“Here in the trees it was much easier to believe the absurdities that embarrassed me indoors. Nothing had changed in this forest for thousands of years, and all the myths and legends of a hundred different lands seemed much more likely in this green haze than they had in my clear-cut bedroom. - Bella Swan

Nature India Arie

“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.” - Chief Seattle

September, 19

today, thoughts of learning to write
but why, it is so much easier now
catching flotsam and jetsam as it rises

my mind wanders into other lives
so do I "need" to read?
it seems so, curiously so

open the book
letters line up waiting
happy to be gazed upon

turn the page
and abundance continues
never ending other worlds exist

and if only I gaze upon my own life
shall I be happy as a literary voyeur
hmmm, I think not yet

from September 14

breaking boundaries
living outside "the truth"
what is reason

oozing out of confined space
what is knowledge
what is reality

overlapping realities
"here and now" blends
strands of then

setting my goals
courting my intentions
off to the starting gate

wrapped in valiant intentions
she flees conflicted restraints
heads towards the inexplicable

i sit in isolation watching
people flow on foot and wheels
vessels rise and fall with the surges
walls around my heart flex and reharden
memories shift out of focus
now bobbing in and out
reaching out to touch the world
I offer you my heart
but you never asked for it
why not claim it for myself

may I gently abide with you my friend
perhaps we could just watch the stars

“That's the thing about pain," Augustus said, and then glanced back at me. "It demands to be felt”
-- John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

what does it mean??
my heart bleeds for you
and of what use

A beautiful quote, I think

“She was a genius of sadness, immersing herself in it, separating its numerous strands, appreciating its subtle nuances. She was a prism through which sadness could be divided into its infinite spectrum.”
-- Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated

she is curled so deeply into her sorrow
the silence almost screams with the unsaid
I know not how or if to reach in for her

“When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressive creature. He becomes interesting to other people. He disturbs, upsets, enlightens, and opens ways for better understanding. Where those who are not artists are trying to close the book, he opens it and shows there are still more pages possible.”- Robert Henri

“A choir is made up of many voices, including yours and mine. If one by one all go silent then all that will be left are the soloists.

Don’t let a loud few determine the nature of the sound. It makes for poor harmony and diminishes the song.”

-- Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

“What we find changes who we become.” - Peter Morville

Opening A New Year - 5774

Sun, 15 September 2013 = 11th of Tishrei, 5774

Blessing of a New Year inscribed in the Holy Book of Life, time to continue the next beautiful segment of life.

I am reading The Selfward Facing Way by Sall Ross and The Empty Chair by Rebbe Nachman to start my new year, as well as learning about Contemplative Psalmody. still reading Wanderlust - History of Walking, Stalking Elijah, Love's Voice, Sacred Union, 3 books done in Jim Butcher's Dresden File Series, waiting for my next Michael Book to arrive. So many stories I have not stopped to share.
n
Last year was a year of many bridges, openings, deepenings, connections - very sacred connections on many levels - and fun in exploration - Park Quest (? - never had the correct title maybe will have it at the
end).

I throw my hands up at my ignorance
and then I begin the dance
as I welcome in the new

psalms = songs

monks originally referred to both men and women.

from Wiki

A monk (from Greek: ???????, monachos, "single, solitary"[1]) is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decided to dedicate his life to serving all other living beings, or to be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live his life in prayer and contemplation. The concept is ancient and can be seen in many religions and in philosophy.

“I can choose either to be a victim of the world or an adventurer in search of treasure. It's all a question of how I view my life.” - Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it's yours.” - Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Maybe everyone can live beyond what they're capable of.”- Markus Zusak, I Am the Messenger

If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” - E.B. White

“Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living.” - Jonathan Safran Foer

“Everything you can imagine is real.”- Pablo Picasso

“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”- Dr. Seuss

“Silence does not always mark wisdom.”- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

touching the deep stillness
but depth spawns words
words flow out of the silence


*************************



peeling away the layers
new metaphors spring forth
"empty" is not my reality

*************************

etched on bone
psalms of many gods
songs of many hearts

"If what Proust says is true, that happiness is the absence of fever, then I will never know happiness. For I am possessed by a fever for knowledge, experience, and creation."  -  Anais Nin

Today

Wednesday, September 11

touching purposeful places
prayer softens my heart
casting a net of light

buried deeply within self
spun of theories, words, lessons
perhaps a cocoon of unmaking

tapping into the root
slowly absolving the past
forgetting all the not"I"

sit for a moment
awaken in non-words
simmer in truth

more and more words
rushing in every moment
dancing in my reality

words dear comforting companions
millennia of texts inscribed on my soul
make silence a very distant cousin

cuddling up with words
will they keep me warm
swathed in certainty or illusions

What if my meditation is words?
What if the dictionary is my my holy text?
Is there a lesser way to God?



"A library of wisdom, is more precious than all wealth, and all things that are desirable cannot be compared to it. Whoever therefore claims to be zealous of truth, of happiness, of wisdom or knowledge, must become a lover of books." -  Earl Nightingale

Perhaps words are like a ball of yarn

“This is a new year. A new beginning. And things will change.”- Taylor Swift

Meditation VII

“I am not interested in coming to a conclusion or finding the “right” answer, I’m interested in going on a lifelong journey with this God who decided he wanted to walk this same journey with me.” - Ricky Maye, An Emerging Spirituality

Monday, September 9

universal truths
held sway in the air
outside the edges of books

I stood banging at the door as wisdom slithered by unnoticed

Tuesday, September 10

captured between the worlds
knowledge and experience
neither is the present

running into conundrums
bouncing off the walls of texts
where is the heart

wave the flag
surrender to the known
no answer lies on paper

“Something amazing happens when we surrender and just love. We melt into another world, a realm of power already within us. The world changes when we change. the world softens when we soften. The world loves us when we choose to love the world.” - Marianne Williamson

battering my mind
against wall of understanding
step around - see the sky

in a sliver of silence
there God resides
but also in the heron's cry

some days I am circling the wagons
some days I am up a tree
all days I am

deep dark passages
explode in light
the "i" is seen

intention - to know God
what is not God?
intention - to know everything

Meditation VI

Friday, September 6

what is prayer?
reflection of needs?
conduit of desires?

i race through texts
attributing to God my hunger
searching for external nourishment

sit - sulk - slide
into the mind's web
relax - caught - human

Do I have enough clay out of which to build tomorrow?

Saturday, September 7

mind circles
bells chime on carousel
i arrive back home

mind awash in thought
splendor of magnificent ideas
yet no closer to God

wrangler of my soul
where are you in the cosmos
and what is everywhere

mystical, magical words
mere reflections of worlds
each illuminating illusion

besotted with miracles
i arise contemplating goodness
then collapse back into the dream

please no more words today
leave me in the deep rhythms
settled in with the trees

Sunday, September 8

finding stillness
like a shelf on a waterfall
the moment passes - i flow

so many constructs, metaphors
swept along with the currents
my mind swifter than silent waters

pieces of reality
rattling my mind
shaking free of wisdoms

“When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressive creature. He becomes interesting to other people. He disturbs, upsets, enlightens, and opens ways for better understanding. Where those who are not artists are trying to close the book, he opens it and shows there are still more pages possible.”- Robert Henri

Definitely like that sentiment

“What we find changes who we become.”- Peter Morville

Meditations V

“Is that it?”
“No. That’s a wall.”
“It could be disguised.”
“You’re not very good at looking for things, are you?”
“I’m good at looking for walls. Look, I found another one.”
 - Derek Landy, Kingdom of the Wicked  

Tuesday, September 3

restless timbre to start
swimming in mysteries
delighted and perplexed

is it exciting
to taste mystery?
yes, it has a tang

Wednesday, September 4

ancient bonds awaken
bringing truths for all worlds
hearts open to the possible

Thursday, September 5

slapstick antics of the mind
wandering to and fro
'tis the greatest circus

Perhaps someday I will come to realize I know nothing.

caught in a spell
of self illusion
my ego enclave

Meditations IV

“Everyone has their own ways of expression. I believe we all have a lot to say, but finding ways to say it is more than half the battle.”- Criss Jami, Salomé: In Every Inch In Every Mile

Saturday, August 31

quiet, solitary yet simmering
ideas, feelings rumbling in the deep
clinging to the vestiges of ego

i am not a polished stone
still tumbling around this multiverse
sharp edges poking into the beyond

why wade into the silence when God's voice is everywhere?

Sunday, September 1

let me build
a place for a miracle
a tiny altar in my heart

slipping through the cracks
ideas tumble and crash
i am left in waves of silence

Monday, September 2

God whispers through the flower petals
converses through the pine cones
laughs through the wind lifting kites
 

here it is the moment
i say yes to the next adventure
traveling bag, shoes - door

So, meditation poem of the day, was followed by an evening laying on a log by Lake Washington, after my park visits, intending to relax and gaze at the stars.

Instead of gazing at a peaceful sky, in addition to planes/helicopters, I saw an object(s) with random movements. The hour I was there it stayed in the same general area, was totally a mystery to me, most of the time movements were to fast or unpredictable for me to capture. The object was in and out of my viewfinder to quickly. So I had a lot of pictures that show only blackness.

The one above in pairs, top picture unaltered, bottom picture only turning up the amount of fill light. The last picture cropped as well but no other alternations. The ring on the edge right round object is something I saw frequently over the hour plus watching, it looked like a circle of individual lights inter-connected.

Not the adventure I would have expected. And interesting, entertaining mystery nevertheless.