presence

5-17-20

To reach my heart, let it be a familiar place.

The life of thinking is so hard.

To stop, to listen, to feel, to see, connecting to this moment,

No judgement only presence.

It makes the day so much easier,

My struggles seem much less important.

People are not “them”, they are human;

Singular in their beauty.

5-31-20

The cool days in summer, and the warm days in winter,

It’s the oddities that we love the most.

Learning to live with ourselves,

Let me embrace the oddities that make me, me.

Learning to live with others,

Let me embrace the oddities that make you, you.

8-9-20

To give up judgement.

To live in the Way, present to all things.

Eckhart Tolle taught,”non-resistance, non-judgement, non-attachment”.

I want to go where I don’t feel safe.

I want to sit with fear and anxiety until it dissolves.

I want to sit with my burning anger,

Holding it, feeling it slowly loosing heat.

I want to sit with my shame until my tears have carried me into the present.

What else do we have but ourselves?

6-14-20

My need to belong has always been a small betrayal of myself.

There is always a part of me that I feel I must keep hidden.

It has meant that every relationship is based on suspicion.

Are you safe, am I going to get hurt?

Meditation has helped me to see:

Relationship? Of course I am going to get hurt.

That is not a problem, what other people say or do is not my problem.

When I accept every part of me, other opinions won’t matter.

Getting hurt doesn’t hurt very much anymore.

Thank you for bringing me closer to this truth,

so that I may trust others more, love them more fully.

7-7-20

To be a part of creation, the smaller the better,

This is where peace is found.

To know my place in life, finding purchase between sky and ground.

A quiet moment, to see beauty in the past, the present and the future.

All time is ever-present, the universe is a benevolent place,

It only waits to be discovered.

5-24-20

I am faced with beauty, and yet my mind only creates worry.

That’s o k , let me slow down with the realization, there is very

little that I can change.

Sometimes just reaching this moment is an arduous journey,

always worth it though.

I can always be grateful for awareness, to know that I create worry.

To know that I am creating my day whether I admit it or not.

I think one of the benefits of meditation is getting better at knowing

which feelings to believe and which feelings to question-

It helps to have friends too.

5-31-20

We are all just ways for nature to express herself.

I get so lost in self-importance when I stray too far from nature.

I mean actual physical presence in some wilderness.

There must be something that frightens me,

That actually threatens my physical safety.

That is what humbles me and reduces my self-importance.

To be a part of the food chain instead of a consumer.

Thank You God for making me so not special.

Let’s go hiking.

5-8-20

The impermanence of all things reaches me today.

It beautifies everything, it silences me,

It gives me reason to pause.

To join the dance because it will not return

To love quietly, so much left to learn.

5-13-20

Let me not hide from the rhythm of life,

Let me enjoy the ever-changing everything,

The stillness and the storm

The peace and the conflict

The wealth and the poverty

The courage and the fear

The brokenness and the health

The growth and the reduction

The coming together and the falling apart

The loneliness and the embrace

The excitement and the calm

The certainty and the confusion

The understanding and the misunderstood

The being and the becoming.

Only This.

4-12-20

It seems when I am willing to sit down with my pain, my shame,

my soul wakes up and joins me. I wonder if that happens to anyone

else? It is good to be alone and not alone, I hope I will always leave

time for it.

4-14-20

Still internal struggle-

So many people talking about God’s will.

How could anyone ever know God’s will?

How could anyone ever know God?

How silly I sound when I try to force myself to be good-

I will never be good, that’s o k.

I want to be open I want to live my life inside out-

I want to know beauty and peace-

I want to know conflict and suffering.

I want to not know the difference between laughing and crying.

I am told defiance is not a good thing. Really ?

I never know if I am getting it right or getting it wrong.

I only know when I am feeling or I am not feeling-

Nothing worse than not feeling.

Not feeling leaves only confused thinking.

Let me see the world with the eyes of a broken heart,

And not the eyes of a rational mind-The Infinite Burn-

The Great Mystery-The Eternal Moment-And You.

4-9-20

More confusion, strong winds blowing, wandering the streets,

Lost destinations, self-hatred growing, god what a punk I am.

No place to be, no way to be – creativity – who am I kidding?

Mocking laughter instead of acceptance.

What led to this inversion-

This everlasting need to hate myself, ever-present.

Any love seems to dissolve so quickly, to return to the most familiar feeling.

3-1-20

Sometimes I think I need to find my way, or discover my purpose in the Great Mystery,

But that is not true.

I am to be – I am to breathe until I become breathless: just a part of nature.

I see the sleeping trees and the frozen earth, they are not here to inspire me.

They just are.

Sometimes I feel like nature and the earth are so beautiful and perfect,

and I am such a parasite.

I don’t understand the religions that say the earth was created for man.

I am so unworthy of this moment, so grateful to be broken, and to be at peace with

this moment, this place, these people.

3-8-20

It is my surrendering that gives rise to my soul, not my effort.

3-17-20

A moment of peace this morning,

A moment of acceptance and gratitude.

Thank you for the virus, thank you for the fear,

Thanks for the confusion and the darkness always near.

Thank you for this moment when I seem to fall into place-

And the ultimate reality, everything is grace.

10-28-19

Sometimes I feel like I am becoming less of a person and more a part of nature,

I kind of think that is a good thing, there is no judgement in nature, no opinions.

11-3-19

If we can brave the stillness, it will always arrive:

The gratitude that comes just from being alive.

For the moment is sacred as are we:

The stillness envisions what our eyes cannot see.

11-21-19

Making peace with my anger, and peace with my fear,

Getting to know them better, as my time draws near.

What troubles me now is something forgotten,

Still hiding inside because it’s too rotten?

Let me love others more, because that’s how I learn,

If I have become open, and it is time to return.

12-1-19

I pray that I see the world with the eyes of a broken heart,

And not the eyes of a rational mind.

It is not sadness that we seek-

But to see beauty in more than just the beautiful,

To find peace in more than just the peaceful,

And to know the sacred in all things.