My Mother's Milestone

Happy Birthday Mom!!!

Congratulations to my mother for traveling through 84 years of life!  She is still managing the house and yard duties pretty much on her own.  Her lineage is one of longevity, but it is still impressive that she recently decided that maybe she shouldn't climb up on the roof any longer.

Family is a personal intensity walk, but it is stunning to experience the internal difference with the year of deep unveiling.  I continue to be in awe of the gift from the Universe.

2 Personal Veils: Horses and Women

Torture of Tennessee Walking Horses? http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749625/torture-of-tennessee-walking-horses-29324890.html Hidden-camera video finds alleged abuse of prize-winning horses.

Saving Face: The struggle and survival of Afghan women - CNN.com*

A New Outer Garment

The walk down the driveway.

Experiencing life without an exoskeleton is already becoming ok.  The removal of the hard, impenetrable surface feels like it has been replaced with a transparent, flexible body contoured sheath--not unlike the mantel I felt I was wearing for a period of time in the ashram.  Before when I would become aware of the grace of Absolute Love, I would experience it as a penetration of my heart, but now it uniformly ignites my entire body.  It is showing up as a state of being and it appears to be socially acceptable outer wear.

An edge of the pond.

The Maple Tree with its new growth lining the driveway.

An algae bloom on the pond.

The Canadian Geese on the walk to bring the horses in.

So simple and so elegant...

Interview Bringing Together Science and Spirituality

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/arianna-dalai-lama_b_1519694.html

Absolute Abundance

Recently, there was a moment that I experienced the difference between the beauty of abundance and Absolute Abundance.

As in all societies, there are many shades of grey.  I have been fortunate to live in the shade with abundance, excellent health/wellness, work, love, manifestation of goals, and the perks of more stereotypical western living.   Although, I still experienced pain in my heart and the question of "Is this it?" which led me eventually to the feet of a living spiritual master. But what really was the point of separation?  I think that awareness has surfaced. Returning from India there was the immediate physical comfort and abundance that encapsulated my physical world and I still felt like a radiated being from the shift in energetic capacity. But what I have grown to observe/sense as I swim in the stream with my tribe?

As an individual, I still have to hold myself accountable for keeping the lint filter cleared off.  With the outward ease, it is easier to let the lint accumulate from the thought form world.  I can create and carry the same energetic heaviness from thought forms (all of the negativity of news, political campaigns, Hollywood gossip, etc.) as I would experience walking down the road to the gym in India with the ongoing physical harassment.  Sure, one is mental and one is physical, but it appears to have a similar affect on the body--a dampening of the state of internal peace.

My interest has been to merge all of it together, so once again I see that I am the limiting vehicle.  In my laziness of letting the thought forms accumulate, it is creating a plaque of sorts.  While in India, I was constantly observing and digesting the disturbances so the plaque could not obscure the work in the ashram and dig through the layers I was already wearing.  I was working to integrate both worlds (inner and outer.)  While currently living with such material ease, it is easy to let the vibration of undigested material to pile up, so back to work.  Being is a form of stillness, but there is an aliveness in it and subtle activity of alertness.  At this point, the being requires a filtering and skillful digestion of whatever wants to create an obscuration from the purity of the Divine.

There was a day in India where I experienced the difference between human love and Absolute Love.  Absolute Love enlists a depth of house cleaning that is beyond words.  For me, it is the place where surrender and uncontrolled tears well up and flood over.  It becomes very noticeable when any action, thought, or word separates one from that connection.  There is no going back.  The awareness is haunting in its clarity.  It is a place of grace, but at this point, it feels like a place of personal accountability to keep taking action to continue walking into that light.  Returning to America is helping me to discern another subtlety in the layers/veils.  Pranam to the wisdom of the Divine Genealogy.

Fun In The Backyard

Checking out the world of the two-leggeds

Cathy's cat and a local buck

A Legal Drunk

The mystic desires what Omar Khayyam calls wine; the wine of Christ, after drinking which, no one will ever thirst.                         Bowl of Saki, May 12, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan: There are many ideas which intoxicate man, many feelings there are which act upon the soul as wine, but there is no stronger wine than the wine of selflessness. It is a might and it is a pride that no worldly rank can give. To become something is a limitation, whatever one may become. Even if a person were to be called the king of the world, he would still not be emperor of the universe. If he were the master of earth, he would still be the slave of Heaven. It is the person who is no one, who is no one and yet all. The Sufi, therefore, takes the path of being nothing instead of being something. It is this feeling of nothingness which turns the human heart into an empty cup into which the wine of immortality is poured. It is this state of bliss which every truth-seeking soul yearns to attain.    from  http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/VIII/VIII_2_8.htm Wine is symbolical of the soul's evolution. Wine comes from the annihilation of grapes, immortality comes from the annihilation of self.    from  http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/XIII/XIII_8.htm I drink the wine of Thy divine presence and lose myself in its intoxication.    from  http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/say/vadan_alankaras.htm When the soul is illuminated, it will desire to find some other soul illuminated in like manner, and will find great joy and bliss in its society. Such a one will surely find others who are on the verge of illumination. Even a drunkard will find others to drink with. And so it is mystically. A very little light can be turned into a flame, and that flame into a very big flame. Why is it better to become a mystic than to remain a drunkard? As a matter of fact a drunkard will never be satisfied. The mystic will look for what Omar Khayyam calls wine: the wine of the Christ, after drinking which no one will ever thirst. He will always seek the wine whose intoxication never wears off. It is the only wine: the intoxication of the divine love.    from  http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/VII/VII_21.htm There is a wine which the mystic drinks, and that wine is ecstasy. A wine so powerful that the presence of the mystic becomes as wine for everyone who comes into his presence. ... That intoxication is the love which manifests in the human heart. What does it matter, once a mystic has drunk that wine, whether he is sitting amongst the rocks in the wilderness, or in a palace? It is all the same. The palace does not deprive him of the mystic's pleasures, and neither does the rock take them away. He has found the kingdom of God on earth, about which Jesus Christ said, 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you.'    from  http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/X/X_3.htm