Category: Main blog

I have been blessed with an opportunity to attend a webinar with Andrew Harvey (Embrace the Dark Night to Become the Phoenix Rising) in which he is guiding us through practices and learning from enlightened beings such as Sri Aurobindo, Mirra Alfassa (known as The Mother), and Father Bede Griffiths.

Andrew gave us a practice that I’d like to share which has been a wonderful reminder of the importance of faith and persistence (‘Mu’min’ is the Wasifa or Sufi aspect of the Divine in Arabic for faith). And then this morning, a deep bow of gratitude to sister Jamia who posted a link to the words of Hazrat Inayat Khan with deeper lessons on faith and remembrance that I include below as well.

The practice is this: Sit comfortably, breathing deeply and getting in touch with your body. Feel the deep connection to the earth and to the Divine all in all. Allow that feeling of connection to deepen until you begin to feel it permeate every cell of you body. Feel that golden light of truth and joy literally lighting up every cell and filling it with tingling warmth and love.

When you feel permeated by this golden joy, stand carefully and begin to walk. This can be out in nature (ideally) or even just in your home. Walk calmly and purposefully, feeling each connection with the earth, feeling gravity holding you in its loving embrace, feeling the air move past your exposed skin, feeling your center move in and out of balance. As you walk use a mantra on your breath. Andrew Harvey recommended Om Namo Bhagavate which he translated loosely as being held in joy. I like to use Alhumdullilah (all praise and gratitude to the Divine) as a prayer of gratitude but the sense of holding that joy, love, and beauty within is the important part, so use any mantra that works for you. For me doing this practice led to a place of embodied joy that as Hazrat Inayat Khan says is, “something we can depend upon, something nobody can take away from us.”

As I completed this wonderful practice this morning, I returned to my computer to find the message I noted from Jamia, and it was so perfect that I share that with you here:

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(Words from the Sufi Pir Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan have been edited for gender neutrality):
“There is a natural tendency for the seeker on the spiritual path to wonder if they are really progressing. Very often, they begin to wonder from the day they set foot on the path. It is like asking, ‘Shall I be able to digest?’ while one is still eating. The spiritual path leads to selflessness. The more we worry about ourselves, the less progress we make because our whole striving should be to forget the self. It is mostly the self which obstructs the path. The path is made for the soul, and it is natural and easy for the soul to find it. Therefore, when a person is wondering about his progress, they are wasting their time. It is like standing still on the path on which one must go forward.

“Can anyone distinguish how their face and body change day by day? No, for one cannot point out distinct signs of change from one day to another. If one cannot properly distinguish any change in the external self, then how can one expect to distinguish change in the inner process? It is not something that can be weighed on the scales as one weighs oneself on coming back from a holiday and sees that one has gained or lost several pounds. There is no such gain in spiritual progress.

“Then there are some who imagine that they have progressed for a certain time, but they are then going backward. They are discouraged and say, ‘I thought I had arrived somewhere, but surely it must have been an illusion.’ But life is like the sea, and the sea is not always calm. There are times when the sea is rough, and then the boat naturally moves up and down. To think while the boat is moving downward that it will sink is a mistake. It is going down in order to go up. This is its movement, and this is natural. A mureed [spiritual seeker] is subject to such experiences on the path of life. Life will take its own course. The one who sails will many times meet with a rough sea, and they have to be prepared for this and not be frightened or discouraged. They still have to go on through life. If life’s journey were soft and smooth, then there would be no need for spiritual development. They have to have control of the rudder to be able to go through both calm seas and storms.

“…one begins to feel a joy, a happiness. In spite of that feeling, however, it is possible that clouds of depression and despair may come from without, and one might think at that moment that all the happiness and joy which one had gained spiritually was snatched away. But that is not so. If spiritual joy could be snatched away, it would not be spiritual joy. It is not like material comforts. When these are taken away from us, we have lost them; but spiritual joy is ours, it is our property, and no death or decay can take it away from us. Changing clouds like those which surround the sun might surround our joy; but when they are scattered, we will find our property still there in our own heart. It is something we can depend upon, something nobody can take away from us.”

~ Hazrat Inayat Khan ~
Volume X – Sufi Mysticism, The Path of Initiation and Discipleship, The Attitude of a Disciple.

In the past few days, I’ve been struggling as I expect many of us have, to hold on despite the chaos and fear engendered by the crumbling edifice of our society. This election has been so very difficult to watch unfold as the patriarchy desperately use every tactic they have to hang on to their power. It is discouraging and frankly extremely saddening.

Yet, I have had my heart uplifted by a few of my favorite mystic activists and I wanted to share some of their wisdom that has been a balm for my wounded soul.

First , Matthew Fox and Mirabai Starr shared a webinar speaking about the work of Julian of Norwich who lived through a similarly challenging time and wrote so beautifully of her connection to the Mother God that allowed her to see the light in the darkest of times. Here is a short excerpt from their talk. NOTE: This is from the Shift network, so they are advertising a longer program they’d love you to pay for – feel free to ignore that and enjoy this short (6 minutes) video clip: Mirabai Starr & Matthew Fox on Julian of Norwich

Then, I’ve been enjoying a 6 part seminar from Andrew Harvey in which he is exploring the possible imminent re-birthing of our human culture into something new. Many people have spoken of these times as metaphorically like moving through the birth canal of the Universal Mother. Some indigenous elders have said we stand at a portal which, if we can move through, has the possibility of transforming us into the divine beings we truly are.

Yet, Andrew and many other seers and mystics also acknowledge that many still desperately hold onto the old paradigms and that there still exists the possibility they will drag us all into the abyss of pain and darkness and the end of this beautiful planet that has sustained us so long.

But even within that radical acceptance, Andrew shared a beautiful practice that deeply moved me. That is to recognize that in this darkest of places, we have a choice to not only passively accept that pain and suffering, but to actually embrace, welcome, and even celebrate it! Why would we do such a crazy thing (I thought and you might be thinking!)?

It begins with our being willing and able to truly believe, feel, accept, and hold the reality of opposites. Holding dark and light, yin and yang, sun and moon, earth and sky, sorrow and joy, birth and death, all with a deep sense of calm, peaceful, acceptance.

If we can attain that state, then we move into a place where we can celebrate each new sorrow, chaos, and suffering, as the ultimate evidence and indication of an infusion of light, joy, and healing energy which is actually and truly co-created as the opposing and balancing energetic.

We can not only accept and breathe through these difficulties and challenges but actually revel in them and dedicate any pain and suffering that we are experiencing to the balance of energy in the rest of our human and more than human family.

For me, this has been a beautiful, timely, and inspiring reframing that has allowed me to lift my head up one more time and move back into the work. I hope it helps you as well.

I was playing music during my workout, and this randomly arrived right at the end during my cool down dance. Such a perfect message for these times and for this day.

“I release control
And surrender to the flow
Of love that will heal me.”

~ Written and performed by Alexa Sunshine Rose ~

I suspect all of us are struggling right now with so much looming and the unending barrage of confusion, despair, and disorienting events in our lives. But each time I feel pushed into the mud, I hear a song, or a child’s laughter, or see a golden leaf dance to the earth, or feel the living soil – and I remember – “this joy that I have… the world didn’t give it to me!”

This video made me weep with joy and allowed me to also feel and acknowledge the pain:

I once had a teacher remind us that there are hosts of unemployed ancestors just waiting for us to notice them and ask for their guidance! I’ve come to believe and truly feel that this is true. As Alice Walker says, they never sleep! (With thanks to sister Myriah for sharing this in a recent class).

Ancestors Never Sleep

Ancestors never sleep
And always seem to know
What they’re doing.
How is this possible?
I ask myself
Sometimes I am weary
Enough to expire –
What a relief
I will think.  No more obsessing
About this madness;
Whatever it might be
This year, or even this century.
But ancestors merely
Yawn
And send me off
For a nap.
Not only is life not over,
They sniff,
It has barely begun for you.
There are eternities
Waiting just beyond
The next bad movie
You fear you’ll be
Starring in.
Go to sleep.  Rest your brain.
Rest your heart.  Rest your eyes
And all your thoughts.
We have been with you
From the beginning
Which didn’t exist
And we will be with you
Until that moment of
Non-existence
Swings round again.
You are attempting to carry
The suffering
All around you
But your back is bending.
Let us bear it for you.
Knowing as we do
That it is only
A difficult turn
On a never ending
Journey
Of dissolving
And becoming
And dissolving
Again
And becoming
Once more;
Forever and ever
On
And
On.
Save despair,
Our beloved
Sweetcakes,
For a couple of eons
Later.

~ Alice Walker

Based on the words of Martin Luther King Jr.: “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.”

This is such profound, disturbing, and finally hopeful writing, that I wanted to pass it on. With thanks to my friend and companion on our Sufi path, Azima Annalouiza for sending it my way.

Here’s the link to the article

Some excerpts:

“We are anxious. We are scared. There is no place to run. There is no place to hide. There is only our love and grief to hold us in the terror of all we are seeing, sensing, denying. We can’t touch the source of our despair because we can’t touch each other. And so we retreat inside when everything outside is screaming. We are sitting in rooms watching screens alone, waiting, as if this is a pause instead of a place, the place where we find ourselves now.”

“We have been living a myth. We have constructed a dream. We have cajoled and seduced ourselves into believing we are the center of all things; with plants and other sentient beings from ants to lizards to coyotes and grizzly bears, remaining subservient to our whims, desires, and needs. This is a lethal lie that will be seen by future generations as a grave, a grave moral sin committed and buried in the name of ignorance and arrogance.”

“We cannot breathe. This is our mantra in America now. We cannot breathe because of the smoke. We cannot breathe because of a virus that has entered our homes. We cannot breathe because of police brutality and too many black bodies dead on the streets. We cannot breathe because we are holding our breath for the people and places we love.”

“Grief is love. How can we hold this grief without holding each other? To bear witness to this moment of undoing is to find the strength and spiritual will to meet the dark and smoldering landscapes where we live. We can cry. Our tears will fall like rain in the desert and wash off our skins of ash so our pores can breathe, so our bodies can breathe back the lives that we have taken for granted.”

“I will mark my heart with an “X” made of ash that says, the power to restore life resides here. The future of our species will be decided here. Not by facts but by love and loss.”

One of my favorite Sufi poets, Hafiz, has been coming into my world these days, so here are three lovely and compelling poems from him:

“Every child has known God,
Not the God of names,
Not the God of don’ts,
Not the God who ever does anything weird,
But the God who knows only four words.
And keeps repeating them, saying:
‘Come dance with me, come dance.’”

— Hafiz – (translation by Daniel Ladinsky)

The Happy Virus

I caught the happy virus last night
When I was out singing beneath the stars.
It is remarkably contagious –
So kiss me.

~ Hafiz – From: The subject tonight is love – 60 Wild and Sweet Poems of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky

Tiny Gods

Some gods say, the tiny ones
“I am not here in your vibrant, moist lips
That need to beach themselves upon
the golden shore of a
Naked body.”
Some gods say, “I am not
the sacred yearning in the unrequited soul;
I am not the blushing cheek
Of every star and Planet–
I am not the applauding Chef
Of those precious sections that can distill
The whole mind into a perfect wincing jewel, if only
For a moment
Nor do I reside in every pile of sweet warm dung
Born of earth’s
Gratuity.”
Some gods say, the ones we need to hang,
“your mouth is not designed to know His,
Love was not born to consume
the luminous
realms.”
Dear ones,
Beware of the tiny gods frightened men
Create
To bring an anesthetic relief
To their sad
Days.

~ Hafiz ~ (The Gift – versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)

Dear brother Salim from Missoula wrote of his time in Yom Kippur and said,

“Tonight I learned of a prayer I’d not before heard. Part of the Mourner’s Kaddish, it goes like this:”

When I die
Give what’s left of me away
To children
And old men that wait to die.

And if you need to cry,
Cry for your brother
Walking the street beside you
And when you need me,
Put your arms
Around anyone
And give to them
What you need to give to me.

I want to leave you something,
Something better
Than words
Or sounds.

Look for me
In the people I’ve known
Or loved,
And if you cannot give me away,
At least let me live in your eyes
And not in your mind.

You can love me most
By letting
Hands touch hands
By letting
Bodies touch bodies
And by letting go
Of children
That need to be free.

Love doesn’t die,
People do.
So, when all that’s left of me
Is love,
Give me away

Center for Action and Contemplation

Some simple but urgent guidance to get us through these next months.

I awoke on Saturday, September 19, with three sources in my mind for guidance: Etty Hillesum (1914 – 1943), the young Jewish woman who suffered much more injustice in the concentration camp than we are suffering now; Psalm 62, which must have been written in a time of a major oppression of the Jewish people; and the Irish Poet, W.B.Yeats (1965 – 1939), who wrote his “Second Coming” during the horrors of the World War I and the Spanish Flu pandemic.

These three sources form the core of my invitation. Read each one slowly as your first practice. Let us begin with Etty:

There is a really deep well inside me. And in it dwells God. Sometimes I am there, too … And that is all we can manage these days and also all that really matters: that we safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves.

—Etty Hillesum, Westerbork transit camp

Note her second-person usage, talking to “You, God” quite directly and personally. There is a Presence with her, even as she is surrounded by so much suffering.

Then, the perennial classic wisdom of the Psalms:

In God alone is my soul at rest.
God is the source of my hope.
In God I find shelter, my rock, and my safety.
Men are but a puff of wind,
Men who think themselves important are a delusion.
Put them on a scale,
They are gone in a puff of wind.

—Psalm 62:5–9

What could it mean to find rest like this in a world such as ours? Every day more and more people are facing the catastrophe of extreme weather. The neurotic news cycle is increasingly driven by a single narcissistic leader whose words and deeds incite hatred, sow discord, and amplify the daily chaos. The pandemic that seems to be returning in waves continues to wreak suffering and disorder with no end in sight, and there is no guarantee of the future in an economy designed to protect the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor and those subsisting at the margins of society.

It’s no wonder the mental and emotional health among a large portion of the American population is in tangible decline! We have wholesale abandoned any sense of truth, objectivity, science or religion in civil conversation; we now recognize we are living with the catastrophic results of several centuries of what philosophers call nihilism or post-modernism (nothing means anything, there are no universal patterns).

We are without doubt in an apocalyptic time (the Latin word apocalypsis refers to an urgent unveiling of an ultimate state of affairs). Yeats’ oft-quoted poem “The Second Coming” then feels like a direct prophecy. See if you do not agree:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Somehow our occupation and vocation as believers in this sad time must be to first restore the Divine Center by holding it and fully occupying it ourselves. If contemplation means anything, it means that we can “safeguard that little piece of You, God,” as Etty Hillesum describes it. What other power do we have now? All else is tearing us apart, inside and out, no matter who wins the election or who is on the Supreme Court. We cannot abide in such a place for any length of time or it will become our prison.

God cannot abide with us in a place of fear.
God cannot abide with us in a place of ill will or hatred.
God cannot abide with us inside a nonstop volley of claim and counterclaim.
God cannot abide with us in an endless flow of online punditry and analysis.
God cannot speak inside of so much angry noise and conscious deceit.
God cannot be found when all sides are so far from “the Falconer.”
God cannot be born except in a womb of Love.
So offer God that womb.

Stand as a sentry at the door of your senses for these coming months, so “the blood-dimmed tide” cannot make its way into your soul.

If you allow it for too long, it will become who you are, and you will no longer have natural access to the “really deep well” that Etty Hillesum returned to so often and that held so much vitality and freedom for her.

If you will allow, I recommend for your spiritual practice for the next four months that you impose a moratorium on exactly how much news you are subject to—hopefully not more than an hour a day of television, social media, internet news, magazine and newspaper commentary, and/or political discussions. It will only tear you apart and pull you into the dualistic world of opinion and counter-opinion, not Divine Truth, which is always found in a bigger place.

Instead, I suggest that you use this time for some form of public service, volunteerism, mystical reading from the masters, prayer—or, preferably, all of the above.

    You have much to gain now and nothing to lose. Nothing at all. 
    And the world—with you as a stable center—has nothing to lose.
    And everything to gain. 

Richard Rohr, September 19, 2020

Center for Action and Contemplation