Take me for a trip upon
Your magic swirling ship
Bob Dylan ? Mr. Tambourine Man
Most of us are on a trip. The question is, ?Is this trip taking me anywhere?? There is a paradox to the answer. If you think it is then you are not on a trip that is magical and will make your head swirl.
We need to have our heads swirl. Heads can be so full of knowledge that there is no room for the new. In our heads that have bee taken over from the ?swirling ship? of the heart resides the inner critic, the doubter and various related members of the ?playing small? family devoid of magic or mystery.
Irish mythology, which is a language of magic and mystery, can become a magic swirling ship. This is not just a trip into some historical time and place but the invitation to real magic. This is the invitation to the Timeless ? the NOW.
The Mr. Tambourine Man can play a song for you but you will be in a whirl. This is because all Tambourine Men (which also includes women) will play you YOUR song. You will tell them that this song is just too beautiful for words. They will then ask you, ?Why aren?t you playing this song.?
The Tambourine Man will then disappear and this song will haunt you until you meet again. Only this time you will be attuned to your unique time. The one that you came here to sing. The one that will take you as a magic swirling ship going in the true direction.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Return to Tir na nog ? Living the Time of Your Life
Tir na nog translates from the Irish as "The Land of the Forever Young." To modern intellects this story is a fairy story, meaning it is a fantasy. The intellect does not believe in a place where one lives forever and does not age.
The intellect is a wonderful tool but it keeps you bound to the prison of time and this is not the place where you can really enjoy the time of your life. To really enjoy your life you know who you are beyond time and form and space. Without this knowing (which is not an intellectual knowledge) you are living in a prison called time.
The Land of the Forever Young is not some mythical place but a state of being. It is the state of felt oneness with the source of Creation. Creation is created from that which itself was never born and never dies. In that sense it is outside what we call time. Forever does not mean an inexhaustible length of time. It is means no time at all.
An Anam cara invites you into the direct experience of living within time as a flow of the timeless. This is the direct experience of knowing yourself as the flow in form of that which is formless. This experience allows you to know the birthless, deathless state within. It allows you to know you truly are forever young.
The intellect is a wonderful tool but it keeps you bound to the prison of time and this is not the place where you can really enjoy the time of your life. To really enjoy your life you know who you are beyond time and form and space. Without this knowing (which is not an intellectual knowledge) you are living in a prison called time.
The Land of the Forever Young is not some mythical place but a state of being. It is the state of felt oneness with the source of Creation. Creation is created from that which itself was never born and never dies. In that sense it is outside what we call time. Forever does not mean an inexhaustible length of time. It is means no time at all.
An Anam cara invites you into the direct experience of living within time as a flow of the timeless. This is the direct experience of knowing yourself as the flow in form of that which is formless. This experience allows you to know the birthless, deathless state within. It allows you to know you truly are forever young.
The Fire that Takes no Wood
I went out to the hazel wood
Because a fire was in my head
W.B. Yeats ? The Song of Wandering Aengus
These lines open Yeats? great poem of the hero?s journey. This going to the hazel wood is undertaken by the outsider. This is the outsider who longs for the source of magic and miracle within.
The hazel wood is a place of sanctuary. It is a place of initiation. You are invited to be an initiate of the threshold places of the heart. This often takes you into a dark wood.
The fire in the head is a creative longing. It is the longing to be. To be is to be creative. You cannot not be creative, but you are given the choice in how you will express this creative fire that burns within you.
Many of us have lost the ability to feel the fire that burns within us to express love in action. We may lose it through grief or disappointment or listening to our internal critic rather than the voice of purpose and wisdom within.
Our fire has become the fire of ?doing? our life, where we get burnt out. It is a limited fire that consumes itself. We do not tend at the fire that needs no wood. We have forgotten what it is to sit and feel or creative, to be enveloped in its invisible embrace that warms the heart.
Through spiritual direction and soul friendship you can learn to tend the fire that needs no wood. The fire in your head is the natural call to creative expression as love in action. It never goes out. Except that most of us forget that this every creative potential is available to us if we enter the Deep Hearts Core.
This Irish Mystic Storyteller has a longing. It is the longing to share the invitation to the beauty at the deep hearts core. This is why I have recorded a weekly podcast that is given that name. The Deep Hearts core is the last line from W. B. Yeats? poem entitled The Lake Isle of Innisfree.
In the Deep Hearts Core Podcast this Irish Mystic Storyteller unfolds the invitation, not only from the poetry of W. B. Yeats, but from Irish mythology, Irish folk song and modern day song lyrics. This is an invitation for you to learn to allow your personal song of beauty to be sounded within the world and delight not only you but also others who see you living it.
So if you want a weekly input of inspired invitation to the beauty of who you are simply go to the following link and download the podcasts that interest you or sign up for a regular free subscription.
http://www.anamcaraexperience.org/podcast.html
Because a fire was in my head
W.B. Yeats ? The Song of Wandering Aengus
These lines open Yeats? great poem of the hero?s journey. This going to the hazel wood is undertaken by the outsider. This is the outsider who longs for the source of magic and miracle within.
The hazel wood is a place of sanctuary. It is a place of initiation. You are invited to be an initiate of the threshold places of the heart. This often takes you into a dark wood.
The fire in the head is a creative longing. It is the longing to be. To be is to be creative. You cannot not be creative, but you are given the choice in how you will express this creative fire that burns within you.
Many of us have lost the ability to feel the fire that burns within us to express love in action. We may lose it through grief or disappointment or listening to our internal critic rather than the voice of purpose and wisdom within.
Our fire has become the fire of ?doing? our life, where we get burnt out. It is a limited fire that consumes itself. We do not tend at the fire that needs no wood. We have forgotten what it is to sit and feel or creative, to be enveloped in its invisible embrace that warms the heart.
Through spiritual direction and soul friendship you can learn to tend the fire that needs no wood. The fire in your head is the natural call to creative expression as love in action. It never goes out. Except that most of us forget that this every creative potential is available to us if we enter the Deep Hearts Core.
This Irish Mystic Storyteller has a longing. It is the longing to share the invitation to the beauty at the deep hearts core. This is why I have recorded a weekly podcast that is given that name. The Deep Hearts core is the last line from W. B. Yeats? poem entitled The Lake Isle of Innisfree.
In the Deep Hearts Core Podcast this Irish Mystic Storyteller unfolds the invitation, not only from the poetry of W. B. Yeats, but from Irish mythology, Irish folk song and modern day song lyrics. This is an invitation for you to learn to allow your personal song of beauty to be sounded within the world and delight not only you but also others who see you living it.
So if you want a weekly input of inspired invitation to the beauty of who you are simply go to the following link and download the podcasts that interest you or sign up for a regular free subscription.
http://www.anamcaraexperience.org/podcast.html
Thursday, September 24, 2009
A Story of Global Land Grabbing
John Vidal the Environment Editor of the Guardian writes
?The acquisition of farmland from the worlds poor by rich countries and international corporations is accelerating at an alarming rate, with an area half the size of Europe?s farmland targeted in the last six months, reports from UN officials and agriculture experts say.?
In the Guardian article entitled ?Fears for the world?s poor countries as the rich grab land to grow food? we are told
?Outsourcing food production will ensure food security for investing countries but would leave behind a trail of hunger, starvation and food scarcities for local populations. The environmental tab of highly intensive farming ? devastated soils, dry aquifer, and ruined ecology from chemical infestation ? will be left for the host country to pick up.?
Here we see more of the same by the forces of global capitalism hell bent on ensuring that they maintain their highest levels of return on capital employed. They have used up most all the capital resources that exist in their own countries having devastated the soil and water and now they are moving to countries where they can charge for their chemical quick fix that creates deserts.
As an accountant one of the first principles of sound business management one learns is that you do not erode your capital base. It is out of this base that you earn revenue to sustain your business for the long term future. If you find that you are using capital this is indicative of mismanagement. Not so it appears if the capital base is the soil on which we are all dependant to sustain life.
Return on capital employed is the driving force of corporate life. The higher the better. Chief Executive Officers of large corporations will no longer be Chief Executive Officers if return on capital employed is not increasing and damn the consequences. This increased return is reflected in rising share prices that are the be all and end all of the God called market forces.
Who pays the consequences? In the short term the poor and in the long term every one of us. Why does this happen. In simplistic terms it is because we in the Western world are not prepared to pay the cost of producing food in a way that is sustainable. We have become so used to cheap price food that we no longer accept prices that would reflect the full cost of production.
The result is that food is produced as cheaply as possible and as intensively as possible. When the resources of the land have been burned away through intensive chemical use the corporations move on to buy up other land resources by which they can maintain their one measure of success ? return on capital employed. No one stops to ask what happens when the capital base is fully eroded.
As a storyteller and writer on Irish mythology this fixation on ever increased return on capital employed would be recognised as a poisonous story. In a fairy story this market force would be represented by a poison apple. We are now a global village and this poison is set to come back to us in the West. We have allowed undemocratic forces to use resources that belong to us all in a self interested way.
Due to self interest we have refused to be stewards of the land in the interest of future generations. Sustainable food costs. It costs energy in the form of money. If that energy is not expended in the form of money it costs in other ways. The present system of ever cheaper food production costs lives. The price paid is that of hunger and starvation but not for you or me ? or at least not yet. It costs the lives of the most vulnerable in our global village.
Still the good news is that the FTSE index will in the short term have risen in the knowledge that the God of the market place will be for a little while appeased. At least until the land runs out.
Tony Cuckson
Quotes taken from the Guardian Friday 3 July 2009
?The acquisition of farmland from the worlds poor by rich countries and international corporations is accelerating at an alarming rate, with an area half the size of Europe?s farmland targeted in the last six months, reports from UN officials and agriculture experts say.?
In the Guardian article entitled ?Fears for the world?s poor countries as the rich grab land to grow food? we are told
?Outsourcing food production will ensure food security for investing countries but would leave behind a trail of hunger, starvation and food scarcities for local populations. The environmental tab of highly intensive farming ? devastated soils, dry aquifer, and ruined ecology from chemical infestation ? will be left for the host country to pick up.?
Here we see more of the same by the forces of global capitalism hell bent on ensuring that they maintain their highest levels of return on capital employed. They have used up most all the capital resources that exist in their own countries having devastated the soil and water and now they are moving to countries where they can charge for their chemical quick fix that creates deserts.
As an accountant one of the first principles of sound business management one learns is that you do not erode your capital base. It is out of this base that you earn revenue to sustain your business for the long term future. If you find that you are using capital this is indicative of mismanagement. Not so it appears if the capital base is the soil on which we are all dependant to sustain life.
Return on capital employed is the driving force of corporate life. The higher the better. Chief Executive Officers of large corporations will no longer be Chief Executive Officers if return on capital employed is not increasing and damn the consequences. This increased return is reflected in rising share prices that are the be all and end all of the God called market forces.
Who pays the consequences? In the short term the poor and in the long term every one of us. Why does this happen. In simplistic terms it is because we in the Western world are not prepared to pay the cost of producing food in a way that is sustainable. We have become so used to cheap price food that we no longer accept prices that would reflect the full cost of production.
The result is that food is produced as cheaply as possible and as intensively as possible. When the resources of the land have been burned away through intensive chemical use the corporations move on to buy up other land resources by which they can maintain their one measure of success ? return on capital employed. No one stops to ask what happens when the capital base is fully eroded.
As a storyteller and writer on Irish mythology this fixation on ever increased return on capital employed would be recognised as a poisonous story. In a fairy story this market force would be represented by a poison apple. We are now a global village and this poison is set to come back to us in the West. We have allowed undemocratic forces to use resources that belong to us all in a self interested way.
Due to self interest we have refused to be stewards of the land in the interest of future generations. Sustainable food costs. It costs energy in the form of money. If that energy is not expended in the form of money it costs in other ways. The present system of ever cheaper food production costs lives. The price paid is that of hunger and starvation but not for you or me ? or at least not yet. It costs the lives of the most vulnerable in our global village.
Still the good news is that the FTSE index will in the short term have risen in the knowledge that the God of the market place will be for a little while appeased. At least until the land runs out.
Tony Cuckson
Quotes taken from the Guardian Friday 3 July 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Living the One Glorious Life
How does one as an Irish Mystic Storyteller begin to craft a story. One way is to pay attention to that which excites you and to be faithful to that feeling wherever it invites you to go. It also requires commitment and the ability to trust the process. It means learning to be comfortable with "not knowing."
Sometimes a story will simply happen and you have it down on the page very quickly. At other times the story is a kind of birthing. It will simply happen if you pay attention to simply getting out of the way and not being over anxious. In Zen such and attitude is summed up in the beautiful wisdom saying "Don`t push the river."
Pay attention when ideas keep coming back that you have resisted. Sometimes you will spend time with a story, even work very hard at a story, and it comes to nothing. Actually, what happens is that the story is flowering in a different way and will bloom through another story if you trust the intention.
When you feel excited, more than your head is involved. Excitement is the equivelant of the yellow brick road that takes you to the wonderland of Oz. Follow the yellow brick road. This is a metaphor for the wisdom road within you. It is the invitation to travel the beauty of the real story you are here to share.
Your real story is far more magnificent and more glorious than you might ever imagine. Trust this beauty to express as excitement within the body and live the one glorious life you have come here to be. You are the real wonder tale waiting to be told.
Sometimes a story will simply happen and you have it down on the page very quickly. At other times the story is a kind of birthing. It will simply happen if you pay attention to simply getting out of the way and not being over anxious. In Zen such and attitude is summed up in the beautiful wisdom saying "Don`t push the river."
Pay attention when ideas keep coming back that you have resisted. Sometimes you will spend time with a story, even work very hard at a story, and it comes to nothing. Actually, what happens is that the story is flowering in a different way and will bloom through another story if you trust the intention.
When you feel excited, more than your head is involved. Excitement is the equivelant of the yellow brick road that takes you to the wonderland of Oz. Follow the yellow brick road. This is a metaphor for the wisdom road within you. It is the invitation to travel the beauty of the real story you are here to share.
Your real story is far more magnificent and more glorious than you might ever imagine. Trust this beauty to express as excitement within the body and live the one glorious life you have come here to be. You are the real wonder tale waiting to be told.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Living as Love in Action
As an Irish Mystic Storyteller I invite you to live the unique story that you have come here to live and to be. You came into this world as the dance of Love in form.
What has happened to you since? You have been told stories that have blinded you to your true nature. If you are reading this article then you are interested in a story that helps you to become a seer and a visionary for your life?s Work (not necessarily your job or career). This is the great invitation from the short story that is contained in the poem by Max Ehrmann entitled Desiderata ? meaning, ?list of desires.?
The list of desires that you are invited to experience within your culture will eventually make you listless. Everyday you are bombarded by messages that tell you that you need this product in order to fit in, in order that you look beautiful, in order to be the right shape, in order to ad infinitum.
In this way you become addicted. You become addicted to a way of life based in a log list of desires that you become enslaved too. Much of what passes for work in our modern world is a form of slavery in which you mortgage your life force for some future promise of happiness.
This article and the invitation that is Desiderata is a different kind of story and the invitation to a very different way of living and being in the world. It is a way of freedom that allows you to go and become the beauty you are here to be.
A desideratum promotes Love in Action. This is the meaning of the opening invitation ?go placidly.? In those two words you have the full movement of creation. In those two words you have the possibility of the dance you can become. You have the masculine principle represented by the word ?go.? You have the feminine principle held in the word ?placidly.? These two are the creative dance of energy in form. You are that dance.
Most of us are on the go. Our days and our nights are filled with the doing of our lives. Many of us are addicted to our work. It is an addiction that is culturally approved. We invite our young people to become addicts to the work ethic without any awareness of what it is to do real work as the movement of Love in Action.
How do you begin to learn the dance of Creation? You begin with the first step of the dance. This is the focus of your intention. More on this to come. Remember that there is a full learning program centred on Desiderata becoming available at The Anam cara Experience website. This learning program teaches you to distinguish between Love in Action flowing from your deep hearts core rather than the addictive desire promoted by a culture that denies your birthright as a dance of Love in form.
Remember desire can become and is intended to become addictive. Learn the dance of Love in action. This is not just more information but a new and radical way of being the beauty in form creation invites you to become.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
What Brings you Alive
This Sunday morning I am planting bulbs that will add colour to the garden during the winter and the spring.
I am also planting seed in the form of inspiration. I have the seed of an idea that I am drawn to manifest. This is a work of appreciation.
I appreciate the work of the Irish poet W.B. Yeats. It is his poetry that speaks to my deep hearts core. It is he who called me to return to my native land. He still keeps calling me to be an invitation to the peace that comes dropping slow.
So I am intending to writ a book. It is a book about an Irish pilgrimage through the poetry of W. B. Yeats. I hope, therefore, to share this journey and invite others to journey to their own deep hearts core.
This journey through the poetry of W.B. Yeats is part of my essential story. It is the essence of who I am becoming. We are all telling a story. In every moment you are radiating the story of your life.
Have you ever asked the question, "What am I radiating?" Most of us radiate a belief that mystics of all traditions and all times tell us is false. This is the idea that we are living as a separate sense of self within time and space and body.
At the deep hearts cores this false identity of the separate sense of self is the core of suffering. Once it is seen, is realized as the illusion it is the life becomes more abundant.
There is less resistance and less grasping but the radiance of who you are is allowed to flow through a body and mind that knows the experience of real peace. This is more than peace that is an absence of conflict. This is the kind of peace that W. B. Yeats tells us comes dropping slow.
David Whyte the English poet and writer of "Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity" is known for the beautiful line that says, "Anyone who does not bring you alive is too small for you."
W. B. Yeats brings me alive. He invites real questions. He invites me to the Quest I am On. This is the call to adventure at the deep hearts core.
Who brings you alive? Do you spend time with them? Do you imbibe their presence? What kind of stories do they invite into your heart?
Most of the stories of our modern day culture are stories that are poisonous. They are imbibed because everyone takes it as normal to be a separate individual living in a body in time and space. Thus you as sleeping beauty have eaten of the poison apple whose core is rotten.
All the mystics of all times and traditions are the ones who know and have lived the life beyond the illusion of separateness from Love. They bring you truly alive.
Except that in the words of another poet Derek Walcott who writes in the poem Love after Love, you have to peel the image of the mirror and feast on your life.
Peeling the image of who you think you are of the mirror of your life situation and a sense of separateness from Love is painful. It involves a deep letting go so that the banquet that you are can be revealed.
This is the banquet that gives you real nourishment. It is a storehouse of revelation. It is not the store at the Mall that simply compensates you for what you are really missing which is the sense of being truly alive to the invitation at the deep hearts core.
Whatever it is that brings you alive then spend time with this. This is quality time. It can lead you to the timelessness of your true nature.
I am also planting seed in the form of inspiration. I have the seed of an idea that I am drawn to manifest. This is a work of appreciation.
I appreciate the work of the Irish poet W.B. Yeats. It is his poetry that speaks to my deep hearts core. It is he who called me to return to my native land. He still keeps calling me to be an invitation to the peace that comes dropping slow.
So I am intending to writ a book. It is a book about an Irish pilgrimage through the poetry of W. B. Yeats. I hope, therefore, to share this journey and invite others to journey to their own deep hearts core.
This journey through the poetry of W.B. Yeats is part of my essential story. It is the essence of who I am becoming. We are all telling a story. In every moment you are radiating the story of your life.
Have you ever asked the question, "What am I radiating?" Most of us radiate a belief that mystics of all traditions and all times tell us is false. This is the idea that we are living as a separate sense of self within time and space and body.
At the deep hearts cores this false identity of the separate sense of self is the core of suffering. Once it is seen, is realized as the illusion it is the life becomes more abundant.
There is less resistance and less grasping but the radiance of who you are is allowed to flow through a body and mind that knows the experience of real peace. This is more than peace that is an absence of conflict. This is the kind of peace that W. B. Yeats tells us comes dropping slow.
David Whyte the English poet and writer of "Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity" is known for the beautiful line that says, "Anyone who does not bring you alive is too small for you."
W. B. Yeats brings me alive. He invites real questions. He invites me to the Quest I am On. This is the call to adventure at the deep hearts core.
Who brings you alive? Do you spend time with them? Do you imbibe their presence? What kind of stories do they invite into your heart?
Most of the stories of our modern day culture are stories that are poisonous. They are imbibed because everyone takes it as normal to be a separate individual living in a body in time and space. Thus you as sleeping beauty have eaten of the poison apple whose core is rotten.
All the mystics of all times and traditions are the ones who know and have lived the life beyond the illusion of separateness from Love. They bring you truly alive.
Except that in the words of another poet Derek Walcott who writes in the poem Love after Love, you have to peel the image of the mirror and feast on your life.
Peeling the image of who you think you are of the mirror of your life situation and a sense of separateness from Love is painful. It involves a deep letting go so that the banquet that you are can be revealed.
This is the banquet that gives you real nourishment. It is a storehouse of revelation. It is not the store at the Mall that simply compensates you for what you are really missing which is the sense of being truly alive to the invitation at the deep hearts core.
Whatever it is that brings you alive then spend time with this. This is quality time. It can lead you to the timelessness of your true nature.
What Brings you Alive?
This Sunday morning I am planting bulbs that will add colour to the garden during the winter and the spring.
I am also planting seed in the form of inspiration. I have the seed of an idea that I am drawn to manifest. This is a work of appreciation.
I appreciate the work of the Irish poet W.B. Yeats. It is his poetry that speaks to my deep hearts core. It is he who called me to return to my native land. He still keeps calling me to be an invitation to the peace that comes dropping slow.
So I am intending to writ a book. It is a book about an Irish pilgrimage through the poetry of W. B. Yeats. I hope, therefore, to share this journey and invite others to journey to their own deep hearts core.
This journey through the poetry of W.B. Yeats is part of my essential story. It is the essence of who I am becoming. We are all telling a story. In every moment you are radiating the story of your life.
Have you ever asked the question, "What am I radiating?" Most of us radiate a belief that mystics of all traditions and all times tell us is false. This is the idea that we are living as a separate sense of self within time and space and body.
At the deep hearts cores this false identity of the separate sense of self is the core of suffering. Once it is seen, is realized as the illusion it is the life becomes more abundant.
There is less resistance and less grasping but the radiance of who you are is allowed to flow through a body and mind that knows the experience of real peace. This is more than peace that is an absence of conflict. This is the kind of peace that W. B. Yeats tells us comes dropping slow.
David Whyte the English poet and writer of "Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity" is known for the beautiful line that says, "Anyone who does not bring you alive is too small for you."
W. B. Yeats brings me alive. He invites real questions. He invites me to the Quest I am On. This is the call to adventure at the deep hearts core.
Who brings you alive? Do you spend time with them? Do you imbibe their presence? What kind of stories do they invite into your heart?
Most of the stories of our modern day culture are stories that are poisonous. They are imbibed because everyone takes it as normal to be a separate individual living in a body in time and space. Thus you as sleeping beauty have eaten of the poison apple whose core is rotten.
All the mystics of all times and traditions are the ones who know and have lived the life beyond the illusion of separateness from Love. They bring you truly alive.
Except that in the words of another poet Derek Walcott who writes in the poem Love after Love, you have to peel the image of the mirror and feast on your life.
Peeling the image of who you think you are of the mirror of your life situation and a sense of separateness from Love is painful. It involves a deep letting go so that the banquet that you are can be revealed.
This is the banquet that gives you real nourishment. It is a storehouse of revelation. It is not the store at the Mall that simply compensates you for what you are really missing which is the sense of being truly alive to the invitation at the deep hearts core.
Whatever it is that brings you alive then spend time with this. This is quality time. It can lead you to the timelessness of your true nature.
I am also planting seed in the form of inspiration. I have the seed of an idea that I am drawn to manifest. This is a work of appreciation.
I appreciate the work of the Irish poet W.B. Yeats. It is his poetry that speaks to my deep hearts core. It is he who called me to return to my native land. He still keeps calling me to be an invitation to the peace that comes dropping slow.
So I am intending to writ a book. It is a book about an Irish pilgrimage through the poetry of W. B. Yeats. I hope, therefore, to share this journey and invite others to journey to their own deep hearts core.
This journey through the poetry of W.B. Yeats is part of my essential story. It is the essence of who I am becoming. We are all telling a story. In every moment you are radiating the story of your life.
Have you ever asked the question, "What am I radiating?" Most of us radiate a belief that mystics of all traditions and all times tell us is false. This is the idea that we are living as a separate sense of self within time and space and body.
At the deep hearts cores this false identity of the separate sense of self is the core of suffering. Once it is seen, is realized as the illusion it is the life becomes more abundant.
There is less resistance and less grasping but the radiance of who you are is allowed to flow through a body and mind that knows the experience of real peace. This is more than peace that is an absence of conflict. This is the kind of peace that W. B. Yeats tells us comes dropping slow.
David Whyte the English poet and writer of "Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity" is known for the beautiful line that says, "Anyone who does not bring you alive is too small for you."
W. B. Yeats brings me alive. He invites real questions. He invites me to the Quest I am On. This is the call to adventure at the deep hearts core.
Who brings you alive? Do you spend time with them? Do you imbibe their presence? What kind of stories do they invite into your heart?
Most of the stories of our modern day culture are stories that are poisonous. They are imbibed because everyone takes it as normal to be a separate individual living in a body in time and space. Thus you as sleeping beauty have eaten of the poison apple whose core is rotten.
All the mystics of all times and traditions are the ones who know and have lived the life beyond the illusion of separateness from Love. They bring you truly alive.
Except that in the words of another poet Derek Walcott who writes in the poem Love after Love, you have to peel the image of the mirror and feast on your life.
Peeling the image of who you think you are of the mirror of your life situation and a sense of separateness from Love is painful. It involves a deep letting go so that the banquet that you are can be revealed.
This is the banquet that gives you real nourishment. It is a storehouse of revelation. It is not the store at the Mall that simply compensates you for what you are really missing which is the sense of being truly alive to the invitation at the deep hearts core.
Whatever it is that brings you alive then spend time with this. This is quality time. It can lead you to the timelessness of your true nature.
Friday, September 11, 2009
And Peace Comes Dropping Slow - Remembering 9/11
Today is 11th Sept. It is a day of remembrance for people all over the world. For most people it is a day of sorrow and for others a day of celebration.
On this day I like to share a vision of what could be. Sometimes I write this and sometimes I take the writings of others. One writer I love is an American woman called Ganngaji - born Toni Roberson who grew up in Mississippi. Here is an extract from "Choosing Peace" from "A Diamond in Your Pocket - Discovering your True Radiance."
"Unless all of us take the responsibility for our own inner peace, the wars will continue. We cannot wait any longer for someone else to change. We cannot wait for someone else to forgive us so that we can forgive them. We cannot wait for someone else to say they are sorry. Peace cannot be postponed.
Recognize that to whatever degree the war is going on in your own mind, it is based on one thing: the firm belief that you are a separate entity, separate from your parents, your children, your lover, your enemy.
All wars are based upon the ignorance of our true nature and the illusion of separation. When you firmly believe that you are separate from totality, separate from peace, separate from love, you protect yourself. That protection takes many forms involving personal and territorial identification. The horror is that if what you are protecting is the thought of who you are, it does not, in reality, even exist. It is only a thought, and whenever a thought is honestly investigated, it is found to have no inherent reality. Yet this thought of who you are has immeasurable power, because it becomes the filter of all experiences of reality.
As a consious human being, you have the opportunity to discover that never, not even for an instant, is it possible to be separate from Love, from the source of everything, from God. Once you discover this directly, you then brodcast it with every breath you take. Whether you speak of this discovery or you never speak again, you will broadcast it through the natural radiance of your being. In your willingness to take the chance, to accept that invitation, you will naturally share that peace everywhere."
Tell me that is not a most beautiful of invitations. Note that Ganaji says " Once you discover this directly------" This direct discovery is so essential. It is not a question of belief but an experience of radiance. You know it because you are it. Belief requires a believer separate from the experience. A believer is not one who is the experience of direct knowing.
Gangaji also invites each one of us to take responsibility for our own mind. Listen to your mind. On this day of remembrance sit still for 10 minutes and listen to the way your mind is forever on. This is not peace of mind. This is not attunement to the source. This is not stillness knowing that it is Love. If this is your mind then you have no peace to offer. You have no still point centre from which radiance happens.
This monkey mind is not your natural radiance of being. You on this day of remembrance can commit to this radiance of being. Then the tragedy of 9/11 can become the invitation to Heaven on Earth. It only happens when you are willing to become the invitation to the radiance at your deep hearts core.
Today share this invitation. Share this invitation tomorrow. Share it everyday in whatever way you are called to be the radiant pressence of Love in form. Then when you know directly that you are the living presence of eternal Love you need have no fear. Though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death you will fear no evil. Then you become a beacon of hope in a fear filled world. Then you become the invitation in New York Harbour of a woman welcoming all that mass of separateness from Love. You liberate others from their sense of separateness from Love.
Peace of the Infinite Peace to You.
On this day I like to share a vision of what could be. Sometimes I write this and sometimes I take the writings of others. One writer I love is an American woman called Ganngaji - born Toni Roberson who grew up in Mississippi. Here is an extract from "Choosing Peace" from "A Diamond in Your Pocket - Discovering your True Radiance."
"Unless all of us take the responsibility for our own inner peace, the wars will continue. We cannot wait any longer for someone else to change. We cannot wait for someone else to forgive us so that we can forgive them. We cannot wait for someone else to say they are sorry. Peace cannot be postponed.
Recognize that to whatever degree the war is going on in your own mind, it is based on one thing: the firm belief that you are a separate entity, separate from your parents, your children, your lover, your enemy.
All wars are based upon the ignorance of our true nature and the illusion of separation. When you firmly believe that you are separate from totality, separate from peace, separate from love, you protect yourself. That protection takes many forms involving personal and territorial identification. The horror is that if what you are protecting is the thought of who you are, it does not, in reality, even exist. It is only a thought, and whenever a thought is honestly investigated, it is found to have no inherent reality. Yet this thought of who you are has immeasurable power, because it becomes the filter of all experiences of reality.
As a consious human being, you have the opportunity to discover that never, not even for an instant, is it possible to be separate from Love, from the source of everything, from God. Once you discover this directly, you then brodcast it with every breath you take. Whether you speak of this discovery or you never speak again, you will broadcast it through the natural radiance of your being. In your willingness to take the chance, to accept that invitation, you will naturally share that peace everywhere."
Tell me that is not a most beautiful of invitations. Note that Ganaji says " Once you discover this directly------" This direct discovery is so essential. It is not a question of belief but an experience of radiance. You know it because you are it. Belief requires a believer separate from the experience. A believer is not one who is the experience of direct knowing.
Gangaji also invites each one of us to take responsibility for our own mind. Listen to your mind. On this day of remembrance sit still for 10 minutes and listen to the way your mind is forever on. This is not peace of mind. This is not attunement to the source. This is not stillness knowing that it is Love. If this is your mind then you have no peace to offer. You have no still point centre from which radiance happens.
This monkey mind is not your natural radiance of being. You on this day of remembrance can commit to this radiance of being. Then the tragedy of 9/11 can become the invitation to Heaven on Earth. It only happens when you are willing to become the invitation to the radiance at your deep hearts core.
Today share this invitation. Share this invitation tomorrow. Share it everyday in whatever way you are called to be the radiant pressence of Love in form. Then when you know directly that you are the living presence of eternal Love you need have no fear. Though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death you will fear no evil. Then you become a beacon of hope in a fear filled world. Then you become the invitation in New York Harbour of a woman welcoming all that mass of separateness from Love. You liberate others from their sense of separateness from Love.
Peace of the Infinite Peace to You.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Finding Your Unique Shape
In Anamcara - Spiritual Wisdom from the Celtic World, John O'Donohue the great Irish poet and writer says: -
"I love, too, that image of Michelangelo?s: that in every stone no matter how dumb, awkward or blunt there is a secret shape waiting to emerge."
Such a secret shape often comes out of a spiritual emergence. The soul longs to be free from the shackles of a heart bounded by things. The deep hearts core longs to be unbounded by time and the heavy burden of the separate sense of self. That sense of self we call me, myself I.
We have been made to feel dumb, awkward or blunt. Our natural intelligence is a spiritual wisdom. The Celtic world is an invitation to know this spiritual wisdom as direct experience. This isn?t just more information. It isn?t just more communication. It is communion beyond the limitation of form. This is spiritual wisdom and you can know it because you are in essence not apart from such wisdom.
You are not required to be a Celt. You are required to have a heart. So take hart and allow it to break open to deep experience at the hearts core. This often feels like hammer blows. This is because your and I are like Michelangelo?s Prisoners in the Stone.
You have a unique shape. That shape is the way Love shaped you to dance in form. You are not a prisoner. The wisdom from the Celtic World is an invitation to the landscape of the deep hearts core. This is your hearts landscape and your escape from the idea that you can ever be separate from Love. You have to become your own stonemason and, metaphorically speaking, become a free mason.
Thus you engage with spiritual emergence rather than spiritual emergency. Rather than become stone like you become a blooming wisdom tale.
Such a secret shape often comes out of a spiritual emergence. The soul longs to be free from the shackles of a heart bounded by things. The deep hearts core longs to be unbounded by time and the heavy burden of the separate sense of self. That sense of self we call me, myself I.
We have been made to feel dumb, awkward or blunt. Our natural intelligence is a spiritual wisdom. The Celtic world is an invitation to know this spiritual wisdom as direct experience. This isn?t just more information. It isn?t just more communication. It is communion beyond the limitation of form. This is spiritual wisdom and you can know it because you are in essence not apart from such wisdom.
You are not required to be a Celt. You are required to have a heart. So take hart and allow it to break open to deep experience at the hearts core. This often feels like hammer blows. This is because your and I are like Michelangelo?s Prisoners in the Stone.
You have a unique shape. That shape is the way Love shaped you to dance in form. You are not a prisoner. The wisdom from the Celtic World is an invitation to the landscape of the deep hearts core. This is your hearts landscape and your escape from the idea that you can ever be separate from Love. You have to become your own stonemason and, metaphorically speaking, become a free mason.
Thus you engage with spiritual emergence rather than spiritual emergency. Rather than become stone like you become a blooming wisdom tale.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
The Radiance of Fitness - Are You Fit for Love
This article invites you to the place where you are the reflection of beauty and grace in form. It takes as part of its invitation the story of the ugly duckling whose nature is that of a swan. The swan metaphor in fairy stories represents the awakened soul full of beauty and grace. This article reminds you the Anam Cara who is a friend of the soul invites you to remember that you are naturally grace filled and beautiful. (The meaning of Anam Cara is Soul Friend ? Anam means Soul ? Cara means Friend. The writer defines soul in this way
Source
Of
Unlimited
Love
Many people subscribe to a fitness regime. They work out. They go to the gym. They do aerobics, yoga or some other body exercise in order to keep fit. For many people the primary focus of a fitness regime is the development of the body beautiful. Often this masks the unconscious judgement of themselves as somehow ugly.
This writer and storyteller works out in the garden. It is a natural way of working out. Doing physical work is healthy and its primary function is to ground you in the body. This allows you to feel the body beautiful not as something to simply be admired but as an instrument through which creation can freely flow and express as beauty in form.
You might be someone who follows a fitness program of some kind but have you ever asked the question, ?What am I fit for?? This is a powerful question for the Quest I On. It is the sort of question an Anam Cara will invite you into. They will ask, ?Are you fit for the purpose you are intended?? These are great spiritual direction questions.
There is no judgement of you intended here. Only the invitation to the grace and beauty of who you are. These questions are invitations to see the reflection that many of us avoid. Secretly there is often part of us still attached to the ugly duckling and refuse to even imagine that we are metaphorically swans full of grace and beauty.
An Anam Cara will tell you that while it is important to care for the body there are other bodies that if not cared for and tended with grace and tenderness adversely impact the physical dimension. These bodies are the mental and emotional bodies.
These bodies are more subtle than the physical body. They are more refined and careful attention to them allows you to feel fine.
Your body mind and soul are meant for a purpose. The Anam Cara will tell you that the primary purpose of your being in form is to be in service to the power of Love. They will ask you a rather intimate question. This is the question, ?Are you fit to be a Lover.? No one is ever asked this question and very few ever ask it of themselves.
Of course any question asked by an Anamcara has two answers. Like the storytellers of old they are spinners of magical tales and riddles. These riddles are for one purpose. They are like Zen Koans in that they are designed to take you out of the ivory tower of the intellect where you keep beauty asleep for one hundred years and more. The Anamcara is a paradox. They are of two worlds. The world of time and the world of the Timeless.
The answer to the question, ?Are you fit to be a Lover?? is ?Yes you are and no you are not.? Why is this answer as it is? You are always fit to be a Lover of the Beloved because you are created in the image of Love. Nothing you do or do not do changes this primacy. No you are not fit to be a Love because you have forgotten who you are. You have become not who you truly are but a begger.
What keeps you unfit for Love.
It is a mind that you allow to control you and use you for its purpose which is the purpose of your ego, you separate sense of self. It uses you for its purpose of limitation which is to say that it uses you for every purpose other than Love. You are unfit to be a Lover because you allow your emotional life to run away with the peace at the heart of who you are.
Again it is very important to be reminded that this is not a judgement of you. If it were a judgement then there would be no invitation to grace. The darkness of separateness is not made light through judging but through awareness. An Anam Cara is a Lover in the service of Love. They know there is no grater reward although one does not get to be a Lover of the Beloved as a reward. You do not get what you already are. You simply get to give up the illusion that you are something other than Love. You get to give up the ugly ducking illusion for the knowing of the beauty and grace that you are.
Fitness of mind for the purpose requires the practice of quieting the mind through meditation and/or comtemplative prayer. This is not the prayer that askes that you win the lottery. This is not prayer in the service of Love. Prayer arises out of the beauty of knowing how graced you are to be a swan. Prayer serves the highest good of all and offers itself up in service to the Beloved. It is not a public act but an action that takes place in the silence of the heart.
In becoming fit to be a Lover there are lots of things you have to lose. You have to lose the weight of doubt. You have to lose the weight of thinking about. You have to slim down living in the past or the future. When you become light weight you become empty. This is the paradox of spiritual development. You gain everything by becoming as nothing. In becoming nothing you become as no thing. In becoming no thing the everything that is Love pours into you in celebration.
As a lightweight Lover you get to fly to those placeless places beyond your imagination. There is no more begging in the world of form for something that you think is outside of who you are. You free the mind of its unfitness for the purpose of Love. You become as no mind which is the One Mind. This is the bridal chamber that the Master Jesus invites you into. There you become fir for the purpos of Love and are raptured by the Beloved. The two become One.
An Anam Cara invites you to become fit for the purpose you are intended. Keep the body fit, keep the mind fit, keep the emotions in free flow and you will become a willing offering to the radiance of Love. An Anam Cara will tell you that you have nothing to lose except the illusions of grandeur that are not real. You are invited to give up the ugly duckling image that is only part of the process toward reflecting the swan of grace and beauty within.
An Anam Cara will tell you that you as the duckling are yet unfit to know who you are but that this knowing is inherent in you. You will not, however, realise it living in the famyard where everyone elese tells you that grace and beauty are not who you are. You have to leave the farmyard and take the journey into Love. This is the invitation to beyond what you think you know and who you think you are.
The inviation for this week is the invitation to commit to fitness for purpose. You are here to reflect the image of Love that crated you. You need no thing more than to live from the heart of this knowing. People will never again see you as other than the natural invitation to grace that is inherent in your being. This is your real inheriatance. This is the inheritance that your soul friend knows and invites you to claim. Let this be your invitation.
Let the real purpose of your life be the invitation to be willing to serve the purpose of Love. Let Love use you for its own purps and your swan nature will be revealed to you.
THE ANAM CARA EXPERIENCE INVITATION
Why not learn more about the way of transformation into the beauty at the heart of who you are. Why not journey into the Anam Cara Experience. This is by what of learning designed to ensrue ath you do not improve yourself in any way. This is a way of learning that invites the ugly ducking into the swan grace of self acceptance.
This invitation comes by way of the following:-
How to leave behind the farm yard with its critic?s voices with all its judgements and tyranny and come to the place of the swan lake.
?
Discover the real power inherent in prayer and meditation that will take you nowhere but get you everywhere.
Relax into a real do it yourself course for those who are tired of doing all the time and missing the time of their lives.
Learn the only second language that you need to take you into the hearts journey where you will discover the way homeward.
Find out how unwanted circumstances in your life situation can become the path to the lake of true reflection.
Source
Of
Unlimited
Love
Many people subscribe to a fitness regime. They work out. They go to the gym. They do aerobics, yoga or some other body exercise in order to keep fit. For many people the primary focus of a fitness regime is the development of the body beautiful. Often this masks the unconscious judgement of themselves as somehow ugly.
This writer and storyteller works out in the garden. It is a natural way of working out. Doing physical work is healthy and its primary function is to ground you in the body. This allows you to feel the body beautiful not as something to simply be admired but as an instrument through which creation can freely flow and express as beauty in form.
You might be someone who follows a fitness program of some kind but have you ever asked the question, ?What am I fit for?? This is a powerful question for the Quest I On. It is the sort of question an Anam Cara will invite you into. They will ask, ?Are you fit for the purpose you are intended?? These are great spiritual direction questions.
There is no judgement of you intended here. Only the invitation to the grace and beauty of who you are. These questions are invitations to see the reflection that many of us avoid. Secretly there is often part of us still attached to the ugly duckling and refuse to even imagine that we are metaphorically swans full of grace and beauty.
An Anam Cara will tell you that while it is important to care for the body there are other bodies that if not cared for and tended with grace and tenderness adversely impact the physical dimension. These bodies are the mental and emotional bodies.
These bodies are more subtle than the physical body. They are more refined and careful attention to them allows you to feel fine.
Your body mind and soul are meant for a purpose. The Anam Cara will tell you that the primary purpose of your being in form is to be in service to the power of Love. They will ask you a rather intimate question. This is the question, ?Are you fit to be a Lover.? No one is ever asked this question and very few ever ask it of themselves.
Of course any question asked by an Anamcara has two answers. Like the storytellers of old they are spinners of magical tales and riddles. These riddles are for one purpose. They are like Zen Koans in that they are designed to take you out of the ivory tower of the intellect where you keep beauty asleep for one hundred years and more. The Anamcara is a paradox. They are of two worlds. The world of time and the world of the Timeless.
The answer to the question, ?Are you fit to be a Lover?? is ?Yes you are and no you are not.? Why is this answer as it is? You are always fit to be a Lover of the Beloved because you are created in the image of Love. Nothing you do or do not do changes this primacy. No you are not fit to be a Love because you have forgotten who you are. You have become not who you truly are but a begger.
What keeps you unfit for Love.
It is a mind that you allow to control you and use you for its purpose which is the purpose of your ego, you separate sense of self. It uses you for its purpose of limitation which is to say that it uses you for every purpose other than Love. You are unfit to be a Lover because you allow your emotional life to run away with the peace at the heart of who you are.
Again it is very important to be reminded that this is not a judgement of you. If it were a judgement then there would be no invitation to grace. The darkness of separateness is not made light through judging but through awareness. An Anam Cara is a Lover in the service of Love. They know there is no grater reward although one does not get to be a Lover of the Beloved as a reward. You do not get what you already are. You simply get to give up the illusion that you are something other than Love. You get to give up the ugly ducking illusion for the knowing of the beauty and grace that you are.
Fitness of mind for the purpose requires the practice of quieting the mind through meditation and/or comtemplative prayer. This is not the prayer that askes that you win the lottery. This is not prayer in the service of Love. Prayer arises out of the beauty of knowing how graced you are to be a swan. Prayer serves the highest good of all and offers itself up in service to the Beloved. It is not a public act but an action that takes place in the silence of the heart.
In becoming fit to be a Lover there are lots of things you have to lose. You have to lose the weight of doubt. You have to lose the weight of thinking about. You have to slim down living in the past or the future. When you become light weight you become empty. This is the paradox of spiritual development. You gain everything by becoming as nothing. In becoming nothing you become as no thing. In becoming no thing the everything that is Love pours into you in celebration.
As a lightweight Lover you get to fly to those placeless places beyond your imagination. There is no more begging in the world of form for something that you think is outside of who you are. You free the mind of its unfitness for the purpose of Love. You become as no mind which is the One Mind. This is the bridal chamber that the Master Jesus invites you into. There you become fir for the purpos of Love and are raptured by the Beloved. The two become One.
An Anam Cara invites you to become fit for the purpose you are intended. Keep the body fit, keep the mind fit, keep the emotions in free flow and you will become a willing offering to the radiance of Love. An Anam Cara will tell you that you have nothing to lose except the illusions of grandeur that are not real. You are invited to give up the ugly duckling image that is only part of the process toward reflecting the swan of grace and beauty within.
An Anam Cara will tell you that you as the duckling are yet unfit to know who you are but that this knowing is inherent in you. You will not, however, realise it living in the famyard where everyone elese tells you that grace and beauty are not who you are. You have to leave the farmyard and take the journey into Love. This is the invitation to beyond what you think you know and who you think you are.
The inviation for this week is the invitation to commit to fitness for purpose. You are here to reflect the image of Love that crated you. You need no thing more than to live from the heart of this knowing. People will never again see you as other than the natural invitation to grace that is inherent in your being. This is your real inheriatance. This is the inheritance that your soul friend knows and invites you to claim. Let this be your invitation.
Let the real purpose of your life be the invitation to be willing to serve the purpose of Love. Let Love use you for its own purps and your swan nature will be revealed to you.
THE ANAM CARA EXPERIENCE INVITATION
Why not learn more about the way of transformation into the beauty at the heart of who you are. Why not journey into the Anam Cara Experience. This is by what of learning designed to ensrue ath you do not improve yourself in any way. This is a way of learning that invites the ugly ducking into the swan grace of self acceptance.
This invitation comes by way of the following:-
How to leave behind the farm yard with its critic?s voices with all its judgements and tyranny and come to the place of the swan lake.
?
Discover the real power inherent in prayer and meditation that will take you nowhere but get you everywhere.
Relax into a real do it yourself course for those who are tired of doing all the time and missing the time of their lives.
Learn the only second language that you need to take you into the hearts journey where you will discover the way homeward.
Find out how unwanted circumstances in your life situation can become the path to the lake of true reflection.
A Town Called Paradise
?Let me take you
down to a town
called Paradise.?
Van Morrison
?No Guru, No Teacher, No Method.?
Many mornings during the week I take the highroad. This is the high road between the village of Glenfarne and the village of Rossinver in Co. Leitrim. This is a high road that winds and bends over the mountain. Early in the year I drive slowly. On this road I am going on what Van Morrison calls a long long drive.
I am going on a drive to a town called ?paradise.? This town is the central town in a place of eternity. In Ireland this place is called ?Tir Na Nog.? ?Tir Na Nog? is not a physical place but a state of being. It is a state of awareness. This is the mythological place where people are always beautiful and never age. This is a soul place. This is the place an Anam Cara will invite you to come to and belong.
Many of my readers know that Van Morrison the Irish singer/songwriter is an inspiration to me.
On the high road to Rossinver, while avoiding migrating frogs, I play his album, ?No Teacher, No Guru, No Method.? It is on this album that the song ?A town called Paradise? is heard. I love playing this song loud. There is no other traffic on this high road except for the odd tractor that travels slow and sure.
This song for me is about my relationship to the Beloved.
This is the central relationship that an Anam Cara commits to. It is the moment to moment awareness of ?what is.? It is the seeking to know the joy of paradise at deeper and deeper levels of awareness. This is the work of surrender to the ?timeless now."
Most of us driving our car are totally unaware.
We enter the vehicle, switch on the engine, and engage gears without very much awareness of what we are doing. We arrive at our destination without any awareness of the journey in between. This car journey is a mirror of the longer journey we call ?our life.?
When we are alone in our car we have a great opportunity.
We have the opportunity to be alone and aware. We can choose to be totally present to our minds, body and emotions. We can choose not to be distracted by music or talk radio. We can equally choose to play music that lifts the heart and that we consciously listen too. We can buy tapes and CD`s that life and inspire the soul.
Each time we enter the car we can make a commitment to be aware.
Feel yourself sitting on the seat. Feel your hands on the steering wheel. Listen to the sound of the engine. Say, Thank you,? to this vehicle that allows you to arrive at the place of your choosing. Remember to be aware of your breathing. Breathe deep into your belly and keep it soft. When you arrive you will feel focused and relaxed.
Stop ?thinking about? anywhere else other than this moment.
This moment is the town called ?paradise.? This moment is forever. In this moment, entered without judgment or compassion, there is beauty. You become as the people of ?Tir Na Nog.? You become eternal and filled with beauty.
To begin with you will look for this experience of beauty.
You will wish to grab at the experience of the eternal. In the beginning your ego wants this beauty and this experience for itself. It can only imagine the credos it will receive once it has such a prize. The problem (if it is a problem) is to know that you are this beauty and this eternity. Your ego wants it but cannot really accept the possibility of such wonder. It has to disappear in order that the wonder can be.
As Marianne Williamson has reminded us in her beautiful book ?Return to Love,? we are afraid of our magnificence. We are afraid of our light and not our darkness. We have lost our paradise. We have lost the paradise of being here now.
On the high road between Glenfarne and Rossinver I am practicing entry into paradise. This is a knack. It arrives. It does not arrive. When it is there I know. When it is not there I know. I focus and wait, knowing that infinite patience brings instant results.
Why not take a trip to this town called ?Paradise," where you can be free. You can learn to be free of care, of worry, of going anywhere or having to be anyone other than the delight you are.
When travelling on any journey make it a journey of focused awareness.
Become present to the moment. This is the real and only time of your life. Become the presence of the Beloved. Become the perfume of love in action. This perfume is timeless and beautiful beyond any measure your mind can ?think about.?
One glimpse of ?Tir Na Nog? and you will know that a real holiday is. It is beyond re-creation. It is you being aware of creation itself in the timeless beauty of forever loving now.
This is what an Anam Cara reminds you off.
They remind you that you are forever enough. They remind you that the Blessing is already here. They remind you that you are this blessing. Going nowhere, the river flows and the grass grows by itself. Come on down to ?paradise" where you are free to be all you ever imagined and more.
down to a town
called Paradise.?
Van Morrison
?No Guru, No Teacher, No Method.?
Many mornings during the week I take the highroad. This is the high road between the village of Glenfarne and the village of Rossinver in Co. Leitrim. This is a high road that winds and bends over the mountain. Early in the year I drive slowly. On this road I am going on what Van Morrison calls a long long drive.
I am going on a drive to a town called ?paradise.? This town is the central town in a place of eternity. In Ireland this place is called ?Tir Na Nog.? ?Tir Na Nog? is not a physical place but a state of being. It is a state of awareness. This is the mythological place where people are always beautiful and never age. This is a soul place. This is the place an Anam Cara will invite you to come to and belong.
Many of my readers know that Van Morrison the Irish singer/songwriter is an inspiration to me.
On the high road to Rossinver, while avoiding migrating frogs, I play his album, ?No Teacher, No Guru, No Method.? It is on this album that the song ?A town called Paradise? is heard. I love playing this song loud. There is no other traffic on this high road except for the odd tractor that travels slow and sure.
This song for me is about my relationship to the Beloved.
This is the central relationship that an Anam Cara commits to. It is the moment to moment awareness of ?what is.? It is the seeking to know the joy of paradise at deeper and deeper levels of awareness. This is the work of surrender to the ?timeless now."
Most of us driving our car are totally unaware.
We enter the vehicle, switch on the engine, and engage gears without very much awareness of what we are doing. We arrive at our destination without any awareness of the journey in between. This car journey is a mirror of the longer journey we call ?our life.?
When we are alone in our car we have a great opportunity.
We have the opportunity to be alone and aware. We can choose to be totally present to our minds, body and emotions. We can choose not to be distracted by music or talk radio. We can equally choose to play music that lifts the heart and that we consciously listen too. We can buy tapes and CD`s that life and inspire the soul.
Each time we enter the car we can make a commitment to be aware.
Feel yourself sitting on the seat. Feel your hands on the steering wheel. Listen to the sound of the engine. Say, Thank you,? to this vehicle that allows you to arrive at the place of your choosing. Remember to be aware of your breathing. Breathe deep into your belly and keep it soft. When you arrive you will feel focused and relaxed.
Stop ?thinking about? anywhere else other than this moment.
This moment is the town called ?paradise.? This moment is forever. In this moment, entered without judgment or compassion, there is beauty. You become as the people of ?Tir Na Nog.? You become eternal and filled with beauty.
To begin with you will look for this experience of beauty.
You will wish to grab at the experience of the eternal. In the beginning your ego wants this beauty and this experience for itself. It can only imagine the credos it will receive once it has such a prize. The problem (if it is a problem) is to know that you are this beauty and this eternity. Your ego wants it but cannot really accept the possibility of such wonder. It has to disappear in order that the wonder can be.
As Marianne Williamson has reminded us in her beautiful book ?Return to Love,? we are afraid of our magnificence. We are afraid of our light and not our darkness. We have lost our paradise. We have lost the paradise of being here now.
On the high road between Glenfarne and Rossinver I am practicing entry into paradise. This is a knack. It arrives. It does not arrive. When it is there I know. When it is not there I know. I focus and wait, knowing that infinite patience brings instant results.
Why not take a trip to this town called ?Paradise," where you can be free. You can learn to be free of care, of worry, of going anywhere or having to be anyone other than the delight you are.
When travelling on any journey make it a journey of focused awareness.
Become present to the moment. This is the real and only time of your life. Become the presence of the Beloved. Become the perfume of love in action. This perfume is timeless and beautiful beyond any measure your mind can ?think about.?
One glimpse of ?Tir Na Nog? and you will know that a real holiday is. It is beyond re-creation. It is you being aware of creation itself in the timeless beauty of forever loving now.
This is what an Anam Cara reminds you off.
They remind you that you are forever enough. They remind you that the Blessing is already here. They remind you that you are this blessing. Going nowhere, the river flows and the grass grows by itself. Come on down to ?paradise" where you are free to be all you ever imagined and more.
The Moonchild and the Sacred Contract
It?s a marvellous
Night for a moon dance.
Van Morrison ? Moondance
Before a fire that burns no wood sits an old hawkeyed seanachie. Around his feet lie hungry ghosts. They have come to hear a story. A story of shadow and light that might break their chains of memory and free them to be the dance they have come here to be. So when the deep silence of sanctuary fills this place at the edge of nowhere the storyteller begins to tell a tale of wonder.
In a soft voice of invitation to the powers beyond time he begins.
Once upon a time not so very long ago there lived a King and Queen of the Vale of Flowers. They each had a secret that was never said. This was the secret of the Sacred Contract. This contract was written in blood and renewed every seven days.
Every seven days the Sacred Contract was placed on the age-old table with its scars and scratches of longing and wounding. Each week the Queen was made to sign with her life?s blood. When the contract was signed the King left the room. It was then, and only then, in the secret place of her heart that the Queen of the Vale of Flowers sat down and wept.
Unknown to the King and Queen of the Vale of Flowers there was a witness to this seven-day renewal of the Sacred Contract. It was their daughter. It was the daughter to whom they gave the beautiful name Unity. This child was, as all children are, curious.
One day - it always happens on that one day - curiosity got the better of Unity. They say that curiosity killed the cat. Unity wasn?t killed though. However, reading the Sacred Contract made her blind. What was in the Sacred Contract was read only once and was never read again. Not only was she made blind all reference to the Sacred Contract was erased from her memory. All that was left within the heart of Unity was a hungry ghost without a name.
One day the Prince of Trumpeting, who was called Bottom, came and swept the blind girl off her feet. He and Unity were married only they did not quite live happily ever after. This might have been sad except for one thing. Unity gave birth to a golden child and they called her Moondancer.
She was the fairest of children and for a time Unity and the Prince of Trumpeting loved this beautiful Moondancer. This love might have been all the light that the moonchild needed except for one thing. The ghost without a name came to haunt the memory of Unity and her blindness deepened and darkened.
On nights when the moon was full the moonchild would dance. How she would dance. The dance and the moonchild were one. In this dance there were no steps in time. The moon and the child of the moon were taken on a magic swirling trip of delight. The delight was from the light of the moon that loved this child forever beyond ghosts and secrets unsaid.
The ritual of the Sacred Contract was enacted every seven days until the dying day of the King and Queen of the Vale of Flowers. Then it was fed into the heart of Unity who signed it with her own life?s blood and vowed to keep the secret that was never to be said. So the Sacred Contract bled into the life of Moondancer. It is said it still bleeds into her life. Such is the power of the Sacred Contract to live beyond time.
Is there any hope for this beautiful dance of the moon? Those who have met with the secret unsaid tell that there is a journey to be taken. This is a journey to a nowhere place. There, at this nowhere place, is the nowhere man. He is the one that tells of secrets unsaid. It is told that he is burned beyond recognition. He, they say, is a holy fool and laughs at nothing.
It is said that once he too was made blind by the Sacred Contract but has now become a Seer of Secrets. This seer of beyond will tell you that the dance is never lost. It is only forgotten.
This nowhere man tells all hungry ghosts they are moon dancers who have forgotten who they are. There are those who dance other ocean love songs. They live at threshold places of wonder guarded by the Eye of the Hawk. Theirs is a different way of seeing. Theirs is lifeblood no longer poisoned by secrets unsaid.
?Remember this,? this nowhere man will tell you. ?It?s always a marvellous night for a moondance. Do you remember? Will you remember? Will you come dancing the dance you have come here to be? This is the promise beyond those secrets unsaid. Will you come to the dance??
In that place where the fire burns no wood you can hear the chains of memory being loosened. You can watch within that sanctuary of silence as hungry ghosts feed from the light of the moon and go dancing. One sings an old Irish rock anthem.
It?s a marvellous night for a moon dance.
The old seanachie sits back on his stool while watching hungry ghosts feed from the light. He thinks about the moonchild born of Unity and the Prince of Trumpeting. His memory goes back to the Vale of Flowers. Strange to say, but he never found it to be a Vale of Flowers at all.
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