Today

Today

Today I’m flying low and I’m
not saying a word.
I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep.

The world goes on as it must,
the bees in the garden rumbling a little,
the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten.
And so forth.

But I’m taking the day off.
Quiet as a feather.
I hardly move though really I’m traveling
a terrific distance.

Stillness. One of the doors
into the temple.

-Mary Oliver, from A Thousand Mornings

Presence

"Being present means living without control and always having your needs met."
— Byron Katie

Effort

"As swimmers dare to lie face to the sky and water bears them, as hawks rest upon air and air sustains them, so would I learn to attain freefall, and float into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace, knowing no effort... earns that all-surrounding grace." --Denise Levertov

Change

"Things are always ending and arising and ending.  But we are strangely conditioned to want to experience just the birth part and not the death part...We have so much fear of not being in control, of not being able to hold to things.  Yet the true nature of life is that we're never in control; we can never hold onto anything.  That's how life is.  Although we can accept this intellectually, moment by moment it brings up a lot of panic and fear.  So my path has been learning to relax with this lack of control and the panic that accompanies it, learning to stay in the space of uncertainty, learning to die continually."   Pema Chodron

Dillusion

"All of what we crave in life - security, beauty, youth, energy, power - is out of our control.  All of what we fear - loss, decay, illness, aging, death - will come to pass."  Pema Chondron

Flowing

There is no controlling life.
Try corralling a lightning bolt,
containing a tornado. Dam a
...stream and it will create a new
channel. Resist, and the tide
will sweep you off your feet.
Allow, and grace will carry
you to higher ground. The only
safety lies in letting it all in –
the wild and the weak; fear,
fantasies, failures and success.
When loss rips off the doors of
the heart, or sadness veils your
vision with despair, practice
becomes simply bearing the truth.
In the choice to let go of your
known way of being, the whole
world is revealed to your new eyes.

—Danna Faulds,
"Poems from the Heart of Yoga: Go In and In"

Healing

The cloud does not insist upon it's form,
The wave does not force it's way over the ocean,
So why should you clutch so tightly your little map?

Follow your heart
And know joy in all things.
The path of freedom
has no markers,
Yet leads to fulfillment;
The path of confusion
Is crowded with signs,
Pointing in different directions.

The Great Way is a humble, solitary path
Leading home;
Follow it closely and be guided.
How do you know you are on the Way?

When your map no longer serves you.

Havin Travino, "The Tao of Healing"

Awakening

"When your soul awakens,you begin to truly inherit your life. You leave the kingdom of fake surfaces, repetitive talk and weary voices and slip deeper into the true adventure of who you are and who you are called to become. The greatest friend of the soul is the unknown. Yet we are afraid of the unknown because it lies outside our vision and our control. The normal way never leads home.

Once you start to awaken, no one can ever claim you again for old patterns. Now you realize how precious your time here is. You are no longer willing to squander your essence on undertakings that do not nourish your true self; your patience grows thin with tired talk and dead language. You see through the roster of expectation which promises safety and the confirmation of outer identity. Now you are impatient for growth, willing to put yourself in the way of change. You want your work to become an expression of your gift. You want your relationship to voyage beyond the pallid frontiers to where the danger of transformation dwells. You want your God to be wild and to call you to where your destiny awaits. When you begin to sense that your imagination is the place where you are most divine, you feel called to clean out of your mind all the worn and shabby furniture of thought. When your inner senses are blurred, you can see nothing in or of yourself; you become a respectable prisoner of received images. On this journey, you begin to see how the sides of your heart that seemed awkward, contradictory and uneven are the places where your treasure lies hidden. You begin to become truer to yourself. The journey shows you that from this inner dedication you can reconstruct your own values and action. You develop from your own self-compassion a great compassion for others. You are no longer caught in the false game of judgment , comparison and assumption. More naked now than ever , you begin to feel truly alive. You begin to trust the music of your own soul; you have inherited treasure that no one will ever be able to take from you. At the deepest level, this adventure of growth is in fact a trans-figurative conversation with your own death. And when the time comes for you to leave, the view from your death bed will show a life of growth that gladdens the heart and takes away all fear."

Prayer

"At it's deepest, prayer is a statement about causality.   Turning toward prayer is a release from the arrogance and vulnerability of an isolated and individual causality.   When we pray; we stop trying to control life and remember that we belong to life.   It is an opportunity to experience humility and recognize grace."  Rachel Naomi Remen

Moving On

"Freedom may come not from being in control of life but rather from a willingness to move with the events of life, to hold on to our memories but let go of the past, to choose, when necessary, the inevitable.   We can become free at any time."   Rachel Naomi Remen

Laughter

"There should be great dollups of wild laughter among believers.  And that laughter in it's sense of irony should be a recognition of the helplessness and smallness of their own little projects compared to the graciousness and dignity and the wonder of the great divine calling.   Because more often than not, it's when humans really try to make it work out and get it together that they make the greatest disaster out of the whole thing.   I'm sure if we could listen to the music of the spheres that we would hear deep within it the divine laughter at the attempts of the little humans to work out all of their miriad projects which are so serious and solomn to them but in the context of the great and touching divine graciousness are very small indeed."   John O' Donahue

Image

"We try to fix or control that which is beyond us with images that are too poor and that are ultimately inadequate."  John O' Donahue

Surrender

"Let life happen to you.   Believe me; life is in the right, always."   Rilke

Letting Go

"Sooner or later when we surrender what we cannot control we have to hold still and let the demons we have been running from catch us.   There is no greater terror.   But there can be no greater liberation than to face those, held in the arms of your own compassionate nature and that which is larger than yourself."   Oriah

Broken Open

"It is in times of brokenness that the soul sings its most wise and eternal song.   I cannot hum you a tune or tell you the lyrics; each person's soul has it's own cadence.   You will recognize it's music though, by the way you feel when you are listening; awake, calm, and suddenly relieved of the burden of control."  Elizabeth Lesser

Change

"All of what we crave in life - security, health, personal gain - is fleeting and out of our control; all of what we fear in life - conflict, aging, loss - will come to pass."   Elizabeth Lesser

Choice

"If we do not choose consciously, we will react unconsciously through our impulses and hidden desires, feeling as though they have control over our lives."   Polly Young-Eisendrath

Personal Sovereignty

"Personal sovereignty is the ability to know and practice self-determination in whatever circumstances you find yourself.   When you feel in control of your life, you know yourself to be the author of your own actions, and know that you always have choices."   Polly Young-Eisendrath

Power

"External power is located in the dominance of and control over the physical world.   This is the power of war, the power of laws and organizations.   This is the power of controlling all that is external to the self.   By contrast, the spiritual being is focused on empowering himself and others to higher and higher levels of consciousness and achievement.   The way of force over another is not a possibility.   He or she is not interested in collecting power, but in helping others to live in harmony.   This is the power of love that does not judge others.   There is no hesitancy or anger.   It is true empowerment to know that one can live in the world with others who have different points of view and have no need to control or vanquish them.   Enormous power comes with the ability to manipulate the physical world with one's mind."   Wayne Dyer

God

"You should never allow anyu person or institution to own or control your longing.   No one has the right to deny you the beautiful adventure of God.   When you let this happen, it makes you homeless.  You are a child of Divine Longing."  John O' Donahue