Category: Main blog

The Interfaith Chaplaincy Institute, one of the seminaries I attended put together this moving service.

May you find comfort in the blanket of darkness as we approach the Solstice and if it’s a hard time, please know that you are not alone. 

During these days of Rumi’s URS (the celebration of his Marriage to the Divine when he passed from this sphere), and with a deep bow of thanks to sister Amina who shared this as part of her wonderful Love, Harmony, and Beauty blog post today.

Please enjoy this lovely Rumi poem in song:

One of my favorite blog sites is Fr Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations. The final message this week was from Dr. Alane Daugherty. This quote deeply resonated:

” [Heartful awareness] is the momentary choice, moment after moment, to let our truest sense emerge into our lived reality and intersect with the outside world. It allows us to be the best that we can be, in whatever we do. . . . “

Mindfulness to Heartfulness

Devotional practices have opened believers’ hearts for millennia, and we now understand the mind-body-heart connection within us in a deeper way. Researcher and therapist Dr. Alane Daugherty suggests a body-based practice to create a sense of heartfelt awareness:

The force of deep love, compassion and other heartfelt emotions can literally unite our brain, our heart, and all of the cells in our body. By experiencing what these heartfelt states are like inside of us we can then activate the dormant impulses, cultivate them, and embody them in an integrated way of being. This union feels harmonious and expansive; like we are all at once in touch with the depths of our being, and connected to a much larger way of living. Done intentionally and routinely they form an even greater union, become our primary way of operating, and profoundly change our world and
us. . . .

[Heartful awareness] is the momentary choice, moment after moment, to let our truest sense emerge into our lived reality and intersect with the outside world. It allows us to be the best that we can be, in whatever we do. . . .

We invite you to try these practices from Daugherty:

The following are suggestions for specific tangible ways you might implement heartful awareness into your everyday life. . . .

• Pay attention to attention. Stop and pause several moments during the day and just notice where your attention is. Make an overt intention, when you are authentically capable, to become heartfully engaged with yourself, your surroundings, or others. . . .
   
• Savor what you already have. The ‘spiral of becoming’ shows us that we physiologically change to any state we are routinely in. When we are already in states of heartful engagement, focused attention and awareness to ‘cement’ these states further imprints them in our cellular memory.
   
• Micro-moments add up! Momentary choices of engagement make profound shifts. They re-wire our neural nets and habitual ways of being, create oxytocin-rich changes in our blood chemistry, as well as dopamine and serotonin the hopeful outlook neurotransmitters, and foundationally change our perception to one of expansiveness and possibility. . . .
   
• Continually tap into the deepest sense of who you are and let that lead. The more moments we spend resting in our deepest potential or connected to our Inner Being, the more they become our primary ‘operating system.’ Pay attention, and shift when you can. When you cannot, hold yourself in a place of loving-kindness and awareness, and promise those ‘parts’ healing attention when you are able. Offer the love and support to yourself, as you would a best friend.

Experience a version of this practice through video and sound.

Alane Daugherty, From Mindfulness to Heartfulness: A Journey of Transformation through the Science of Embodiment (Balboa Press: 2014), 111, 112, 149, 150. 

With gratitude to Sister Arifa for this post on FB in the Soup and Sufi Sunday group. I so needed to hear this today. I hope it resonates with you all as well.

I’m so sorry to wake you up
but there is something
that I have to tell you
before the dawn arrives

I need you to believe something

~the sadness that lays
heavy on your chest like a
century old cannonball
isn’t who you are

~the ghost that lives
in your inner ear and
lies to you about your beauty
isn’t who you are

~the swarm of regret wasps
that have turned your
heart into a dripping hive of guilt

isn’t who you are

~the burning itch under your
sweet skin that begs for you to
tear into so you’ll finally feel something
isn’t who you are

~the thick knot in your
stomach that has been
there since your first memory
isn’t who you are

oh, my love,

you aren’t any of
the terrors
that have made a home
inside of you

they are squatters
who believe that
just because they
left their dirty socks
under your bed that
they have a say in
who you are

they don’t

can I finally tell you
the truth of why
you were created?

~ well, I’m going to anyway

the truth is
you were created
to be the moonlight on
an unmoving lake

reflecting the mystery
of our never ending universe
in your eyes

I swear I can
see a nebula
just inside of
left your pupil

you are the burning
fire in the sky

you are moonlight on the water

and by simply being alive
you are silently inviting the
rest of us to sit by your
shore so that we can bathe
our scars in the shimmer of
your sweet celestial smile

~ you. are. moonlight. on. the. water.

that’s why you were created
~ I promise

don’t believe the interlopers

you are the delicate light
of heaven’s eternal gaze

do you believe that yet?

I know you don’t see it yet
~ but you will

you have let these
devils live inside of
you for too long

you’ve become
used to them

~ but it’s time for them to go

the moonlight on the water
doesn’t need to be obscured

you shine best when the clouds
are invited to leave

we need you to be
at your brightest

I know it sounds selfish
but I need your light
to keep me alive

for the both of us,
it’s time to let all of
the interlopers go
~ every single one of them

~the cannonball
~the ghost
~the wasp
~the burning itch
~the thick knot

it’s time for them to go

open the door
unzip the tent
break the windows
unlock the gate
bulldoze the fence

I don’t care how you do it
but don’t let them stay inside
of you any more

those things aren’t who you are,
remember?

you are the moonlight
on the water

remember?

everything you want
is waiting for you
on the other side
of what you are currently
suffering through

you aren’t what is
happening to you

you aren’t the pain
you aren’t the anxiety
you aren’t the regret

you are the moonlight on the water

oh my love,
the horizon is yawning
here comes the new day

do you believe me, yet?

~ john roedel (johnroedel.com)

from Azima Lila Forest. Copied with permission.

Today is the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Most will recognize the figure within the figure as her image. But what is the outer figure? It is a representation of Tonantzin, the great Mother Goddess of the Aztec people, venerated for eons before the coming of Europeans to what is now Mexico. It turns out that the site where Juan Diego saw the vision of Guadalupe was the site of a temple to Tonantzin which the Spaniards tore down. There is much wisdom that indicates that Guadalupe is much more than a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary; she is a merging of the power and beauty of Aztec spirituality with Christianity.

In her image imprinted on the cloak of Juan Diego, still extant in Mexico City, one can clearly see that she is brown-skinned; she is a mestiza, a blend of Indian and Christian European religion and culture. She is the Lady of the new family of people conceived by the violent rape of Indian culture by European culture. One of her titles is Empress of the Americas, as can be attested to by the number of us North Americans who venerate and call upon her as a powerful and beautiful manifestation of the Divine Feminine.

You can go to my website at www.azimalilaforest.com to see the poem I wrote in her honor.

Here is a poem I wrote in her honor 15 years ago:

O Guadalupe
Tonantzin
Queen of the Americas
Today we remember you
Celebrate you
Give thanks for your love

Looking
Upon us all
With such compassion

Pequeños y pequeñas
The little ones
The forgotten ones
The ones in need
The ones with secret desires
The ones with broken hearts

The thousands and millions
Who have knelt
Before your image
Fingering their beads
Pouring out their fervent prayers

“O Mother,
Heal him, heal her, heal me
Help me to forgive
Bring me my heart’s desire
Take this pain from me
Bless and protect us all”

While you silently bless
Silently affirm
“The power to heal
To bless
To forgive
To manifest
Is yours—
Come into the fullness
Of who you truly are!”

O Queen of Roses
O Empress of the Americas
Full of Grace
Thank you
For your love

I saw this quote from Thich Nhat Hanh the other day and wanted to share this wonderful reminder that everything we need to understand is always demonstrated and available to our senses and heart from the “One Holy Book, the sacred manuscript of nature” (Hazrat Inayat Khan)

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

I asked the leaf whether it was afraid to fall since it was autumn and the other leaves were falling. 

The leaf told me, “No. During the whole spring and summer, I was very alive. I worked hard and helped nourish the tree, and much of me is in the tree. Please do not think that I am just this form, because this leaf form is only a tiny part of me. I am the whole tree. I know that I am already inside the tree, and when I go back to the soil, I will continue to nourish the tree.

That is why I do not worry. As I drop from the branch and float down to the ground, I will wave to the tree and tell her, ‘I will see you again very soon.’” 

Suddenly I had a kind of insight very much like the insight contained in the Heart Sutra. You have to see life. You shouldn’t say, life of the leaf, but life in the leaf, and life in the tree. My life is just Life, and you can see it in me and in the tree. 

I saw the leaf leave the branch and float down to the soil, dancing joyfully, because as it floated it saw itself already there in the tree. It was so happy. I bowed my head, and I knew that we have a lot to learn from the leaf because it was not afraid; it knew that nothing can be born and nothing can die.”   

~ Thich Nhat Hanh                                                   “The Other Shore” (Parallax 2017)

From Fr. Richard Rohr’s blog

The Power of Surrender
Friday, November 19, 2021

Author and activist Holly Whitaker does not believe in a one-size-fits-all approach to sobriety, but she fully embraces “surrender” as vital for any healing and recovery to occur.

I’d always considered the word surrender to be blasphemous. Surrender was never a possibility to consider; it wasn’t something self-respecting, self-reliant folk like me do—we scheme around and bulldoze through whatever stands in our way. That all changed, abruptly, on that day in 2012 when I finally ran out of options and did the thing I thought I could never do—concede.

In A Return to Love, Marianne Williamson says, “Until your knees finally hit the floor, you’re just playing at life, and on some level you’re scared because you know you’re just playing. The moment of surrender is not when life is over. It’s when it begins.” [1] It is entirely cliché, but this was exactly my experience. The moment I finally let my knees hit the floor was when I finally stopped playing at life, and every bit of good that’s come to me since then stems from this reversal of opinion on surrender.

Surrender is the strongest, most subversive thing you can do in this world. It takes strength to admit you are weak, bravery to show you are vulnerable, courage to ask for help. It’s also not a one-time gig; you don’t just do it once and move on. It’s a way of existing, a balancing act. For me, it looks like this: I pick up the baton and I run as far as I can, and I hand it over when I’m out of breath. Or actually maybe it’s like: I’m running with the baton, but the Universe is holding on to the other half of it, and we have an agreement that I’ll figure out the parts I can and hand over the parts I can’t.

In his online course on spirituality and addiction, Father Richard puts it this way:

Until you move to the sense of being able to trust there is a God who is guiding you, who loves you more than you love yourself—that’s when you’ve made the transfer. That’s when you know you’re a part of a bigger flow, a bigger system—if you want to use that word—and you are not doing it, it is being done unto you. [2]

Whitaker continues her thoughts on the power of surrender:

Life no longer feels precarious, or about to crumble—even when it is, in fact, crumbling. By surrendering to whatever is unfolding and by accepting what is, by giving up on the outcome and allowing life to flow the way it’s meant to, by stepping out of your own way and letting the natural order take the lead, you not only get a break from the exhaustion of having to control everything, but you also get to experience life, instead of what you think life owes you. (Hint: What life wants to give us is infinitely better than what we think it owes us.)

References:
[1] Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles (HarperPerennial: 1996), 12–13.

[2] Richard Rohr, Breathing Under Water: A Spiritual Study of the Twelve Steps (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2020), online course.

Holly Whitaker, Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol (Dial Press: 2021), 158–160.

Passion burns down every branch of exhaustion. 

Passion is the supreme alchemical elixir, and renews all things

No-one can grow exhausted when passion is born,
 so don’t sigh heavily, your brows bleak with boredom and cynicism and despair—
look for passion! passion! passion! passion!



Futile solutions deceive the force of passion.
 

They are banded to extort money through lies.


Marshy and stagnant water is no cure for thirst.
 No matter how limpid and delicious it might look,
it will only stop and prevent you from looking for fresh rivers that could feed and make flourish a hundred gardens, just as each piece of false gold prevents you from recognizing real gold and where to find it.



False gold will only cut your feet and bind your wings, saying “I will remove your difficulties”
 when in fact it is only dregs and defeat in the robes of victory.
 

So run, my friends, run fast and furious from all false solutions.
 Let divine passion triumph, and rebirth you in yourself.  

I will soon be posting a summary of all the wonderful and inspiring talks, panels, videos, etc. from the Bioneers conference last weekend on our Kinship Ray website blog (sri-kinship-ray.org). I have shared a couple of them here and this talk by Kenny Ausubel, co-founder of Bioneers just blew me away.

“… we are amazing mimics, and surely we can learn a riff or two from the symphony of life. But looking around at the dreadful state of the world, you have to wonder: Is there some deeper form of social biomimicry already in play that we’re not seeing?”

“Indeed, it’s slyly hiding in plain sight. You might call it the role of fraud in nature.”

Here’s a link to the transcript – well worth your time to read and enjoy:

I have heard this a couple of times and it is always deeply moving and poignant. It is by Norma Johnson and is titled “A Poem for My White Friends”

She also has an excellent website and will soon be posting a new poem called, “In My Bones” – https://allinspirit.com/

Here is the YouTube of the “Poem for My White Friends” –
https://youtu.be/3UVIgjuovt8