The invitation is to leave it alone. To let life be. To know yourself as being lived. That is what is happening here. Life is alive as you, through your breath, through your being. Don't look for it elsewhere. It does you and undoes you, over and over again. You are not the doer. Stop claiming that you are, and your relentless despair of knowing you are not, will dissolve. The belief in the doer, in the future, in something rich and magical beyond this place, is what deadens you, and crushes your heart. The belief in something greater than this has held you captive, left you for dead. And yet you fear death. The only death you will ever know is this lifeless longing. Question these beliefs, awaken from them, and live it out loud. Then you will know yourself as boundless life, as freedom, and your body will age and die fully alive, without regret, endlessly beautiful.
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when the earth goes all wavy and sublime
and beauty is the only game in town, everything all moon-glow and juicy, and veteran lovers drifting into town riding high and smooth and straight up fantastic(!) she feels quite sure that all is well with the world (everybody's dancing like there's nobody watching) birds are flying high and wild and squawking loud and perpetually-dangerously awesome: this sky be nobody else's business(!) the rains come down quick puddle-jumping puddle-jumpers hopscotching along on the chalk-marked sidewalks containing in their broken boundaries the bravely hungry homeless frightened onlookers and non-belonging survivors of innocence longing for a slow gentle gaze Here in the clear water
your mind resembles the reflection the stillness quiet joy everywhere around you Out there in the streets your mind becomes the bombs landing the deafening death scattering flesh hither and yon Everywhere is where you are what you are how you are looming hiding holding it all letting it all float away so beautiful are you Adrift in this leaky vessel
sea worthy but small A clay sieve the light moves through holding larger things within All the smaller pieces get through along with that which flows Adrift awash a modest craft drowning and surfacing again A cracked pot the light gets in that cannot hold the water back or within Fear and its rabid hunger
Hunger and its pitting fear wind together relentlessly endlessly wanting Is this how we speak? What will sate this appetite? It is not you that requires this eternal filling up and emptying out The invisible empty grail (suspecting that your thirst is unquenchable) floats inside its own emptiness cleans the plate of you on which it rests. In the deep kindness of asana
the flow of air in out the gentle touch of body and breath entwined and dancing together no one lagging behind no one catching up here the most loving posture is you quiet awake alone in the room here there is only you discovering yourself like the first blossoms of laurel in spring ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh this unfolding movement arms hands fingers skin hips thighs knees feet toes oh! more skin! what lies beneath this?! this is not a competitive sport not with your neighbor on the mat next door - don't even try showing yourself up there is no one here watching and if just if, there was only love could wind its way through the maze of limbs and this still breath this quiet heart wrapped snugly
in the blanket of non-belonging non-knowing non-believing non-escape freedom still just a taste on the tongue as the blanket is torn to shreds (dust in the windless wind) all remains tossed into the vast nothing snug about it loose and sailing free-falling gone freedom now just another word meaningless still beautiful Feeling like a whirling dervish
turned to stone a pillar of salt not moving a hair grinning out loud the only prayer that comes is this! I cannot find you anywhere
walking up and down the tree-lined streets there is everything to see but you. I imagined that all your old familiar haunts had closed down too empty without you everyone gone mourning but moving toward the window there is only the space now empty of you and full of others living it up as if you'd never been I long to knock hard on the glass to cry out loud to scream your name remind them of your infinite goodness fearless loyalty undying love infectious laugh devoted friendship everything you gave your life to but knocking doesn't happen crying doesn't happen screaming doesn't happen no one will hear me there is only this empty space here where you and I have never been. A parade marched through the town.
Everywhere was music: LOUD dancing and singing brass bands playing and kettle drums boom budda boom budda boom. Multi-colored lanterns exquisitely bright and beautiful designed and made with magical hands sewing magical threads onto magical bits of nothing and oh, those play people designed to look like others riding busy bicycles some with real wheels some with imaginary ones how on earth will we know which ones can be ridden somewhere in particular and which ones are just for fun? laughing out loud at their bright beauty and streams of thinking flow: Hey, I've got nowhere to go anyway! I'll take three candy apples oh, and one with caramel and that silly hat there and the electric blue one the one with the made-up wheels rainbow crepe-paper and hibiscus tucked in the spider-web spokes and ride off up to the moon like the kid in ET. --dedicated to Chantelle Rytter, with love and appreciation for your magic |
analisa domenica
invites you to find out what you are. The nun Wu Jincang asked the Sixth Patriach Huineng, "I have studied the Mahaparinirvana sutra for many years, yet there are many areas i do not quite understand. Please enlighten me."
The patriarch responded, "I am illiterate. Please read out the characters to me and perhaps I will be able to explain the meaning." Said the nun, "You cannot even recognize the characters. How are you able then to understand the meaning?" "Truth has nothing to do with words. Truth can be likened to the bright moon in the sky. Words, in this case, can be likened to a finger. The finger can point to the moon’s location. However, the finger is not the moon. To look at the moon, it is necessary to gaze beyond the finger, right?" Archives
October 2014
CategoriesAnalisa Domenica is a humanist minister and mentor, in private practice as a Doula for living and dying. She offers private mentoring sessions, end-of-life preparation & transition support, bereavement, home death, funeral, and natural burial guidance, and laying-on-of-hands for comfort care and pain release. Analisa joyfully celebrates weddings and memorials, according to your faith or non-faith tradition. She is available to private clients, small groups, and for public education. Find out more about her by clicking here.
'Li' lives and works in Mill Spring, NC, a stone or two's throw from Asheville, NC and Greenville/Spartanburg, SC. She also works globally via phone. You may reach her by phone at 828.429.0096 or write to her by clicking here. |