Category Archives: notes to self

the paradox of passion

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Another birthday today – this time the corks are popped for Miriam, she to whom this little blog is dedicated. To celebrate her anniversary (she’d have been 99 today) the blog has had a makeover. Please bear with me as the details are tweaked. I hope you find the changes pleasing on the eye and the site easy to navigate – your feedback is welcome.
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When we taste the infinite Absolute of consciousness, the world is seen just as it is—radiant, perfect, and whole. The relative, however, does not cease to be. Quite the contrary, both the pains AND the pleasures of our relative lives are intensified to an unimaginable degree.
~ Ken Wilber

Gratitude to Rashani Réa for contributing this video – ma petite maman would have loved it as much as I do.

birthday poem

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In this uncreated emptiness

- an unfurling, unfolding
energy-locus trembling with
sensations so varied
they appear to hold
no common currency -

experience swings

from melting tenderness
and wide-eyed wonder
to the creaking pain
of bodybits worn and stressed
(there’s a tutu pirouetting
on satin points in one scene;
stomping across the stage
leaden-hoofed in another)

In this uncreated emptiness

there’s a seeing, a knowing
a luminous awareing of every tonality
and every texture
every nuance of light and shade
shimmer and flicker
conspiring to create an apparent world

there’s an immaculate stillness
unchanging, unmoving, unaffected
by the stories told by
pleasure, pain or perfection

there’s a brilliant beingness
in which every dance
listed in life’s repertoire
is danced by be the one

whirling
crazy lover
inexhaustibly romancing its insatiable
self

emelle says:
off with the training-wheels,
away with the Zimmer-frame
I raise my glass to Life!

Beloved, let this heart beat long enough
to whirl a few more orbits of the sun
dissolving, giddy and swooning, into your arms
which are
none other
than
my own

~ miriam louisa

a fool’s prayer

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one bright new now
you looked around at your life
and you realized
that with very few exceptions
those who had shared time on your path
for years (or just a blink)
had failed to understand
the choices you appeared to make
and you felt the quiver of their
condemnation in your heart

it was never easy walking the Fool’s highway;
sometimes you even fell by the wayside
convinced that you were terminally confused
as you glanced in the mirror of mainstream mediocrity
with its demands for evenness, respectability,
predictability

often it was too hard to find words
that would find a lucid landing-place
in the minds of those you so dearly wished
could understand your crazy irrationality,
that would make it clear that you weren’t depressed
or ill, or lost

but that you were a soul driven by a contract with Truth
(you had signed up, remember, when still too young
to understand the consequences)
that you were a thread of gossamer
on the breath of Life

emelle says:
let me die to the dull respectability of the world
with its need to turn me into a story
let me forever be a Fool
in the hands of the lawless Lover

~ miriam louisa

Image: Tarot of the Magical Forest by Leo Tang

an invitation to extreme creativity

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If creativity is radical discontinuity in a pattern of thought, then going on retreat is an invitation to extreme creativity.

Retreat is radical discontinuity in a pattern of being.

It’s not so much a movement towards anything, although it might it might involve wandering in unknown places or bunkering down in a metaphoric cave.  It’s more of a movement away from the known life with all its impositions, distractions and habitude.

As the disappearing Dharma teacher said – it’s a total commitment to awakening.  Not just in little glimpses, but in rock solid steadiness.

You will know when you’re ready and you must go.  There won’t be a second thought.  You won’t be driven by your mind or even your heart and certainly not by your feelings for they are the most fickle of all.

You’ll be driven by Grace, by a sweet and unquestionable imperative that will shock you and your N & D.  Resisting the call is possible but the consequences to health and sanity are dire.

When the invitation comes, grab it, beloved.  Park your procrastination into long-term storage and walk, empty, into the arms of Life.

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The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do -
determined to save
the only life you could save.

~ Mary Oliver

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everything you ever wanted is right here

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Longtime readers of this little blog are familiar with my addiction to retreat.  Today I’ve been inspired by a blog post by self-confessed “Inner-revolutionary, truth-teller, writer, thinker, and dreamer” Sandra Pawla, about a disappearing Dharma teacher.  He’s off on retreat in the great tradition of super-yogi Milarepa, “wandering from place to place, staying in remote caves and sacred sites with no plans or fixed agenda, just an unswerving commitment to the path of awakening.”  He’s off.  No one knows where to or for how long.  Here are some gems from his parting letter.

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All that we are looking for in life — all the happiness, contentment, and peace of mind — is right here in the present moment. Our very own awareness is itself fundamentally pure and good. The only problem is that we get so caught up in the ups and downs of life that we don’t take the time to pause and notice what we already have.

Don’t forget to make space in your life to recognize the richness of your basic nature, to see the purity of your being and let its innate qualities of love, compassion, and wisdom naturally emerge. Nurture this recognition as you would a small seedling. Allow it to grow and flourish.

Wherever you are and whatever you are doing, pause from time to time and relax your mind. You don’t have to change anything about your experience. You can let thoughts and feelings come and go freely, and leave your senses wide open. Make friends with your experience and see if you can notice the spacious awareness that is with you all the time. Everything you ever wanted is right here in this present moment of awareness.

~ Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

this morning I watched my toes

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Forget about navel-gazing. Let’s face it, unless your zafu is in front of a full-length mirror and you are skinny as a rake, who can actually peer into that little enclave of lint and jam?

(It’s a bit like doing the ‘Headless’ experiments: What head? … What navel?)

But sitting here this morning, languidly lazy, with both legs stretched out and in full view, I marveled at my toes.

Perhaps they felt flattered, for as I gazed, Big Toe on left foot bent forwards towards me as though bowing, and Next Toe flattened itself back and away from Big Toe as though allowing it more space.

I watched, amazed. My toes were performing a dance totally independent of their assumed owner and resident choreographer!

It’s commonly called ‘cramp’.

I watched my toes. I felt the weird sensation without applying the ‘pain’ label. I marveled at the autonomy that paid no heed to my command to relax. I thought,  ”Today, toes.  Another day, heart.”

Yet there was no morbidity in that thought, for marvel outshines morbidity every time.

And the Awareness that awares it all – the watching, feeling, marveling and thinking – outshines everything.

Memo to self:  If slipping into delusions of control, watch toes.

~ miriam louisa

Painting – Yoga Toes by Wendy Gendanken

dear, dear heart

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Asking contracted energy what it needs is a lovely way of acknowledging its presence and becoming intimate with it. Everything that is not at rest wants to be acknowledged, to be received and bathed in gentleness and benevolence.
~ Mags Deane

If you haven’t read Mags’ last blog  post yet, please do yourself a sweet favor: As Energy Comes Home

Then have a look at this beautiful little film Heart on a String inspired by Michael Leunig’s work. Your heart will love you for it!

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Michael Leunig’s website