Dealing with loss

I work hard. I study. I write. I walk. I cry a little every day. I meditate. I give thanks.

Chasing Rumi

This journal blog started as a place to pen the lessons in my life, my messages, and a means of following my own thread. It may seem sometimes I am wandering off that path, but everything written is a lesson to me.

Our lives are busy. Our lives are full. And because of our fullness, because of our abundance, most of us do not linger in the gifts given to us. We hear a song and move on. We read a book and move on. We meet a person and move on. Many times we do not take the time to stop and receive all of what the gift presents. We receive shallowly, not deeply. I do not want to miss the depth of gifts in my life. I want the fullness of life's messages to me.

~ ~ ~

Tonight my messages come to me from Chasing Rumi by Roger Housden, a book I started a few weeks ago but set aside in my busy schedule. Last night and tonight I am reading this book, at the same time wondering how I possibly could have set it down in my first reading!

You know how it is...you read something or see something or hear something and it stands out to you above everything else around it. Numinous for you, that's what that is. And I am bringing here the words in the book that are numinous to me...

Andros bid Georgiou heed two pieces of advice during his journey to Konya, and they be these. First, in every situation you meet on the way, be sure to tell the absolute truth as you know it. Second, pay attention to your dreams. If you do these two things, your way will be smoothed from the very beginning. Those words rang true to me, lingered with me, and I took note. Absolute truth as I know it requires great discipline and commitment, and becomes a spiritual practice.

Father Monas had a message for Georgiou. In the end, whatever your destiny has in store, it is always love that finds you, and not the other way around. That is why we must learn to listen. Father Monas continued, In our tradition, the most important lesson we have to learn is obedience to God. Most people think this means to be like children who do what the schoolteacher tells them. They do not know the word obey in our Greek language means 'to listen.' To obey God is to listen out for Him in every situation. This is my advice to you, Georgiou. Profit from your time alone, go into yourself, and listen out for the voice that comes unbidden. Listen to that part of you that knows all along what you have to do. This is the intelligence of love; the voice that speaks without complicated explanations, simple and to the point...Only our capacity to listen determines how much we hear it.

I read again and again a discussion on the Holy Mother as the heart of compassion but also the womb from which all things emerge and have their being. She is wild and dark because She is Life itself, which summons our demons as well as our angels. The source of all compassion is Truth. And the Truth is beyond any ideas of right and wrong. She embraces all of us without ceasing, without judgment, whoever we are. But She is also mighty and terrible and wrathful even, enough to shake us free from the grip of our illusions.

Freedom. Wow, I am discovering a richer definition of freedom than I have ever encountered. Freedom means freedom from my own preconceptions. Freedom from my own addictions. Freedom from my own preoccupations. This is freedom...

Rumi...

There is a part of me that cannot find expression in the language that we speak. There's a way I feel, the heart of me, that cannot find its voice in the smallness of the words we know. But there is a part of the longing, the loving, the compassion, the understanding, the feeling that can be found in poetry and I find myself in the lines and stanzas on the page. Poetry has become the bed on which I lie. It is the song I sing by day. Poetry speaks for me the fullness of my joy, the depth of my despair. Poesy tells of love so big I cannot contain it all and then it tells of love unwanted, unreturned. Poetry paints the picture of the inside of my life and I become the poem. I am the poetry.

When I read Rumi the first time I thought the poetry was nice. When I read Rumi the second time I thought the poetry was great. In my third time reading Rumi, I completely fell in...

CHICKPEA TO COOK

A chickpea leaps almost over the rim of the pot where it’s being boiled.
“Why are you doing this to me?”

The cook knocks him down with the ladle.
“Don’t you try to jump out. You think I’m torturing you. I’m giving you flavor, so you can mix with spices and rice and be the lovely vitality of a human being.

Remember when you drank rain in the garden. That was for this.”

Grace first. Sexual pleasure, then a boiling new life begins, and the Friend has something good to eat.

Eventually the chickpea will say to the cook, “Boil me some more. Hit me with the skimming spoon. I can’t do this by myself.

I’m like an elephant that dreams of gardens back in Hindustan and doesn’t pay attention to his driver.

You’re my cook, my driver, my way into existence. I love your cooking.”

The cook says, “ I was once like you, fresh from the ground. Then I boiled in time and boiled in the body, two fierce boilings. My animal soul grew powerful. I controlled it with practices.
and boiled some more, and boiled once beyond that, and became your teacher.”

~ ~ ~

With this one I fell in love with each line.

The longing is the gift...the desire is the answer...

Last night a man was crying,
Allah! Allah!
His lips grew sweet with the praising.
Until a cynic said,
So! I've heard you calling out,
but have you evergotten any response?
The man had no answer to that.
He quit praying, and fell into a confused sleep.
He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls,
In a thick green foliage.
Why did you stop praising?
Because I never heard anything back.
This longing you express is the return message.
The grief you cry out from
Draws you to union.
Your pure sadness
That wants to help
Is the secret cup.
Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.
That whining is the connection.
There are love dogs
No one knows the names of.
Give your life to be
One of them.

Rabia's Song

This song grabbed me, took hold of me from my very first hearing of it. I play it every day...

Where are you going? She said, To that world.
Where have you come from? She answered, From that world.
And what are you doing in this world? And she said, I am sorrowing.
In what way? They asked of her. And Rabia replied, I am eating the bread of this world and doing the work of that world.
Eating the bread of this world and doing the work of that world.
Alla-a-a-ah Alla-a-ah A-a-llah Alla-a-ah Alla-a-ah A-a-a A-a-a Allah
I have loved thee with two loves
I have loved thee with two loves
One that is selfish and one that is glorious
One being selfish and one being glorious.
In what way? They asked of her, and Rabia replied.
Of the selfish love I exclude all but you, of the other you enfold me in glory.
Of the selfish love I exclude all but you, of the other you enfold me in glory.Alla-a-a-ah Alla-a-ah A-a-llah Alla-a-ah Alla-a-ah A-a-a A-a-a Allah

Rabi.a al.Adawiyya of Basra, born around 717, died 802 A.D
Adapted from Zuleikha.s White Pavillion tape,
as recorded by Arienne and Wim van der Zwalcapo 4th fret

Lyrics

I have learned to pay attention to the lyrics that draw me. A tune that repeats in my head...a melody that stops me in my tracks...an album I return to again and again. I have learned there is a message in that which becomes part of me, that which is numinous. I pay attention to the lyrics...

I still miss him...

I am what I practice.

Someone once said to me, “Spiritual practice is the teacher; everything is spiritual practice.”

Some have said “you are what you eat” and “you are what you think.” But perhaps greatest of all understanding is to know this…you are what you practice.

I am what I practice.

Over the past two weeks my devotion to practice has deepened (does this suggest anguish is a poignant stimulus toward growth?). I have enlarged my practice of writing (here and even far more what never sees the blog)…my practice of meditation…my practice of study…

I am what I practice.

I walked the labyrinth on Friday night and again more deeply on Saturday noon. I now include a small labyrinth in my daily meditations. Today during labyrinth practice I recognized how in our progress toward a center we have an incredible winding path, sometimes a path that appears to be in opposition to the direction of our goal. Every day, I come to greater understanding of life through labyrinth practice. (I will post fuller expressions later, as daily labyrinth notes are in another writing not with me now).

I am the labyrinth.

I have a mandala meditation practice. Each morning when I awaken I use colored art pencils and color the day’s prepared mandala using whatever colors feel right for the morning. The series of mandalas follow the 12 stages of the Great Round of the Phyche, with several mandalas included in each stage. After coloring, I write and express what the chosen colors represent to my life and write my feelings and thoughts through today’s meditation. From there I read and evaluate the instructor’s view on what colors represent based on universal psychological responses and based on Western cultural color representation. This lends insight into what is on the inside. Today’s mandala was many layered, intricate, rich and deep, and too much to complete in one session (or even two). I will need to continue this mandala for several days, and I am still in Stage 1, the Void. Today’s mandala lesson reinforced our need to stay with something for a while, the truth of our spending more time in the phase or stage we experience. I practice mandalas.

I am a mandala.

I have a dance meditation practice.


In addition to my studies, what else do I practice? Do I practice lovingkindness (which I am told begins with me)? Do I practice peace? Do I practice honesty? Do I practice compassion? Do I practice humility? Do I practice strength? Do I practice listening? Do I practice silence?

I am what I practice…

I am...

I am my joy. I am my longing. I am my pleasure. I am my despair. I am my questions as much as I am the answers I create. I am the colors around me. I am the air that I breathe. I am the clothes on my body. I am the pictures on my wall. I am the food I choose to eat. I am the drink I pour down my throat. I am my frustration. I am my exuberance. I am what I love. I am that which I hate. I am what I accomplish. I am my unfinished plan. I am the song in my heart. I am the dance that I fumble. I am the words I speak. I am the feelings I repress. I am the messages presented me. I am the gifts I am graced. I am my life. I am my death.

Study

This journal is about movement toward consciousness, especially in becoming aware of and learning from the messages around me. I long to know me (which is to love me). That which is happening around me is what is happening within me. What, then, is it that is happening around me? What are the tunes by which I am fed, the lyrics that repeat in my head, the colors chosen to define me, the lessons endured to refine me… As I notice and write and study my reflections, I come closer to my whole…

Sacred Circles

This is my first attendance of the Sacred Circles Women's Conference on Spirituality at the National Cathedral. Oh, what a deeply moving, incredible gathering of women--the music, the meditation, the dance, the spirit, the compassion.

I arrived early and as woman after woman joined the gathering, I felt increasing energies of tenderness and strength, of softness and openness, of happiness and expectation, of settled acceptance of depth. The number swelled to 1,630, the largest gathering of women I have participated in and one amazingly without jostling for positions, without personal agendas.

What does the meeting of one person, what does the joining of one group on one occasion, what does one single event in one single weekend do in the fullness of one lifetime?

My understanding is enlarged, my spirit enriched, my priorities lifted, my mission more clearly defined, my practices more committed, my love more devoted...

I feel more than renewed. I feel re-born...