spirituality

weekly photo challenge: resolved

Share a picture which means RESOLVED to you!

intention

intention

Standing at the Threshold

With uncertainty, I question:

What is it that I seek?

Protection? Compassion? Acceptance? Forgiveness? Completion?

Who is it that I beckon?

A father? A mother? A sister? A brother? A companion? A child? A god?

To be? To endure? To offer? To embrace? To validate?

An intentional presence that is drawn upon

A place and time of shadows, myths, and dreams?

Birthed within a family?

Matured within a relationship?

Nourished within a community?

Where the Stillness within Silence,

Affirms the exchange of life’s giving and taking,

Embraces the connection of life’s emotional threads, and

Observes the interdependence of life with non-judgmental awareness,

Yet, knows of a united oneness with another that can not be?

Since it can not be, do I yearn

To know integration through the formation of thought;

To see clarity through the flowing of ink; and

To feel completion through the act of creating?

And then, finally, within the stillness of silence,

I befriend

An internal companion with whom

There is an honoring of the who and what of which I am;

A woman, a daughter, a sister, a niece, a wife, a mother, an aunt, a grandmother.

I touch

With reverence the presence of all that was, is, and will be.

I release

The seeking, the beckoning, the yearning to the Winds of Change.

I with uncertainty, Step over the Threshold

Foreseeing the return.

new year’s eve

leaf in infancy l

leaf in infancy l

leaf in infancy ii

leaf in infancy ii

You can learn about the pine only from the pine, or about the bamboo only from bamboo.  When you see an object, you must leave your subjective pre-occupation with yourself; otherwise you impose yourself on the object, and do not learn.  The object and yourself must become one, and from that feeling of oneness issues your poetry.  However well phrased it may be, if your feeling is not natural—if the object and our self are separate—then your poetry is not true poetry but merely your subjective counterfeit. ~ Basho*

On New Year’s Day

each thought a loneliness

as winter dusk descends ~Basho

Along my journey

through this transitory world,

new year’s housecleaning ~Basho

*cited in Issa’s The Year of My life.  Trans: Nobuyuki Yuasa

weekly photo challenge: delicate

IN A NEW POST CREATED SPECIFICALLY FOR THIS CHALLENGE, SHARE A PICTURE THAT MEANS DELICATE TO YOU. 

Delicate …  the dance

of light and shadow

between insight and ignorance

in life and death

from suffering to tranquility

shadow and light

  May you become acquainted with tranquil single-pointed concentration . . . those who seek wisdom through the lens of tranquility glimpse reality in the same manner as a lighted candle — the light chases away that which is hidden within a darken closet’s shadows.  Insight, once risen, shines light into closed hearts and minds and keeps the gloom of ignorance at bay

pathways

…our minds can seem like such a ragged and disorderly place, disturbed by the slightest sound, thought, or impulse. Seeing the moving, restless character of the mind is the first step toward…concentration, mindfulness, tranquillity, insight, oneness.

Source:

Tulku Thondup, The Healing Power of Mind 

weekly photo challenge: merge

merging lines with light and shadow

peace lily

the eye that is penetrating sees clearly,

the ear that is penetrating hears clearly,

the nose that is penetrating distinguishes odors,

the mouth that is penetrating distinguishes flavors,

the mind that is penetrating has understanding,

and the understanding that is penetrating has virtue. ~ CHUANG-TZU

weekly photo challenge: unlikely

For this week’s photo challenge, I am resharing a post that tells the story of the loneliest whale in the world.  It is one of my earliest post and still touches my heart today for I believe her story is not unlike so many people today. It is unlikely that her story doesn’t resonate with many of us, young and old.  

In 2004, The New York Times wrote an article about how, since 1992, scientists have been tracking a baleen whale named, “The 52 Hertz Whale.”  She swims and sings alone in our earth’s vast ocean:

Not heard nor seen

She isn’t like any other baleen whale. Unlike all other whales, she doesn’t have friends. She doesn’t have a family. She doesn’t belong to any tribe, pack or gang. She doesn’t have a lover. She never had one.

Her songs come in groups of two to six calls, lasting for five to six seconds each. But her voice is unlike any other baleen whale. It is unique—while the rest of her kind communicate between 12 and 25hz, she sings at 52hz. You see, that’s precisely the problem. No other whales can hear her. Every one of her desperate calls to communicate remains unanswered. Each cry ignored. And, with every lonely song, she becomes sadder and more frustrated, her notes going deeper in despair as the years go by.

Apparently not only is her song indecipherable to other whales, she also doesn’t follow the typical migration pattern of its species, making it even less likely to connect with others.

Just imagine that massive mammal, floating alone and singing—too big to connect with any of the beings it passes, feeling paradoxically small in the vast stretches of empty, open ocean.

How many of us, because of our unique characteristics, walk alone on mother earth calling out for another, waiting for another?