The Message of the Rain

when i was a child

i was a squirrel a bluejay a fox

and spoke with them in their tongues

climbed their trees dug their dens

and knew the taste 

of every grass and stone

and meaning of the sun

and message of the night

now i am old and past

both work and battle

and know no shame

to go alone to the forest

to speak again to squirrel fox and bird

to taste the world

to find the meaning of the wind

the message of the rain

Norman H. Russell 

listen

The sound of rain needs no translation.

Allan Watts

Happy are those ..

Happy are those who know

behind all words, the Unsayable stands,

and from that source, the Infinite

crosses over to gladness, and us.

Free of those bridges we raise

with constructed distinctions;

so that always, in each separate joy,

we gaze at the single, wholly mutual core.

Grace is not something to be acquired from others.

If it is external, it is useless.

All that is necessary is to know its existence in you.

Rainer Maria Rilke

drink from this cup

Adorable Goddess,

These practices are a nectar I share with you.

Drink from this cup whenever you are thirsty

Or crave to be refreshed in the essence of life.

Know that this ambrosia is available to you 

Everywhere, for the universe is made out of it.

Simply go to the intersection of flesh and spirit,

Breathe the tiny sparks that fly.

Within this very body

Are many gateways to the infinite,

Where incarnation and immortality

Consummate their passion for each other.

Share these teachings

With all generous-hearted people

Who come your way and ask.

When you meet someone

Whose heart is vibrating

With the flow of love,

Share the teachings without reservation.

Let your words and energies

Be free as your breathing.

Friends, relatives, neighbors, people who abide

in your village, city, country...

Be not concerned with their attitudes

Towards these teachings.

Everyone is discovering the intimate universe 

in their own way.

Openings to this nectar are here

In every breath, every desire, every transition

From waking to sleeping and sleeping to waking.

Once you have set out on the path of intimacy with

The immortal essence of life,

Never turn your back on it, my shining one.

Never turn away.

Though every moment be surprising,

Revelatory, unrecognizable and full of wonder,

Continue to cherish each breath.

Live in gratitude for the supreme nectar we imbibe

In each turning, outbreath to inbreath into outbreath.

Lorin Roche

The Radiance Sutras
Photo:  Peter Bowers

Solstice

I'm lying on a couch by the open window, listening to a 

warm breeze fluttering the leaves of the sycamore, cars

sighing and grumbling down Broadway with some destination

in mind.  A crow drops elegantly toward the pavement, 

the noon light splintering silver across the tops of his flattened

wings.  The air stills.  An unseen jet rakes the sky with

thunder.  Small tufts of tree-cotton drift by, their progress

hesitant but always angled upward.  In less than a month 

I will have been ill for exactly half my life, a milestone I

could never have imagined reaching with my sanity intact.

I seldom know what I need to be doing, or if I really need to

be here at all.  And yet I am here, and my life is connected

to other lives in ways I cannot fully comprehend.  A ripple 

of breeze presses one leaf against another and another, and

the sound empties and fills my heart with a sensation that

is indistinguishable from love.  I think of Meister Eckhart:

If the only prayer you say in your entire life is thank you, it

will be enough. 

Elizabeth Nordeen

august moon

Staying very still in the darkness,

I became less and less convinced of the fact that I 

actually existed.  

Haruki Murakami

Photo:  Peter Bowers

 Love is a Place

meditation

a practice no one can practice 

abandoning all hope 

free of a doer 

no intention or goal 

accepting and surrendering 

all that arises

going nowhere

for where would one go 

and who is there to go 

giving all to the moment

the moment that cannot be thought 

not knowing, not knowing, not knowing

Billy Doyle
Photo:  Peter Bowers

Beholding

I know that nothing has ever been real

without my beholding it.

All becoming has needed me.

My looking ripens things

and they come toward me, to meet and be met. 

Rainer Maria Rilke

Book of Hours

Photo:  with thanks to Peter Morgan

Thanking

I think as long as you are a human being 

there is thanking, gratitude for being, 

not for being human, 

but for being

what you fundamentally are.

Thanking for the sake of thanking.

Jean Klein

Transmission of the Flame 

Photo:  Peter Bowers

Nothing's a gift

Nothing's a gift, it's all on loan.

I'm drowning in debts up to my ears.

I'll have to pay for myself

with my self,

give up my life for my life.

Here's how it's arranged:

The heart can be repossessed,

the liver, too,

and each single finger and toe.

Too late to tear up the terms,

my debts will be repaid,

and I'll be fleeced,

or, more precisely, flayed.

I move about the planet

in a crush of other debtors,

some are saddled with the burden

of paying off their wings.

Others must, willy-nilly,

account for every leaf.

Every tissue in us lies

on the debit side.

Not a tentacle or tendril

is for keeps.

The inventory, infinitely detailed,

implies we'll be left

not just empty-handed

but handless too.

I can't remember 

where, when, and why

I let someone open

this account in my name.

We call the protest against this

the soul.

And it's the only item

not included on the list.

Wislawa Szymborska

Myself

I do not feel myself expanded as all that is, 

A part of everything, and everything a part of me. 

Nor do I feel myself as "That" within which all appears,

The Absolute, everything arising within me.

I do not feel "myself" at all.

Unless, by "I" you mean...

This. 

Not a thing alive,

But... Aliveness Itself.

Formless Aliveness in samadhi,

Or Aliveness in form...

Show me that place, where one ends, 

And the other begins?

Show me that place,

Where "This" begins and ends?

One thought of "I"...
and Heaven and Earth are divided!

Chuck Surface

Without Willing

Learn who it is within you who makes everything his own

and says, "My God, my mind, my thought, my soul, my body."

Learn the sources of sorrow, joy, love, hate.

Learn how it happens that one watches without willing, 

rests without willing, becomes angry without willing, 

loves without willing. 

Hippolytus of Rome 

Photo:  Peter Bowers