Category: Blog

gitanabarby:

farruquito y familia

 

Fire: The Dance of Intimacy

 

Something is happening, like a slow simmer tenderizing the border of things. At the boundary of the flesh and at the interface between my heart and the world, I can feel how the correct amount of heat invites what is hidden or held apart to come forth, open, show itself, soften, vibrate, delineate, copulate, expand, intertwine, define, wonder, touch, feel, love. At this sacred edge, self and other become doorway and door.

Fire moves and circulates life from the edges toward a centering principle. In humans it is our heart that holds the fire, encouraging engagement, relatedness, kinship, belonging. Over time, fire is capable of creating something completely new from a multitude of complex parts without losing the wholeness of each part. Even if each separateness dissolves in the process, it paradoxically can never lose its integrity completely when rooted in the spirit of the heart.

The firing process is about the inner work necessary for transformation. It is the inner fire we tend deep within the cauldron of the heart that steadily warms the inner journey. Continue reading “Fire: The Dance of Intimacy” →

 

 

The Way of Dragon Veins:

A Prayer From Where the Heart Begins

 

There is a breathing that is more than our own, a palpable stream of cosmic vitality that moves, enlivens, connects and transforms along numinous pathways between heaven and earth. Ancient Taoists knew these currents as dragon veins, along which the breath of life—qi—ushers emptiness and form back and forth to one another; moving between realms like an unborn, undying prayer from the heart of existence ceaselessly offering its spirit to the full potential of embodied life.

As spring winds steadily fan the flaming spirit of summer’s becoming, warmth and light is offered to the hidden or not-yet-formed things so that they may continue their full emergence and live in the world of form and time. There is no such thing as holding back to plants, creature beings, planets, stars. Life is made to bear fruit, and in so doing, dies wholly to itself over and again in a participatory dance of inter-being.

In the midst of the bursting exuberance of spring, it is easy to forget that growth is also contingent on inward acts like letting go. Growth is mostly not smooth and happens in stages, each one requiring courage, faith, trust and death. Birth requires much dying. Immense suffering is often the result of not knowing how and when to die, and that it is simply okay to let go. Continue reading “The Way of Dragon Veins: A Prayer From Where the Heart Begins” →

 

 

Drumming On Bamboo To Call A Phoenix

 

In meditation this morning it feels as though I’m riding a wild dragon. As my mind whirls in chaos, I return to breath and open my gaze through the inner eye. A moment of silence fades as thoughts reassert themselves. I return to breath and gaze with my inner eye. Back and forth it goes until my attention is called to the steady pitter patter of rain upon the rooftop. Its sound trickles gently through my being. A bird’s song sparks an inner lightness and perceptions clear and brighten. Thunder rumbles in the distance becoming louder and closer, attuning me to center.

Inner and outer continue to intermingle in deep conversation until they become one and the same. Timelessness infuses the time-bound, flowering into a pregnant pause. There is a softening, and then Emptiness.

A kaleidoscope of light, color and moving shapes envelope me. It is fluid in the way that water is, melting the remaining tightness in my body. A face emerges from this watery substrate and I recognize the small, young seal who traveled with me when I walked the beach yesterday. In moments of stopping and gazing at one another we entered a space of inter-being. A profound love arose and overflowed from my heart. Continue reading “Drumming On Bamboo To Call A Phoenix” →