the moon sets a dreamy image against a background of blue morning sky framed by clouds and trees.  That very same day I came across the quote from Joseph Campbell and I thought how beautiful and how appropriate and what a lesson to be learned here as I gaze at the moon and think I’m separate and that the moon and everything is out there.

I then come back around to consider that there really is no separateness...no here, no there...no you, no me...as we continue along our journey homeward.  And that is surely the mystery.

*******
listen:
Blue Moon

There is a piece of me in you,  

it is like coming home.

Non-Repeating Pattern

courtesy Paula Dawn Lietz, photographer

Well, isn't that just it, my dear?  That is it!

When we regularly say, "namaste" to one another we eventually get a taste of that reality and all of a sudden there flashes across our everyday awareness the truth of recognition.

And a mystery begins to unfold.

This is the beautiful story of the self recognizing the Self.  So that is the blissful moment...the sweet moment...the holy-spark-of-recognition moment.  And we don't have to be in another country or another state of mind or even on our best behavior, for when that moment comes it comes of its own volition to visit our hearts and enliven our senses and bless our day.

In the Christian gospel, after Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead he turns to the community standing nearby and commands, "Unbind this man!"  I doubt Jesus needed help finishing the job.  I think he wants us to know that we are divine too, and that our latent divinity is not so deeply hidden as we imagine.  And that we are all participants in creation.

So we unbind one another, dear one.

And this is our deep purpose and this is our privilege - to come home to one another.  

To come home to love.

Namaste

******************

yoga and the art of...

asheville - spring 2014

digital / slightly rendered

belly-breathe as you lean into the turn at seventy miles an hour down the Saluda grade and cordite smell from the big rigs' brakes fills your nostrils and you lose the physical distinction between the bike and your body and your brain.  fluid-flow down that long, sweeping mountain thinking not too much yet sensing the engine's seven-thousand explosions per minute while the road vibration charges up your spine like wild mustangs.  second chakra, third chakra - right up through the top of your head - emerging from the crown of your helmet like a fighter-jet's contrails.  "I should have named her kundalini!" I yell as the black motorcycle pulses its way homeward and awareness separates from my body as I watch from above the motorcycle and rider effortlessly making their way down this ribbon of pavement.  stretching, breathing, twisting, turning - finding the edge, I smile and think there must be a word like namaste for this and in a flash-moment I realize  that word is a sound: a long, drawn-out whisper said with a big smile, "yeeaaahhhh..." 

...the divine aliveness in me honors the divine aliveness in you..

**********

1950's Vintage Kodak Duaflex II

120mm re-spooled to 620mm

Ipford Delta B&W iso100

(developed and printed at The Asheville Darkroom, Spring 2015)

Ali's Dance

Last night, as I was sleeping, I dreamt – marvelous error!

That a fiery sun was giving light inside my heart.

It was fiery because I felt Warmth as from a hearth,

And sun because it gave Light

And brought tears to my eyes.

Last night, as I was sleeping, I dreamt – marvelous error!

That it was God I had here inside my heart.

-Antonio Machado

Dogwood in Spring

Holga CFN120 / iso120

North Carolina 2014

He had come here to think and to forget...

The last few years had been spent travelling and observing the ways of the world. Ali thought long and often of the story his mother and mentor had revealed to him that day several years ago and had come to embrace the blessing of his life’s beginning with gratitude.

Yet he felt uneasy. Travel was the only activity which seemed to soothe his restless nature. And it was on one of these journeys that he had met her.

In an open marketplace in a faraway city he spied a young woman working alongside her parents in their simple market stall. She appeared only a shy teenager but her extraordinary beauty and quiet gracefulness struck his senses so completely that he knew he must come to know her.

Over the course of the following year, Ali lived and worked near the marketplace and indeed came to know the young woman and her family well.

With an open heart and a loving nature Ali made himself known to the girl and to her family and community. Their world became his world.

During the months that passed Ali and the girl shared many joys together and the ecstasy of human love.  Theirs was a connection on all levels which everyone seemed to acknowledge.

They were sublimely happy as Ali’s love grew ever deeper.  Every thought was of pleasing his beloved.

Yet in the end, as these things go, it was not meant to be and, therefore, could not be. Ali’s heart was shattered. He made his way to the hermitage where he intended to hide from the world.

And he tried very hard to forget.

Some days his thoughts swirled unmercifully. How could he live his life with this emptiness inside? How could he have come so close only to be denied true love? The pain of separation he felt at times was almost unbearable as he thought only of her. He lived most days with such intense longing that he begged for some resolution, any resolution, to occur.

Would he spend his whole life longing for her?

Would he spend his lifetime with only a memory to embrace?

Ali’s dreams and his waking thoughts were filled with visions of Shireen, the beloved of his soul.

Time passed.  Ali, kneeling in the garden one day under waning sunlight and suffering with his heartbreak, heard a woman’s call to him.

“What we seek is found inside our seeking.”

He stopped his idle thoughts and came to sharp awareness.  With his eyes still closed, Ali spoke quietly but evenly, “I came here to forget, not to seek.”

Several moments passed. A flight of rushing birds called to one another. A gentle breeze refreshed the garden. He thought of Shireen...

“You came here to remember, Ali” the woman said gently. He looked up and against the glowing sunset saw a woman smiling sweetly, with a look of loving compassion and true concern on her face.

“It is inside the longing, in the pain of the separation, where God is found,” she said.  Her words made Ali feel uneasy yet their truth rang true to him.

“What you feel so strongly inside is your own longing for the Divine.”  Ali listened as the woman spoke.

“All longing, all sense of separation, however painfully we may come to know it, is the beckoning call of the One,” she continued. “It invites us ever closer, toward true realization of Divine Love and Wisdom.  Try to surrender to this, my son. In this way our Creator's infinite mercy and compassion is made manifest.  Your work is to transform the powerful love you feel for Shireen into higher love for God.”

“That is why you have come?” Ali now spoke.  “To teach me?” His first mother opened her arms and silently bid Ali closer.

“I did not come here to teach you anything, my dear.  Not at all - I came so you may shed your tears.”  And cry Ali did.  He crumpled into his mother’s arms with sobs of sorrow, his body violent with release and exhaustion.  Tears from lifetimes of separation and searching flooded his mother’s breast. And there he remained, suspended in timelessness and surrender.

As Ali’s tears gave full expression to his heartbreak and fear, the tension inside him gradually softened as he entered a realm of deeper understanding.

Indeed, all longing at its deepest level is a longing for the Divine.  And grieving can become the bridge between separation and union.  Ultimately, for all of us, the tears of yearning one day give way to tears of perfect union.

Ali looked into his first mother’s eyes with wondrous recognition as she held him close.  What passed between them was not expressed in words.  Yet in that moment Ali understood the meaning of her visit along with the promise,

“Close or distant matters not....what matters is connection.”

~

Ali stumbled along the path back to the cottage as moonlight showed the way.  He fell into bed exhausted as angels kept their watch.  He rose before daybreak and made his way to the garden.

A weakened yet wiser Ali stood and watched the eastern horizon turn several shades of crimson.  He breathed deeply of the jasmine and surrounding fields of wildflowers, their fragrance a balm for his still-tender inner being.

He clasped his hands in grateful acknowledgement of all that had come to him and had led him to this place - the threshold of his journey home.  Ali knew his path would not be easy, yet he knew he had been given a precious gift.  While the young man again breathed deeply of the fresh earth and the morning dew, soft light graced the land with majesty and goodness.  As the new day’s sun silently announced its arrival, Ali felt a sense of peace and smiled.  He turned and headed for his hermitage, saying to no one in particular, “Now, a pot of tea to revive me!" 

~

It was a perfect late summer afternoon.  Solstice was near. The scent of honeysuckle lingered in the air.  Ali sat back on his heels and raised his eyes toward the setting sun as the glow of dusk filled the garden with golden light and dust motes whirled.  The smell of rich earth reminded Ali that a good day’s work was now complete.  He leaned further back, closed his eyes and let the warm sun massage his aching muscles.

He thought about the many full cycles of seasons he had spent in this simple hermitage and how the subtle shifts of nature had brought him some measure of peace and contentment amidst his inner turmoil.  The simple dwelling and adjacent gardens spoke to him and for him.  He was happy to be in solitude and close to nature with days spent planting and pruning and watering, nurturing the garden, caring for his soul.  Ali stood and slowly began turning in place - allowing his arms to raise and his back to arch - his head thrown back in abandonment as he gained momentum.  He listened only to the music from within as tears glistened on his weathered cheeks.

~

I am yours.

However distant you may be,

There blows no wind but wafts your scent to me,

There sings no bird but calls your name to me.

Each memory that has left its trace with me lingers forever as a part of me.

I am yours.

Nizami, 12th Century, rendered by Eric Clapton

...there blows no wind but wafts your scent to me...