a thousand ways

Let the beauty we love be what we do

There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground 

~

There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground, 

there are a thousand ways to go home again.

Rumi

Photo:  Peter Bowers

The Altar of This Moment

Place everything you can perceive—

everything you can

see,

hear,

smell,

taste,

or touch,

upon the altar of this moment

and give thanks.

It is over so soon—

this expression,

this single moment of your precious life,

this one heart

pounding itself open

with fear or wild joy,

this one breath rising

in the cold winter air

smoothly and gently

or coughing and sputtering.

Bow, while you can, before

this one taste

of afternoon tea

warming its way to your belly,

or the fragrant orange

exploding its sweet juice

in your grateful mouth.

You have to love

the antics of your mind,

imagining life should only be sweet.

The bitter makes the sweet; and life is both.

It is whole, like you,

before you think yourself to pieces.

Place this moment’s pain and confusion on the altar, too,

and give special thanks for such grace

that wakes you up from sleeping through your life.

Pain is greatly under-rated as a pointer to Unknowing,

yet greatly over-rated when taken as identity.

In this one moment,

your eyes meet mine and there is

a single looking.

What is peering from behind our masks?

Can it touch itself across the room?

Place your palms together;

touch your holy skin.

In another moment it will shed itself.

What will you be then?

What were you before you had two hands?

What are you now?

You cannot capture That

and place It on the altar of this moment.

It is the altar,

and this moment’s infinite expressions,

and the Seeing,

and its own devotion to itself.

You are That.

 Dorothy Hunt

Photo:  Peter Bowers

With thanks: science and non-duality website

The Mother

The most beautiful word on the lips of mankind is the word “Mother,” and the most beautiful call is the call of “My mother.” It is a word full of hope and love, a sweet and kind word coming from the depths of the heart. The mother is everything – she is our consolation in sorrow, our hope in misery, and our strength in weakness. She is the source of love, mercy, sympathy, and forgiveness….
Everything in nature bespeaks the mother. The sun is the mother of earth and gives it its nourishment of heart; it never leaves the universe at night until it has put the earth to sleep to the song of the sea and the hymn of birds and brooks. And this earth is the mother of trees and flowers. It produces them, nurses them, and weans them. The trees and flowers become kind mothers of their great fruits and seeds. And the mother, the prototype of all existence, is the eternal spirit, full of beauty and love.






Kahlil Gibran
Photo:  Peter Bowers

What is There Beyond Knowing

What is there beyond knowing that keeps

calling to me?  I can't

turn in any direction

but it's there.  I don't mean

the leaves' grip and shine or even the thrush's

silk song, but the far off

fires, for example,

of the stars, heaven's slowly turning

theater of light, or the wind

playful with its breath;

or time that's always rushing forward,

or standing still

in the same - what shall I say -

moment.

What I know

I could put into a pack

as if it were bread and cheese, and carry it

on one shoulder,

important and honourable, but so small!

While everything else continues, unexplained

and unexplainable.  How wonderful it is

to follow a thought quietly

to its logical end. 

I have done this a few times.

But mostly I just stand in the dark field,

in the middle of the world, breathing

in and out.  Life so far doesn't have any other name

but breath and light, wind and rain.

If there's a temple, I haven't found it yet. 

I simply go on drifting, in the heaven of the grass

and the weeds.

Mary Oliver

We Are Here

It is a strange and magical fact to be here,

walking around in a body,

to have a whole world within you and a world at your fingertips outside you.

It is an immense privilege,

and it is incredible that humans manage to forget the miracle of being here …

It is uncanny how social reality can deaden and numb us

so that the mystical wonder of our lives goes totally unnoticed.

We are here.

We are wildly and dangerously free.

John O'Donohue

From Anam Cara

image:  Peter Bowers