Breathe deep

You are here now

Resting here with me

I am all you ever need

I am the flowing river,

the stars and golden sun,

the still mountains and the swaying trees.

You who have lost your way

I am but a breath away

A simple breath away, always

You want to know the way?

The way in is a breath of faith

You’re not out here all alone

Breathe deep and say: I am not alone.

Life wants to take care of you

Life wants to caress you and

Sing you to sleep

It wants most of all for you to know

the depth of love available to you.

It is always there

And it’s there now

Beckoning softly

Come, come, come

Dance lightly, sweetly toward me

I am here for you to lean on evermore

I am not your child, your parents, your relatives, nor your friends

The hands of Divinity are everywhere constant, limit less.

You, who have suffered, throw off the dark garb and come running to me.

Spend a few minutes with an object, any object, and find God in it, here is where I am.

Let it envelop you and seduce you with it’s own unique God-ness

Now you know you have been seen and heard, come back to this place should you falter again.

©heartsdeesire

Time has a wonderful way of weeding out the trivial.  ~Richard Ben Sapi

Quite true, don’t you think?  This goes along with a question I have written on one of my homemade well being cards:

Will it matter in a year from now?

There are less than a handful of times I’ve come to that question and been able to answer – yes, it will matter.  Even then the truth is, circumstances will change and I will change.  I believe what Florence Scovel Shinn has written – only good lies before me.  Then, what’s the worry?!

So Beth, tell me, what IS the worry?  Hmmm, don’t have one anymore!

Thanks for listening to this quick little interaction in my head!  May all your troubles be small ones and if not, then may you know you are transformed by them.  Life will sometimes take us into the obscure, as yet to be defined or understood places.   Remember, though, the butterfly always emerges from the darkened chrysalis flying openly into the light.  When daybreak surfaces from the cloak of night, we are those butterflies.  And with a tiny flap of our wings, we send ripples of hope across the globe.

It appears that it was all a misunderstanding.
What was only a trial run was taken seriously.
The rivers will return to their beginnings.
The wind will cease in its turning about.
Trees instead of budding will tend to their roots.
Old men will chase a ball, a glance in the mirror—
They are children again.
The dead will wake up, not comprehending.
Till everything that happened has unhappened.
What a relief! Breathe freely, you who suffered much.

~Czeslaw Milosz~
New and Collected Poems 1931-2001

Towards the end of the video he speaks of technology in a way that I applaud.  So many want to slam technology for one reason or another.  Mooji says technology has made the world smaller in a beautiful way, we are becoming more unified and we begin to see that we are One.

Love his perspective, I have always felt that technology has offered a unique means of being in relationship with others.  It takes away from intimate connection or it enhances it, it’s all in how you see it.  I fall on the side of technology enhancing our relationships with each other and therefore humanity overall.

This is not a verbatim highlight transcription but reasonably close to his words:

Something deep in our psyche has always been searching for a joy, stillness, happiness, a contentment that won’t leave, won’t be destroyed, won’t fade.  The opportunity of the human existence is to discover what is eternal inside ourselves because up until now we are only discovering what is transient, what is passing.

There is no vulnerability in the true mind in the true heart.  When you come to the point that you feel that your life is going to burst open, be very present and don’t miss that opportunity.  You feel it as a curse; you don’t see it as a blessing because you identify with a false vulnerability of the self.  ”It” is offering a defining moment to split away from what is unreal to find the real. (LOVE!)  As long as you are comfortable with your sense of identity you will not go beyond it and if you don’t go beyond it you will never come into the truth.  There is a time for a human being to know these things and the time to know these things is when you have the power to go beyond these things. (ALSO LOVE!)

When you feel lost, when you feel confused, when you feel helpless, when you feel like you’ve run out of moves, when you feel like your life is on hold, right there, you yourself, become very, very quiet and empty of your own self because the chance is you will meet God in this moment. (LOVE AGAIN!)  You break all the boundaries, if you don’t hold the hand of your mind.

We are missing what is obvious, what is pure, what is beautiful.  But we don’t have to go so far to find this, because the truth is distance-less, it’s here.  It’s here; it’s only somehow concealed by distraction.  Our eyes move and plant themselves onto transient things.  But if the aspiration is inside a human being to grow, to find the truth, then he will find a way and the way will find him.

Happy New Year.  Happy Now Here.

I still stub my toe on the way to cake.  This was a story we heard from Abraham on one of their cruises.  During this cruise, it was Esther’s birthday.  She’d gone to bed for the night, when a knock came to her door.  Stumbling her way to the door in the dark, she stubbed her toe.  Ouch!  Upon opening the door, to her surprise, there was a birthday cake sent in her honor!

And so came the phrase – I still stub my toe on the way to cake.  It’s a way of saying we are always on our way to cake, we are always on the perfect path for us at the moment, and we just might stub our toe along the way.   It’s a softer, lighter means of making peace with the contrast that every one experiences at some time or another.

It was in my own dreams last night that the stub my toe phrase came back to me.  I had gone somewhere deep in the mountains for a retreat, many of us had gathered there.  The catch was your only way in and thus your only way out, was on foot.

The retreat is over and people try to hook up with others for the long trek back to our own homes.  It’s a circuitous route, easy to get lost and it’s fraught with snakes and wild life, best to not make the trip on foot alone.

This difficult route alone with snakes and wild life seems to be a metaphor for the contrast, the challenges we find ourselves amidst in life.

We are carrying all our belongings on our back.  I am traveling unusually lightly.  Ha, going into this year with less baggage perhaps!  High five for Bethie!  My companions are carrying much more and I think I should take some of their baggage, which is so like me to want to help and take on others stuff in the process.  Yet I shock myself, I don’t take their stuff on.  And as it happens, they begin to unwittingly drop their own baggage as they move further towards home.

Another beautiful metaphor, may we all drop our baggage as we travel home.  Home, as in who we really are, is by its very nature without all the baggage including the measuring stick of how well we’ve done in life, etc.

Next in the dream, we come to a point where we must walk a tight rope and below us is a sea of snakes.  We are crossing the tightrope when a literal paradise of flowers, in every shape and color begins blooming all around us.  The tightrope disappears and we are home again.

I realized then that garden was just like the birthday cake Esther received.  And I saw further that the point isn’t the contrast, it isn’t the challenges.   The point isn’t in stubbing the toe, or walking the tightrope. No, it’s remembering to enjoy the process no matter how challenging it is.  It’s remembering to see the beauty no matter how bad things look.  It’s a reminder that it’s always, always there.

It’s just that we get this tunnel vision that this or that sucks and we want out of it now, pronto, yesterday.  The way out starts with the little gifts, surprises that come knocking at our doorways in a plethora of ways, so plentiful you could not name or count them all in a day.

Consider spending a moment or more lingering inside the blessings bestowed upon you each and every day.

…. and ghosts!  Oh my!  I’ve experienced my first certifiable ghostly apparition!  My daughter and I came home from shopping yesterday.  We walked inside and my dog stood in the breakfast nook area growling, snorting, barking and then turned on her heels scampering up the stairs.  Later in the night, my husband took her out for what we dub the “final piddle” and she repeated the same behavior again in the same area.

This morning a bag of dog food was positioned by this ghost directly under the nook’s breakfast table.  Hmmmm … veddy, veddy interesting!

Is it a coincidence that I’d come home having just purchased the movie “Ghost” last night?  Who knows!  But now to my point which is not about ghosts, it’s about love.

My daughter and I watched the movie, she for the first time.  Me, I’ve lost count on how many times I’ve seen it.  I love it for so many reasons and I cry at the end of it every time when he’s about to be beamed up to heaven.  Those final words: “It’s amazing, Molly, the love inside, you take it with you.”

I don’t just believe that love is eternal, I think it’s woven into the fabric of the Universe.  Every thing is intrinsically designed to move towards homestatis or balance and well being in its own way.  What else but the hands of love fashioned all of this?!

And, finally on the topic of love, I was listening to Patty Griffin the other day and a single line in a song struck a deep chord within —

“Maybe love is waiting at the end of every road.”

I wanted those words to be on their own line, so we can all really take that in.  You see, if we believe that love is waiting at the end of EVERY road, then no matter what the circumstances we are going through, there is the knowledge that love is waiting at the end of it.  Consider holding that one line in your heart next time you’ve traveled off the beaten path; the one that leaves you scared, sad, anxious, mad or whatever.  It will help you turn yourself back to the natural state of all things – one of eagerness, hope and optimism.

“Maybe love is waiting at the end of every road.”  No, maybes about it!

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Posted this almost exactly a year ago and stumbled on it again just the other day.  I love my own sweet voice of wisdom here.  It reminded me that though I had moments where I thought I had lost everything I know deep down, it was never really lost to begin with.  It was right here all along.  I guess I do have those ruby slippers after all!

This is not always the jolliest season for everyone.  For those of you feeling some level of holiday blues, may you find some comfort here…

Sadness is present.  It was one of my former mentors who instructed us to state it just like that, in lieu of: I am sad. The ‘I am’ statement being one that married or joined you to sadness.

It’s just that ‘sadness is present’ has a sound akin to taking roll in class where Sadness sheepishly answers from the back row, “present”.  I wish that all my Sadnesses were in the back row, sheepish and barely audible.  Yet this one feels as if it’s in the front row and it’s cleared out the entire row for itself.

Actually, I am hoping that Sadness takes a bathroom break because Mischief has plans.  The plan is to stick a big thick wad of gum on Sadness’ seat.  That way when the bell rings, Sadness will be stuck there.  Ah, well now, Mischief has just been nudged by Wisdom and Kindness.  They say,  “All our emotions have a place here.”  “But why does Sadness have to take up an entire front row?” I argue.

“It wants to be noticed and embraced like Humor is.  It wants to see you welcome it the way you do when Joy bounces in the room.  It wants to see your face light up the way it does when Surprise and Delight saunter in.  It wants to be acknowledged just for who it is, not shunned.  It wants to be first-picked to play in the game, not last.  It takes up an entire row just to tell you, it has a right to be here.  And while you have a right to ignore Sadness, in doing so, you lose out on the full technicolor experience of living.”

Mischief never did put that wad of gum on Sadness’ seat.  Eventually Sadness sat in the center of the room, surrounded, embraced even, by all emotion.  There was one day in particular when the whole class voted on the Emotion of the Quarter.  Everyone picked Sadness.  Sadness, flanked by all its Friends, beamed with pride as it accepted the award.  It never sat alone in the back again nor cleared out an entire front row.  It was content to simply Be.

The ordinary miracles begin. Somewhere
a signal arrives: “Now,” and the rays
come down. A tomorrow has come. Open
your hands, lift them: morning rings
all the doorbells; porches are cells for prayer.
Religion has touched your throat. Not the same now,
you could close your eyes and go on full of light.

And it is already begun, the chord
that will shiver glass, the song full of time
bending above us. Outside, a sign:
a bird intervenes; the wings tell the air,
“Be warm.” No one is out there, but a giant
has passed through town, widening streets, touching
the ground, shouldering away the stars.

~William Stafford~
William Tell: Poems by William Stafford

]]> http://simplyblessed.heartsdeesire.com/2011/12/08/today-2/feed/ 0 Beth/Bethie sunrise-rays-over-indian-basin http://simplyblessed.heartsdeesire.com/2011/11/17/believe-and-you-will-find-your-way/ http://simplyblessed.heartsdeesire.com/2011/11/17/believe-and-you-will-find-your-way/#comments Thu, 17 Nov 2011 10:02:18 +0000 heartsdeesire http://simplyblessed.heartsdeesire.com/?p=990 ]]> Kahlil Gibran has said the deeper that sorrow cuts into your being the more joy you can contain.  And so it is, as we weave through this crazy thing called life, that sometimes sorrow does run deep but I find comfort in knowing, as Enya’s song brilliantly reflects below – believe and you will find a way.  And more than that, believe that goodness will come from your anguish, that at some point you will know that you are more than you were before for having stepped through and beyond it.  May that promise live within you now, I know that it does within me.

Composed and performed by Enya
Lyrics by Roma Ryan

May it be an evening star
Shines down upon you
May it be when darkness falls
Your heart will be true
You walk a lonely road
Oh! How far you are from home

Mornie utúlie (darknesss has come)
Believe and you will find your way
Mornie alantie (darknesss has fallen)
A promise lives within you now

May it be the shadows call
Will fly away
May it be your journey on
To light the day
When the night is overcome
You may rise to find the sun

Mornie utúlie (darknesss has come)
Believe and you will find your way
Mornie alantie (darknesss has fallen)
A promise lives within you now

A promise lives within you now

“The great affair, the love affair with life, is to live as variously as possible, to groom one’s curiosity like a high-spirited thoroughbred, climb aboard, and gallop over the thick, sunstruck hills every day.  It began as mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.”

~ Diane Ackerman

I just adore that quote, especially the last line.  Very much reminds me of Rilke’s “let everything happen to you beauty and terror, just keep going, no feeling is final.”

And this from Fred Alan Wolf in What the Bleep: “the real trick to life is not to be in the know, but to be in the mystery.”