Dark's Light

Sometimes the dark, even when looking at a dream, makes us long for just a bit more light. We think more light would give clarity. What you cannot see in the image, is how once the artificial car lights were turned off, the brilliance of the sunset upon the lake and mountains exploded. In truth, I wasn't in the dark at all.

Doubting Not

Oh, doubt not her fullness. Nor your own.

Goldilocks and the Full Moon

I felt like Goldilocks. This spot too hard. This spot too soft. Could not capture the moon's fullness. Then to pause and see leaves that are unseen at night framing the moon's illumination. Darkness framing light. Light giving shape to darkness. Like Goldilocks, I giggled... this spot is just right. Changing not where I stand but what I see.

Unveiled

Come little One, let me see your face. Come little One within my heart, no need to hide because you are afraid, you fear the roads, your eyes that cannot see, even signs and markers are a blur, to think of how you will see the roads. Come little One who drives with one hand because the other is not trusted, come here little One, let me see your face and let your eyes look into mine.

I do not know why but as I write these words I remember the story of Moses and God, when Moses went to the mountain top and saw God. His face became so radiant, so bright, so illuminated that no one could bear to look upon his countenance. They asked him to wear a veil. A face, a countenance, the form so transformed radiating the light he was, we are, could not be seen. And then I think of how art and literature has always been fascinated and drawn to the story of beauty and the beast. Of ugliness transformed into beauty or having such an open heart. The ugly duckling that becomes the swan. Phantom of the Opera, the frog that becomes a prince with love’s kiss. The old story of men camping in the forest on a frigid winter night and a “hag” appears asking for warmth. They shun her away, all but one who invites her to share his sleeping bag. In the morning she has transformed into a beautiful princess. Even the saints in religious paintings do not radiate they remain faces we recognize with a little halo around their heads. There are stories of beautiful ones, like Cinderella, where others are jealous and seek to kill them. But even then, the beauty that is seen is veiled; it is still a form, a face, a being we recognize. And then, there is the ancient and eastern art that portrays the gods with multiple eyes, legs, arms and mouths, even as animal shapes, trunks of elephants, snakes, unveiled of this human form. The western world is so uncomfortable with these images, the beauty and symbolism veiled in what is seen as grotesque, bloody, and inhuman. But none are the story of Moses, so radiant with the Light within, the chalice becoming the Chalice that human eyes could not look upon, and so he was forced to wear a veil as would a leper whose deformity had to be hidden.  We come so close to seeing such transformation in literature, religion and art but still we hang the veil of this form upon each painting and story and dream of what must exist and breathe within to create the beauty. We fall to our knees holding our faces to the earth afraid to look upon the face of the Divine.  

The Sufi poets like Rumi stripped away the veil. They became drunk in their divine madness.  Life became a dervish with the Beloved, to know the Kiss, to see the Eyes, to feel the Touch. They allowed no veils. Perhaps that is why lovers everywhere gravitate to their poems as perfect writings of love. But it was not to a human formed lover they wrote, though that is how we often read, it was to the radiant Beloved unveiled that transformed them, their hearts. It was the sight of the Beloved unveiled that penned such poems of Love. Having seen the face, having become drunk with divine madness, they poured and poured from their chalice the radiance, the beauty, the love, life, and oneness of all from the tiniest speck of sand to the glory of the Creator saying “let it be….” And even they have often been veiled as drunks, mystical status unattainable by normal people, or grandiose love poems embellished and beyond what we see in everyday love.

But why would the Divine, Life, Love, All That IS look upon us if not for the desire to have the gaze returned? Does not a lover look upon the face of his or her beloved longing to see the gaze returned? Are we not drawn to the stories and art longing to see the gaze returned? Do we not stand and look to the heavens seeking the gaze? Perhaps this experience in form is so that Source, the Divine, the Sweet Hands of Life can look upon Itself and experience the gaze returned.  In our essence, our light, we are Oneness, there is no separation, no gaze to be returned. In form, the gaze, the yearning, the creation, the emanation of Life created in the gaze the return is found. We experience the experience of creation, being and Being. Perhaps if Moses had not allowed the veil, others would also have seen the gaze and known the Beloved's Kiss of Life. It was not stone tablets we needed, it was the dropping of the veils.

And so little one, come forth and look upon and into these eyes. No veils this pre dawn morn that welcomes the new moon tonight. The New Moon that will leave the night sky dark and without light save that of the stars. Come forth little one, like the New Moon, and gaze into these eyes in the fullness of the Light seen, unveiled. Darkness made light. The Beloved’s Kiss of Life…unveiled.

It Remains

A morning reflection. A perfect heart. A perfect heart with a heart light within. The light switch will make it seem to disappear. The camera cannot capture its reflection. 

And yet, having been seen, it remains.

Wisdom's Eyes and Hands

She has grown up. She doesn't think herself small. She can walk now. She is starting to talk. She is letting the world know what she wants and does not want. She laughs. She runs for hugs. She stands in front of strangers until they smile. She loves without fear. She never doubts that life will, with tender love, fill in the holes. She still looks out the window. She takes time to see.  

On the first day of 2011, I prayed to be so wise.

A year later, even more grown up and has found her voice, she looks with wonder into the Light determined to hold the Candle in her own hands.

On this day, may I too be as strong.

Faces of the Moon

She called from Missouri because she knew the moon is precious to me. The moon there, an hour ahead of mountain time, was full and red and almost caused her to drive off the road so amazing was the sight.  I stood at the picture window, watching my moon tree. The tree that always gently holds the moon as she rises and lifts her into the night sky. The clouds were too many. Her face I would not see.

And as I pondered how the same moon has one face elsewhere and another here, my eye caught the reflection of the prism in the window touched by the street light.  The prism that in the morning dances with the sun creating rainbows on my walls.  Tonight, I could not see the moon but the Light, timeless, never hidden, shown through to gift the gift of light and sight.  The sweet sweet Hands of Life.... Love and Light.

One

I intend to... be grateful that for all the storms perceived and felt by all...there is still only One Force, One Light, One Power greater than all... Love.

Match of Intent

Sometimes we act without thinking, moving from the heart's impulse. Sometimes decisions are made with jaw set not allowing ourselves to see anything else. Sometimes we don't even know we've made a decision until later when either with amazement or a thump to our forehead we cannot believe "I did that."  Sometimes the world would have us believe we made a decision but we simply did what was expected.

I stare at the candle and ponder wax, wick and flame. The wick standing upright announcing its willingness to accept the flame. The wax, hardened, yearns to melt and surrender to the union of flame and wick. But wax and wick can do no more than await the flame which I must light.  Without my desire for its light, my intent and my action, the candle is not a candle, it is an ornament. And so it is with my heart when I hold the match of decision and intent.

To Taunt a Dance

And as the storm moves in, the soon to be ended day taunts one last dance. Somewhere in the light beams playing I know my Own knows the tune. One day to perhaps taunt a dance and then rest upon the mountains like a mother's hand gently caressing her sleeping child.

"it will always be like this,

each of us going on

in our inexplicable ways

building the universe.

~Mary Oliver

The Constant Darkened Light

I sat in my little chair looking to the sky, hoping to see the meteors. The neighborhood was totally quiet while all others were sleeping. It was, after all, just after 2 a.m. I stared and stared and not a one.  Soon my eyes wandered and I noticed an almost perfect circle of stars around the moon. A mandala of black drawing your eyes to the center where the luminous glow beckoned you to enter.  Lingering in the mandala, contentment made a gentle bookmark. The true beauty and wonder is not in the fleeting moment of meteors passing by, but in the faithful constancy of the moon and stars, always present, always there, no matter if you bother to look or seek, their light always waits to bathe you in soft.

After an hour or so I packed up my little chair, coffee time was calling.  Pausing I lifted my hand to block the brightness of the street light.  For one who cannot see to drive in the dark, street lights are surely a gift.  The blocking of my hand made the night sky even darker, and there, ever so quickly, a meteor danced across the sky.  My heart gently created a bookmark - sometimes you need the dark to see the light.

"Inside every human chest is a  hand, but it has nothing to write with [until] Love moves further in...."  ~ Rumi

Sneakered heart steps

An early morning walk. So silent one could not tell the difference between your heart beat and footsteps.  So early the heron’s breakfast was disturbed and fish that only rippled the surface, during the day, now felt the morning as they leaped out of their world for a moment before splashing back into the lake.  With each lap a tree went from black to brown then orange and then returned to its daytime color of gray.

As I walked, talking to and through my heart, the sun kissed the moon good night and drew the blush curtains across the sky so she could sleep.  And with a quick wink, left a whisper, ‘Don’t focus  on the change, just look to see the light.’  Perhaps a rephrasing of not being able to see the forest for the trees, or maybe just another bookmark to come back to when I am wise.  Or, perhaps, maybe, nothing more than just a quiet morning sunrise walk watching fish with wings, hearing the sound of the heart’s footsteps, a tree changing colors and a spill from the morning blush that happened to land on a tree.