A wonderful talk by spiritual teacher and therapist Tara Brach on how to move with the tide of change in a world both living and dying, while opening our heart to what is both precious and passing.
Category: Spiritual Connection
in the moment
you live
with shining eyes
completely centered
in this moment
your belly in touch
with earth
and i see so often
the concern you have
for humans
watching us and wondering why
we get so lost
in places where life has abated
we are all too often
held prisoner in our mind
struggling daily to leave behind
old pain
how long will it take
to grieve this past
sometimes the shock of it all
just hits me like a wave
and when it does
there you are
always and forever
faithful by my side
teaching me to ride the tide
while beckoning me at
its each and every turn
back into a deeper connection
with the present moment
and with life
How to be close?
I miss this
Being close to you
Leaning in
Because it just comes naturally
And sometimes I cry
With the remembering
That I never really knew how to do it
You see there were always
These fears
Hidden so deeply in the shadows
Over years and years
And for so long I pretended to myself
I did not need this
Someone to trust
Someone close
But now I cry
With the realisation that
No man is an island
And islands only form
As land masses become overwhelmed
With water
How sad that over time
We lose the way to each other
As our memory of how to be close
Disappears so very very far away
Haunting us never the less
With an invisible longing
That dogs us
All along the life path of our years
songs of happiness
some days I cannot believe
how much happiness floats by me
on the breeze
echoes of laughter
I lost the way to
as the veil of tears fell down
all around me
covering my eyes
sometimes with the dawn
I feel the passing sense of
the tragic and forlorn
leaving me
as deep inside my body
I sense
the resonating trance of rememberance
that bids me to uncoil the past
in a swirling dance
and so it is I feel the shame
dissolving just like summer rain
seeping into crusty soil that longed
for replenishment
this then is my recompense
for years of pain and bitterness
that finally my aching soul
can feel the joy
of winters left
and summers stolen
while deep inside my aching spirit rises
to greet the dawn
and dusk surprises
dancing upon the floating air
untangling the tendrils of past despair
weaving them into
songs of happiness
Weary
Weary of this
A place where no loving soul touches my own
And yet
Here in the silence of the summer afternoon
Is God
Here in the silence is the love
We sought all along
Only a breath away
But how often our thoughts break
The container of receptivity and peace
That longs for us to seek relief
Within the healing place
Existing beyond division
Reunifying our thinking with the soul in us that senses
Worlds within worlds within worlds
Do not sacrifice this place
For the world of humanity displaced
For via that road
Only lies
Division and suffering
Into the dreaming
When he slipped away from here
He loosened his hold
On the material world
As his soul was carried away
Into the dreaming
If the pain right now
Is seeming
Almost impossible to bear
Remember
That his soul is free
At peace there in the dreaming
And as thoughts of the past are teaming
Through your soul
Like wild rain
Remember
You are not so far away yourself
From the dreaming
It is only this disconnected world
That makes you forget
The eternal connection
Hidden by thought
Hidden by time
For the dreaming is as close
As your breath
And it only takes you
A moment to remind
Your soul and your mind
To open your heart
And embrace the dreaming
Soul
Soul arises in the quiet space
The time of rest
After we embraced the early morning
Birds swooped your back
As we walked the gum leaf strewn pathway
Nearby a family played
As we sweltered within the heat
Accompanying the rising of the day
And on the return we took our time
There was no need to hurry
On the drive homeward your beautiful face
Shines radiant with a smile
There is light in your eyes
These special moments are the ones
I most long for
When the demands of a hungry world fall away
And it is just our two heartbeats
Resounding in the silence
I live for this feeling of peace
The sense that life has provided everything
For us
Because we asked
For so little
In praise of longing
I love how google search images links you to articles which express something strongly associated to what you were writing about and seeking an image to portray. I just came across the following article from the Huffington Post. It seems in modern times we are determined to exile aspects of the soul such as spiritual and romantic longing to the psychological bin of so called ‘neurosis’. I love this article as it speaks to the desire of the soul to long for an object of love and connection to the sacred or numinous, surely its not all just about projection but something far deeper and more important to our soul.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/in-praise-of-longing-recl_b_7962768
The soul in silence : reflections on solitude, trauma, wounding and healing
All the beautiful responses to my recent post/poem Trust in Silence have really got me thinking today of how important silence is to being able to be with and connected to depths of our soul. When we are struggling or suffering often we can be abused by being told we need to ‘get out of our own heads’, “get off our pity pot!’, (yes readers I have heard this one many times in 12 step meetings) or that we are ‘isolating’ and at times there can be some truth to that, sometimes when we need the loving touch or support of others or look for the gifts or message in a painful experience, but in world that find it hard to stomach or fathom certain truths, is it any wonder we learn to turn more and more towards the silence if we can, deep in that silence, find an inner source of soothing, calm and healing?
I know for myself the healing to be found in the warm of the sun, in sitting in a shady spot with doors open, Jasper at my feet just feeling the sense of connection with the moment that is awesome, magical, healing and mysterious and beyond words to fully describe (though I make stumbling attempts in poems). Then there are the times when the silence is more like a deep dark indigo ocean that almost squashes me, I feel myself subsumed or I feel the cresting of a wave of anger or grief or sorrow that wants to rise up and sweep through me, possibly even sweep away some debris from inside, memories or feelings I buried long ago, and if I just allow myself to surrender than I can expand rather than contract in response to that and feel the beauty of having touched base with my soul.
And lets face it, for many of us who have endured depths of loss and trauma others do not, have not and could never know the depths of we are not going to find that recognition or acceptance and allowing of our process from most people and my personal feeling is that therapists also don’t always know the territory themselves. I was told by astrologer Melanie Reinhardt 13 years ago after my last major accident which was a repeat of my near death one at age 17 that most therapists would not be able to fully understand the deeper spiritual dimensions of the wound of nearly losing my life as well as all the deeply Plutonian experiences that followed over the next 30 or so years for me. She directed me towards the work of Buddhist Nun Pema Chodron and said a soulful meditative practice would be the best therapy for me. Sadly I got into another relationship two years later with someone who saw my need for solitude as pathological. According to him I had agrophobia!!!! Anyway don’t really want to go back into the relationship today, it was a learning curve for me and I got some good things out of it and deeper understanding due to all the pain we both acted out on each other.
Lately I am learning to accept and validate more my need for soulful solitude. It is where I create from. It is where my deepest healing happens. I don’t feel that level of connection in may relationships in the world, in some I do. I feel it here because I feel here other trauma survivors and people in recovery are on the same page. Just connecting with you brings me SO MUCH HEALING. I was blown away yesterday by the love shown to me on a really tough day, coming out of a painful and challenging week.
I wanted actually to post another Thank You blog too as I was so grateful yesterday and today to open my page and see all the comments and love on here. As well as responses to other comments of mine where I am trying to support others going through trauma and meeting misunderstanding and woefully inadequate response to their Complex Trauma. I really see my life purpose to be as a Wounded Healer and it is what Melanie Reinhardt teaches about in her work on Chiron. Its really only us who have navigated the depths of trauma that fully understand and since all traumas are also different in some ways we wont understand everything as we all have our own unique journeys, but in time I want to set up some kind of site to offer help. If my journey and suffering and losses and gains can be used to help others that is what really makes me happy, it gives me a peace and feeling of wholeness that really lays so far beyond words.
But as I read this back I am mindful too that the healing for all of us lies both in connections with others, but more paramountly through the healing that comes from connection to our deepest soul. I feel collectively we are trying too, to heal a deep split from nature and instinct and the divine feminine. It is hard to articulate this in a post but there is a source of power that to me is Goddess like, I don’t find the concept of a male God as personally healing in my own journey unless I think of the Frank Lloyd Wright quote in which he says he believes in God but his God is nature. We are part of this mystery and so is our deepest soul and many of us are on a journey now to connect more to that source both within and without in order to find peace and love after years of separation, fear or trauma. And to recognise more deeply our essential kinship with all living beings as well as the deep silence.
The beauty of fire
The beauty that shone
Like wildfire in your eyes
Could never be permanently extinguished
Though in time a film grew over them
As it became harder to find you way
Amidst a wild universe that led you astray
But still the fire that shone in you
Was able to keep you set apart
From the mainstream that pretended it knew the way
And if you did not follow would be led astray
For there were other souls like yours
Who knew enough to keep the fire burning
Who decided to trust their deeper heart and soul yearning
Those who had the courage to open their wings and fly
Even when everything conspired to keep them bound
So trust your inner flame and never let it dull
Use it to guide you and never give up
For the fire in you comes from a beauty so deep
It should never ever be extinguished
Or put to sleep
