devotion

a lasting marriage
when devotion has claimed you for its own
no longer any  chance to stray
a brief fling with illusion no longer satisfies
the truth demands utter fidelity
with no possibility of divorce

all pain must be faced
and embraced as the true countenance of
  your beloved

all fear must be met
and recognized as the thrill of tasting
  the unknowable

all joy must be surrendered
and acknowledged as a gift with
  no giver

this union only requires telling the truth
even when the truth shatters your dreams
even when the truth leaves you emptied out
even when the truth reveals your counterfeit
existence
then there is no other possibility
  than happily after





Nirmala
Gifts With No Giver
Photo:  Peter Bowers

To Come Home to Yourself

May all that is unforgiven in you
Be released.

May your fears yield
Their deepest tranquilities.

May all that is unlived in you
Blossom into a future
Graced with love.





John O'Donohue
Photo:  Peter Bowers

Sunset on the Last Day of Hunting Season

What deer still remain are far back in the woods by now.
They count their losses.  The others count
their trophies.  The score is even.
It's always a tie in the duality game.





Joan Ruvinsky
Photo:  Peter Bowers

singing

Strong or soft, wild or serene -
Wherever breath flows there is song.
Hear its whisper touching behind the face,
Singing in the throat,
Dancing spirals in the sanctuary of your heart.

In this practice of listening,
A moment may come when you just want to lie down.
This is a doorway - surrender.
Fall into the wide-open embrace of life.
You are the instrument breath is playing.

All the meditations you have ever loved
Are vibrating in this luxurious hum,
Continuing even in sleep and dreams.
This is your school.  Just you and infinity.
The texture of the Self is untamed freedom.





Lorin Roche
The Radiance Sutras, 32
Photo:  Peter Bowers

offering

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.







Leonard Cohen
Photo:  Peter Bowers

Where We Began

Though we are often driven by sorrow,
To seek the end of sorrows,
It is the desire for Love and Love Itself,
That in the end brings us to Freedom.

For when all  hope is lost,
And only Despair remains.
When all paths have failed,
And all efforts proven vain.

Then we sit alone, defeated, with nothing left.
Nothing, that is...
Except what moved us at the onset.
Our Own Shining Heart, our Own Inherent Love.

We wander for countless ages.
In the heartbreak of giving and receiving,
Until, when grasping is exhausted,
We simply rest as the Love we Are.

The Kingdom of Heaven is Within.
Not in perfection or attainment,
Not in doing thusly, or understanding profoundly.
Simply Here, where we began.

As we are.
Here.
Now.
Right where we began.






Chuck Surface
Photo:  Peter Bowers

Body Intelligence

There are guides
who can show you the way.
Use them.

But they will not satisfy your longing.
Keep wanting the connection with presence
with all your pulsing energy.

The throbbing vein
will take you further
than any thinking.

Muhammed said, Do not theorize
about essence.  All speculations
are just more layers of covering.
Human beings love coverings.

They think the designs on the curtains
are what is being concealed.

Observe the wonders as they occur around you.
Do not claim them.  Feel the artistry
moving through, and be silent.





Rumi
Photo:  Peter Bowers

dancing particles

Daylight, full of small dancing particles
and the one great turning, our souls
are dancing with you, without feet, they dance.
Can you see them when I whisper in your ear?





Rumi
Photo:  Peter Bowers

i thank You God for most this amazing

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)






e.e. cummings

In My Wallet I Carry a Card

In my wallet I carry a card
which declares I have the power to marry.

In my wallet I carry a card
which declares I may drive.

In my wallet I carry a card
that says to a merchant I may be trusted to pay her.

In my wallet I carry a card
that states I can borrow a book in the town where I live.

In my hand I carry a card.
Its lines declare I am cardless,  carless,
stateless, and have no money.

It is buoyant and edgeless.
It names me one of the Order of All Who Will Die.





Jane Hirshfield
Photo:  Peter Bowers

A Cottony Fate

Long ago, someone
told me: avoid or.

It troubles the mind
as a held-out piece of meat disturbs a dog.

Now I too am sixty.
There was no other life.





Jane Hirshfield
Photo:  Peter Bowers

being to timelessness as it's to time

being to timelessness as it's to time,
love did no more begin than love will end;
where nothing is to breathe to stroll to swim
love is the air the ocean and the land

(do lovers suffer?all divinities

proudly descending put on deathful flesh:
are lovers glad?only their smallest joy's
a universe emerging from a wish)

love is the voice under all silences,
the hope which has no opposite in fear;
the strength so strong mere force is feebleness:
the truth more first than sun more last than star

-do lovers love?why then to heaven with hell.
Whatever sages say and fools,all's well





e.e. cummings
photo:  Peter Bowers