The Inner History of a Day

No one knew the name of this day;

Born quietly from deepest night,

It hid its face in light,

Demanded nothing for itself,

Opened out to offer each of us

A field of brightness that traveled ahead,

Providing in time, ground to hold our footsteps

And the light of thought to show the way.

The mind of the day draws not attention;

It dwells within the silence with elegance

To create a space for all our words,

Drawing us to listen inward and outward.

We seldom notice how each day is a holy place

Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens,

Transforming our broken fragments

Into an eternal continuity that keeps us. 

Somewhere in us a dignity presides

That is more gracious than the smallness

That fuels us with fear and force,

A dignity that trusts the form a day takes.

So at the end of this day, we give thanks

For being betrothed to the unknown

And for the secret work

Through which the mind of the day

And wisdom of the soul become one.

John O'Donohue

Photo:  Peter Bowers

On Waking

I give thanks for arriving 

Safely in a new dawn,

For the gift of eyes

To see the world,

The gift of mind

To feel at home

In my life.

The waves of possibility

Breaking on the shore of dawn,

The harvest of the past

That awaits my hunger,

And all the furtherings

This new day will bring.

John O'Donohue 

Photo:  Peter Bowers

The Ascending Soul

I died as mineral and became a plant, I died as plant

and rose to animal,

I died as creatures on hoofs and with feathers and look, 

look...I became a beautiful woman, I became a 

beautiful man.

What should we fear, darlings?  When were we ever less

by dying? 

Though, once again, I will know the demise of my senses 

and thoughts, so as to mingle more with angel ways.

Yet, even from these heavenly realms we must pass on, 

for all except God does perish.

When I have relinquished every aspect of self, I shall

become what the mind cannot conceive.  

Oh, let me not exist in any form that is limited by names ! 

There is a divine non-existence that proclaims, in exquisite

organ tones, 

back to the source of the Immaculate we shall return, back

to the cause of every god...we are.

Rumi

When human beings meditate

When human beings meditate

they sometimes close their eyes

and feel this body -

a flickering field of sensation

a tingling, hot and cold,

gravity here and there.

And attend to the breath

as the belly or nostrils

choose one

and stay there five years -

not the thought of the breath

but the sensations accompanying

each inhalation, each

exhalation.  The beginning

the middle and the end

of each in-breath

and the space between

where thinking wriggles free.

The beginning

middle

and end

of each out-breath

and the space between

and thought

and the space between thoughts -

returning to the breath -

just the sensation breathing itself,

sensations sensing themselves

floating in space.  Even some idea of who

is doing all this

floats by.

Just another bubble.

Another thought thinking itself all by itself

the fragile moment

vanishing in space

returning to the breath

like a devotee to a vow.

Watching thoughts

think themselves,

unfolding one into the next -

existing only a moment

before dissolving, watched

frame by frame in the passing show,

even such notions as impermanence

passing in the flow.

Observing feelings arise uninvited -

pleasure and pain, desire and

disappointment, liking and disliking

all day long from thought

to thought, a surprisingly mechanical

process unfolds.

Watching consciousness dream world

after world, self after self, constantly pretending

someone to be, arising and dissolving

quicker than advertised, unconvinced

we really exist.

Sinking into the light of awareness

that floods consciousness and sees

what we are looking for is

what is looking.

The breath breathing itself,

thoughts thinking themselves

feelings feeling themselves,

moment to moment unfolding.

When human beings meditate

they sometimes close their eyes

and enter their body with mercy

and awareness - follow their thought

to its source, noting the pressure

at the base of the spine

and the fountain in the skull.

Sometimes when we meditate

nothing special occurs

for the very first time.

Stephen Levine



people like us

There are more like us.  All over the world

There are confused people, who can't remember

The name of their dog when they wake up, and people

Who love God but can't remember where

He was when they went to sleep.  It's 

All right.  The world cleanses itself this way.

A wrong number occurs to you in the middle 

Of the night, you dial it, it rings just in time

To save the house.  And the second-story man

Gets the wrong address, where the insomniac lives,

And he's lonely, and they talk, and the thief

Goes back to college.  Even in graduate school,

You can wander into the wrong classroom, 

And hear great poems lovingly spoken

By the wrong professor.  And you find your soul,

And greatness has a defender, and even in death you're safe.

Robert Bly 

love fire

Devotion is the love-fire of God

for itself; the spontaneous fire of the heart

for itself; natural movement of Truth as it moves 

towards its own recognition. 

Life is devotion's love child.

Ellen Davis 

Photo:  Peter Bowers

Miracles

To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, 

Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,

Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,

Every foot of the interior swarms with the same; 

Every spear of grass  - the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women, 

and all that concerns them,

All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles.

Walt Whitman

Photo:  Peter Bowers

Every word of every tongue is

Every word of every tongue is

Love telling a story to her own ears.

Every thought in every mind,

She whispers a secret to her own Self.

Every vision in every eye, 

She shows her beauty to her own sight. 

Every smile on every face, 

She reveals her own joy for herself to enjoy.  

Love courses through everything, 

No, Love is everything. 

How can you say there is no love,

When nothing but love exists?

All that you see has appeared because of love. 

All shines from Love,

All pulses with Love, 

All flows from Love - 

No, once again - all IS Love ! 

Fakhruddin 'Iraqi
Photo:  Peter Bowers

Each image painted

Each image painted

on the canvas of existence 

is the form

of the artist himself.

Eternal Ocean

spews forth new waves,

"Waves" we call them;

but there is only the Sea.

Many disparate waves do not make the sea a multiplicity;

no more do the Names make the Named more than One.

When the sea breathes they call it mist; 

when mist piles up they call it clouds.

It falls again, 

they name it rain;

it gathers itself and rejoins the sea.

And it is now the same sea it ever was.  

Fakhruddin 'Iraqi
Photo:  Peter Bowers