lies in the heart of chaos … Are you wondering whether you should leave your spiritual practices and spend your time resisting the harm being done? Are you trying to decide if you should quit spending so much time on your own baggage and instead, help to allay the suffering of others? Your wondering is …
Category Archives: spiritual awakening
Ripples of Infinite Aliveness
Years back, my favorite expression was, “What about this can’t you love?” It kind of still is, but I understand it totally differently and probably would use another word besides love, although love when understood for what it actually is, works beautifully. This. Just this. Only this. This alone. This this. Yeah. Life exactly as …
Nothin’ Left to Lose
“Freedom is just another word for nothin’ left to loseNothin’, don’t mean nothin’ hon’ if it ain’t free, no-no”Me and Bobby MCGee, Janis JoplinNothing left to lose is an interesting concept, right there along with freedom. One holds the potential of captivity, while the other dangles the promise of something to hold onto. The actuality …
Today I Grieve
Today I am grieving. Deeply. Painfully. Messily. Preciously. Not for the beloveds I’ve lost but for this world imploding about me. Maybe it’s nothing to grieve. Perhaps it was never worth the love I gave it. Maybe this country has always been the monster in the closet that everyone cowered from while smiling and pretending …
Boom! What Aren’t You Appreciating?
After a morning without power, I’m snugged up in my cushy chair watching the snow fall … and accumulate. It is putting it down right now. Wow. I awoke this morning to the sound of a transformer blowing – bang. No that’s too high, this one boomed, snapped and grumbled. Not a sound you expect …
This Sucks
It’s so easy to get sucked into the insanity, but ask yourself, who or what gets sucked? That part of you who believes you’re right and that what’s happening is wrong gets sucked into the void of crazy town, not the present moment awareness in which that sucking sound appears, but the idea, the concept, …
Bridging the Ever-Widening Gap
There are infinite responses available to us as we approach possibly the last (anything’s possible) peaceful handover of power on January 20th. Several come to mind: unbridled anger, deep and clawing angst, suffocating depression, willful ignorance, and feigned neutrality that would put Switzerland on notice. Oh, I forgot myself for the moment. Geez, can’t forget …
The Self: Mind’s Masterpiece
There’s an infinitesimal tipping point, a razor’s edge of sorts, where the individuated mind assumes control, or seems to, but of course, it doesn’t really. It’s that breath where the pause between thoughts, the spaciousness of beingness, is stealthily overwritten by identity. It’s a spellbinding miracle, that nothing creates something out of nothing, or the …
The Story Writes Itself
It’s quite unsettling, and that’s not a bad thing, to recognize that this is all mind and what most call mind actually knows nothing. Another frickin’ paradox. Yup. It’s all paradox. Isn’t that a hoot! What we think of as ourselves is actually living, breathing paradox. Now that statement is bound to piss off a …
Question: Do you think reality is benevolent?
A friend sent me this question: Do you think reality is benevolent? My response may be of interest to many of you. From observation, I tend to experience it as benevolent, that it trends organically towards harmony. When life is left alone, let be as it is, it quite naturally wholes itself. That ‘leave it …
The Golden Idols of Our Lives
People want to use spirituality just like they want to use God. Fix me. Heal me. Help me. Awaken me. Overcome my enemies. Help my side win. People use money, power, force, and other people, exerting influence to the same end. There’s not a lot of difference between any of them. Some propel the world …
All That’s Left is Paradox
It’s easy to get sucked into non-duality, to think it is the answer. It’s true, well as true as anything is true. It’s the closest to describing what this is that I have found. I don’t argue that at all. Do you hear that sucking sound?I get it! That’s right. It makes sense. Hell no! …
Why Would Anyone Want to Wake Up?
Arguing with life, stressing out over what’s here and what’s not, makes you and everyone around you miserable. Most of us look for ways to make life better, but what if there is no way? How many years have you been at it, trying to win the unwinnable game? You win one and lose two. …
Ode to Sleeplessness
I sleep well most nights. This is something relatively new for me. For many years, I was a raging insomniac. I didn’t sleep well last night and found myself meditating around 4am, not so much to get to sleep but for something to pass the time. Sitting there, my pillow tucked behind my back, and …
Run, Rusty, Run!
A friend once told me that my practice was a type of self-soothing. It pissed me off. To my mind, the deep shadow work, the search for truth was anything but soothing. I wasn’t trying to feel better, or so I thought, I was after the big prize: Truth with a capital T. I’d sat …
Amaya Gayle 