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...

Anyhow

I can read cards, leaves and bones, even though I don't need to. I can interpret shadows in the eyes, hesitation in a hand, and doodles. I sometimes see into a distant room without taking a body there; I dream lucidly and have some of my best lessons in that realm. I am a devoted student of heart-language and other inaudible means of communication--intuition, some call it. I feel "energies" and occasionally see ghosts (or whatever they are). I am sensitive this way--it seems I have access to at least one lifetime full of collected wisdom serving many practical purposes.

Being a reader of signs and omens has a negative side, however, in that I tend to treat everything as if there is some greater meaning to be found, something just behind the symbol or metaphor. Words and feelings can point to concepts, like certain types of clouds point to an approaching storm, like russet leaves to falling. The fractals stretch out to infinity...falling to wintering, to seasons and cycles, to planets and stars and space, to universes without end. There comes a point where anything means anything, as all are related here, now.

Although casting for meaning is a useful skill, it can also be a habit which can block the very vision seeking to expand. Collapsing meaning is just as useful--necessary, even, to experience a deeper peace. One can chase after meaning eternally, as it always retreats like the proverbial carrot on a stick, or gives way to another horizon. This is great for referencing and making art, but horrible for seeing the truth of the situation--my human condition, as it is.

The patterns etched into my neurology through childhood bliss and trauma can be a nightmare when I tuck myself into their tunnels and folds, travel down their canyons, and read the old etchings on the walls. The territory is ancient and familiar, no matter which face or situation is reflected in the ever-renewing water of my life, and I find myself struggling through the same rapids, washing up in the same places. The cuts get deeper, the patterns more established, it seems, each year. There are landmarks I had nothing to do with, but are inherent in my species--heartbreak ridge, a valley of tears, lover's leap...oh, what does it mean, what does it mean? (Mind can't comprehend the magnitude of the moment...)

 Nothing. It means nothing, the way a system of roots is reflected in the stretching limbs of a tree, meaning nothing but itself; the way a pattern in the bark looks like the river flowing nearby, but cannot be pointing to anything at all except the fact that I noticed. This universe, thank whatever, is eternally flexible and open to interpretation. And my interpretations mean absolutely nothing at all, are not based upon anything substantial, as there is nothing more insubstantial than this sentence.

Collapsing thought-structures, yanking the mental rug, is not as intimidating or difficult as it may seem. It only takes a few minutes of sitting in a sunbeam at the park, watching a yellow leaf composting itself, for meaninglessness to become self-evident. There is no climax to the story when every element of it is its own. I am such an integral part of this afternoon that I can neither rise above nor subvert it; I am nothing special, there is no grand end to all these grand endings!

The feelings of the moment are just that; I do not believe the clock or the calendar, because they are in no way able to contain this actuality. This could be any spacetime, and is only this one. I walked into this, blossomed out of it in a way I will never, ever understand with my mind--and my body doesn't care, it is so perfectly at home here. Do I feel love? Can I ever love anyone or anything at all to the degree I am loved by this? Is it the same? The questions arch and shatter. My left foot is asleep. The universe spins on, but I have stopped time by noticing.

There is a babbling and rushing sound, which can signify a creek's distance from my ears, its depth and perhaps a width, as well. Left alone, the language is the sound of everything else, all running child and grass and emptiness behind my eyes. What else would it be? 

There is a stunning detachment, arising from the fact that I cannot be "attached" to something that is intimately myself. This detachment is the true love of letting things go, letting ideas die a natural death, relaxing an artificially desperate grip. This openhandedness feels wholeheartedly, exponentially, while emotion stills. Emotion cannot feel anything--it's a momentum of energy, tracking the stars of the burst, spreading the muck of the flood. As soon as it has begun, it's done, one more event in a non-contextual space in which everything "happens", and nothing is held back. It's so ubiquitous that I can't even get out of it enough to comment.


Ah, well.


I may have completely and comfortably lost my mind, made friends with death, and given up the last vestige of hope. Good. It's about time. 


I'm hungry.

October

On the beach, between storms, walking with a steady wind at my back. Soothing myself with all the white noise and rhythm. Not too many people out in the middle of the week, with the Pacific "storm door" wide open. Thoughts fewer and fewer. Feeling more spacious...aaaaahhhh. Yes. All I hear are various tones of Shhh.

Now comes the thing I call love, for lack of a better description, where the waves roll through me, where there are no boundaries, no self-concerns, no ideas about the state of the world, no prayers for anything different. I can only talk about it after the fact, and words are lousy...pictures, too...but...

It is not a gentle day; the wind is blowing hard enough that pieces of dried sea-life skitter past and ahead of me, racing each other. Sand is forming wave patterns wherever it blows. Clouds thin, but don't disperse, while more gather offshore. I'm warm from the motion and consider taking off my jacket--not quite. I come to a place where water drains from a large pipe, and I must hop across on rocks to avoid getting my feet wet. The beach is more deserted here, vacation houses shuttered up on short cliffs, mixed with struggling motels for the next couple of miles until the trees and grass of a state park are allowed again. The sand ahead is clean and almost flat, not much driftwood, so a small object stands out in distant darkness.

I drift toward the spot on the high-tide mark, curious, more so when I recognize the thing as a sitting bird. It is alive, unmoving as I approach. I walk carefully until I'm a few feet away. Though conscious, the bird is injured, dying, maybe. It rests quietly in exhaustion, facing into the wind. It opens an eye and looks directly at me, and then closes it, unconcerned, unafraid, unable.

My heart contracts, opens again. I squat down and consider the emerging details--black feathers of the back and wing, one slightly extended, sand collecting around the white breast, a wake pattern forming behind the short, battered tail. My eyes find the place where the bird hit the sand and skidded forward a couple of feet. Only a little while left...I feel sadness. A memory arises, a wise counselor a decade ago urging me to "step over the wounded birds", speaking of people in my life I believed needed saving or teaching or loving and were just me, wanting saving and teaching and loving. There is nothing I can do except the practical, and in many cases, just nothing--like this.

A thought comes. "He is waiting to die." Knowing comes--there is no waiting, here. The bird is doing what natural grace does, ebbing out, struggle over. It looks like dignity, but isn't. There is no need to dignify this passage. A huge, open love is here. I walk away with a human wish for a quick and peaceful end to any pain the bird may feel, because I suffer with the thought.

***

Only a few days pass, and I find myself on the same beach, this time with my brother. The wind is gone. My brother is struggling inwardly, and the walk is therapeutic, I think. Talk is minimal and inconsequential. Not too long, and I catch myself looking, looking, until I find what some part of me seeks. I don't know why, but I break away from my brother and go to the feathered body, washed all the way down here...yes, here it is, the end of the story. I don't know what this feeling is, when I gaze open-eyed at the white breast, torn open and washed clean in the sea. The bird's heart is gone, food for a scavenger. Soon it will be scattered feathers, bones becoming sand. It's a horrific sight, post-breath, but beautiful because I can't deny it, any of this.

Over my shoulder, my brother says, "Yeah, Maria, it's a dead bird," and walks away, mildly disgusted. I feel his puzzlement. Just another process-in-action, yes; no, when it is also mine, my bones I'm walking on and the feathers I will never fly with in this lifetime. Even more, it's a feeling that I can't name, that somehow contains, creates and abolishes life and death.

Love is such an inadequate sound to wrap it in.

Occupy This

I can't help but watch social swings of the pendulum with great interest. There are moments during the "Occupy Wall Street" footage that send good chills from my head to my toes...I love it when people stand up in spite of their fear, push their personal envelopes, speak their minds! I believe it's good for humans to have that opportunity and use it.

Cynics say that it will change nothing in the system as it is--I disagree, because if something shifts inside a human being, the "system" is no longer the same. Of course these are idealists and hippies and self-perceived victims--along with old, young, rightish, leftish, military vets, unemployed geeks and ex-middle class. Whatever. The point is in the waking up and considering one's situation, internally and externally, from that place that is both/neither. It may appear on the surface as an attempt to buck corruption or reform a social order, but what is happening is an expression of a change in consciousness, a step outside perceived security. Reality--all of it--ripples with the stirring of standing up. Is it good? Bad? What will the outcome be? I don't know--and the fabric of what's real doesn't care. What matters is the sea change in the blood, in the heart, in the brain. The goals are secondary to the action of the moment, and change constantly in that beautifully ordered chaos that we dream as existence.

Very serious business...or is it?

One of my nearest and dearest family members has no computer or television. He tends to avoid mainstream news as being too negative. When I told him about the movements across the country, he said, "Yeah, well, people in power know that in order to maintain control, you have to let the people blow off steam before you crack back down. It will probably amount to nothing." Later in the conversation, he amended this opinion with the hope that the people "dance and sing and take things lightly (while pursuing serious goals), because if protests and political movements can be FUN, then things might actually change!"

"You mean, they'll show up for the party and accidentally get educated?" I laughed.

"Exactly,"  he replied. "We only have a little time, you know, and might as well see the beauty, the laughter in life...really enjoy each other while trying to wake folks up. Fun is so much better than violence at accomplishing these things."

I agree with that...let's hope violence isn't perceived as something essential to waking up. It needn't be, if one first decides to fully occupy oneself--the body, the full range of emotion and perception swirling through, the honesty of love and fear, the fact that what we really want, all of us, is more love and less fear. Start right here, now, and take responsibility for this, your universe. Both greed and altruism exists in all of us, somewhere. Fight for what you love, not against what you hate, and dance/write/paint/chant your own bright truth before deciding there is an absolute.

Much love!

What Else?

Upon arrival in my own life

I found an immensity of feeling, a range independent 

of any other;

the totality of subtlety, and beyond this,

a capacity untouched, untapped, and permanently generous.