11

On Tuesday~
He will be 11,
and
She will be 13,
Just few days, More...

She? Ah, 17
A while longer, too.

The numbers are running
away from this
body...
Nearly 40...feels sixteen
And seventy...

Whatever that means.
Whatever I take it to mean.
Whatever I take others to
take it
to mean...

No Object

Love With No Object

There is a way of loving not attached to what is loved.
Observe how water is with
the ground, always moving toward the ocean, though the ground
tries to hold water’s foot
and not let go. This is how we are with wine and beautiful
food, wealth and power,
or just a dry piece of bread: we want and we get drunk with
wanting, then the headache
and bitterness afterward. Those prove that the attachment took
hold and held you back. Now you
proudly refuse help. “My love is pure. I have intuitive
union with God. I don’t need
anyone to show me how to be free!” This is not the case.
A love with no object
is a true love. All else, shadow without substance. Have you
seen someone fall in
love with his own shadow? That’s what we’ve done. Leave
partial loves and find one
that’s whole. Where is someone who can do that? They’re
so rare, those hearts that carry
the blessing and lavish it over everything. Hold out your
beggar’s robe and accept
their generosity. Anything not coming from that will damage
the cloth, like a sharp stone
tearing your sincerity. Keep that intact, and use clarity;
call it reason or discernment,
you have within you a deciding force that knows what to
receive, what to turn from.
-Rumi

Layers

"When I was a child, I thought like a child..."

I've made many decisions, and kept myself from making many decisions, reactively. Reacting against the impression that I wasn't really 'raised' due to my parents each
'doing what they wanted', I've had a strong defence/fortification against that kind of thinking. Not quite martyrdom, but a sense of "Well you made the bed now lay in it."

Not that it was *wrong* to feel that upon bringing children into the world, for instance, my decisions/choices now had to be considerate of them first, but today this opened up a bit...

Because I could see that my parents were never doing what they 'wanted'. They were reacting. The lifestyles they led, and the decisions they made, were often born of escape. They were far removed from clarity, from their hearts, from the flame.

It isn't the same thing as following one's heart in ways that may not be comprehensible to others. Interesting to see.

Small Things

Today saw a film, "Wings of Desire". I'd love to write about it.

I'd love to read. Or meditate. Or... Something. I feel like the smallest things are difficult today, and not because I'm upset about anything but because there is this strong presence of satisfaction I am just not sure how to work with.
I want to sit with a new book for instance, but I can't bring myself to 'learn' anything.

-So went to a store for printer ink, walked around, wanted to want something. What could I make myself want? Trying to make myself want something created the strangest sensation and I thought of a word that hasn't crossed my mind in months: Unsatisfactoriness.
A general, vague term.
It seemed to apply to all the plastic and things.
I walked around with this a while more and realized that what I was interested in there, were the people... that the people and what they/we were feeling seemed to matter a whole lot... in contrast.

And with that the general, vague feeling of unsatisfactoriness broke free, and I got back to my excellent book. :)

Before 10

New Schedule. The idea being not to sign onto email until 10AM. The hard part is in the earliest morning. I didn't realize how I use to computer to duck out of the morning chaos and cope with the more high-strung personalities in the house....
interesting to note.
The time after taking the kids though, very nice. It has a different quality to it... luxurious and silky. :)

During this morning's time, and in thinking about Naturalness/Shyness, I could see yet more aspects of this...like vapors rather than sheets this time. I could see that i've been waiting/looking for openings through writing, and that I've limited expression due to digging underground, in a sense.

Writing has been a way not to speak, and when I speak I feel exposed...that the gaps and hesitations and trembles of speech reveal a very fragile figure whose capacity can't be trusted. Writing has allowed me to polish a bit, to strategically hide the less attractive aspects, even though I tend to use it in an opposite manner. Meaning, I often am braver in writing, and more shameless about describing spirituality or many other things.

So this tendency to go underground, to hide my body/voice, and to be invisible, in that sense...

Not sure it can be called shyness.
Also think there is a certain magic about it. I've been able to disappear, in a sense, and show up 'elsewhere', and to collaborate with a kind of energy at a deep deep level...

Love is that which unencumbers, untangles, and frees.

I begin to see how the lotus is not tied down.

Being Integrated

-Working out 'Being Integrated' in sleep, and today while waiting for S to come out of surgery... sitting in an atrium beneath towering palms, reading TSK... scribbling:

So it isn't as though the self disappears... it is that it cracks open a kind of awareness of collaboration. Which is funny. We're talking about waking up, becoming aware...in general terms. That makes so little sense! General?
But the Universe is playing...

In the crab dream I first fretted for the crab, exposed and enclosed by solid obstacles, then was given a new angle -- that the boundaries were more pourous and open than the limited 'hermit sight' of the crab... that was the stepping back/up and seeing into the vision... a bit like a mandala.
At that point I felt empowered, but like *I* had been empowered, to somehow 'affect' these obstacles... to move toward them/through them/open them up in a kind of forcible way. I gave myself a job.
And I was still yet limited in thinking this. Though the obstacles are indeed doorways in a sense, they are not just... access is already open and more than open, beckoning...
A little ghostly.

Hm, first I hear the gecko, he becomes my spiritual friend, then I am the gecko, singing...heard by some...

Then all at once?

I think of PT's harmonious dream.

Morning

Quite the morning but stuck with the new plan amidst spiraling children frantically printing and scrambling to gather what should have been gathered last night.
Trust.
A home today, family tree project turned out to be less than simple and well, we've turned it into a positive day, also meditating and singing together this morning. :)



Morning Has Broken
As Sung by Cat Stevens
lyrics by Eleanor Farjeon

Morning has broken, like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for the springing fresh from the word

Sweet the rain's new fall, sunlit from heaven
Like the first dewfall, on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where his feet pass

Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born of the one light, Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God's recreation of the new day