...A Fragment of Life's Heart...

A Star Without a Name When a baby is taken from the wet nurse, it easily forgets her and starts eating solid food. Seeds feed awhile on ground, then lift up into the sun. So you should taste the filtered light and work your way toward wisdom with no personal covering. That's how you came here, like a star without a name.  Move across the night sky with those anonymous lights.                 (Mathnawi III, 1284-1288) "Say I am You"  Coleman Barks Maypop, 1994 Ý  God has given  us a dark wine so potent that, drinking it, we leave the two worlds. God has put into the form of hashish a power to deliver the taster from self-consciousness.  God has made sleep so that it erases every thought.  God made Majnun love Layla so much that just her dog would cause confusion in him.  There are thousands of wines that can take over our minds. Don't think all ecstacies are the sam...

I recently heard two friends who are both mothers share this awareness that even their children we not “their’s” to own but merely Souls entrusted to them with unique paths that just happen to be born through them.  It reminded of another Sufi quote, “Overcome any bitterness that may have come because you were not up to the magnitude of the pain that was entrusted to you .  Like the Mother of the World, who carries the pain of the world in her heart, each one of us is part of her heart, and therefore endowed with a certain measure of cosmic pain.” I think most of the suffering experienced in the world today has to do with a denial, rejection or resistance to “cosmic pain” entrusted to each of us.  Some may see this as crazy and unrealistic or even unfair that, as the Indigo Girls say in their song “Galileo”, “and now i'm serving time for mistakes made by another in another lifetime.”  Because that’s what it can feel like, the kicker is that the “another” is ME, YOU...

Truth - Honesty.   Is it always the best policy?   This brings to mind Step 9 in 12-step programs: Make amends wherever possible, EXCEPT when to do so would injure them or others. The premise behind this step is that we are trying to express our apologies and how we hope to act more mindfully next time.   It’s NOT about easing our mind or lightening our load…at the expense of another.   Granted no one is totally responsible for how another feels or reacts, but it doesn’t mean we empty our garbage into our neighbor’s lawn because it’s stinking up our lawn or we no longer like “owning it.” Consider this Sufi saying that offers this wisdom around speaking mindfully: Is it kind? Is it true? Is it necessary? If you use that as a guide before opening your mouth or writing that email, then you may find yourself more speechless than usual.   But then again how often are the words that come from us and the actions following them the causes or breeders of disconte...

DISCLAIMER: today's post is a bit paradoxical and potentially confusing, so beware and enjoy. After reading it, you may feel like you just left the movie "Inception" but without the dreaming part. ___________________________________________ What kind of thoughts, feelings, and memories come when you see the word “special”? Positive, negative, both?  Words like food can be used and experienced pleasantly and painfully depending on who cooks them up and how they serve them.  Examples: On the wedding day, the bride says, “this is the most special day of my life!” An adolescent trips & falls down the steps, a student laughs & says, “he’s special !” Remember, Specialness implies unspecialness.  When we place a label on something such as desirable, then we instantly create it’s opposite by assuming that something else is less desirable.  This dichotomy places us in a game of constantly seeking or wanting one thing over another as if to achieve some ideal exp...

Loaded question, right? After a few days/weeks/months of continued reflection with Self & others and an eye/heart opening experience yesterday, insight came and desires expression today. I found it fascinating and eye opening to look up definitions of these words: Commitment (via hyperdictionary.com) [n]  the official act of consigning a person to confinement (as in a prison or mental hospital) [n]  the act of binding yourself (intellectually or emotionally) to a course of action; "his long commitment to public service"; "they felt no loyalty to a losing team" [n]  an engagement by contract involving financial obligation; "his business commitments took him to London" [n]  the trait of sincere and steadfast fixity of purpose; "a man of energy and commitment" [n]  a message that makes a pledge I was instantly drawn back away from the deluded romantic Libran ideals that often consume me ...

In the deepest spiritual sense, love is unlimited, unconditional, undefinable, indescribable. Yet every writer, artist, musician, and movie star spends a lifetime trying to portray it in.  But in what form and under whose rules are we portraying it. And is it truly love or just some hybrid by which we base all our relationships and interactions with others? Society in all its forms conveys love & relationship as something that is limited, rule-bound, and clearly defined.  We even have a legal establishment (marriage) for it that creates more trouble than it's worth often times, especially considering the 50%+ divorce rate and the saga that goes along with the ending of relationships.  Why do we insist that we should only love or "express" love to one person at a time when for centuries before in ancient and indigenous cultures, love wasn't limited to one person or group but seen as a ritual expression of Divinity and Union with Self, God, & Other. What wou...

"Thank you for being here with me." Short, simple, POWERFUL. How many times in your life has someone simply "been there with you" (without trying to fix or analyze you or the situation)? How many times have YOU simply allowed yourself to "be here" with someone? This feels like the TRUE experience & expression of love.  No requests to do anything, just acknowledgment and gratitude for presence, holding space, seeing another.  Our presence as shown through our eyes allows us to see and be seen by others.  And often times, that's all we really want or need.  In Garrison Starr's new album "Beside," she has an amazing song about this called, Sit With Me Tonight . How would your life different if from the moment you were born, everyone that nurtured & raised you truly SAW you...versus telling you how you should be or could be?  Everyone around you encouraged you to find how you are a piece of Life's Heart.  It is only through...