The Task

It is a simple garment, this slipped-on world.

We wake into it daily - open eyes, braid hair - 

a robe unfurled

in rose-silk flowering, then laid bare.

And yes, it is a simple enough task

we've taken on,

though also vast; 

from dusk to dawn,

from dawn to dusk, to praise, and not

be blinded by the praising.

To lie like a cat in hot

sun, fur fully blazing,

and dream the mouse;

and to keep too the mouse's patient, waking watch

within the deep rooms of the house,

where the leaf-flocked

sunlight never reaches, but the earth still blooms. 

Jane Hirshfield

So Much Happiness

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.

With sadness there is something to rub against, 

A wound to tend with lotion and cloth.

When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up, 

Something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.

But happiness floats.

It doesn't need to hold you down. 

It doesn't need anything.

Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,

And disappears when it wants to.

You are happy either way.

Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house

And now live over a quarry of noise and dust

Cannot make you unhappy.

Everything has a life of its own,

It too could wake up filled with possibilities

Of coffee cake and ripe peaches,

And love even the floor which needs to be swept,

The soiled linens and scratched records...

Since there is no place large enough

To contain so much happiness,

You shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you

Into everything you touch.  You are not responsible.

You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit

For the moon, but continue to hold it, and to share it,

And in that way, be known.

Naomi Shihab Nye

Photo:  Peter Bowers

Half Life

We walk through half our life

as if it were a fever dream

barely touching the ground

our eyes half open

our heart half closed.

Not half knowing who we are

we watch the ghost of us drift

from room to room

through friends and lovers

never quite as real as advertised.

Not saying half we mean

or meaning half we say

we dream ourselves

from birth to birth

seeking some true self.

Until the fever breaks

and the heart can not abide

a moment longer

as the rest of us awakens,

summoned from the dream,

not half caring for anything but love. 

Stephen Levine

Photo:  Peter Bowers

Two Loves

I have two Loves.

Sisters.

One is Immanence,

The other, Transcendence.

Loving each more than words can say,

I fear I cannot Live

Without either of them,

Even as one slowly...slips...away.

Growing older, I'm as someone on a train,

My Love on the platform, gazing wistfully.

Our certain parting,

Making Her more Beautiful than I can bear.

For some time now, I've seen Her everywhere,

Breathed Her, Heard Her voice in every sound,

Felt Her beneath my feet as I walk,

And Her warmth as sunlight upon my face.

This Knowing, that I'll not long be with Her,

A Poignancy, near unbearable,

Rather than diminishing our time, Enriches

Every...precious...moment.

As Life lurches forward, I hold Her closely.

But Vanishing Time, ever more so,

Allows only our Hearts to touch.

All that has ever...really...mattered.

I see Her still, our touch endures,

For how long, I do not know.

Her Perfume still surrounds me,

For how long, I do not know.

And yet...even as I leave one Love,

Arriving at another, in a time not known,

There is no place, within or without,

Where one ends...and the other begins.

No place where She ends,

and She begins.

No place where I end,

And I begin.

I leave, without moving,

From my Love,

To my Love,

As my Love.

Beloved Immanence,

Appearing within, 

And as,

My Beloved Transcendence. 

Chuck Surface

Photo:  Peter Bowers

As Shams Was to Me... (or You Are a Lion ! )

A sheep who had just lost her lamb was in grief, and 

the fullness of milk throbbed heavy within.  And she

prayed the best she could, in her sheep soul, for help.

Soon after that, she came across a lion cub, all alone

and near dying.  Although the scent of him triggered

every warning to her, 

her grief was so great to have a beloved near, and one 

who could bring release of the building pressure in

her glands, that she lay down beside him.

And after a while, he began to suckle her, and they

and God smiled in unison.

Strong, the young cub became, and he was accepted

into the flock by most, always reflecting their traits.

He even developed a passable baa.

About a year went by, when then a real lion came upon

the herd, and saw one of his own eating grass and 

thinking it was a timid creature.

So the aged lion said to his kin, "Brother, what has

happened to you, acting like that?  You have completely

identified with something you are not.

Come down to the lake with me, we will look into

it together.  It will be our mirror.  You will see you

are just like me, a great and powerful king."

Yes, that is the role of the Teacher, as Shams was to

me - showing the one who they are, so they can stop

bleating, crying at the night, and never again be afraid.  

Rumi 

tranlation by Daniel Ladinsky

Messenger

My work is loving the world.

Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird - 

equal seekers of sweetness.

Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.

Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old?  Is my coat torn?

Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect?  Let me

keep my mind on what matters,

which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be

astonished.

The phoebe, the delphinium.

The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.

Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart

and these body-clothes,

a mouth with which to give shouts of joy

to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,

telling them all, over and over, how it is 

that we live forever.

Mary Oliver

Photo:  Peter Bowers

Body Revelations

Today I woke seeing

not with my eyes,

but seeing the world

through the heart.

The location of things

seemed to drop

from my brain

and was peering

out from my chest.

My forehead unwrinkled

its long years of worry;

my throat released

all of its grip;

and now there's a breath

that fills my whole being,

a breath so open and free

that instead of stopping

at the top of my lungs,

it pirouettes in the heavens above

and swirls inside middle earth.

And here in this body,

this small human body,

that's always and only 

belonged to God,

the secret of deep

abidance in peace seems

to be to live from the heart;

for the mind of the brain

seems to want some gain,

but the mind of the heart stays clear.

Who would ever believe 

that this very body,

the one I spent years to transcend,

would turn out to be

Truth's continual key

to abide as the One I am?

And who could imagine

it's possible to see,

not through eyes,

but the heart's pure intimacy?

Dorothy Hunt

Photo:  Peter Bowers

Long Before We Ever Tried

To meditate is

to realize what has

always been meditating,

the vast and empty sky

in which the 

clouds of meditating

and not meditating

appear and

then disappear.

To meditate is to

realize this sky

that kissed the

clouds long before

we ever tried

to love what is.

John Astin

Photo:  Peter Bowers

What Can I Say

What can I say that I have not said before?

So I'll say it again.

The leaf has a song in it.

Stone is the face of patience.

Inside the river there is an unfinishable story

and you are somewhere in it

and it will never end until all ends.

Take your busy heart to the art museum and the

chamber of commerce

but take it also to the forest.

The song you heard singing in the leaf when you 

were a child

is singing still.

I am of years lived, so far, seventy four,

and the leaf is singing still.

Mary Oliver

Photo:  Peter Bowers 

Ever Arriving

"At the still point of the turning world...

there the dance is...

Except for the point, the still point,

there would be no dance,

and there is only the dance."

T.S. Eliot 

I think of it

as the Swirling Radiance,

movement that never ceases,

ever arriving

from the last moment 

of eternity,

the plundered second

of all that will ever be.

And you, here,

are at the midpoint,

the demarcation

of what has always been

and what is perpetually approaching,

your seeing is that which sustains,

carries forth,

enables.

You are the perpetual 

witness,

heaven's link to time.

If you listen, you can 

almost hear it swish 

as it goes by.

Dorothy Walters.

Photo:  Peter Bowers

Journey of Return

When the Beloved wants to take you Home, 

extend your hand to His welcoming

even though your body may be trembling

and your mind may want to flee;

even though those around you grieve,

and you yourself have mourned, even before they,

the changing form of your body.

Tears are not the final truth

though they will come and go

like stars that need a dark sky to be seen.

Death is not a failure of a mind

that is not strong enough,

or positive enough, or pure enough.

Those who hold such views are simply

masking fear with ideas of being in control

We are being lived by the Creator of this life.

Do you really think a finite mind can change

the mind of God?  Jesus tried and failed.

"Please take this cup from me!" he begged,

as we all do in the midst of anguish.

But anguish, fear, or deepest grief

cannot alter Who you really are.

The beautiful Spirit that extended Itself

in space and time, and called Itself by your name,

is simply ready to return, unencumbered by a body,

to Its vast and spacious Unborn Self,

that kisses you at birth,

and holds your hand in death,

and never for a moment

forgets you are Itself.

The mind imagines you are leaving,

but where could you truly go?

You are Life Itself!  Unceasingly flowing,

moment to moment unfolding Yourself.

A body is born; a body dies; but you do not. 

Deep within your heart, you know this Truth.

Rest there.  Rest in the knowing that

opens your heart to all that IS,

that loves Itself in all that comes,

and returns to Itself in all that goes. 

Dorothy Hunt

Photo:  Peter Bowers

Marriage

To see your face

with the eye of emptiness

is to have your face

as my own, and to find

between seeing and loving

not even a hairbreadth.

Colin Oliver

Photo:  Peter Bowers