here is what I am

 

tree ferns, open armed
shrouded in thick mistiness rolling in
from the South Pacific

bejeweled spider-web mandala
(bemused spider sheltering under
dripping eaves)

breadcrumbs scattered on glistening deck;
shy thrushes dropping in for breakfast

gleaming flax proudly pointing their ebony flower-laden bracts
skyward; fat Tuis feasting

explosions of agapanthus blue, and white,
on long strong stalks

panels of pieces-in-progress strewn
around the polished Rimu floor

tongues of fire dancing in the little wood stove
keeping the air moisture-free
so paintings can dry

crackle and creak of chimney stack
slow staccato on roof-tile
melting diamonds on window-pane
oboe breathing forth from
magic music box …

what else can I say?
there is nothing that I is not
yet I is nothing and nowhere to be found

 

– miriam louisa


‘I’ – liberated from the ‘am’

wee-me thinks
it has a story
but – it is a story!

‘I’ is the One
that knows this

 

I, Consciousness
I, Knowingness
I, Awareness
I, Unlit Light
I, Beingness
I, Lover

I

liberated from the ‘am’

 

~ miriam louisa


then Beingness becomes Beloved

The love that ‘I’ seeks is the Love that is seeking itself. Is there one ‘human’ beingness who is not seeking this thing called love? They mightn’t necessarily call it that – it might be referred to as happiness, peace, contentment or harmony, but all these are qualities of love itself.

Love never tires of seeking itself. The whole drama of Life is this search. And when Love eventually returns to find itself, one realizes that it was never lost, ever – it was just playing a kind of bittersweet game with itself. It was never, ever lost, for it is nothing but this inescapable Beingness.

Beingness – unavoidable and unchanging – is never unfaithful for one nanosecond. It never packs up and takes off with another lover; it is the Watching that notices lovers leaving on a fresh search for the love they haven’t yet recognized as their true Beingness. It never has an unkind word for me or anyone; it is the impartial Noticing of my unkind thoughts and thoughtless words. It’s never depressed or alienated or flattened or disappointed; it’s the Awareing of and the accepting of, all my mental and emotional states. It never demands that I or the world be better, different, more peaceful; it embraces everything equally, without judgment.

To use these words  – noticing, awareing, embracing – is completely incorrect actually, for it implies a split between Beingess and something ‘other.’ In fact, in our experience, there is no such split. Beingness is all – it is the hurt and betrayal and unkindness and violence as well as their perceived opposites.

This is the ultimate absolution. Beingness doesn’t condone nor does it mean one won’t act to help; it isn’t passive or nihilistic. It is simply realized that whatever is happening, is Beingness unfolding itself.

It strikes me that one could never find any object or person that could measure up to these qualities of basic Beingness. I guess that’s why after repeatedly trying to escape, and repeatedly making the return, I found that Beingness became Beloved for this gadabout. I rush to its immediacy without moving a hair. I am enfolded in its embrace. And I know it as ‘I’.

~ miriam louisa

.

you can’t have your cake and eat it too!

a solid separate ‘me’ cannot be found
yet this boundless expression of the unknown still wears my name
and this unlit light illumines a world
unique to the experience of this mindstream called mine

the me I took myself to be
vaporized in an instant yet nothing happened to ‘I’
‘I’ shines as it always has – perhaps more
clearly now that the drapes have been drawn back

it’s a mistake to think
that the vast View of world-as-self means that
some super-human person is viewing it thus –
unobstructed Awareness is simply viewing Itself

it’s a mistake to think
at all, actually,
if the View is one’s objective:
thinking will ensure It stays enshrined as an object

and we all know that an object is just a story
either you get the story
or you get the View –
you can’t have your cake and eat it too!

 

– miriam louisa


 

don’t look for me in my story

86

I have (re) turned to face the faceless
and find myself

absorbed

I can write letters from home
but cannot again

depart

Don’t look for me in my story
I am not there

nameless

is my unspeakable name
and all stories

happen

in this that I is

.

~ miriam louisa

echoes from emptiness

.

looking for the perfect lover?

Are you looking for a relationship in which you will feel unconditionally accepted and loved, where there’s complete consistency that you can trust, where jealousy, competition and pride don’t rear their ugly heads, where absolutely no effort is required to sustain or maintain the dynamics, where there is no sense of separation between you and your beloved, and where you are 100% free to be ‘who you are’ and express your ‘self?’

If I told you that you could have it all would you believe me? Would you check it out for yourself? Would you suspend every desire and every story about your past, present and future? Would you suspend the need, the compulsion, to be ‘in a relationship?’ Just for an experiment, just to investigate?

Would you settle on your zafu, or whatever landing/launching pad you prefer, and look – I mean really look – at what’s looking? Look into what’s knowing and experiencing this livingness that wears your name?

The look-ing is the Lover.
The know-ing is the Lover.
The experience-ing is the Lover.
The wide-awake spacious Aware-ing that is ‘I’ is the Lover.

Die into the inescapable presence of the Lover, beloved.

And then you will know that ‘relationship’ is an obsolete notion.

There is only the Lover.

~ miriam louisa

mind the gap!

If you’ve ever traveled the London Underground you’ll be au fait with this warning. It’s painted on the platform exactly where the the doors of the train will open. It’s delivered over the intercom at every stop to alert passengers to be mindful when stepping off the train. You hear it so often you stop hearing it.

The reminder to “mind the gap” is one of those inadvertent gifts delivered by mundane daily life and language; it’s meditation’s best friend.

Minding the gap as I step off one train of thought and onto another, ‘I’ floats as spaciousness. The gap between thoughts is the closest thing to God I can think of – but to think at all, I’ve got to be back on the train!

Who’d have thought the London Underground would be such a kind teacher?

The gap is R&R for the brain. The gap is succulent silence and the flowering of pure Aware-ing. The gap is my version of Graceland. It’s where the Beloved lives.

Mind the gap?

You bet.

– miriam louisa


image source – http://www.guardian.co.uk/