Poetry Chaikhana Blog

To the utterly at-one with Siva
by Devara Dasimayya

English version by A. K. Ramanujan

To the utterly at-one with Siva
there’s no dawn,
no new moon,
no noonday,
nor equinoxes,
nor sunsets,
nor full moons;

O Ramanatha.

— from Speaking of Siva, by A K Ramanujan

/ Image by whologwhy /

To the utterly at-one with Siva…

That line stops me in my tracks each time I read it. Do you have the same reaction?

there’s no dawn,
no new moon,
no noonday…

Time and the phenomenal experiences that move through time are seen as glimmerings on the surface of the immense, still sea of the Eternal. Days and seasons, action and reaction exist only for the unsettled ego-self. For the true Self, which is “utterly at-one with Siva,” there is only Siva, there is only the Eternal. Dawn and sunset, new moon and full moon, time and motion, all of these are simply Siva’s ornaments fluctuating in timelessness.

This is another way of saying there is no separation in Reality. The new moon pours into the full moon, the glow of dawn naturally builds to noon’s blaze and fills the sunset with its sleepy glory. They are not separate objects or events, but a single continuity witnessed from different perspectives. They are one. They are shifting glimmerings upon the surface of the Eternal.

Truly realizing this, we recognize that wherever we are is the holiest place in the universe: right here, right now. There is no fundamental difference or distance between the ground under our feet and the most sacred pilgrimage spot. They are the same, part of the same continuity of existence. Your “front yard / is the true Benares.”

===

Ask yourself:
Are you one who seeks
or one who finds?

A few days ago I pulled a copy of my book Gathering Silence from the bookshelf and I have begun reading it again.

Regardless of belief,
everyone is agnostic
until gnosis.

Maybe saying I have been reading it is not the right description, since it isn’t a book meant to be read page after page front to back. Rather, I have been finding quiet moments to open to a random page and then reading the sayings that come up.

Love and compassion are effortless.
The soul is exhausted by its effort
to stop the natural outpouring
of the living heart.

While The Longing in Between, with it’s collection of poems and commentaries and personal stories, has always been my best selling book, Gathering Silence, with its short poetic statements and lovely collages by Rashani Réa, is among the more overlooked of my publications. Yet, for me, this is one of my strongest works. It sings to me somehow.

Enough deals and half-measures!
Hand everything over
to that divine ember
burning in your chest!

Each time I leaf through its pages, I have the strange experience of not always recognizing the author.

How can you settle into yourself
without
self-acceptance?

I regularly find myself thrown into deep contemplation by the words I find within its pages and wonder who wrote them.

What the heart recognizes
as liberation,
the ego sees
as theft.

I like to think Gathering Silence finds its audience in its own time.

We don’t take the final step.
It takes us.

Have a beautiful day!

Recommended Books: Devara Dasimayya

Speaking of Siva

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Every Shaped Thing
by Ivan M. Granger

Sighing,
every shaped thing
turns
heavenward.

I can only
point
up.”

— from Real Thirst: Poetry of the Spiritual Journey, by Ivan M. Granger

/ Image by Anne Nygard /

It has been a while since I featured one of my own poems. I have been thinking again about wealth and desire and accumulation, and this poem returned to me.

I wrote this poem when I lived on Maui years ago. I had just finished a meditation and stepped outside to gaze at the forest of eucalyptus trees. Slowly looking around, I saw how everything is reaching, turning, pointing heavenward. The material world, when objectified can become a confusing tangle of solidity, separation, and objects of desire, but in that moment, with my mind at rest and my eyes clear, the world danced before me, filled with a golden light. And I saw that while the world hides the Eternal, at the same time it ardently reveals it.

In that pure moment it was clear to me that everything is giddy with its own inner light. Consciously or unconsciously, everything is always orienting itself toward the light from which it draws its own life. All of creation — every person, every thing, even every idea, “every shaped thing” — is just a reflection of the divine radiance present everywhere.

That beauty, that luminosity is both the snare and the key for us as souls active within the material world.

Whenever we desire a thing… or person or experience, we artificially deify it. The desire and mental fixation becomes a form of worship. We may tell ourselves, “I want this, I want that,” but what we unknowingly crave is not the thing itself, it is that spark of the Eternal glimpsed within it. The desired object becomes a “gilded god” — false in the sense that it is not truly the wholeness we seek; but also, like an “idol” or icon, when approached sincerely and openly, it embodies something essential for us: it points to the Divine which it reflects.

The frustrating truth is that no individual can ever gather enough objects of desire to satisfy desire. Every time we acquire that desired object or experience — a new job, a new lover, money, an ice cream sundae — there is a fleeting sense of satisfaction… and then it is gone. Within minutes we are once again feeling desire and looking for the next object to hang that desire on. We’re looking for the next thing that sparkles. But it is not the object we actually seek, it is that shine. And that shine is the spark of the Divine.

When we learn to see in gold the glimmer of the sun, then we see that everything shines — everything! — ourselves included. It is not possessing that object or experience that we desire, it is that we ache to recognize and participate in that glow. And everything glows. Recognizing this is when the heart is truly satisfied and comes to rest.

Recommended Books: Ivan M. Granger

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)	This Dance of Bliss: Ecstatic Poetry from Around the World	Real Thirst: Poetry of the Spiritual Journey	For Lovers of God Everywhere: Poems of the Christian Mystics	Diamond Cutters: Visionary Poets in America, Britain & Oceania
More Books >>

Ivan M. Granger US (1969 – ) Secular or Eclectic Yoga / Hindu : Advaita / Non-Dualist

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No use fretting over gold, beauty or fame;
by Loy Ching-Yuen

English version by Thomas Cleary

No use fretting over gold, beauty or fame;
Nurturing these, how can we calm
Our fluttering heart?
Non attachment brings deep truth,
And a truthful nature brings immortality.
Empty your heart,
Sit quietly on a mat.
In meditation we become one with All;
Tao billows like the vapors
In a mountain valley,
And its supernatural power wafts into our soul.

/ Image by Jan Canty /

A reminder to us all from a modern Taoist master to keep our life priorities straight. I like this poem’s calm clarity.

Fretting over “gold, beauty or fame…” What does that get us? Even if we succeed and attain wealth or attention, it is tainted by the ingrained habit of fretting. The satisfaction we hoped for slips away almost immediately. And each of those things will inevitably shift and recede in the cycles of time anyway — and we know it, so acquisition is tainted by the fear of loss. Having poured so much life energy into their pursuit, there is no peace or enjoyment, just a “fluttering heart.”

No use fretting over gold, beauty or fame;
Nurturing these, how can we calm
Our fluttering heart?

The human soul recoils from loss. The sticky self, having grown attached to the objects of its desires, views their loss as a loss of some part of itself. Because of attachment, each loss is perceived as a death. Yet this is a fluid world, a world of comings and goings. To the self that endlessly identifies with external things, it is a world of a thousand small deaths. Amidst the constant fear of death, the truth of one’s eternal nature is lost.

Empty your heart,
Sit quietly on a mat.
In meditation we become one with All

The solution, Loy Ching-Yuen reminds us, is in non-attachment:

Non attachment brings deep truth,
And a truthful nature brings immortality.

Non-attachment here does not necessarily mean renunciation, becoming a monk or living in a mountain cave somewhere. Non-attachment means non-identification. A person, an experience, or an object may be important, and is therefore to be cherished. But our fundamental identity remains settled within the heart. External movements do not tug at our sense of self. We can witness reality as it is from the supreme security of our true nature.

Loss and death have no claim on us. This is Loy Ching-Yuen’s immortality.

And it is naturally so. It doesn’t even require work on our part. We must simply, quietly watch the process happen.

Tao billows like the vapors
In a mountain valley,
And its supernatural power wafts into our soul.

Recommended Books: Loy Ching-Yuen

The Essential Mystics: Selections from the World’s Great Wisdom Traditions	The Book of the Heart: Embracing the Tao	The Supreme Way: Inner Teachings of the Southern Mountain Tao

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The Way It Is
by Lynn Ungar

One morning you might wake up
to realize that the knot in your stomach
had loosened itself and slipped away,
and that the pit of unfilled longing in your heart
had gradually, and without your really noticing,
been filled in — patched like a pothole, not quite
the same as it was, but good enough.

And in that moment it might occur to you
that your life, though not the way
you planned it, and maybe not even entirely
the way you wanted it, is nonetheless —
persistently, abundantly, miraculously —
exactly what it is.

— from Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems, Edited by Phyllis Cole-Dai / Edited by Ruby R. Wilson

/ Image by Dmitry Ganin /

I love this poem. It speaks from a place of gentle awareness of one’s self and one’s life.

One morning you might wake up
to realize that the knot in your stomach
had loosened itself and slipped away…

I think there is a tendency toward self dissatisfaction, something feels wrong, incomplete, imperfect. This is especially true for those of us who see ourselves on a spiritual journey. Perhaps we even use that feeling as motivation on our spiritual journey. It can be needed fuel.

But the years teach us that that feeling becomes a trap, a form of self-cruelty. Our lives can feel like a series of disappointments. Worse, we see ourselves as failures. And no amount of religious or spiritual practice seems to fix that feeling.

The thing is, there is no perfect “fix” for the feeling. Yes, the way we live in the world, the way we cultivate our inner awareness, these help, but they don’t fully untangle that Gordion knot. You know what does? Restful, non-reactive, non-judgmental self-awareness. Pausing from all our efforts and just noticing who we are, what we are, what our lives are.

When we do that, a surprising thing happens: We begin to see an underlying wholeness, even when there is no obvious reason for it to be there.

And in that moment it might occur to you
that your life, though not the way
you planned it, and maybe not even entirely
the way you wanted it, is nonetheless —
persistently, abundantly, miraculously —
exactly what it is.

All the anxieties and harsh judgments we have held in our bodies just somehow dissipate. All the mental projections of what we wanted but didn’t get or what we got but didn’t want, drop like a shadow screen before our eyes and we see things simply as they are. It may not fit the grand heroic story we have held in the mind for so long, but what is actually there is telling its own story, a story of fullness.

Let’s pay attention to that story. Let it bring healing.

=

I know there are terrible tragedies unfolding in the world right now. Find some quiet moments — and radiate love into the world. Don’t try to mentally solve the world’s problems in that moment. Don’t react or tighten up in anger. Just radiate love.

Don’t even “radiate” love, since that might imply that you are pushing love out from some limited personal reservoir. The love is there, already, and in abundance. Allow it through. Step aside in your quiet moments and let the love flood through you into the the parched world. See what magic it can accomplish.

Sending love to you all!

Recommended Books: Lynn Ungar

Bread and Other Miracles	Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems	Blessing the Bread: Meditations

Lynn Ungar US (Contemporary) Christian Secular or Eclectic

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I find you, Lord, in all Things and in all
by Rainer Maria Rilke

English version by Stephen Mitchell

I find you, Lord, in all Things and in all
my fellow creatures, pulsing with your life;
as a tiny seed you sleep in what is small
and in the vast you vastly yield yourself.

The wondrous game that power plays with Things
is to move in such submission through the world:
groping in roots and growing thick in trunks
and in treetops like a rising from the dead.

— from Ahead of All Parting: The Selected Poetry and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke, Translated by Stephen Mitchell

/ Image by Ben Fredericson /

This is a poem I have featured before, but I found myself reading it this morning and decided that it was a good one to share with you again…

and in the vast you vastly yield yourself.

Isn’t that a magical line? In the second verse Rilke is really saying something of deep insight about about what real power is:

The wondrous game that power plays with Things
is to move in such submission through the world…

The “power” he is talking about is obviously not power over, not the domination of the warlord or the predator. Following on his first verse, we can read power as the power of the “Lord, in all Things.” It is the power of life itself, awareness, presence. Rilke’s use of the word “power,” makes us question the assumptions of common language: Perhaps this gentle presence is real power, rather than the fleeting assertion of force and fear.

This real power plays a game in the world of things. It expresses its power through submission, rather than control. Like water, it yields and so finds its destination. It allows, and so fulfills its purpose. It is supremely humble, and so is humbly present everywhere, in all things, without prejudice or rejection. It rises from the lowest to the highest, vivifying everything it touches–

groping in roots and growing thick in trunks
and in treetops like a rising from the dead.

This power flowing through us and all our “fellow creatures” binds us all with the same life. You’ll notice, it is not even our life at all. Rilke says “your life,” the Lord’s life. It is something we participate in, a current we ride as it flows through us and the world, but it is not our own. Rilke is hinting at a larger vision in which there is only one Life flowing through a million “Things.”

Hildegard von Bingen, the great medieval mystic, called this the viriditas or greening power of God.

Too much of our relationship with the natural world is built on ideas of separation and domination. Such foolishness can only ever harm us. When we see clearly, we see as Rilke does that we are part of the same shared Life. To harm the natural world is to rebel against God. Is that language too religiously loaded? Reread Rilke’s poem, and then think about it.

Recommended Books: Rainer Maria Rilke

The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry	Ahead of All Parting: The Selected Poetry and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke	The Soul is Here for its Own Joy: Sacred Poems from Many Cultures	Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God	In Praise of Mortality: Rilke’s Duino Elegies & Sonnets to Orpheus
More Books >>

Rainer Maria Rilke Germany (1875 – 1926) Timeline Secular or Eclectic

More poetry by Rainer Maria Rilke

Every Day as Wide as a Field
by Naomi Shihab Nye

1

And there were so many more poems to read!
Countless friends to listen to.
We didn’t have to be in the same room—
the great modern magic.
Everywhere together now.
Even scared together now
from all points of the globe
which lessened it somehow.
Hopeful together too, exchanging
winks in the dark, the little lights blinking.
When your hope shrinks
you might feel the hope of
someone far away lifting you up.
Hope is the thing…
Hope was always the thing!
What else did we give each other
from such distances?
Breath of syllables,
sing to me from your balcony
please! Befriend me
in the deep space.
When you paused for a poem
it could reshape the day
you had just been living.

/ Image by Tito Rollis /

A poem today by the wonderful Palestinian-American poet, Naomi Shihab Nye.

Standing outside
staring at a tree
gentles our eyes

Aren’t those wonderful opening lines?

I encourage you to say the lines out loud. Standing. Staring. That alliteration, with the “st-st.” And a secondary level of alliteration with the use of the “t” sound in nearly every word of these first few lines. We can play with the lines on our tongue. St-anding. St-aring. Out-side. T-ree. Gent-les.

And then we remember to pay attention to the words, what they are saying.

She gives us permission to pause and gaze at a tree. It “gentles” our eyes. That line works on two levels. Looking at the tree makes our gaze and, more generally, our awareness gentler — somehow kinder to the world and to ourselves, at ease, at peace. But it also suggests that contemplating a tree tames the eyesight and, by extension, the mind. Do we let the eyes go wild and slice up reality into parcels that the erratic mind can then choose to latch onto or ignore? By resting with a patient green neighbor, we train the mind to cease its evasions and grasping, taming it to encounter the present moment.

Minds stretching

beyond the field
become
their own skies

We expand. The world around us opens.

Words can become windows. A poem a doorway.

Look through a word
swing that sentence
wide open

We just have to quiet down, so we can notice which phrases want to open for us — then we step through.

Kneeling outside
to find
sturdy green

glistening blossoms
under the breeze
that carries us silently

The second section of the poem seems to step back and give is a broader sense of what she is saying:

And there were so many more poems to read!
Countless friends to listen to.

Poetry. Friends. Poems as friends. Friends speaking to us through poetry, through space, through time.

Coming together, a shared community which invites us to join in. When we feel disconnected, words of wisdom, words of kindness, words of vision reconnect us.

Hope is the thing …
Hope was always the thing!

Shared hopes. Or, when hope eludes us, shared fears. The whole human experience. Sharing allows us to recognize ourselves in each other. Seeing deeply into another, we come to know ourselves more fully.

That’s where real transformation happens. When we allow ourselves to slip into the awareness of our shared being, as a good poem invites us to do, doors open in us.

When you paused for a poem
it could reshape the day
you had just been living.

=

A reminder to myself: Ivan, challenge yourself to connect with and protect vulnerable outsiders in your community. Learn to balance inner peace with a fiery voice and firm action. Raise good trouble. Upset the people you have to. Kindle a kind heart.

More poetry by Naomi Shihab Nye

What Was
by Ala al-Dawla Simnani

English version by David and Sabrineh Fideler

Once I was here,
but now “I” am not:

If I have any body —
If I have any soul —
then, without question,
      it could only be you.

— from Love’s Alchemy: Poems from the Sufi Tradition, Translated by David Fideler / Translated by Sabrineh Fideler

/ Image by Imad Alassiry /

With the headlines filled with war and mass traumas, the playing out of the death urge on the global stage, it is often difficult to select a poem for the Poetry Chaikhana. Certainly there are many great poems on war and death, but those have general not been the focus of the of the Poetry Chaikhana. I tend to highlight poems of individual mystical awakening, that flash of insight, the flood of bliss, the overwhelming sense of wholeness and harmony. Should we even try to make room for such poems in a time of upheaval and fear?

I think the answer is that our spiritual journey must incorporate the fullness of this human experience, even war, even injustice. This doesn’t mean that we accept what is cruel or harmful or increases suffering, but we cannot pretend that it is not playing out in the moment. We can do our best to see it honestly for what it is, why it is there, and begin to nurture mature and patient remedies — first within ourselves and individuals, then allowing ourselves to become medicine for the wider world. Be distrusting of solutions that are quick or external. Balance is always found at the center point, within. This is true for societies and cultures as much as for individuals.

Today I feature a poem not of war but of spiritual selflessness by a Persian Sufi poet, that is by a poet from Iran.

Once I was here,
but now “I” am not

Do you feel it? That sense of “I” and “me” how thin and intangible they are when you really look?

We spend most of our life energy asserting that this thing, this “me” is IMPORTANT. The problem is that that “me” is not real. The more we look for it, the more it retreats. When we finally corner it, it simply fades away, dispelled like a trick of light. What are we left with?

There is a self, but it is not a limited or selfish self. To some it borders on blasphemy to call this real Self a self at all, implying some personal possession of something so all-inclusive. Some prefer to call this center of being not “me,” but You — the Friend, the ever-present Beloved. While the “me” struts and shouts and grabs, it cannot make of itself a real and lasting thing. But that You remains, always there, waiting patiently for the braggart self to tire of its own voice and step aside.

In the way of your love,
nothing was left —
neither body nor soul.

Everything we thought we owned, everything we ascribed to that “me,” even the body itself, they all cease to be limited objects of the mind when the me itself is recognized as unreal. Body, self– these are seen, not as things that “I” am or possess, but as part of a fluid continuum of the greater You. Everything stops being things, and is, instead, a grand embodiment of the Eternal.

If I have any body —
If I have any soul —
then, without question,
      it could only be you.

Have a beautiful day enrobed in the Beloved.

Recommended Books: Ala al-Dawla Simnani

Love’s Alchemy: Poems from the Sufi Tradition	The Throne Carrier of God: The Life and Thought of ‘Ala’ Ad-Dawla As-Simnani

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Bewildered
by Kahlil Gibran

This would I have you remember in remembering me:
That which seems most feeble and bewildered in you is the strongest and most determined.
Is it not your breath that has erected and hardened the structure of you bones?
And is it not a dream which none of you remember having dreamt, that builded your city and fashioned all there is in it?
Could you but see the tides of that breath you would cease to see all else,
And if you could hear the whispering of the dream you would hear no other sound.

— from The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran

/ Image by Cody Black /

I hadn’t read this poem by Kahlil Gibran in some time. His words have a rare quality of directly confronting our self-doubts and fears, and then elevating us with such gentleness. He manages to rearrange our reflexive view of things in a way that is almost playful yet without discounting soul’s fears. That’s the transformative medicine of some poetry.

Rereading the words I originally wrote more than ten years ago to accompany this poem, they still fit–

It’s been a difficult week for a lot of people. Some weeks, vulnerabilities just get triggered, and life’s solid certainties fade and shift about. If it’s been that sort of week for you, don’t take it too personally. It’s going about. Sometimes we’re just being reminded to breathe, to allow the dream to reshape itself. When we listen for the breath, we participate in its rhythm. And from that soft rhythm our world is daily reborn.

That which seems most feeble and bewildered in you is the strongest and most determined.

Have a beautiful day!

Recommended Books: Kahlil Gibran

The Prophet	The Beloved: Reflections on the Path of the Heart	Broken Wings	Jesus the Son of Man	Kahlil Gibran: His Life & World
More Books >>

Kahlil Gibran Lebanon/US (1883 – 1931) Timeline Christian Secular or Eclectic

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My daily activity is not unusual
by P’ang Yun (Layman P’ang)

English version by Satyavayu

My daily activity is not unusual;
I just remain in spontaneous harmony.
Not grasping or rejecting,
nothing left to assert or oppose.
What use are fancy titles
and expensive clothes of vermilion and purple?
This entire mountain is free
of even a speck of dust.
Supernatural powers and miraculous activity:
fetching water and carrying firewood

/ Image by Alexander Klimm /

Something quiet today. A reminder to us of the magic found in our ordinary moments.

My daily activity is not unusual;
I just remain in spontaneous harmony.

When the mind comes to rest and ceases to kick up its own dust, we can finally, perhaps for the first time, see reality in its most beautiful, clear form.

This entire mountain is free
of even a speck of dust.

That’s when the miraculousness of each moment reveals itself.

Supernatural powers and miraculous activity:
fetching water and carrying firewood

So much beauty awaits us just beneath the disruptions of the mind. Whatever work we have before us, even when difficult or frightening, in whatever world we find ourselves moving through, let us set aside time to quiet down and truly see. We can deny the truth. We can cover it over with busyness and cruelty. But don’t be fooled. Heaven is barely held in by the surface rind of reality.

Recommended Books: P’ang Yun (Layman P’ang)

This Dance of Bliss: Ecstatic Poetry from Around the World	The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry	Haiku Enlightenment: New Expanded Edition	The Sayings of Layman P’ang: A Zen Classic

P’ang Yun (Layman P’ang) China (740? – 808) Timeline Buddhist : Zen / Chan

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Via Negativa
by R. S. Thomas

Why no! I never thought other than
That God is that great absence
In our lives, the empty silence
Within, the place where we go
Seeking, not in hope to
Arrive or find. He keeps the interstices
In our knowledge, the darkness
Between stars. His are the echoes
We follow, the footprints he has just
Left. We put our hands in
His side hoping to find
It warm. We look at people
And places as though he had looked
At them, too; but miss the reflection.

— from Through Corridors of Light: Poems of Consolation in Time of Illness, Edited by John Andrew Denny

/ Image by tanakawho /

This is a haunting poem, yet lovely and uplifting at the same time. God is a kind of a ghost in this poem, a tangible absence.

…God is that great absence
In our lives, the empty silence
Within…

And that is really the poet’s point. So often we struggle to imagine what God is, the qualities and awareness associated with that immense… Something. But this poem is a meditation on the Via Negativa, that is, the recognition that the Eternal is not a “thing” at all. Every definition or description or quality we attach to the Divine is necessarily a limitation on the Divine Nature and, therefore, incomplete. To turn God into an object that can be described is to make God a subset of Existence, when the Eternal is the Whole of Existence and beyond. The idea behind the Via Negativa is that God cannot be adequately conceptualized by the limited human intellect with attributes of a limited physical reality, and so God is best discovered through negation. In other words, God is all-encompassing, and therefore perceived as a sort of vibrant Absence, a sort of haunting Presence within the empty spaces of our perception…

…He keeps the interstices
In our knowledge, the darkness
Between stars. His are the echoes
We follow…

That ache we universally feel, that absence can feel to the soul like an existential betrayal inherent within reality. Most of us reflexively turn from that feeling and run from it, endlessly distracting our awareness so we don’t feel it so painfully. But, ultimately, that’s not very effective, and it is never satisfying.

We put our hands in
His side hoping to find
It warm.”

This is, of course, a reference the story in the Gospels when “doubting” Thomas would not believe that the risen Christ stood before him until he could touch the wounds in Christ’s side. Here the poet sees that wound as another representation of that hauntingly empty space, which reveals itself to be both real and also divine. There is a void we all sense and mostly try to ignore. When we no longer recoil and instead reach out to touch that emptiness, we hope to feel warmth, life, presence within the apparent absence — and we do.

–

Mystics encourage us to look deeper, to fully encounter that “great absence,” to sit with it. Eventually we discover to our surprise that that terrible void is, in truth, filled with immense life and an indescribable bliss. Our very being flows from that immense and spacious No-Thing-Ness. If we name It, if we describe or define It, that my help our understanding up to a point, but if we cling too tightly to those names and descriptions, we limit our full awareness and vision. This is the truth of the Via Negativa.

Recommended Books: R. S. Thomas

For Lovers of God Everywhere: Poems of the Christian Mystics	Soul Food: Nourishing Poems for Starved Minds	R. S. Thomas: Selected Poems	R. S. Thomas (Everyman Poetry)	R. S. Thomas: Collected Poems 1945-1990
More Books >>

R. S. Thomas Wales (1913 – 2000) Timeline Christian

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Effortlessly
by Mechthild of Magdeburg

English version by Jane Hirshfield

Effortlessly,
Love flows from God into man,
Like a bird
Who rivers the air
Without moving her wings.
Thus we move in His world
One in body and soul,
Though outwardly separate in form.
As the Source strikes the note,
Humanity sings —
The Holy Spirit is our harpist,
And all strings
Which are touched in Love
Must sound.

— from The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry, by Stephen Mitchell

/ Image by ac4photos /

Effortlessly,
Love flows from God into man,
Like a bird
Who rivers the air
Without moving her wings.

Isn’t that image wonderful? The words themselves flow through us, like gentle music. That opening affirmation is so lovely that it’s easy to miss importance of the next few lines:

Thus we move in His world
One in body and soul,
Though outwardly separate in form.

When we discover that total integration of self, when every aspect of body and soul recognizes itself as a harmonious unity, the sense of the effortful self disappears. Our actions and movement through the world flow without friction. We normally take it for granted, the presence of a constant resistance in every action. What is that resistance? It is the fingerprint of the ego as it declares through each effort, “I am here! I did this!” It is a declaration of separation. But instead, when we are overcome with love and wholeness, the ego fades, no separation is seen, and we, in turn, flow.

Think of it this way: Just as swimmers shave their bodies to eliminate the constant drag of body hair in order to glide through the water, shedding the ego through love allows us to glide with surprising ease through the world. This is how saints and masters manage to act with such natural grace of spirit.

And all strings
Which are touched in Love
Must sound.

=

The Catholic Church has elected a new pope, who has taken the name Leo XIV. The previous pope, Francis, was a much-needed voice of compassion when it came to questions of global poverty, immigrants and refugees, the suffering of occupied and colonized peoples, and the desperate needs of the environment. It remains to be seen if the new pope will oppose the regressive factions within the Vatican and live up to the historical moment.

Ultimately, of course, we should not wait for perfect popes or presidents or prime ministers. It is ourselves we truly wait for. The goal is always to allow Love to flow into ourselves and through ourselves into the world until, one-by-one we light up and discover the underlying Unity. With so much threat and uncertainty in the world, it is easy to see and feel only that onslaught. But in complete disregard for our own fears, there yet remains that glowing, blissful Oneness beneath. The more we recognize and nurture it in ourselves and the more we help others to do the same, the more the world can let go of its terrible dramas and awaken to its inherent heavenly nature. It may take great striving to get there, but when it happens, it happens — effortlessly.

Have a beautiful day! Sending love to you all.

Recommended Books: Mechthild of Magdeburg

Poetry for the Spirit: Poems of Universal Wisdom and Beauty	Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women	The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry	German Mystical Writings: Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Jacob Boehme, and others	The Mystic in Love: A Treasury of Mystical Poetry
More Books >>

Mechthild of Magdeburg Germany (1207 – 1297) Timeline Christian : Catholic

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I am praying again, Awesome One
by Rainer Maria Rilke

English version by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy

I am praying again, Awesome One.

Into them I place these fragments, my life,
and you, God — spend them however you want.

— from Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, by Rainer Maria Rilke / Translated by Joanna Macy

/ Image by Klara Kulikova /

I am praying again, Awesome One.

I like that opening line. Personal, honest, no pretense of formula.

I’ve been scattered in pieces…

Scattered, disjointed, plundered, befouled. Feeling this way, how does one ever feel whole again?

I yearn to belong to something, to be contained
in an all-embracing mind that sees me
as a single thing.

The first thing I would say is that the solution is not to return to a time when things were good or normal. Crises only arise when problems have been ignored. This is true on a personal, spiritual level, and it is true on the societal level.

So when we look back on a time in our lives when things felt more “right,” the first thing to do is to notice what we missed or ignored. Be willing to see what was not right about it. What were our secrets? What was our pain? Who suffered and was kept silent?

The first step is not to fix the brokenness. It is to feel the brokenness. It is to see it. As this poem does. If we are broken, let us see it and feel it. All of it.

Of course, to do so means the destruction of our cherished heroic self-story. But there is a strange magic that happens when we let that story fall apart and finally look into the shadows. Hidden in those hurt and hurtful corners is so much of ourselves. We can’t be complete without them. They may seem ugly or shameful. We may not know how to welcome them back into a healthy and functional sense of being. But it is all us.

All of those shadowy fragments, in ourselves, in society, they are the missing pieces that complete us. The failures we don’t want to admit in ourselves, they are the key to our success. The path to wholeness is through the brokenness, not away from it.

But how does one integrate it all? How does one atone for the hurts caused, heal the hurts received? No problem can ever be solved at the same level on which it was created. We need to step past the ego and the repeating justifications of the calculating mind in order to invite a higher level of intelligence. We might think of this as calling upon God or a Higher Power or simply a higher awareness within ourselves. We don’t have to know at the level of the intellect, but we have to be honest with ourselves, humble, courageous and open. Then watch what happens.

As the poet says with his own words of courage and humility:

Into them I place these fragments, my life,
and you, God — spend them however you want.

Recommended Books: Rainer Maria Rilke

The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry	Ahead of All Parting: The Selected Poetry and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke	The Soul is Here for its Own Joy: Sacred Poems from Many Cultures	Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God	In Praise of Mortality: Rilke’s Duino Elegies & Sonnets to Orpheus
More Books >>

Rainer Maria Rilke Germany (1875 – 1926) Timeline Secular or Eclectic

More poetry by Rainer Maria Rilke

Teach us, and show us the Way
by Chinook (Anonymous)

We call upon the earth, our planet home, with its beautiful depths and soaring
heights, its vitality and abundance of life, and together we ask that it

Teach us, and show us the Way.

— from The Essential Mystics: Selections from the World’s Great Wisdom Traditions, Edited by Andrew Harvey

/ Image by Oppo Find x5 Pro /

I have been engaged in quite an act of rebellion lately: I have been gardening.

Just a small garden, a few vegetables and flowers.

And I’ll be honest, gardening doesn’t come naturally to me. I was raised in small apartments by a single mother who was often at work. Gardening wasn’t an activity handed down to me. I tend to be more of a person of fire and air than of earth. So rolling up my sleeves and digging in the dirt is not always my first instinct in the springtime.

But the gardeners among you know what I am still learning, that the earth speaks to us through the garden. It becomes a conversation. I speak to the weeds as I pull them, thanking them for the green impulse they brought and apologizing for their removal. Words of welcome and gentle encouragement to the strawberries and marigolds as I pat them into place and pour water around them.

Earth and water. Air and sun. And growing green life. These bring the soul back to rest.

While gardening is often a solitary, meditative act, I am surprised by how often it brings me back into connection with my community. As an inexperienced gardener, I bring my questions to the woman across the street whose yard is filled with tulips and daffodils and green sprouts waiting to reveal themselves. And we are talking about life. The rhythms of the year and the movements of the clouds.

Later in the year, I hope to have a few extra butternut squash, Perhaps my wife and I can share them with our neighbor (as I know she will come by with more than one box of potatoes and tomatoes for us). Or maybe I will bring something from my garden over to my cousin’s house. Next year, if I plan early enough for a larger garden, perhaps I will have extra to bring to one of the local homeless shelters.

Who knew that putting your knees on the ground and digging your fingers into the soil could reconnect us with the world? It brings us back into the rhythms of life and community. It returns us to ourselves.

Some might say that is a dangerous thing.

Others would say, community, the earth, life, these speak to us. They remind us of important truths. Let’s listen. Let us ask them to teach us, and show us the Way.

Recommended Books: Chinook (Anonymous)

The Essential Mystics: Selections from the World’s Great Wisdom Traditions

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It is difficult to get the news (from Asphodel That Greeny Flower)
by William Carlos Williams

      It is difficult
to get the news from poems
      yet men die miserably every day
            for lack
of what is found there.

— from The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams: Volume II 1939-1962, by William Carlos Williams

/ Image by Brad Starkey /

I was recently reminded of this poem by the wonderful Kim Rosen, author of Saved by a Poem. I call it a poem, but it is actually an excerpt from a much longer poem, yet these few lines stand alone.

With so much uncertainty about us, with suffering on the rise, it is natural to amp up our anxieties in response, wanting to “make things right” but without really knowing what to do. It can become a cycle of fear and feeling betrayed, of loud words, louder thoughts, and halting action followed by inaction and numbness.

Poetry can seem unimportant, even frivolous.

These aren’t times for simple answers, but I would suggest that the answers are not found in keeping ourselves perpetually plugged in to the recitations of horrors and outrages fed to us through the headlines. We need to remain aware of what is happening in our world, yes, but the news is often not the best source of our news. The real news requires an act of awareness. And connection. Connection with our communities. Importantly, connection with the vulnerable and outliers in our society. Connection, most importantly, with ourselves. And with nature, which is always our home ground.

The more we nurture these forms of connection, the more we remember what is real and what is important. Through these connections we understand what is actually happening. We also get a better sense of what we can and should do about it. We are reminded that the most powerful actions are not always grand gestures on a global stage; instead, it is often our seemingly small acts of kindness and genuine connection that truly resonate in the world.

But it is never simply about action. Action without awareness is just movement. Awareness is the key. Seeing what is truly happening, the entire picture, the expanse and the overlooked valleys, this requires awareness. Knowing when to act, how to act, and when to simply glow in the world, this requires awareness.

What we call the news is not primarily a medium of full-bodied awareness. That is why, though it is difficult, we should do our best to get our news from poems.

      It is difficult
to get the news from poems
      yet men die miserably every day
            for lack
of what is found there.

Sending love to you all!

William Carlos Williams US (1883 – 1963) Timeline Secular or Eclectic

More poetry by William Carlos Williams

Once More Turn Me to Gold
by Dorothy Walters

(for Kabir)

Every cell,
each bone and covering.
Let me shine
like a golden coin
spinning in the summer sun,
a yellow leaf
that falls to earth
in early autumn, late spring.
Let me be a beacon for all
yearning to pass this way,
to become pure,
like the alchemist’s dream,
the cabalist’s desire.
Let me be dipped
in liquid gold,
now luminous,
radiant as the sun,
complete at last.

— from The Goddess Speaks: Poems of Ecstasy and Transformation, by Dorothy Walters

/ Image by Chu Son /

I have been thinking about Dorothy Walters recently. She was a close friend for many years. We met initially through our parallel work, both of us in different ways being early explorers of poetry and spirituality on the Internet. She published a blog of her poetry and Kundalini experiences while, at the same time, quietly connecting one-on-one with those who reached out to her, seeking to better understand their own private spiritual experiences. She soon came across my work with the Poetry Chaikhana and emailed me, beginning a correspondence.

At the time, she lived in San Francisco, but she had strong ties to Boulder, Colorado, where I lived. She had been a professor at the University of Colorado for many years before retirement, and she decided to return to the area. This serendipitous move allowed us to become closer friends.

My wife and I would regularly meet Dorothy on a Sunday morning and go out to brunch together. We had wonderful, far ranging conversations that returned again and again to the spiritual journey, seasoned with plenty of laughter. It was always a treat to meet with this sweet, elderly woman who often wore a knitted cap, eyeglasses with Chinese characters engraved around the rims, and draped herself in wild colors.

I wonder how many people in Boulder knew what a treasure they had shuffling around the downtown, occasionally popping into discussions on lucid dreaming or poetry readings.

In her final years, a wonderful, dedicated group of people worked together to make sure that her few basic necessities and health care were taken care of. She passed away in 2023, well into her nineties.

For many, she was seen as a spiritual teacher. There were times when I saw her that way too, but more as an inspiration, a template of how to be an elder in the world — quiet, yet active, unconventional, playful, caring, engaged, always touching people’s lives for the better. As I begin to enter my elder years, I hope to embody my own version of those uplifting energies she brought to those around her.

Mostly, however, I thought of Dorothy Walters as a friend, a friend who still sometimes shows up to whisper in my ear.

Recommended Books: Dorothy Walters

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)	This Dance of Bliss: Ecstatic Poetry from Around the World	Marrow of Flame : Poems of the Spiritual Journey	The Ley Lines of the Soul: Poems of Ecstasy and Ascension	Diamond Cutters: Visionary Poets in America, Britain & Oceania
More Books >>

Dorothy Walters US (1928 – 2023) Timeline Secular or Eclectic

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Take Refuge in Silence
by Kalidas (Lawrence Edwards)

All sound arises out of Silence
      and dissolves into Silence.
All thought arises out of Silence
      and dissolves into Silence.
The universe arises out of Silence
      and dissolves into Silence.
Suffering arises out of Silence
      and dissolves into Silence.
The unbounded spaciousness of Silence,
      filled with the clear light of Awareness,
      dissolves the roots of pain and sorrow.
Take refuge in Silence and know
      unshakable joy.

/ Image by Cristopher Sardegna /

Life has been very full for me in recent years. Several significant life challenges, the sort that feel like life and death in the moment. Adding to that, financial responsibilities have made it necessary for me to keep high work hours in my day job through it all. I had hoped, following my move to Oregon a couple of years ago, to connect more to the local poetry and spiritual communities and also to publish more books for the Poetry Chaikhana. But it was not to be as simple as that.

I have been reconnecting with the Divine Feminine lately, and the Mother can be comforting, nurturing, abundant, but at the same time She sometimes says, “You’ve got some work to do so get to it! Let that be your worship for now.”

Learning to strategically walk the cliff’s edge of action and exhaustion, refining that skill, that too is a form of worship, when dedicated to the needs of others.

Breathing hard can be a sign we are on our path. A well-walked journey sometimes requires us our all, and then some. It is often in those moments of total dedication that we find the greatest opening and spaciousness. When the activity in our lives overwhelms and we are not quite keeping up, we might just shift our perspective and recognize that we are not that activity, that we are not even the person engaged in the activity. And then it becomes a dance.

Having said all that, this song of Silence speaks to me. Everything emerges from a great Silence, an eternal Stillness. And returns again. This is not speculation, it can be directly experienced. This is the unbounded spaciousness. We say silence or stillness or spaciousness or Nirvana, but it is not empty in the way we think of the term. It is empty of “thingness” but this underlying Reality is, in fact, full. This divine Silence is rich with life, the source of all life. It is filled with awareness. When we return to that state, we are flooded with an unshakable joy. We might call it the healing embrace of the Divine Mother.

It is in this Silence that balance is restored and we rediscover our true nature.

Whether your life is noisy or quiet, may we all find time to restore ourselves in Silence.

Sending love! Have a beautiful day!

Recommended Books: Kalidas (Lawrence Edwards)

Kali’s Bazaar: Gifts of Devotion to the Divine, Buddhist Wisdom, and Kundalini Yoga Tantra	The Soul’s Journey: Guidance from the Divine Within	Kundalini Rising: Exploring the Energy of Awakening

Kalidas (Lawrence Edwards) US (1952 – ) Yoga / Hindu : Shakta (Goddess-oriented) Secular or Eclectic

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On Those Words “I am for My Beloved”
by Teresa of Avila

English version by Megan Don

Already I gave myself completely,
and have changed in such a way
That my Beloved is for me
and I am for my Beloved.

He pierced me with an arrow
laced with the herbs of love
and my soul became one
with her Creator;
I no longer want another love,
since I have given myself to my God,
That My Beloved is for me
and I am for my Beloved.

— from The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology), Edited by Ivan M. Granger

/ Image by stevekc /

Happy Valentine’s Day! I thought this meditation on love and the soul’s yielding to the Beloved was just right.

I was sent this poem directly by the translator, Megan Don. She is the author of Meditations with Teresa of Avila — a truly beautiful collection of contemplations inspired by the writings of Teresa of Avila.

According to Megan Don, this poem by Teresa of Avila was written about her well-known mystical experience of feeling her heart being pierced with a rapturous love by an angel. This sacred moment inspired Bernini to craft his spiritually erotic sculpture, The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa.

A few of my own thoughts:

Saints and mystics the world over speak of the heart being touched, pierced, opened. They speak of being surprised by love. The problem is, we hear the world “love” and “heart” and we think of the simple sweetness of Valentine’s Day cards. We aren’t encouraged to develop a real concept of what these great souls are attempting to communicate.

When the mind settles and the soul waits in vulnerable readiness, the most amazing thing happens: the heart blooms. The heart opens and expands. Effortlessly, the heart reaches out, with a wider span than we imagined possible, embracing all of creation. We become flooded with something beyond feeling or emotion; there is a sense of finally recognizing our full nature within the heart. We immediately know that we have returned home, that we have rediscovered the seat of our being.

Within this awareness, when we focus inward, we are enraptured, filled with bliss, a sense of wholeness and joy that is beyond words. When focused outward, we have become an embodiment of love. Love pours through us and fills everything we perceive.

Amidst this love, the barriers to our empathy collapse and we also begin to feel all the world’s struggling hopes and suffering and surging life — yet it is all somehow part of a larger tapestry of beauty.

Think about these things. Consider what it means to have one’s heart “pierced” by the Divine. How can we, in full honesty, say, “I gave myself completely,” and “I am for my Beloved”? What is the weakness or vulnerability that the “gentle hunter” leaves us in? What does it mean to be “changed with new life”? The big question: What is the real experience that allows us to say, “my soul became one / with her Creator”?

Have a beautiful Valentine’s Day, at home within the heart.

Recommended Books: Teresa of Avila

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)	Poetry for the Spirit: Poems of Universal Wisdom and Beauty	Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women	For Lovers of God Everywhere: Poems of the Christian Mystics	All Saints: Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Time
More Books >>

Teresa of Avila Spain (1515 – 1582) Timeline Christian : Catholic

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