Fallen

It doesn't matter what I say or do, because from now to now, I'm just pouring myself out on the sand. There it goes. There it goes.

What I'm seeing is a reflection of such delicate fragility that one drop of million-year-old rain sets all of it dancing into chaotic, nonsensical patterns. The stability is entirely illusory. Yet, there are aeons. There are patterns. There are things and sensations. I live on the famed holodeck, and I, myself, am but one more hologram perceived by another. Oh--and all this creation is entirely mutual--so mutual that it's singular. So singular that it's nothing.

Part of this beauty is that there is absolutely no way, as the Singular Nothing, to be attached to anything, any experience, regardless of any apparent longevity. There must be some form of separation to make up an attachment...the struggle to let go may as well be an attempt to hang on. It is futile. Either way, it is all experienced thoroughly, deeply, nothing missed. Love does that.

However

The most unbearable tickle is the understanding that there is no separate aware-er here--that consciousness or awareness is made up of exactly everything in this moment. It's nice to believe in a sort of "giant essence of everything" that by definition is somehow, on some level, apart. There is no harm in it; there is no lack, really, and nothing to locate or contact. If I manage to peel everything away, all the layers of crap and forks in the road, I would still be here, now, my own lover, and not even that.

The deep tickle comes in with the complete failure of cause-and-effect. I am not "causing" a world to happen, or vice-versa. It just is/n't, with all its qualities, unqualified. There is nothing I can do, nowhere to hide, nothing to accomplish first. All here, all the time. Nothing left out, no need for a director.

I am learning that this kind of a tease is something not too many human personalities can bear, or even want to acknowledge. It doesn't matter what intelligence we assign to this situation (Being) here...the freedom of unknowing eats all its own crutches, excuses, every victim story, every shred of white-knight armor, and renders itself so naked as to be unborn. The freedom isn't even "freedom" in the sense that I often wish. Without my layers of denial, all the possibilities, response-abilities and a painful, glorious honesty shine untouched. Details are intensified--suffering and love, also. The potential of US is fabulously evident, as well as the attempted repression of said potential by every institution created by US--as if we can't bear to see how this truly is, or change or accept what we truly can.

Then there is the beauty of it all, just as it is/n't.

Beauty happens when the mind lies down with the heart, and senses--sense-abilities--are born.

I might be slicing cheese, staring at a column of numbers or walking into a forest. Cheesing, numbering, foresting. A second ago, there was a person-in-charge...now, just happening-of-its-own, with a dusting of awe, here and gone. What lingers is appreciation in the poetry of Being. That's it.

All my glory unsharable, all my love unrequited. If I laugh, only stars can hear; if I cry, the wind carries it right into silence. I am, indeed, absolutely alone in an incurable way. There  is no comfort in this, as far as the mind is concerned, because love can only be a word to the intellect.

However...

Poof

I'm writing from an ego, a character, a story, because there is no way I can do it otherwise. I find it fascinating that there is an ability to communicate all these worthless ideas with a code that was made up to be broken! Ego's favorite thing--make to break--mysteries, plots, reasoning, logic, time, no time.

Forgive your parents, culture, the world for teaching us, not only to cultivate this skill, but establish it within our psyches as the One True Religion. Forgive it all for building a self-image based on fear, to be worshiped blindly until interest in the futility of this practice is lost. There is no real Ego, of course...just spontaneously popping ideas, like so much airborne fluff...seeds to fall on the ever-fertile soil of imagination, perhaps grow, wither, and die. Everything does.

Forgive as it happens, and see the pure poetry, the singing necessity of it all, the perfection of such a mysterious non-thing. 

Much love!

Longest Nights

Winter Solstice just passed us here in the Northern Hemisphere. It's one of my favorite seasonal markers, even with the cold, dark and damp. I enjoy the turning-in, the introversion, the sleeping trees; I love the seeking of fire and body heat and soft blankets. Hibernation can be a wonderful thing for Maria.

I have have seen much unfolding in this heart of mine (which also happens to be this heart of yours!). Lots of learning, growing and shedding going on. The last few seasons have shown me some beautiful insights, as well as shadowy recesses that never enjoy the greening of summer, and (to my initial dismay) never will...just as some places on this planet will never touch the light of day. Some wounds may or may not heal when you leave them alone, when they are left to do whatever it is that they do. Some scars never fade. It is, as they say, what it is.

This isn't meant to be a despairing message, however. I grew up in and out of a psychological (and sometimes physical) war zone, so it isn't a sermon on acceptance, either. Accept, don't accept--it's all the same to the Great Whatever. It takes you as you are. There is no need to earn your way into happiness, prove your mettle, express your gratitude. It took years and years for this understanding to sink in all the way. No one has to apologize for being here. There is no right way to live a life. I cannot judge a single human being--including this one--not because of a moral issue, but because it's an action that carries no weight at all. It's a waste of energy, in my humble opinion, an opinion that changes exactly...nothing!

As I mature, my interest seems to lie more and more with honesty. Brutal, lovely, heartbreaking, life-expanding honesty. If I could have consistently lied to myself and gotten away with it, I probably would have. It turns out that, in the long run, and for the sake of everything, honesty is the best policy--again, not because the universe is "moral". There are degrees of honesty, all with their accompanying discomforts and releases. There was a time when I lied to myself because I knew no other way to survive. This is, somehow, a very honest thing, in an immature way. Comes a time when it no longer serves, and the carrying of illusion gets very difficult. Drop a layer. The new perception serves until it doesn't--and repeat. I have no idea if this ever ends.

I don't know how it is that those layers fall, but it seems a ripeness is in order; they certainly don't leave before everything is ready! Then, in a rush, or with an inaudible sigh, or in complete stealth, things have changed. Maybe subtly, maybe drastically, but new worlds are available to view. Honesty most definitely supports this process, aids it, and makes the seeming transition "cleaner". Eventually, there is a feeling of loving presence, a reflection of strength and vulnerability bouncing off any conceivable thing, finally enfolding all things. It is, of course, a further opening of the heart.

At this time in life, I am in a very interesting place. It's a place with not much room for "I", literally and metaphorically. In many ways, the most common image of Maria--the self-image--has been challenged and pushed, more and more, into a corner of itself. This Maria is representative of some original wound, some terrible violation (or a few), and presents typically as a bundle of reactivity, anger and pain. Over the years, well-meaning therapists have counseled me to "repair the self-esteem" and "heal the wounded child" with all the love and understanding my parents couldn't give me. Also, I should stand my ground, demand respect and consideration, and stop picking up wounded birds. Yeah. I should do this because Maria deserves a good man, time off, more help, and self-respect. Alright--I get that. Still, something is not ringing true in this advice, anymore. It seems trite, redundant and no longer fitting, and I suspect the shifting of another strata. It's as if we have taken the repair of the ego as far as it can go. Been there, done that.

More and more, there is a detachment, an objectivity waking up in place of the wounded creature, where a spastic mind once held sway. I was taught that detachment was a way of avoidance or not caring. This turns out to be true, but not in the way I assumed. What I have lost interest in is the outcome of the story (they all end the same way, right here), and in the quest for something better. Contrary to how this may sound, it isn't as though I have "given up". It's more that the structure disappeared, the race was called off, and I found that what I had signed up for was not any of this, after all. In fact, there is no real thing to admit defeat, no real person to be shamed, or to claim victory. I cannot know what this really is.

I've educated myself fairly well in most things "spiritual", and so of course, the concept of the Void, the illusion of the personal, the world of maya all make intellectual sense to me and balance the seeming solidity of everything quite nicely. And being an expert at coping, I've learned to "be objective", or philosophical, about most things. It never really occurred to me on a visceral level that I would wake up one morning viewing my familiar body in my familiar field of vision with all its sensations as something...not foreign, exactly, but unassumed. Something as natural as that tree outside, and as impenetrable, unknown, and in that sense, unfamiliar. A mystery. Nothing I can improve, run from, or seek to fulfill. Fulfillment is suddenly a laughable idea. A completely unnecessary-anymore-idea.

And this body, in its utter innocence, owns nothing, claims nothing. It has no thoughts (I don't know what does). It has its own way of speaking and is completely unconcerned about what happened when I was five. This realization is startling.

There are feelings, emotions, and they act of their own accord, without any meddling on my part, without my interference. They don't lash out and destroy anything. Nobody gets hurt. No planets are pulled into my orbit. Even if they did, that would somehow be okay.

I think about my old therapists, and wonder if they would find some "dissociation disorder" in this point-of-view-which-isn't. I've never been more sane. :)

Saule, Sol, Gold, Go

I used to know a young prospector who spent hours in creeks and rivers, looking for that elusive chunk of luck--the big payoff, the proof that all the pain and expense and hope was worth it. He had the fever, the bug, the addiction to the search. He searched so hard because he knew that occasionally, someone did strike it rich, find a vein of metal shining like the sun, even in the shadows. Precious, precious stuff. 

After a while, the hobby grew too expensive and time-consuming. There were heavy flakes, glimmers in a pan, tiny nuggets here and there...and there was occasional peace, under the water with a dredge running, or communing with a brave trout. But the reward that was supposed to come--the marker, the end of the search, a fist-sized treasure, held up for all to see--it never happened. The adventure was abandoned, the urge to hunt taking other forms. Seek, and you shall find...what? Accolades? Comfort? Escape? What? Have you found it? Are we there yet? Can we control it, is it pleasurable enough, are we safe?

It is said that water seeks its own level. Perhaps it's more accurate to say that water surrenders into itself. It falls up, falls down, pools, rushes, sits in silence, roars in waves. It vaporizes, powerless, and condenses to take over the world. It remains frozen for eons, uncomplaining. We are mostly water, and earth, fire, air and the rest, all having no problem cooperating in the form of a human. We are burning, evaporating, calcifying this very moment. Lightning beats our hearts. Something moves, we change, and yes--the process we tag "mind" will seek, seek, and seek some more. Incredibly restless and creative Mind. So full of its own luscious self, casting shadows on everything it sees, every other part of itself...not conscious, asleep and dreaming of success in love, in finances, in the good fight, whatever it is at the moment. Advancing, retreating, screaming, cowering. Rejecting. Coveting. Trying this method or that, this recipe, this formula, taking these steps. Looking at itself in horror, in joy, in defeat. Confronting its own death...unable to understand, calculate, reframe such a thing. There is death, there is no death. Off/on--what is this, really? What am I, really? Am I real? What the hell is "real"? What about this--and this--and this?! What an annoyance!

Something happens--an overload, an exhaustion, an experience of suspension. Ahhh. Yes. Peace. This is it. The payoff. Look! Here's the payoff! Right? Eureka! Breakthrough! I know the way! 

Oh, little brain. Here come the shadows, and the light dims. Iron pyrite, fool. This way looks like it might get us lost again. It's gold we want, right? Light in solid form? Learn to recognize it (says some prospector with a long beard, missing teeth and a mule). It gleams, even in shadow. It loves, even in pain. You have seen it, it has seen you, and neither can forget. Onward. Up that canyon, down that ravine. Follow the river, she will show you. Stop being so damn mean to that mule. She will show you. No, you don't need a new, shiny pickaxe!

Prospecting is lonely, full of hard work, and according to lots of intelligent folks, unnecessary. I understood the seeker of my acquaintance very well, more than I cared to admit, even though we were mining different things, through different mediums, with different goals (or so I believed at the time). My seeking was somehow better than his, because mine was on a "spiritual" level. My search had value higher than his. Mine was somehow justified, and his was not. Oh, little brain!

I don't know if he ever found what he was looking for, but now I realize that he went about the growth and death of himself in exactly the right way, for exactly the right reasons, and that I can never know his story. I can only know this one, and not even that.

So, what happened?

Well, I lost all the maps, my mule wisely sought greener pastures, and I was forced to carry all my own stuff. Very hard work, I can tell you. By that time, people's opinions of my adventures ceased to matter. I followed the river, anyway, because--I realized that I loved it. Or it loved me. Either way. 

I found more and more gold, ironically--and just as ironically, it lost its value--that is, the value that others placed upon it. However, my appreciation of the mining process deepened to the point that it was more play than work. There was beauty in the landscape, in the looking, the finding, even in disappointment and the occasional injury. Consequently, I was content with less and less. One day, I quit searching. People thought the gold was pretty and full of amazing value, so I gave it away. I was surprised to find that I enjoyed this. And along came my old friend Mind, who whispered, "Hey, Eureka! I found the way!" 

I laughed until I thought my heart would break. I made a good, nourishing meal for my restless friend (happy chewing, Sweetheart!), and went to sleep like a good animal. In the morning, gold was everywhere--just everywhere, like a messy fairytale...or a gripping mystery. There was the body, the heart, even the mind, gleaming in the shadows. Aladdin's cave was the kitchen, an old lady, a man burying himself in porn, the cat stretching, frozen fog around the moon, the primitive, the futuristic, oil paint, a coffee spill on white tile (again). The voice of Precious says I love you, leave me alone, I don't know, I hurt, this is it, watch out, don't leave, get out, I have no opinion...the heart contracts, expands, feelings wave, stomach growls. Decisions are made, seemingly by everything at the same time, and things move. There is no identifying this, but words go around and through...so full I'm empty, so empty I'm full. The thought of death shines like a rising sun. 

Get a mule, polish your pan, get to work...or not. It's worth it. Even finding nothing...perhaps especially, finding nothing. A river loves you.

Nameless

Like those before and after, I'm leaving a trail of description that is nothing more than breadcrumbs on a moonless night. I can't help myself, apparently. I never know exactly what Maria will think, do, or how she will behave. This used to be a terrifying situation...now, it's liberating.

Lately, early in the morning, I spend a little time in what I suppose could be a kind of "meditation". I've never been able to keep a formal practice for very long. However, when I fall in, I fall in. Love...that has been my experience, my exploration. It seems the mental, physical and emotive are all coming together in a kind of synthesis that is evolving in unexpected ways, and I find myself simultaneously following like a puppy, unfurling like a frond and building, layer upon layer, like a pearl. Insights are both universal and intensely personal, applied to this momentum...given enough space and willingness, no question goes unanswered.

This morning there was a kind of pressure building, and eventually, the universe came out on my breath. I was singing reality. I was in awe. It was a quiet song full of every noise present, and the rest of my senses streamed along with it. I had to get up and stretch, reach for the floor, the ceiling, go out on the porch. There were crows calling, there was a white-star sun muffled in clouds topping a fir tree across the street. Music drifted faintly from a nearby house. The smell of wet, fallen leaves, earth, town was distinct...no body, no skin between myself and all this. The world has no skin.

A man walked by on the sidewalk, and I heard my voice say "good morning", in the same way I heard the echoing crows and the splash of water from the rain gutter. I can't tell you how absolutely in place everything was (is)--how a car passed in perfection, thoughts in succession and then not at all. The barrier of sleepy caution was completely absent.

Only in its absence do I become aware of how thick and pervasive this "filter" is...like a cloudy lens, an awkward pair of glasses with the wrong prescription. Fear of being (that's right!) is a habit, an unconscious pattern. When I become aware of it, it is just another rise and fall, a wave of energy that can do nothing to disturb what actually is...what I completely am. Following it is like getting caught in the wake of something passing--a ghost ship, that in the light of my heart turns out to be water dancing.

I am in love, my friends...immersed, drowned, clear. The love is being open to learning, unafraid. It's as if I--"I"--came into being out of fear, and then broke through to some other side. I'm not saying anything new...and there is no other side. The crows fly away with the trail in their beaks, calling. Not one mark do they leave!

In Touch

I've been debating with myself about writing, lately. I often have no words for the best things...no description seems to reach the heart of expression. These things must be experienced to be understood. Not experienced in my way, but in yours.

Aha.

Most of the time, I don't have the luxury of endless hours of meditation, contemplation or prayer--light tends to happen in flashes, and is simply put it aside in favor of daily demands. Sometimes, though, I jot notes in my journal. Going over these sparks, poems and stories, it occurs to me that "mystical" experience is often their inspiration. My character marches, sprawls or fumbles through her average day, usually in some kind of survival mode or full coping armor; all at once, a swirl of leaves, the velvet expanse of a gaze, a spontaneous dance or two words from some sage, and wham! A sudden dive, or perhaps gradual descent/ascent into a whole new way of being here. Life hasn't changed--I am just naked again.

I don't think of these experiences as proof of realization or arrival (one never arrives anywhere!). For me, they are points of unfolding, timeless spans of healing and insight, appearing fully faceted through mind, body and spirit in a manner that mere mental understanding can't possibly match. That's all. :)

Also, they are cyclical, cumulative in some way, and will torment the more limited me if ignored  too long. Growth happens. Trying to contain it builds pressure. In my experience, pretending smallness doesn't help the situation.

Recently, I read through the journal of a Middle Eastern mystic and was astounded at the similarities in our experience (and the wording thereof). Further research and more startling synchronicity have me appreciating my odd life in a whole new way--with much more respect and humility. I've often compared the movement of God/dess, Spirit, the Great Whatever--This--to a language that doesn't use words. It's something felt, a kind of natural knowing revealed, a communication-by-expansion. Words can be misconstrued. Direct experience, though sometimes puzzling or mysterious to the mind after the fact, carries a quality of immediate intimacy, pointing to our own face. It demands attention, contemplation, even just a gentle holding and processing. Calling it craziness (I did, for a long time) will not make it go away! It can't go away. It is what we are. It can only be held off, by resistance or desire, for so long.

Some people have asked why, when this kind of thing is sought after by "spiritual seekers" (or just intensely curious adventurers) in many places--why would I deny, disregard, or downplay the nature of my experience? Fear, at first, and reluctance to wreck what little social life I had. Ego was terribly involved in a backhanded way. Exaggerated repression tends to blow things out of proportion, inhibiting the natural flow of such energies. I couldn't know this, however, and so it went.

Some events took many years to unfold and integrate, and a degree of caution was called for.  As a young adult, a good friend of mine accused me of being a closet drug-addict when I let my guard down and admitted some of my more colorful adventures. Such states were the product of LSD, he insisted, or some kind of demonic possession. Neither demons nor drugs were involved (although I did get mighty curious about whether or not LSD really brought on that facet of reality...decades later, the answer is NO. Not the same!) Respect on both sides was often lost over these discussions. I stopped talking about it...until I learned some discernment.

As time went on, the quality of these experiences changed--became deeper, more powerful, and brought on waves of "psychic" phenomena. Neat...but the love, the love is what I fell for! Love, love, LOVE unlike any other. I say "love", because that word best describes what I felt, but in all honesty, this intimacy was of a degree unknown in my human relations. It left me awestruck, humbled, blown open, and almost terrified of the spacious beauty revealed--as if it was my own inside. This sensation was most difficult to accept...it went against common sense, certainly belying my upbringing and typical belief systems. There was, in fact, no model in my life for this.

And there still isn't. It is comforting to note a kind of mystical territory common to certain "levels" of experience, where the landmarks are metaphorically (and often literally) pointed to--there is the Void, a pearl of great price, fire in the belly, diamond intellect--yet, fulfillment can only be found here, now, as I am, in no other experience. Looking exclusively "out there" for peace, understanding and validation turns these essential qualities of Being into mere shadows of themselves, placing them at a distance. This, as they say, is it, and it unfolds uniquely through each of us, into the kind of world most appropriate to our degree of acceptance...whatever we are ready to experience.

Writing about this helps me in the same way that painting does...it "externalizes" a process.  What is born on the page or canvas always seems at least one step removed from original contact. There is still value in saying it, in looking at it, in putting it into form for minds and hearts to view. The original moment is ours alone, shaped precisely to us, so close that it is whatever we are. It doesn't happen to us. We are the stillness, the eternal witness, in which the motion of life opens like a wake and spreads across a totality barely sensed on the typical plane of awareness. 

Just a couple of layers down...there is a curiosity, quite gentle, unafraid, open, neutral and entirely intimate with all that is. This is the realm, I'm convinced, within which we glimpse unfurled wings. This is where a very pure version of us dwells, a being so fine as to touch all things with grace, in an exact meeting. I find myself here as this unconflicted awareness at times when I can't sleep, but am too physically tired to get up, or perhaps when I'm just very relaxed. There is no thought, image or movement that is avoided, and nothing is defended. I need nothing. My nature is content with itself and whatever happens. It isn't even "my" nature--it just is. The is-ness is unquestioned. It roams the mind, body and environment with nothing but a wish to know the forms, feelings and all other sensual things as they are--an almost childlike love. 

Just a couple of layers down...