Rumi: The Book of Love

If you have not yet acquired a copy of Rumi's Book of Love, I urge you to do so now. This is the pinnacle:
From: "Where You Love From"

In your light I learn how to love.
In your beauty, how to make poems.

You dance inside my chest
where no one sees you,

but sometimes I do,
and that sight becomes
this art.

Religion

"Religion is a way of walking, not a way of talking". Dean William R. Inge

I find this quote a profound statement and agree with it wholeheartedly. It seems to me that those among us who feel compelled to "evangelize" their religious beliefs and invest tremendous amounts of energy into converting the unconvinced (or the merely content) is a folly of grand proportions and I can't help but wonder about the basic insecurity in one's faith if one needs the validation of others in order to feel safe and secure and "right" in that faith.

As a neo-pagan, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Taoist, I believe that my greatest gift to the world of faith is to simply walk in the ways of love and compassion and pray for balance and harmony, for myself, for others, for the world. I don't believe in sin, I find it a silly and immature notion. I do believe in Karma, but I don't believe it sneaks up on us and whacks us over the head for something we did or didn't do in a previous incarnation. For me, the most important thing in the ways of faith and religion is to keep things as clear and clean as possible. It's important to finish each day and be done with it. It's important to forgive myself, and others, fallibility and humanity. I'm quite fond of John Lennon's "Instant Karma":

"...Instant karma's gonna get you
Gonna knock you off your feet
Better recognize your brothers
Eve’ryone you meet
Why in the world are we here
Surely not to live in pain and fear
Why on earth are you there
When you'’re eve’rywhere
Come and get your share"


Why on earth am I here? For the same reason I've been "here" over and over: I'm a healer, and according the the Buddhists, what I am is what I will be and what I will be is what I have always been: a healer and at 47 years old I'm beginning to understand just what gift I have been given; an ability to see the pain and hurt and disease in others and with that ability, a desire to do something about it, through acts of love and prayer and song. I am so deeply grateful for the people who come my way, and for the gift of being a force of healing for myself, and for others.

For this I am truly, deeply grateful.

Connie

Intuition

"Intuition is the treasure of a woman's psyche. It is like a divining instrument and like a crystal through which one can see with uncanny interior vision. It is like a wise old woman who is with you always, who tells you exactly what the matter is, tells you exactly whether you need to go left or right. It is a form of The One Who Knows, old La Que Sabe`, the Wild Woman."

****
" Ask within for her advice
She is the Mother of the Ages
Nothing surprises her.
She has seen it all."

Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Women Who Run with the Wolves

I do not have permission to use this quote. If I have offended, I apologize. It seems to me the information is important enough to be desseminated in whatever means seem appropriately intentioned.

For this I am grateful,
Connie

Sit down write

Live. Love. Life.
Sit. Down. Write.

What I accomplished this week

There is no Time

Time No Longer Exists.
Whatever moments are stolen
and spent in your presence
prove only to reveal greater
mystery
In matters of heart and soul
body and mind and passion
and ultimately,
a peace that permeates
every cell of my being.

For this I am deeply grateful.

Connie

Falling in Love with Rumi

I have long endeavored to seek out the poetry of Rumi and haven't until this weekend laid my hands or mind on his writings. I purchased Rumi The Book of Love just the other day and have fallen completely in love with his art. The love he writes of is the love of God, but it all rings fairly true on this more temporal and painfully human plane.

Where You Love From

Look inside and find where a person
loves from. That's the reality
not what they say.

Hypocrites
give attention to form, the right
and wrong ways of professing belief.
Grow instead in universal light.


When that revealed itself, God gave it
a thousand different names, the least
of those sweet-breathing names being,
the one who is not in need of anyone.

~~~~~~

You've so distracted me,
your absence fans my love.
Don't ask how.

Then you come near.
"Do not...," I say, and
"Do not...," you answer.

Don't ask why
this delights me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

In your light I learn how to love.
In your beauty, how to make poems.

You dance inside my chest
where no one sees you,

but sometimes I do,
and that sight becomes this art.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Drumsound rises on the air,
its throb, my heart.

A voice inside the beat says,
"I know you're tired,
but come, this is the way."

~~~~~~~~

Are you jealous of the ocean's generosity?
Why would you refuse to give
this love to anyone?

Fish don't hold the sacred liquid in cups!
They swim the huge fluid freedom.

What I Believe

philosophy...I really like the teaching of the Theosophy Society...they have taken the basic truths of many spiritual and psychological teachings and made it all make sense! Frank Baum, the author of the Wizard of Oz was a member and the articles that dissect and analyze that story are truly illuminating. I am a great fan of Carl G. Jung archetypes and collective unconscious. As much as I am able, I try to interpret life experiences on the symbolic, rather than literal level. I believe we are here for one reason: to learn how to unblock illusion into the true reality that our souls are hard wired to experience love. Period. I believe that love is the most powerful magic wand on the planet. I believe it is possible to love freely, fully and without attachment. The journey of the soul is a solitary walk back to God, and although we are all capable of being channels of Divine energy and light, if we have blocked off different areas of the body (chakras), then that energy can't flow and we get stuck and can't move out of suffering. So our soul work is to heal our wounds and open our hearts to one another and allow that energy created when two souls merge to move out into the universe and fly around creating more healing.

Jumping off Cliffs

One of the gifts of grace and faith is the courage to take risks. I have been jumping off a series of perilous cliffs in the past several months, and although I've experienced some bumpy landings and even a crash or two, I am whole, I continue to heal and my heart continues to break further open, releasing and receiving more love.

I can't explain why I was born into grace, I just was. There are very often sign posts right at the edge of the spiritual precipice I find myself on the edge of. Some are silly signs, and I can't even believe I've found my way to this particular ledge, but there I am, too lazy to turn back and so I jump and the flight begins.

My parachute is faith in the abiding power of love and it is strong indeed. I have carried and held more than one fellow traveler who leapt with me over the edge. I have been carried and protected when my chute didn't open. For these gifts I am truly grateful.

Namaste`,

Connie