Mysticism and Spirituality Circle

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. We live in a culture that shames us if we don’t have the body of an athlete in their 20’s. This is something that I truly believe is one of our most difficult and important “norms” to be overcome as we work to live in gratitude for the incredible beauty that is all around us and is us!

Each of us is so incredibly beautiful, magnificent, miraculous, no matter the shape, size, capabilities, or features of the body we are gifted with in this life. This prayer from Fr Richard Rohr’s blog really spoke to this.

Prayer of Thanks for Our Bodies

When we remember to pray for our physical bodies, it is usually because something has gone wrong. We are reminded of our human frailty by an ache, an accident, or a diagnosis. But I hope this week has stirred within us a greater sense of gratitude for our bodies and for the desires that hum through them. This poem and prayer is a psalm of praise for the miraculous nature of our physical existence, in relationship with ourselves, others, and the cosmos.

Thank you for the body that loves me.

My own body:
it tingles me with pleasure
and sends me pain as a warning;
it takes in food and air
and transforms them to life;
it reaches orgasmic bliss
and reveals depths of peace.

Thank you for the body that loves me.

My lover’s body:
it surrounds me with safe arms,
and senses my needs and joys;
it allows me vulnerability,
and enables my ecstasy;
it teaches me how to love
and touches me with love.

Thank you for the body that loves me.

My spiritual community’s body:
it embodies your presence
by embracing mine;
it incarnates your hope
by empowering prophets;
it inspires me with stories
and enchants me with mystery.

Thank you for the body that loves me.

The cosmic and mystical body:  
it calls me to communion
with creatures and creation;
it manifests your glory
and mine as its child;
it upholds my feet
and heals my body.

Thank you for the body that loves me.

Experience a version of this practice through video and sound.

From Coming Out to God: Prayers for Lesbians and Gay Men, Their Families and Friends. ©1991 Chris R. Glaser. Used by permission of Westminster John Knox Press. All rights reserved.

This is posted with permission from my dear friend, Viviana:

The Great Invocation

From the point of Light within the Mind of God
Let light stream forth into the minds of men.
Let Light descend on Earth.

From the point of Love within the Heart of God
Let love stream forth into the hearts of men.
May Christ return to Earth.

From the center where the Will of God is known
Let purpose guide the little wills of men –

The purpose which the Masters know and serve.

From the center which we call the race of men
Let the Plan of Love and Light work out
And may it seal the door where evil dwells.

Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth.

~ Viviana Delaney ~

I’m back after a hiatus for travel and khilvat (silent meditation). During khilvat this time, I fasted and prayed alone on the mountain (with daily silent visits from beloveds who brought water and one check in with my teacher) for 5 days. It was a remarkable and profound experience. I’ll share one poem that arose from that time and another that came from meditation at my sit spot yesterday on a rainy afternoon.

But first, with a bow to Amina Janet Berketa, who puts out a wonderful blog weekly, this poem from Wendell Berry that she posted recently (a great introduction to a post about poetry!):

How to Be a Poet – Wendell Berry  (1934 – )

  (To remind myself)

i
Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill — more of each
than you have — inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.

ii
Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

iii
Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.

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

Stillness

by Wakil David Matthews (6/2/2021)

I asked
for a sign…

What do I need?
Please show me!

The trees just stood there…

Well? I inquired…

The trees just stood.

I waited…

The trees continued to stand.

I slept, meditated, prayed…

When I searched for the sign
Listening, watching

The trees still stood
Solid, patient, rooted.

The trees stood…
Still
Still
Still

Stillness like the trees.

Aah… yes.

That’s it.
Thank you.

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

Remembrance (Zikr)

by Wakil David Matthews (6/13/2021)

Raindrops twitch the bright salal leaves and dark fir needles.
Reminding me as I sit, sheltered beneath fir boughs to be grateful.
El arroyo fluye, the creek flows,
reminding me to flow with joy.
The crow scolds from a perch directly overhead,
reminding me I am seen.
The branch beneath me is solid and still,
reminding me I am held. 

This is from the e-zine ‘emergence‘ which I highly recommend.

Llewellyn Vaughn-Lee’s insight and compelling wisdom ask us to consider if there is a way back to that sacred connection to the planet and our fellow beings.

He asks, “Have we wandered so far from the source that we cannot return? Will climate crisis isolate us even more in our cities as nature becomes more unpredictable? As we try to use our science, our computers to save us? Or is the doorway to return nearer than we know, just as in that moment when we awake and our dreams are still present, before they are lost with the daylight? What would it mean to return to this numinous land, alive in ways we no longer understand, where the Earth can speak to us in its many voices?”

I so deeply resonate with his message. Take the time to read it, I guarantee you’ll be glad you did.

https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/where-the-horses-sing/

My dear friend and sister Annalouiza read this to me today during our Sohbet (spiritual conversation). So profound and beautiful, I wanted to pass it along.

In Sufi practice we chant ‘mutu kabla anta mutu’ or die before you die…

I INVITE YOU

I invite you to speak these vows out loud:

As long as I live, I vow to die and be reborn, die and be reborn, die and be reborn, over and over again, forever reinventing myself.

I promise to be stronger than hate, wetter than water, deeper than the abyss, and wilder than the sun.

I pledge to remember that I am not only a sweating, half-asleep, excitable, bumbling jumble of desires, but that I am also an immortal four-dimensional messiah in continuous telepathic touch with all of creation.

I vow to love and honor my highs and my lows my yeses and noes, my give and my take, the life I wish I had and the life I actually have.

I promise to push hard to get better and smarter, grow my devotion to the truth, fuel my commitment to beauty, refine my emotions, hone my dreams, wrestle with my shadow, purge my ignorance, and soften my heart — even as I always accept myself for exactly who I am, with all of my so-called foibles and wobbles.

Our Sufi community recently lost a dear matriarch from our local Seattle area, Murshida (teacher) Khadija Julia Goforth. She was a larger than life teacher and friend and I miss her so much.

Many people have written their tributes and remembrances in various email lists and forums but I was having a very hard time deciding how to put down in words what I was feeling.

Finally, I gave up, let my mind go in meditation and allowed this poem to arise:

For Beloved Murshida

I don’t get it…
How can it be…

I remember this same sense
When my mother died.

And here, now
With the sudden, shocking
absence of our dear matriarch

It rises again.

Strands of jet black sorrow
Wound together with blood-red
Yarn pulled out of the gaping
Wound left by your absence
dear teacher.

Wound together into a
Prayer shawl I crawl into
On my knees
In mourning, in confusion,

In profound perplexity…

I don’t get it…
How can it be…

As I look down
The earth is still there.
When I open my ears
The birds are still singing.

Appointments are still on my calendar
Cars are still whooshing down the street.
The sun came up again
The flowers still smell pungent and sweet.

I don’t get it…
How can it be…

I lift up the edge of the shawl
(that reminds me of every shawl you gave me)
And I can’t understand
How everything in this vibrating world

Somehow
Still exists.

How can it not have
Disappeared into that gaping black hole
Your going has left in my heart
And the heart of our community?

As I stare into that blackness
I reach out and someone
Takes my hand.
Touches my heart.

I look and all around that void
My beloveds are beginning to stand
To look into each other’s
Tear blurred gaze.

Our prayer shawls slip
From our shoulders
Filling that darkness with
The light of our prayers

Weaving together
How we will
somehow
Go on
Together.

I still don’t get it
But maybe…

I see how it can be.

~ Wakil David Matthews – 5/2021 ~

I was just introduced to this amazing feat of engineering and love and music by my friend and fellow bass, Steve, from the Seattle Peace Chorus. The first video in the series was done several years ago, and it brought me to tears.

Enjoy:

https://youtu.be/Us-TVg40ExM

Here’s another one – equally moving:

Bowing in gratitude to Amina Janet from whose “Love, Harmony, and Beauty” blog I found this lovely poem today.

***********

Remember the sky that you were born under,

know each of the star’s stories.

Remember the moon, know who she is.

Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the

strongest point of time. Remember sundown

and the giving away to night.

Remember your birth, how your mother struggled

to give you form and breath. You are evidence of

her life, and her mother’s, and hers.

Remember your father. He is your life, also.

Remember the earth whose skin you are:

red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth

brown earth, we are earth.

Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their

tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,

listen to them. They are alive poems.

Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the

origin of this universe.

Remember you are all people and all people

are you.

Remember you are this universe and this

universe is you.

Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.

Remember language comes from this.

Remember the dance language is, that life is.

Remember.

– Jo Harjo

I have been so incredibly blessed recently to have been inspired by Gloria Anzaldúa as we read her book, Borderlands La Frontera (recommended by my lovely daughter Nina!) in our Sufi Book Club.

She speaks and writes poetically of her place in the borderlands both physically and metaphorically as a Lesbian, Chicana, with indigenous and Mexican roots. And she defies the dominant culture by writing in both Spanish and English and even some indigenous languages unapologetically and without translating for all of us poor colonialized white folks who only know one language!

And then, after being introduced to her via a Spiritual Directors International conference, I am being deeply impressed and inspired by Pat McCabe (Woman Stands Shining) – a Dine (Navajo) elder and teacher from whom I am taking a class called, “Surrendering to Spirit.” For our homework this week, she asked us to do this practice:

Several times a day recite this prayer, setting it as an intention. The prayer goes like this: “Help me to set aside everything I know about surrender so that I can be open to new possibilities.”

As I sat in my sit spot this afternoon by a beautiful creek praying that prayer, the following poetry arose in my heart. I have put the English translation (as far as I can guess con mi poco espanol) in between verses and I hope that any native Spanish speakers will feel free to correct any mistakes I’ve made.

La Rendición (Surrender)

El arroyo no puede volver
No quiere volver
No necesita volver

The creek can’t go back
Doesn’t want to go back
Doesn’t need to go back

Sólo es
Fluye
Limpia

It only is
It flows
It cleans

Belleza casi dolorosa
Exquisito, profundo
Ahogando todos mis sentidos

Beauty nearly painful
Exquisite, profound
Drowning all my senses

Gratitude to Hamid Francis for posting this poetry:

Everything is beautiful and I am so sad. This is how the heart makes a duet of wonder and grief. The light spraying through the lace of the fern is as delicate as the fibers of memory forming their web around the knot in my throat. The breeze makes the birds move from branch to branch as this ache makes me look for those I’ve lost in the next room, in the next song, in the laugh of the next stranger. In the very center, under it all, what we have that no one can take away and all that we’ve lost face each other.
It is there that I’m adrift, feeling punctured
by a holiness that exists inside everything.
I am so sad and everything is beautiful.

Mark Nepo- Adrift