the sea of forgetfulness

plunge yourself into these warm waters

where all mistakes
yours and mine
are honored as the path of evolving souls

trembling hearts are forever soothed here
minds and bodies restored to its original perfection

drink from its ancient wisdom
let her sweep you into her tide
pulling you in deep, then deeper still

then rising and lifting you onto soft green fields
now, who you really are is deeply known here

drink, here, in these waters
they envelop and nourish Rumi’s field

“out beyond all ideas of right doing and wrong doing”*
where all else is surrendered and falls away.

in…the sea of forgetfulness

©heartsdeesire
*in quotation marks is a portion of Rumi’s poem.

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And this is love—

The vertigo of Heaven

Beyond the cage of words,

Suddenly to be naked

In the searchlight of truth . . .

~Rumi~
Music of the Sky: An Anthology of Spiritual Poetry

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I thought it fitting since we are at the end of the month, to write about beginning at the end.  It goes like this: begin at the end and stay there.  This is something I learned from studying with The Field Center and the Neville Goddard material, as well.  What does it mean?  The end that you begin at is to embody the feeling, the sense that you already have whatever it is you were wanting.

Passing through a wrinkle in time, time now collapses in on itself, the veil is pulled back and your heart’s desire has already unfolded.  What does it feel like in your heart, your body to know that what you longed for is no longer at arm’s length but it’s here right now?  Note what it feels like because this is a feeling you can come back to again and again.

It sounds easy enough, doesn’t it?  I never really understood that it took a bit of commitment on my part to actually stay there.  That commitment flows out of falling in love with your heart’s desire so that it is no longer a desire, it’s a given.  You just know it and no fact that shows up in your now can sway you from this knowing.  It’s that kind of faithfulness and commitment that I am referring to.

The one who taught me about committing myself to “staying there” is my son.  Those who know me personally, know that I have a special needs son.  There were times in the past that his needs seemed to exceed what we could provide for him and for many reasons we thought he might have to live in an environment outside of our home where he could obtain the supports he needed.  More than anything, I didn’t want this to happen and I suffered a good bit over it for quite awhile.  I wanted a miracle to happen.

One day I felt inspired and made a decision.  I would fast forward to the ending that I wanted.  He stays here with us throughout his childhood and we have the supports that we need to provide for him.  I could see it in my mind’s eye, even though he is still a child today, here he was a young adult.  He had grown up and he’d stayed living with us in our home the whole time.  I could feel the feelings, the joy and contentment of raising him.  No more would I worry, will it happen?  It did happen — in my mind’s eye, my heart, my body it happened; I knew it was real and it was the truth.  I had peeled back the veil and saw and felt all that I needed to know.

Now my work is only to stay there.  By staying there, this means that nothing that happens day to day counts against my happy ending.  Why?  Because I don’t let it.  I don’t let myself come to any conclusions about anything that happens today.  I don’t take it seriously and I don’t allow it to have any importance.  That’s the commitment of staying there.  Only once since I experienced my happy ending have I given myself to a conclusion that counted against that happy ending.  On that day, I suffered and I suffered enough to renew my commitment again.

One miracle didn’t happen, many miracles happened over time: capable, highly specialized trained aides in our home, a cutting edge doctor working with my son, a specialty school, spiritual teachers showing up whose guidance has been pivotal, and many supports I was inspired to implement in the home.   Now today, I don’t question if my son will remain living with us, I know he will.

Ultimately children, and loved ones become our greatest teachers.  What we might not do for ourselves, we will do for them.  And what we do for love, we essentially do for ourselves, too.  It does not matter what path we take to get to alignment, only that we do get there.

Rumi, of course, said it best:

Close your eyes

Fall in love

Stay there.

There’s a host of happy endings inside each of us, awaiting our whole-hearted consent to join hands and “fall in love” with them.

Love is a commonly used word, so frequently do we hear it that it’s become both under valued and over valued.  Over valued in it’s fickleness and under valued for the unexamined depth of what it really means.  I’ve sought to discover its true meaning.  It’s been a life long question and the answers change and morph as I do.  At times I’ve found love co-mingling with joy and truth.  A joy that is independent of facts or conditions and truths that remain when all else falls away.

I searched the archives of this blog and it’s over 600 posts many of which are quoting spiritual authors and poets.  Here’s a short collection of what some of them have to say on the subject of love, joy and truth.  Somewhere in there, I’ll slip in my own words.

This isn’t one of those blog posts you’ll want to hurry through and then go about flinging yourself into the day.  No, this is one you’ll want to linger with awhile and let the words melt like warm butter penetrating through the layers of being, softening as it moves deeper within, finally landing in that space that is beyond words.

* * * * *

The blue sky opens out farther and farther,
the daily sense of failure goes away,
the damage I have done to myself fades,
a million suns come forward with light,
when I sit firmly in that world.

I hear bells ringing that no one has shaken;
inside “love” there is more joy than we know of;
rain pours down, although the sky is clear of clouds;
there are whole rivers of light.

~Kabir~

* * * * *

There will come a time when images have all gone by and you will see you know not what you are.  It is to this unsealed and open mind that truth returns, unhindered and unbound.  Where concepts of the self have been laid by is truth revealed exactly as it is….The truth in you remains as radiant as a star, as pure as light, as innocent as love itself.  ~ A Course in Miracles

* * * * *

“Abandonment,”
we call it. As in: wild, or perfect.
We abandon ourselves
to love.

~Kate Knapp Johnson~

* * * * *

This Union you want with the earth and sky
This Union we all need with love

Stay here quivering like a drop of mercury

(combined words of Rumi & Hafiz)

* * * * *

The real presence slips past our demand for spectacle. it slips past our despair. Not just like a child – sometimes it is a child. She walks down the blistered steps to where you kneel and says the simplest things. She is entertained by butterflies. She has opinions about unicorns. She does not seem to care that you are ruined and lost. She does not even seem to notice. Find an earthworm in the neglected loam and she will make you feel for a moment that your life has not been wasted. Name a flower and she will make you feel that you have begun to learn to speak. ~Tim Farrington

* * * * *

I am the one whose love
overcomes you, already with you
when you think to call my name….

~Jane Kenyon~

* * * * *

…you must be willing to set fear aside and trust your knowing self,
the truth which lies deep within, that tells you what to do, from a
place of truth and deep connection with all that is. This truth is
beyond fear.

Quado through Carrie Hart

* * * * *

Never mind pleasure.  Search out joy.  Pleasure is
its shadow.  But joy is real, a secret splendor
running through all creation.

Like gold, it doesn’t lie about the streets waiting
to be picked up.  It has to be dug for, with diligence
and passion.  It’s in people, to be found through
the practice of love.  It’s in work, in the rigorous
exercise of powers of mind or body or spirit.  It’s a
gift the created world is perpetually offering; the
price of it is untiring attention to the present
moment.  …

Hunt it down, pursue it, track it to its lair where
it dwells.  Not in pleasures and pastimes, distractions,
piled-up satisfactions, and busyness.  It dwells in truth,
and nowhere else.

That’s why it matters.  It will show you moment by
moment where truth is for you.  And when you know that,
cleave to it, turn not aside, be given up to that.  That,
if you will will, is a way of life worth living.

~Fae Malania~

* * * * *

If you deny what is your nature
you become deeply attached to that denial.
When you accept what is there, in its truth,
then you are released.
One does not release through rejection.
One releases through love.

Emmanuel’s Book I: A manual for living comfortably in the cosmos

* * * * *

Your choice is between illusion and truth.
There is no particular formula for choosing.
There is only your intent.  Will that be enough?
It will be enough to start you on your way.

Keep asking yourselves, “Am I here now?”
Just that question
will make enormous changes in your lives.
If you ask it experientially
rather than philosophically,
you will find that it becomes a mantra
that will bring you back,
breath by breath, to this time, to this place,
for in truth there is no other.

As you set yourself free from your histories,
you will wear your costumes more lightly;
you will smile much more than usual,
and you will release your hearts
to the point where you begin to trust them.
You will, in short,
let yourselves out of prison, bar by bar.

Fear is a habit.
As you recognize it,
you will be able to loosen the viselike grip –
not that fear has upon you –
but that you have upon fear.

Fear will go away
once you give it permission
to leave.

Emmanuel Book III: What Is an Angel Doing Here?

* * * * *

I want to linger inside the silence
void of sound and distraction

long enough to see for myself that love’s only obstacle
fear, really is just a paper dragon

I want to let every barrier to love fall away

I want to liberate what sleeps within me

and awake resplendent in all that remains:
your pure and perfect love

~Bethie~

* * * * *

“In this,” she says (this vision or, as she always calls it, shewing)–”In this He shewed me a little thing, the quantity of a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand, and to my understanding it was as round as any ball. I looked thereupon and thought: ‘What may this be?’ And I was answered in a general way, thus: ‘It is all that is made.’ I marvelled how it could last, for methought it might fall suddenly to naught for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: ‘It lasts and ever shall last because God loves it, and so hath all-thing its being through the love of God.”  -Fae Malania, The Quantity of a Hazelnut

* * * * *

And now finally and ultimately we come to the end of describing something that really is beyond description.  Though it can be experienced, it is formless and cannot be held nor heard nor seen.  With a twist of paradox, I leave you with this from Suzanne Vega:

I won’t use words again …

They’re just the crust of the meaning
With realms underneath
Never touched
Never stirred
Never even moved through

If language were liquid
It would be rushing in
Instead here we are
In a silence more eloquent
Than any word could ever be

* * * * *

Image props in order posted:

1. artstyleonline.com
2. freefoto.com
3. worldphotographicarts.com
4. digitalcribs.net
5. flickr.com
6. kids-fun-and-games.com

Image by Rassouli

Come close to me,
I will whisper in your ear

Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes
around in another form.

For there is so much More to this life
Than you now understand

Observe the wonders as they occur around you
Don’t claim them. Feel the artistry
moving through, and be silent

For the Truth has been Divinely Conceived
Deeply within each of us

Each of us touches one place
and understands the whole in that way

This Union you want with the earth and sky
This Union we all need with love

Stay here quivering like a drop of mercury

I thought I would let you read that poem through before I told you that
until now this poem never existed and yet it was written by two poets
a century apart.  They are the words of Rumi and Hafiz, as translated
by Coleman Barks and Daniel Ladinsky respectively.  What I have done
is create a found poem.  Each verse is excerpted from a different poem
starting with Hafiz and followed with Rumi.  This pattern repeats throughout.
This is now my fourth found poem.  The first was combining Mary Oliver and
Wendell Berry, the second was Rumi and Rilke and the third was a compilation
of eight Mary Oliver poems.  Below I cite the poems used in this creation.

Hafiz – Turn Left A Thousand Feet From Here
Rumi – Unmarked Boxes
Hafiz -  I Will Hire You As A Minstrel
Rumi -  Body Intelligence
Hafiz -  Of Course Things Like That Can’t Happen
Rumi -  Elephant in the Dark
Hafiz -  This Union
Rumi -  The Waterwheel

]]> http://simplyblessed.heartsdeesire.com/2010/07/05/this-union/feed/ 2 Beth/Bethie melodiesofdivineunity2 http://simplyblessed.heartsdeesire.com/2010/07/01/quietness-rumi/ http://simplyblessed.heartsdeesire.com/2010/07/01/quietness-rumi/#comments Thu, 01 Jul 2010 18:11:40 +0000 heartsdeesire http://simplyblessed.heartsdeesire.com/?p=1031 ]]> Today I’ve been asking myself this question:

What would wholeness say?

I love asking the question; it seems to prompt a feeling of slipping my arms into the sleeves and cloak of wholeness.   Wholeness spoke quietly and tenderly just a few things to me -

You are a blessed being.
You are perfect just as you are.
You are innocence.

And perhaps if Rumi were by my side right now, he’d peer over my shoulder and whisper in my ear:

inside this new love, die.  Your way begins on the other side.

In my last found poem, combining Rumi and Rilke, Rumi’s Quietness comprised the last verse.  Here it is, in it’s entirety, the words below and the words, set to music and images by Rahmama at youtube.  It is absolutely spectacularly, breathtakingly beautiful!

Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You’re covered with thick clouds.
Slide out the side. Die,
and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign
that you’ve died.
Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.
The speechless full moon
comes out now.

The other day I was perusing my online bank statement.  There were a series of three debits made on my account.  All on the same day to the same corporation in two different locations in Pennsylvania.  While I have family in Pennsylvania, on the day in question, March 27th, I was here in Washington.   I called the claims department for my bank and began the process of filing a claim for fraudulent activity on my account.  Meanwhile I shredded my debit card.

That same night I had a dream, I lost my blackberry and on it, among other things, was my email.  Someone called me on my land line.  It was the person now claiming they had possession of my blackberry.  They said to me, “I have your credit card number and I will now begin using it.”  There was another plot within that dream, someone went back on their word.  They promised one thing that was very important to me and then abruptly changed their mind.

I woke up and asked myself if the bank thing and the dream thing had a message for me, what would it be saying and began a dialogue with myself:

People can’t be trusted.
Do you want people to be trustworthy?
Yes.
What’s the opposite of “can’t be trusted”?
Innocent.
Do you want people to be innocent?
Yes.
Are you willing to believe that people are innocent?
Yes, I am willing to believe that this whole world is innocent.
Are you willing then not just to believe it but to have this be true for you, that the world is innocent?
Yes.
Ok then, now, go live it.

I decided then that I would make that hand on the heart pledge that I’ve been doing daily, this:

because I am not afraid, I will step into my greatness, I will step into all that I really am and I will experience Innocence.  If a challenging situation, interaction or an unwanted thought should come up, I will ask: what would Innocence bring to this?

I’ve written recently about innocence.  That this world is innocent, free of motive or agenda.  It is me, who is not yet free of motive or agenda.  I have decided that innocence will be my hand on the heart pledge until I can be the one for whom this is really true.

Saying the world is free of motive or agenda is one thing, believing it and being the one for whom that is true, requires much more of me.  In fact, it requires not just a little of me, not just I believe it everywhere but here, no, it requires ALL of me.  A whole hearted commitment or nothing at all is really what it amounts to because as long as I think a few people cannot be trusted, the world has nothing to do but reveal how this is true for me.

I can make my world heaven on earth and I can also make it hell on earth.  I choose heaven whenever I wake up and see that I’ve chosen hell because that’s what being in partnership with myself means — I have my best interest, my back at all times.  Most times is more accurate, I’m on a learning curve here!

Now I can say thank you and mean it, to whatever brought about those three debits.  It gave me the opportunity to awaken and choose again to return to my native state, what we are all born into: innocence.

I wrote the above a few days ago.  Asking for innocence to be revealed in everything has been powerful.  The moment I bring non innocence to something, I instantly withdraw that judgment or that conclusion.  Sometimes I don’t know what to put in its place, so I do nothing but withdraw my attention.  When I look at something and call it a, b or c, the world has nothing to do but respond, correspond to me and show me how it is a, b or c.  Call it, at the very least, an “I don’t know” or a “no-thing” not only do I feel better but a much wider field of possibilities opens up.  Do you know what that feels like to be unencumbered by any conclusion, judgment or idea about what anything means?  It feels EXACTLY like Rumi’s field!

“Out beyond ideas of
wrong doing and right doing

There is a field
I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down
in that grass
the world is too full
to talk about.”

]]> http://simplyblessed.heartsdeesire.com/2010/04/02/2590/feed/ 6 Beth/Bethie the_birthing_500x423 http://simplyblessed.heartsdeesire.com/2010/03/31/castles-in-the-air/ http://simplyblessed.heartsdeesire.com/2010/03/31/castles-in-the-air/#comments Wed, 31 Mar 2010 12:05:26 +0000 heartsdeesire http://simplyblessed.heartsdeesire.com/?p=2573 ]]> Image Locale

I saw Alice in Wonderland this past weekend and just loved it.  I decided I rather fancy the idea of thinking of 6 impossible things before breakfast.  It doesn’t have to be before breakfast though it could be before bed.  I do love having vivid dreams and I go to some pretty outlandish and beautiful places in my dreams.  Why not create more of that?  Of course, I could also think of 6 lovely things before breakfast or bed.  Here’s my list today of 6 impossible things before breakfast:

1. everybody gets their own make-a-wish fairy.  You get three wishes per lifetime ’cause too many and it would get boring but only three and you’d have to be really thoughtful and selective.

2. cloudy skies will now have pull back tabs that you can reach up, pull back the tabs to reveal sunny blue skies  (I know Pacific Northwester’s love that one!)

3. blink and twitch my nose and the housework gets done, laundry folded and it floats down hallways into rooms, opens drawers and puts itself away

4. My summer home is a castle floating in the air and each day we have tea and marvelous cakes with some famous guest from any time in history.  I’ll start with Einstein on Monday, Marilyn Monroe on Tuesday, Abraham Lincoln on Wednesday, Christopher Columbus on Thursday, Jesus on Friday, Rumi on Saturday and the Tooth Fairy on Sunday.

5.  It’s 3010, I’ve got the wisdom of all ages and I’m in a 25 year old body and I teach the keys to happiness and inspire the whole world.

6. Lastly, I am a small gold coin in Martin Luther King’s pocket.  He slips his hand into his pocket and fingers my cool, smooth gold coin-ness while giving his speech “I have a dream…”

Yes, Martin Luther King, I have a dream too, that life is first about dreaming and building castles in the air and last about really believing in them.  Everything starts out first as a vision, a dream and then stay true to it in your heart and just watch how it Becomes.

See you all in 3010.  I’ll be the one accepting the Nobel Prize for finding the Keys to Happiness and I’ll give you all the scoop that the Tooth Fairy let me in on.  Oh, the stories she did tell!

This post is dedicated to all of you out there who’ve never lost your sense of wonder.

Come, come, whoever you are
Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving

Come, come, whoever you are
This isn’t a caravan of despair

And it doesn’t matter if you’ve broken your vows
a thousand times before

And yet again, come again, come, and yet again, come
‘Cause it doesn’t matter if you’ve broken your vows
a thousand times before

Come again, come, come again
~Rumi~

Here is another “found” poem I have created.  This time I’ve brought Rumi and Rilke together.  No small task!  Great poets they were but not contemporaries as are Mary Oliver and Wendell Berry in my previous found poem.  This particular found poem starts with two lines from a Rumi poem and then alternates with Rilke’s words on the next two lines. This pattern is repeated with Rumi’s words then Rilke’s. No more than 1-3 lines from any one poem is used. There are many ways to create a found poem – this is one way. Below I list the eight poems that were used to accomplish this.

At first I thought: I really can’t do this.  This could be tantamount to blasphemy on some level.  However I’ve recently discovered that God is a cat lover.  When I get to the pearly gates, I’ve got extra credit as well as he’s grading on a curve, so blasphemy I can do a little and still not risk the fantasy suite and hot tub that awaits me.  :)

And now without further adieu, I bring you Rumi and Rilke, together at last.

There’s a surge up from the surface
into what is beyond dying

Like dew from the morning grass,
what is ours floats into the air

It is sunlight slicing the dark
The way the night knows itself with the moon.

Then the knowing comes: I can open
to another’s life that’s wide and timeless

If each of us held a candle there,
and if we went in together,
we could see it.

Through the empty branches the sky remains.
It is what you have.

Inside this new love, die
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.

The Vigil – Rumi
The Second Elegy – Rilke
All Rivers at Once – Rumi (note: “I am” replaced with “It is”)
In the Arc of Your Mallet – Rumi (note: it is sunlight… and the way the night…, two separate Rumi poems put together in this one verse)
The Book of Monastic Life I,5 – Rilke
Elephant in the Dark – Rumi
The Book of Pilgrimage, II,1 – Rilke
Quietness – Rumi