spirituality

Drinking The Ashram

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I sit quiet

On a stone structure

Jutting out above the pool.

In the foreground

Wading birds traverse

The lily pond,

Taking leafy, buoyant step

After leafy, buoyant step,

Picking between the protruding buds,

Ever called sunward.

On the far bank,

Peacocks own the roof of the cattle shed.

They strut, then stop,

Heads upturned and necks quivering

And release a warble of throaty calls.

When the moment is right

They extend their plumage,

Turn a full circle on the spot,

Shaking sporadically

As if to summon the gaze of the whole world,

Draw feminine kind to the chalice

Of one hundred iridescent and fine seeing eyes.

–

Beyond the groves of coconuts

And when the mountains rise,

A dense forests climbs steeply

All the way to the clouds,

Disappearing in the mist-shrouded peaks

To collect the silver life of dew drops

From those airy passers by.

And on return

The forest conveys first dampness,

Then sheds trickles and rivulets,

Then further down at the foot of the hills

Streams spill out on to the flat plain

To quench the thirsty farmland,

Where all life bends

Upon their knees

To sip

From cupped and thankful hands.

Remember Love

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Through the portal of the word

I remember love,

Step inside its resonance.

Truly it is unforgettable,

Yet what the mind says

In absence

Seems to veil

The unveilable,

Distract

From its absolute being.

–

I remember the love

That loves without question,

The love that simply loves,

Dissolves all in its recognition,

Ever brings forth

More of itself

In joyful abandon.

–

I remember love

That isn’t a memory

Or static thing

Locked in the vaults of my mind,

But instead

Vibrates with the essence of living,

The all of my heart.

–

I remember the place, shape

And flavour of love,

The being of love,

Always being

Always loving,

On which all find foundation.

–

I remember love,

That love

Closer to my heart

Than anything,

The love that does not stand apart

But enfolds

Simply everything.

From The Indian Ocean

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From the ocean’s far horizons

And through the haze

Of a lazy afternoon,

A breeze,

Sure in temperament,

Comes to presence

In the buffeted leaves

Of a salt-hardy species,

Rooted in sand.

–

My hair rustles

Like the broad-leafed trees

Of the tropics,

And my skin

Feels every pulse of the wind,

Every sun-warmed vibration.

–

The afternoon

Settles in the glimmering sea

And waves roll ever beachward,

Rising up

And falling,

Curled and called under

And then sluced forward

In the tide’s fluid sinking away.

–

I am yet again touched by constance:

The air, like reality,

Dynamic in flow,

The great liquid medium

Offering a soft percussion,

The leaves gently scratching

Their waxy neighbours,

Even the crows irregular calls

And eagles’ warbling cries

Speak of this singular theme

Of stillness in movement,

A happening in the heart of things,

A now containing all that could be.

–

What am I in this

Air-caressed and skin-warmed perception?

What is it that hears the sea

Cool upon the sand?

Who’s heart,

A sponge to the whole,

Drinks in the indulgence of the senses?

–

I have no answers

But for the slithers of light

Dazzling on the turbulence

Of the world’s

Blue-green globe,

Reaching beyond my understanding,

No answer

But for the soaring eagles

Expertly high on thermal wing,

No answer

But for the sway of branches,

Supple and bending

To and fro,

Chlorophyll fronds

Like my fingertips,

Feeling it,

Alive and inside

The whole

Of God’s own synthesis.

Energy

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With eyes closed

And the subtle reach of my fingertips

I sense the quivering air

Alive with energy.

I hover there

In the organ of my heart

Tasting the unseen frequency,

Intimately knowing

My brother the dragonfly

Aloft those same ethereal strands

And darting above the pool.

The pure white egret

Still on the strand,

Eying the bubbling surge

For silver

Is no less my brethren,

Nor the prey fish

Cool in the brine

And quick in the throng,

Nor too the ants scurrying indusrious.

I could make a fine list of kind:

Beast, vegetative form

And stone

And all would be kin to me,

Sensing alike

The charge-thrilling space

In vibration invisible,

A force to which we are all yoked,

Bodily bound,

Energetically impelled.

The Yoga Of Friendship

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Dearest friend

I could sit in the silence of our being

And dwell satisfied

In the knowledge

That we are joined in the heart of our life,

For our friendship

Is not based on superfluous traits

But deep seated

And deep rooted

And deep found

In the beginnings of our self

Where we are one:

One, to the exclusion of other,

One, to the exclusion of else,

Simply and only one,

Where friendship is shared

And where all that seemed separate

Is found to be joined

And all that seemed divided

Is unified and whole.

When The Universe Speaks

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When the universe speaks

There is a flow of happiness

For in its voice is wisdom

Saying: please join the great river of joy

Ever flowing outward,

Like mildest breath of fresh air

Come to lighten us.

In this, all mens’ hearts are one,

All womens’ hearts are one,

All hearts inconceivably connected.

And even the fractious mind

Busy conceptualising everything separate

Is not shunned or shamed,

But invited.

And even this is untruth

For busy mind is but love conscripted,

Love’s energy veiled.

For what could exist

Outside everything?

Who in God is beyond

The infinite?

Where is this outside,

This place cut off

And separated from the wholeness?

What wholeness could wholeness be

If there was another in the realm?

And where else would we look for wholeness,

But in wholeness,

There being nothing but

Its infinity in which to be?

Love Shines

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When the mind quietens

The sun shines

Internally radiant,

Offering love

In the entirety of its being.

–

As I am shining

I am bathing

In the warmth

That irrigates the body/mind.

–

Could it really be

That such a (no)thing

Could go unnoticed,

This most apparent (no)thing

Somehow overlooked?

–

And so eclipsed,

The universe of being

Seems cold and absent,

The self crystallised in ideas

And apparently imprisoned.

–

Rigid in the un-rigid,

We call incarceration ourself

And suffer the consequences of belief,

Pained because we cling,

Hurting because we identify with stiffness

In all that is only fluid.

–

But when the mind quietens

The sun shines

Internally radiant,

Offering love

In such abundance.

–

And as I am shining,

Bathing in the warmth

That irrigates the body/mind,

I see that irrespective of the mind’s condition,

Love shines

In the entirety of being.

Stacking Logs

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A winter sun

Glimmers pale

Through leafless branches

Alive with liquid dew buds,

And under a mackerel sky

I put myself to stacking wood.

–

From the store

I load an armful

And carry it to the pile beside my front door,

Savouring the woodsmoke air

Impregnated with birdsong.

Logs chime when they’re ready:

Knock two together and hear the clink

Of the summer’s drying maturation.

–

I stack the logs,

Throwing them together in a rough fit.

There’s the scent of twisting smoke again,

Sweet as warm-hearthed living.

I separate the smaller pieces for kindling,

Reworking the rest

Into a collage depiction of a fragmented trunk,

The grain of years encircling me.

–

A patch of light breaks through

And wets the leaves of an ornamental plant,

Unveiling the lingering touch

Of the vapour-breath night.

Once again, to the log pile

Where I find a hibernating wasp

Torpid in a fibrous crack.

I set its home aside,

Mindful of its sleeping potential.

–

Another load hugged,

Rough and calloused

To my fingertips.

Each piece

The perfect wholesome weight,

A measure of reality’s depth,

And warming my heart

Even before the spark has caught,

For the flame of life

Burns vigorous,

Ablaze in my heart

And the heart that is the world:

Life burns vibrantly bright

In everything,

In simply everything.

We Are One

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I wish to share the truth

That we’re not separate,

And that the feeling of separation

Is purely hoax,

A myth upon the mind

Played by the mind:

The mind swallowing its own lie.

–

What it means

Is that this warm heart inside my chest

Is your warm heart,

And that the being we are

Is one beautiful being

Holding us in its arms,

Cradling us

Feeding us the gift of life.

–

The love I feel

Is the same love

Blossoming inside yourself,

The exact same taste

Of infinite being.

We are one in this,

And knowing that the root

Of our life

Is the same root

From which all draw sustenance,

Means we can go free inside our personalities,

Move easy in our bodies,

Express our individuality to its fullest,

And be wholly ourselves.

Walk With Me

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Walk we me a while;

The night is sweet with honeysuckle

And fragrant shrubs breathing out

Their gifts for nightjars

And moths intent on the moon.

We’ve walked this path

In times past,

Many times;

We are kin

Though perhaps you’ve forgotten.

Never mind,

For arm in arm

We remember our love,

The warmth of our hearts,

The friendship

Of warm human bodies

Strolling side by side.

See, with each step upon this magic

We are closer.

To what? You ask,

Still forgetting.

To the Now perhaps

Or the tangible moment

Filled full with the moon

And dark-eyed moths

Feeding on the celestial beams

And heavenly night-shrubs.

See, up ahead, the Seeker’s gate:

It has a powerful magnetism.

But do you not feel the lushness of the

Creeping vines around us?

Do you not feel the cool

Of night shadows

Seeping between the trees

Holding earthen scents,

Sappy grasses bleeding

Into the cradling gloom?

You wish to go through the gate, I see.

I understand.

Do you wonder at what marvel lies beyond,

What treat you could be

If only we could muster the key

To enter?

No, beautiful friend, no!

Go that way

And find only endless dissatisfaction

In search of the elusive end

That never ever comes,

Always a horizon distant.

No, we are here already

For we walk arm in arm

In moonlight,

Our bare feet touching the cool stones

Of a pathway wending between trees

With waxy leaves,

Fluttering in ever so soft breezes.

See, there is enough in friendship.

Do not seek to open the gate

But look into my eyes instead,

Savour the scent of the moon

And the flavour of a wood

Enshrined in shadows,

Ever calling the nightjar and the moth.

Be here with me

In this savouring

Of the life in which our hearts beat,

A savouring of the space

In which we inhabit,

And the love

That gathers and glows

Between us

In the lush garden of ourselves.