fall

There is a way to live that makes the angels cry out
in rapture. There is
a way to live that makes
each star a cell.
Come stand with me here, it is
cold I know, and silent,
nothing is happening.
The next breath, and the next, is the new life.

Grief gives the full measure of love, and it is somehow reassuring to learn, even by suffering, how large and powerful love is.

When you spend time with a dying person, you discover that the human spirit has the power to come forth in the middle of crisis and suffering in ways we can't imagine. Over and over, I have seen ordinary people—afraid, angry, confused—awaken into profound wisdom and understanding.

Learn how to die and you learn how to live.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
To melt and be like a running brook
That sings its melody to the night.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart
And give thanks for another day of loving.

The essential self is fundamentally invulnerable and at ease, because it is anchored in Being. This anchoring at the core of oneself allows the personality to be much more vulnerable, open, honest. If the essential self adopts a provisional or social identity — which may be necessary for certain reasons—it does not take it too seriously, does not become completely identified with it. The essential self does not become inflated with its identity, it lives in the humility of presence and can keep a sense of humor about itself.

You are unquenchable spirit,
A heart of Light
Called to make more
Than just an appearance.
Invited to show up
With your truest self,
Your deepest you,
Awake and uncovered,
Even with all the risk
Such intentional wholeness implies.

Serious spiritual practice is more than serene walks in the woods, lit candles and incense. You have to be committed. Your have to be willing to enter into your own darkness and transcend it.

The soul is capable of much more than we can imagine.

Transfiguring experience is not granted to people as an easy and ready access to glory. Only in going up the mountain, rejecting and being rejected by the world, identifying with those who are most broken, does one encounter the divine refulgence...Our substitution of consumer tourism for pilgrimage, of canned experience for life-changing risk, is symptomatic of our inability to entertain in any way the reality of our own transfiguration.