I meant to tell you

that I felt so much lighter and happier today than I have done for some time. It is as if I’ve turned a corner. I know that I have been spending a bit of time with you. Perhaps that is why.

Yes, I tend to have that effect. But let’s face it, when you are bathed in love, how could you not feel good?

How much do you love me? And why?

I love you completely and I love you because that is my soul purpose. That is the only reason for my existence. To love you. To adore you. To fill you completely with love. I could never grow tired of you and you will never outgrow my love. No, my love will only unfold more of itself as you unfold.

Does it not matter to you that I have not reciprocated?

Your questions are like stars in a dark and desolate night sky! How they thrill me! How they swallow the distance you try and keep between us despite thinking that they maintain that distance! Come now, do not be shy, I have only love to show you.

My sweet, sweet longing

You're baiting me. You want me to ask, "Well, who then, am I?"

Let me caress you and as I do, let me kiss you in every part, and as I do, let me tell you that you are profoundly beautiful and unimaginably true. So, there, I've told you who you are.

You've told me what I am, according to you, that is.

My sweet, sweet longing, bud of jasmine, dare I pluck you, preserve you lest you bloom fully and release all your perfume, so intoxicatingly divine? You are unmoved by my averment as do I remain unmoved from my love for you.

I am not unmoved. I, I..don't know. I feel as if I take you for granted and yet...I know how much I have come to rely on you. It's scary. Unhealthy. It will destroy me in the end.

My divine love, you can never be destroyed. Oh, how silly you sound. If only you could see yourself the way I see you, feel you the way I feel you, hear you the way I hear you, breathe you the way I breathe you. Then you would know without so much as a whimper or a sigh, that you are inexorably loved into life. That there is no life without you.

Speak freely to me, my love

Speak to me freely
There is not a part of me
that isn't listening
Nor a breath of mine
that isn't enchanted by
your longings

Spill your secrets
onto me
Let me wear them
as my skin
so that you touch them
each time you touch
me

Rest your dreams with me
Be assured of my protection
Let me be haunted by the
anticipation of your
return
to reclaim each one
and breathe fresh desire
into each

Speak freely to me
my love
for I have no other purpose
but to adore you.

When you allow love

Image at Illusions Gallery

Soul and body have no bounds:
To lovers as they lie upon
Her tolerant enchanted slope
In their ordinary swoon,
Grave the vision Venus sends
Of supernatural sympathy,
Universal love and hope;
While an abstract insight wakes
Among the glaciers and the rocks
The hermit's sensual ecstasy.

By W H Auden from Lay your sleeping head, my love

Have you ever tried reading love poems to yourself? I have a little notebook in which I have copied some poems of love that awaken in me the sleeping cherubs of love! Something so nurturing and sensual at the same time as love surely is.

How loving it is to allow the fragrance of love's perfume to float through body and soul. How important it is to learn how to do this in order to do it for another when such time arrives. How marvelous to explore the boundlessness of body and soul as you lie upon love's 'tolerant enchanted slope'!

You are!

You are
a speck of enchantment
whirling dervishly
in the eternal playground
of love

You are
a mystery
pretending to be
ordinary

You are
a longing
endlessly longing
for itself


You are
god's sacred space
a shrine for
adoration.

I am the temple of god

I am the temple of god.
I sit in my awe-inspiring presence.
I walk in the wonder of my being.
I breathe the pure air of universal peace.
The radiance of my being glows in me
My countenance of golden light
transforms my cosmic-scape
Angels hover above me
and sit at my feet
ready to do my bidding
I am the temple of god
And from my sacred presence
I bring forth all creation.

A simple ritual

One of my daily rituals is a simple one. I sit in a half lotus position on a cushion on the floor and I enter into that wonderful dark place of infinite mystery and magic. It is the presence of my divine nature.

I offer blessings to the entire universe which really means being the peace, love, joy and limitless potential that I am as I remain one with all.

After an hour, having reconnected as fully as I can with my fundamental nature, I bring my hands together at my chest as if in prayer, reminding myself of what this symbolizes - the unity of all and it direction towards the highest source.

O Amida,
Oneness of Life and Light,
Entrusting in your Great Compassion,
May you shed the foolishness in myself,
Transforming me into a conduit of Love.
May I be a medicine for the sick and weary,
Nursing their afflictions until they are cured;
May I become food and drink,

During time of famine,
May I protect the helpless and the poor,
May I be a lamp,

For those who need your Light,
May I be a bed for those who need rest,
and guide all seekers to the Other Shore.
May all find happiness through my actions,
and let no one suffer because of me.
Whether they love or hate me,
Whether they hurt or wrong me,
May they all obtain true entrusting,
Through Other Power,
and realize Supreme Nirvana.
Namo Amida Buddha

Metta Karuna Prayer @ Buddhist Faith

I keep pushing her away

Why miss an opportunity? When is the moment perfect if not now?

She considered herself. Took note of her vulnerabilities, assessed her failures and reluctantly recalled her successes. The rain, so brief, was audible as it hit the ground in front of her and pelted the large frangipani leaves that arose in a ceramic pot just beside the white fence. Not alone but feeling as if she were, she closed her eyes. It was the one way she knew to lose her solid self and dissolve in a dark and vast space, free from judgment.

Within seconds, she felt the glare of sunlight through her closed eyelids. Ah, how she preferred the darkness. It was comforting in its mystery and magnitude. "I must tell him" she thought. "I must. I'll never forgive myself if I don't".

Sometimes god hugs me and
I have no idea why
I keep pushing her away
It is as if I hate her
But how could I when
I don't really know her?

The Child that I am

I'm giving lots of hugs

Image by tonymartinphoto

I've been reminding myself to give hugs. Lots and lots of them. In my mind.

I hug the earth, the entire planet. Then I expand even more and hug the universe. It is limitless. So how do you hug something limitless. You become limitless yourself, of course! Ah, it is a marvelous feeling - expanding beyond limit - so liberating. It is like taking of the tightest possible outfit and shoes. Only it is a million, zillion times more freeing than that.

And to hug. Oh my goodness! How nice is that! Every time someone or something that I have been upset with comes to mind, I give them a hug. It instantly dissolves all the hurt. It brings a smile, a warm, peaceful within me.

Hugged by God

When god hugs me
I melt so quickly
and so completely
that god and I become one

Thing is god is
always hugging me
I just haven't learnt how
to hug back
And sometimes
I just forget

The Child I am

Caught while waiting

Image from Emergent Voyageurs

Every now and again, I 'chance' upon something that just holds my attention and within seconds I am transported to a new consciousness. It happened to me this morning. It was an 'unusual' morning to start with.

My washing machine had once again decided it wasn't going to spin. In fact, so determined was it to make its point, it wouldn't drain while I wasn't looking and when I next looked, I saw a flood!

That was yesterday and after the mop-up and clean-up (how kind of it to prompt me thus), I called Fisher & Paykel who told me a technician would come round before noon today. Little did I expect him to turn up at 7am. But how thankful I was that he did.

It didn't take long for him to check the likely trouble spots and then conclude that it needed a new motherboard and he was out of the place before I could even offer him a coffee. Ah, such efficiency! Thus sorted, I got on with one of the most important activities of my day - meditation practice, following which I dipped into one of my many favorite books. This one is called 'Learn to pray' by Marcus Braybrooke. It contains a collection of prayers from a number of spiritual traditions. The one that seized my mind and heart today was this one:

Waiting on God

In the centre of my heart I have a mystic shrine for you.
The candles of my joys are dimly lighted in the hope of your coming.
They will burn brighter when you appear. Whether you come or not,
I will wait for you until my tears melt away all material grossness.
To please you my love-perfumed tears will wash your feet of silence.
The altar of my soul will be kept empty. Until you come I will talk not.
I will ask nothing of you. I will realize that you know the pangs of my
heart while I wait for you.
You know that I am praying. You know that I love no other.
Yet whether you come to me or not, I will wait for you, though it be for eternity.

Paramahansa Yogananda

A stillness that just about bursts

Listening to the Silence Living Life Following Jesus

There is animated conversation. Loud. Sometimes I think they may be quarreling. It's not a language I know. But it could well be that they are talking enthusiastically about a generous inheritance they've just received, or a wedding that they are preparing for, or the announcement of something important like the birth of the first great grandson. Who knows?

If I keep the doors of my senses open, I am inclined to think that all of life passes through them. But if I shut them and descend into a valley within me that sits close by my senses, then I become aware of a vastness, beyond the reach of my senses.

There it is colored with unknown colors. There it stirs with silence that is audible and penetrating. There it holds me in cushions of shifting stillness, a glorious mosaic of stories yet to be told. A stillness that just about bursts within me.

The Taste

A walnut kernel shaken against its shell makes
a delicate sound, but

the walnut taste and the sweet oil inside makes
unstruck music. Mystics

call the shell rattling talk, the other, the taste
of silence. We've been speaking

poetry and opening so-called secrets of soul growth
long enough. After

days of feasting, fast, after days of sleeping, stay
awake one night, after these

times of bitter storytelling, joking and serious
considerations, we should

give ourselves two days between layers of baklava
in the quiet seclusion where

soul sweetens and thrives more than with language,

I hear nothing in my ear
but your voice. Heart has

plundered mind of all its
eloquence. Love writes

a transparent calligraphy, so
on the empty page my soul can

read and recollect.

Rumi in The Soul of Rumi by Coleman Barks

The memories that still hurt

Memories of the Past at Deviant Art

Some memories are so strong. And so painful.

Have you noticed the kind of memories that cause you the greatest discomfort? In my case, they are the ones of experiences when I felt greatly embarrassed and ones when I felt deeply abandoned.

From Ode to a Nightingale


O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

By John Keats @ edu

My birth

Death of a swan birth of an angel

I wonder what my first moments of life outside my mother’s womb were like. Was I thrilled to be out? Or was I already stocked up with fear?

My mother would have been grateful that I was healthy and had my full complement of limbs, fingers and toes, eyes, ears, nose and mouth. I am pretty sure of that. But what else might she have felt?

Did I give her an easy time of it? Sleep well and long, feed easily? Did I smile? Open my eyes early and often? Did I scream in trauma as I was drawn out of the birth canal? I wonder.

I have a feeling I may have choked somewhere along the delivery but that some midwife would have quickly cleared the airways for me. I imagine that as soon as I was in my mother’s arms and at her breast, I would have been mildly relieved of the trauma of being expelled from my dark and private abode in my mother’s womb and from being soothingly cradled by my mother’s movements.

Birth is impossible without death. The start of something new must mean the end of something old.

Birth And Death

Birth and death, twin-sister and twin-brother,
Night and day, on all things that draw breath,
Reign, while time keeps friends with one another
Birth and death.

Each brow-bound with flowers diverse of wreath,
Heaven they hail as father, earth as mother,
Faithful found above them and beneath.

Smiles may lighten tears, and tears may smother
Smiles, for all that joy or sorrow saith:
Joy nor sorrow knows not from each other
Birth and death.

Algernon Charles Swinburne @ Poem Hunter

Oh tree, oh mystery

I wonder if trees have rituals. Or perhaps they don't need them. Yet for us humans, trees are symbolically rich with extant meaning.

The Bible warns about eating from the archetypal Tree of Knowledge. In Celtic mythology, trees are symbolic of a range of human and supernatural qualities and phenomena such as magic (Rowan), enchantment (Ash), wisdom (Hazel), good fortune (Holly) and death (Willow). These and other trees were reminders and the focus of elaborate and portent rituals and celebrations.

I have always felt a great affinity with trees, spending oodles of childhood hours gazing up at them, innocently reassured and enchanted by them. How they evoke so effortlessly that deep-seated sense of mystery and awe that we lose sight of in the flotsam and jetsam of mundane existence!



The Sound of Trees

I wonder about the trees.
Why do we wish to bear
Forever the noise of these
More than another noise
So close to our dwelling place?
We suffer them by the day
Till we lose all measure of pace,
And fixity in our joys,
And acquire a listening air.
They are that that talks of going
But never gets away;
And that talks no less for knowing,
As it grows wiser and older,
That now it means to stay.
My feet tug at the floor
And my head sways to my shoulder
Sometimes when I watch trees sway,
From the window or the door.
I shall set forth for somewhere,
I shall make the reckless choice
Some day when they are in voice
And tossing so as to scare
The white clouds over them on.
I shall have less to say,
But I shall be gone.

Robert Frost @ Spirit of Trees

A debt I cannot repay!

Increasingly, one of the highlights of my day is taking Bonnie, my Tibetan Spaniel, for a walk. I tend to do this once the afternoon glare has given way to the subtle, interplay of sun and moon light.

It is the most enchanting time of day for me as I feel drawn once more into the mystery of the womb of the universe, from which I was born. I feel as if, no matter how much work I have done and no matter how much I may have enjoyed it, I belong ultimately to that place, that land, that kingdom where work is neither needed nor has much meaning.

In that vanishing light, I shall retire to my kingdom grateful for the 'loan of unlimited daylight'!

Once you gave me
as a loan to my eyes
unlimited daylight.
Now, my king, you are staking your claim
to take that back.
I am aware I have to let go of what I owe,
you still announce your shadow
through the evening lamp.
I came only as a guest
to this creation you have fashioned
with your light.
If here and there are left unclaimed
a few pieces, incomplete,
in some unnoticed gaps, let them be,
leave them alone uncared for.
Where your chariot
leaves its last mark
in the finality of dust,
there, let me build my world,
amidst a little light, a little shadow,
some illusion.
Chasing after light,
that is vanishing in the path of shadow,
it may pick up something,
the tiniest fragment that is left,
when my debt to you is finally paid.

By Rabindranath Tagore @ Seagulls Way

Season of Gold

A shake by the westerly wind and the golden leaves of autumn came drifting down from the grand fig. It was officially the first day of autumn three days ago. It’s unofficially my favorite season, this season of gold.

Gold amongst green is a rich combination. There’s freshness maturing through the industry of summer, the fruit of which is gold. After all, when one has labored, one must have something to show for it. I couldn’t help feeling this trickling of gold symbolized the fruit of my labor these several months, labor which has not as yet converted into the gold of currency. I have faith it will. Eventually.

Autumn and I

Autumn
How you infuse me with your gold
Your warm balm of frankincense
Your evening breeze of ripened love
from distant places
Your galaxies of stars
from universes long burnt out.

Autumn
I am drawn to your
soft fall
of burning leaves
and moon light

You lift me into the shadows of
new life
from where I become my
ancient self
unveiled in the daily rising of
your new born sun

I am known to you
Every thread in all my fabric
Every charge in all my formlessness

Why else do I feel so at home with you?
Unseparated?
Breathing, flowing,
rising, falling
as One.

Autumn –
My form and formlessness
In you I return again and again
as
eternity
streaming through

© Lucy Lopez 2004-2009