The Light of Pure Consciousness

The Light of Pure Consciousness 

                                                                 

Dive deep into the ocean of being

Enter the temple of Stillness

Through the silent gateway

Between thoughts

Examine the ‘I’ and its entourage:

Sensory perceptions, feelings, 

thoughts, concepts, beliefs

Hold them, one by one

In the mirror of the inner eye

And ask

“Where do you come from?

Where do you go?

Are you who ‘I’ am?

And if you choose to vanish

Do ‘I’ remain?”

Dissolve all things

Completely and utterly

Into nothingness

Then ask

“Who am I?”

All will fall away

Only the One shall stay

It is

Awareness

Primordial

Before thought

Before form

Before time itself

Luminous, self-sufficient and untouched

The phenomenal world arises from nothingness

And returns to nothingness

Each moment

In the light of Pure Consciousness

by Joseph Rundle

The Moon

I am all that you dream.

Mountains of amber and of antimony

shorelines of crystal

more real than all the dusty plains 

and snaking grey rilles of reality.

Adrift in the night

Your dreams are what created me

your dreams formed my every grain:

silver-edged, howl-begotten,

in ancient times eaten by a dragon

I always restored myself:

my triumph gave you the fight 

to do the same.

Once your earth and I were one.

But violence gave birth to me:

tore me away, destroyed our unity.

Now I circle, collecting dreams,

myths, monsters, goddesses,

maidens more beautiful than words,

heroes and hunters of the night.

Neither wolf, nor lover, nor madman

could miss me.

They gaze upon my silver

to howl, or to love,

or to dream with greater passion,

or to take comfort

in the refuge of a small insanity,

or just to go beyond.

I give them wings

I give them longing

I give them my reassuring constancy.

Still a monthly meal for a dragon

I fight my way free.

Painting: Gazing at te Moon by Jan Sam

Stolen

Stolen

Before you were my daughter come into the world,

before you were even born,

you were promised to the darkness

deep beneath my giving earth.

I never knew

what one brother had promised to another,

I never knew

what great Zeus had promised to dark Hades:

I never knew.

Now you have been taken.

Perhaps a part of you went all-knowing

because your soul already knew

what was necessary:

the abduction of the self

the rape of the soul

the violence which comes with transformation

the violence that is necessary for separation

from me, from your mother.

And so for me begins a new state of being:

A new silence, like no silence I have known.

A trifle: a handful of pomegranate seeds

sealed your fate forever:

my child, you are now in Hades' world
and his realm is not mine. 
I, Demeter, who am mother to the earth itself

have had my motherhood stolen from me.

Now my own earth knows my rage
now the dry soil cracks with grief,

now Autumn has come in Spring:

new leaves wither and die in bud,

birds fall silent, fields lie fallow,

and I, the Mater Creatrix, rule a waste land.

Where are you, my daughter,
living out your shadow life
in the dark lands far beneath my feet?
Do you still live,
or are you now a shade among shades?
Where are you, my changed one?
Where are you, my Persephone? 

Gust of Wind by Lucien Levy-Dhurmer

The Cloud-Hidden

The Cloud-Hidden

I am cloud-cast.

This veil of mists and morning light

conceals my face from your view.

Through closed eyes you will see me

in your wanderings,

in your reverie of thoughts

while you never stir from your room.

Dare to travel far

by never taking a single step

for only by not moving

will you stand a chance of finding me,

only by not moving

can you journey to be with me.

I, who desire nothing

am all that you have ever desired

I, whom you will never see

am all that you have ever seen.

I am hidden for your sake.

My beauty

would make you afraid.

My beauty

is more than you could stand.

My beauty

would make you cry

were you ever to look upon my face

as would my love for you.

So why should you journey

to find me?

Why should you journey

to be with me?

How could I leave you

when I am always with you?

How could I not love you

when I look upon you?

I am hidden in these mists of morning

I am these mists

I am lost among the silent stars

I am those stars

I smile in the sun’s warmth

I am that sun

I am all that you have ever needed

I am you.

If I Had Something That Was Me To Give

If I had something that was me to give..

If there was one piece of advice that was mine to give because of the life I have lived it would be to merge with all aspects of the Earth.

Merge with a tree and know what it feels like to be a tree, feel your roots go deep touching the roots of the trees and plants around you, know what it feels like to share of yourself in a place no one else can see, yet reflects on the outside world so beautifully.

Merge with the water, run free, talk constantly like a babbling brook, enter into the stillness of the deep, roar like white water rapids, go places impulse leads, trickle down the path of least resistance, throw yourself off of the edge of your world with abandonment, not knowing where you will end up, be the water falling into a new world and discover that even there you are still who you are.

Merge with that which you are scared of, merge with two of those tectonic plates pushing against each other.. opposing views make mountains come forth.

Merge with the volcano and surf the lava to the center of the Earth.

Merge with Thunderbeings and sing their song.   Feel what they feel when their lightning strikes the Earth.  It makes protoplasms upon her body that looks like the roots of a tree going down into the Earth, touching the Crystal people, adding charge to their creativity, to the mathematical reason for their being.  In that moment they are one with the outside world, a portal, a doorway is opened..  Merge with all of her.  Do not be afraid to see what she has to tell you about how it should be.

Do not be afraid to get swept away by emotions that travel in different directions. Be the tornado, and be the beautiful sunset that reveals its face at the end of a tornado kind of day.

Be the seed inside the shell, struggle to break free and become all that you can be…  and when you break free let go of the shell (the memory of being confined) and just be.  Grow like you were meant to grow.  Turn your face towards the light and feel the love that is coming to you. Feel the clouds share their rain with you, the soil share its nutrients… and grow, grow, grow.

When disaster strikes give yourself permission to feel sorrow, but merge with the birds and ask them what they do and they will say, “it is time to rebuild”.  Going forth we find them building a new nest.  We find them singing like they do, gathering food..  They do not just sit and hold their sorrow inside of them for the rest of their lives. They say, ‘We go on. We rebuild.'

All of the rules for how we are supposed to walk through this dimension have been written upon the Earths body. There are many trees that grow in the forest, together in harmony they make sacred sharing of how we should be. All the rules for how to walk here in this world we know were written upon the Earths body.

Merge with the Earth, see the bigger picture, embrace the bigger picture.  Then there is no need for prejudice, for war, for hate.

There are opposites that work against each other, but even they have their place in the grand design.  When the two winds blow against each have a big emotion, but when again you find that other wind is somewhere else, then be the gentle wind that sneaks up and kisses a friend on the cheek..

Merge with the Earth..  if I had one piece of advice to give for guidance, that is what it would be. Merge with the Earth. 

Do not be afraid to hug something different than yourself.


My thanks to Earthen Girl for her permission to repost this post from her blog https://earthengirl.wordpress.com

Painting The Planting by Sandra Bierman

Kuan Yin's Gentle Rain

“The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath.”

This eloquent description of mercy’s virtue, expressed by Shakespeare through his wise young character Portia, could also be said of Kuan Yin. Kuan Yin, the elegant goddess of love, mercy and compassion, is the most popular and widely-worshipped of all Eastern deities. She is sometimes thought of as a bodhisattva: a being who denies herself the opportunity to enter heaven in order to remain in the world and give help and guidance to mortals. 

Kuan Yin embodies loving compassion, and is the support, guide and protector of all living beings. Her name, which means ‘She who sees sounds’, can be interpreted as ‘She who sees the prayers and cries from the hearts of all people as visible images, and gives them her aid and consolation’. When we open our hearts to her, we feel this ‘gentle rain’ of the goddess: a deep and profound understanding of all our sorrows which goes beyond mere language to describe it. We use such terms as ‘compassion’, ‘love’ and ‘mercy’. But these are only words. These qualities well forth from the goddess in an intermingled whole, inseparable from each other. Kuan Yin sees our sufferings, experiences them herself, and bears them all gladly for our sakes. 

Kuan Yin is the creatrix, the friend in need and negotiator with fate. She is the great goddess of life itself, and even goes beyond all boundaries of religion. Statues of her may be found on almost every Taoist holy mountain, and in almost every Buddhist temple. She is honoured in Shinto, and even within Christianity her identity and what she stands for is widely known. She is petitioned by those women who wish to conceive, and her aid is sought in times of illness and adversity. 

Kuan Yin helps us with the relinquishing of our control over situations, allows suppressed emotions to surface, brings tolerance and empathy, and supports us in the development and experiencing of our softer, more feminine side. She is the patroness of women, and children newly come into the world. Kuan Yin brings the strength of mercy, love, forgiveness and healing to our world. Her colours are white and lavender, and her flower is the five-petalled lotus. For our sakes she remains among us, always ready to take our burdens upon herself, and to give her own virtues to us in return.

But even more than this: it is Kuan Yin’s presence which invites us to become as she is, that we ourselves reflect her being in our own behaviour, both towards others and towards ourselves. Her example is a reminder that the goddess is really us, and that transformation is always possible.

Spirit of the Valley

Spirit of the Valley

The valley spirit never dies 
Call it the mystery, the woman. 
The mystery, the Door of the Woman, 
is the root of earth and heaven. 
Forever this endures, forever. 
And all its uses are easy.

Tao Te Ching: Chapter 6 
translated by Ursula K. Le Guin 

*

There are over thirty translations by various writers in English alone of these beautiful and elusive lines from the Tao Te Ching, all of them offering something different, like a slowly-turning crystal which constantly reflects the light from its many facets. But the light itself which the crystal reflects remains unchanged. The Tao is the light, and the way in which we perceive the Tao is the turning crystal.

Of all beliefs, Tao has been described as the most feminine. If it can be said to have a 'message', then that message urges us simply to let things flow, to offer no resistance. From resistance comes struggle and conflict, both in ourselves and in the world through which we move, because we ourselves project those inner feelings into our outer world. It is described as the Spirit of the Valley, because all things naturally flow to the valley. It is also described as a vessel that can never be emptied and never becomes over-full. No matter how much we drink from it, the vessel is inexhaustible. Greater than this: the more we sustain ourselves from it, the more it gives to us. 

The Spirit of the Valley is a young woman, because a young woman's innocence and purity speaks to our own lost innocence, and reminds us that the pain and separation of a lost Eden is itself an illusion, because only in the outer world of forms is Eden ever lost. In the Valley there is nothing to heal, because nothing was ever damaged. In the Valley, all remains whole and unblemished.

But the Spirit is also the Great Mother, wise beyond words, and always ready to advise. We need only make ourselves receptive to her words. As the Tao describes, it is this door of the woman which is 'easy' to open because the more difficult we imagine it is to open, the more difficult we make it to access what in reality costs no effort. And it is the root of earth and of heaven because at the root lies the source of all things: the eternal and eternally-giving Spirit of the Valley. 

The Lovers

The Lovers

This silence is not the silence

of the vast space between the stars.

Neither is it the silence

of the dim grey light before the dawn.

This is the greater silence of lovers

that has no need of words.

A wide cloth, spread between two

as easily covering as removed:

a white membrane –

both birth-sack and winding-cloth

for past selves left far behind:

forever changed by these infinities

of transformation, gold and white

uniting in an alchemical wedding.

White queen, red king,

and all the world their court.

Glistening, new-formed:

these are no masks they wear

but their true selves

with all else burned away

in the white fire

of love’s simple existence.

For love has no need of masks

and acceptance is all

and everything.

Closer Than Our Breath

Closer Than Our Breath

Are we seekers looking for love, happiness, peace or truth?

Know that all that we seek already exists

Here, in our hearts of hearts.

Let the seeking stop – let us be still,

Let us enter the realm of Silence and realize

True fulfillment and perfect oneness.

By seeking we are only affirming lack

And creating a wall thwarting vision.

Let's stop the search

Let’s call it off and let it go,

And instead, look with the fresh eyes of a new born,

To see without layers of thought, as clear as sunlight,

To see with an open heart as vast as the summer sky,

So we may know that the truth of birth and death

Is closer than our breath

We have sculpted what we wish for into objects,

Things to attain, realize, grasp, and make our own.

In doing so our search is no longer true, our compass awry,

Blind to the truth of who we are.

And who we are is pure awareness itself,

The very source of peace, love, bliss and truth.

We do not need to become, evolve or transform into something else,

But simply to be in our truest essence,

To uncover what is already here,

And if we believe otherwise let us then awaken

From our fitful dreams.

Formless, pure awareness cannot be defined,

Whatever definition or label one may place upon it can never be true.

It cannot be touched

By anything manifested in form, thought or feeling.

It is infinitely pure, infinitely free,

Unbound by space and time,

Self-knowing, self-illuminating, bliss itself.

Without it nothing can be created  
It is the Source, 
The Mother of All.

Yet it is not its creation, but creation is within it

For all exists within pure awareness,

Arising and dissolving within her bosom.

Follow its thread and we’ll discover that

It Is closer than our breath.

Picture by Noell Oszvald

SHE

The black water beckoned. The current here was barely noticeable, and therefore especially dangerous. Only the inhabitants of the district knew the secrets of the river that for generations surrounded the area around the mill and the nearby valley with her silver inconstancy. For a stranger she hid her secrets like a coquettish young mistress. And so she wound her way with soft nibbling movements around the ankles of the innocent admirer who allowed himself to be completely taken in by her carresses, and like the young man tasting fresh love, surrendered to her intoxicating spell.

But as soon as the wild winds of autumn sheered over her waters the river revealed another darker face. Then she cried out and blew her foam-topped waves upwards to the overhanging branches, sighing to grasp what she could not possess. She let her depths seethe and became as dark as the night. The innocent passer-by of summer no longer dared to approach her, and the skimming water beetles disappeared hastily into her darker undercurrents. She raged and stormed like a rejected woman, dragging everything along with her that in her wild anger she could grab hold of. She tore at the banks, shook with her hips until the young trees relented; let the mud from her underbelly swamp the boats of the playing children. She laughed and howled when a child clutched crying to the thin rope of the fragile craft. Then she tugged until the rope was forced loose... and dragging her prey to her secret place deep beneath the surface, carelessly tossed the rope back into the boat as a vain woman tosses her long hair behind her, as the last air bubble on her surface burst like a twig in a fire. Her bosom would rise and fall, rise and fall, with the wild need to destroy.

Until the winds died and the iron cold of winter forced her to silence with its smooth tongue of sleet, covering her body from the depths to the surface under a layer of ice, freezing every movement. Then she surrendered, allowing herself to be walked over. Sharp blades etched lines into her unfathomable soul. Now that the winter freed them from their fears, the villagers illuminated the sails of the windmill and the trees along her naked banks with lanterns. Wooden huts were set up on her ice where tired skaters, huddled over wood fires in braziers, could warm themselves with hot soup.

Sometimes she fought back. Then, just a little, she melted and opened her watery eye. But the people knew her ways too well. They did not allow themselves to be bewitched, but skated instead in a great arc around the gaping hole which had formed. Then she sputtered and spat. But her powers diminished, and instead her sputterings became something rather pathetic. And so with shrunken pride she closed her eye once more.

While she lay imprisoned in her own currents, the river waited confidently for the coming spring. The winter, she knew, would always lose its cold and silent grip over her. She had time. And once the ice had melted and she had regained her natural beauty, then saplings that lined her banks would see her fairness, give her a new sheen, and then she carried out her victory rite. She would sing once more, and let the mill wheels turn at full tilt. She would allow herself to be decorated with water lilies, and her water beetles would smooth the long tangles from her silver hair, and comb the dead branches and drifting boats out of her locks. The tears for those who had been lost would cleanse her banks, and she would flow, her bosom rising and falling, and her hips again would lure the stranger who would lie in her bed. Her dark undercurrents she would keep hidden until the moment when she once more needed to appease her hunger. And the valley dwellers feared that moment. Each year they braced themselves, and each year anew the river extracted her price, and they were not spared. Then there was talk about shutting down the mill and leaving the valley for good. But no-one took the first step, and they dare not look each other in the eye. Instead they gazed towards the dark water where the undercurrent was the strongest, the most invisible, and shook their heads with heavy hearts. Not only did she enchant the unsuspecting stranger. Nobody escaped her allure. 

She gave life and she took it. And so they feared her. But stronger than fear was their love, and as uncontrollable. So they stayed and paid the price, for she flowed as blood through their veins.

Artwork: Water Goddess by Greg Spalenka

Mary Magdalene

These days

the handful of silent stars

to which she projects herself

is more than enough.

There was a time

when she aimed for the sun

and love set all alight.

But now her sun is the pain 

that goes on beating down.

Her heart finds no shade

and all is night.

Only for the pale and distant stars

does she now cast a shadow

but even her star-cast shadow mourns:

the sun stops the perfect completion

for which she yearns

here in this place

beneath the silent stars.

But here…

where sky and sea

and stars and alien shore

enfold her in their sanctuary

and winds of grace

dry up the muddy pools once more…

Here…

where passing clouds

shut out the face of night

her tearful footprints

mirror boundless light.

Imagined portrait of Mary Magdalene painted by David Bergen.