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Why do I tremble these days?
Shake myself to pieces
in the centre of this hurricane.
A fear so sacred it doesn't
shout, it whispers.
Chill-cold of a mountain that pushes down on me.
I am aligned with a void that opens
gash-mouthed maw into my soul.

Shudder those tree tops.
Rooted to the molten core of earth.
We can only shine forth,
with a ferocious scream.

A singular intention
to be.
I am.
Nothing in particular,
everything in regard.

I am.
In the centre.
Expanded out. Like a canvas across the starry sky.
Storms are out to sea. I am here.
On the sand and crying.
Crying, long lost child in this universal stream.

Oh why; why do I tremble these days?
An axis. A central column to orientate me.
An silent core that rushes its strength into my frame.

Why do I still tremble?

Understood

I've thrown my heart space
onto rough ground.
Death a beat intense around my head.
I held your breathe for you. I held it
deep in my bones.
You moaned if I left. You asked me to stay a little.
I stayed. I witnessed.
I never knew it felt so tight in my chest.
All. The. Time.
Mortality beats in my blood
and I sit with you.
Curtains closed for you, light too intense
when there is a tunnel blazing.
The rattle of a sigh
shouting, "suffer no more life".
I will carry your frame into
a new world. A place we both
can finally, once we pass, call
home.

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If I let go,
where do I fall to?
Is there a space in this
for me to land?

I feel myself moving at blurring speed,
teetering,
tottering.

This void within I grasp at,
let go at,
scream at, rage at, fall feet first at.
Teaches me to let be.
I can't not force it, force of will.
I tired out, tremble out, muscle shakeshakeshake.
Sweat tumbling torrential pour.

I have no eyes
and finally...I exhausted,
I see.

Defining

What is a definition but a holding space for the ego to rest into.

It needs to hold a concept within itself. Defining itself by the concepts and definitions it made up in the first place. Well, it made up by virtue of being born into a collective social context and the nurturing of our perspectives through the associations we make.

Life is pushing us beyond the borders of self-imposed boundaries. Things you think you need in order to be happy, in order to be content, they are like shifting sands on the screen of awareness. Neti neti - not this not that. Resting into the awareness of all arising phenomena without holding onto needing or wanting a concept of a situation.

Melt into what is right in front of you. The client who has asked for your services - serve in the moment. The friend whose eyes meet yours in communion - commune in that moment. A deeply held embrace honoured and cherished in that moment; then get ready for work.

If we drop our concepts and allow the felt-sense of this moment meet us fully we realise there is no need to crave, to be averse, to struggle with our reality. It requires a brutal honesty with the heart of the world we so want to surrender to.

Surrender is not another act that we try and do. It is the ultimate non-doing, an intense letting go of our needs. The tantrums of the ego dim themselve into a small hum in the distance of our consciousness as the universe is made our centre.

So I choose this moment: surrender. Not as an act of will but as an act of faith that there is nothing to fear in being no definition; absolutely nothing at all.

Poems on a late evening

Twixt

I, with the deep roots
of experience that nourish
a core,
without form, within emptiness.

You, with the high branches,
forever caught by wind.
A boundary,
drawing inside and outside lines.

Living in amorphous space
we breath eachother in.
Breath for breath,
exhale and inhale.
The enticing caress of an option
not to be taken but
to be freely given.


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If only
I could keep my centre
still.
It rocks like a cyclone
ripping off chunks
of me,
flung tilt-a-whirl
into torrent.

Prayer. Rocking against the wind
an only defense,
when there is no Self to hold onto.

The tearing apart
of any definitions
hardens me against the tides.

Enough. It is just enough.
This moment.
These currents, these flows,
these unchangeable chasms.
I surrender to reverance,
the sacred shining in the dark heart.

Enough.
Just enough.
Right now. Enough.

Enough.
Enough.

Dance blood

I give my feet to the earth,
dance my blood
wet into clumps of sand.
My core melts
into waves
that crack, lightning-hot,
into boulders.
Each long held beat,
beats itself into existence.
Dissonance the only resonance
I can hold,
thumbing it like a wound.

There is an urgency
to the ground
that holds me
in my chaotic whirlings.
It speaks of rhythm and timing
and the choices of man.

Each syncopated shout
throws me deeper into myself.
I am the centre thrown out
into life.
To fight,
to surrender,
to ask,
to question.

To hold nothing but
these feet,
beating a path in
the red-speckled sand.

Where to place this?

Your thoughts
hit me like a pulsar
spinning fast on its axis;
blinding me at the speed of light.
An eternal runaway speed.

Narrowly focused on
a beam sent through the dark night,
deep into a heart
that aches each moment it breaths.

Only coming up for air
when I am drowning
in the pea-green flood of rain
that splashes a discovery of the spaces
that stay dry.

This space
that heals itself just
to be burnt through again.
Waiting for water to evaporate the pain
in a desert of waiting for
an answer to a question that is never asked.

Some poetry

Sometimes late at night
I lie in the deep, deep grass
and wrap myself in starlight.
Drench myself in the noise of crickets
and silence.
Allow my spirit to be swayed
flotsam and jetsam
in the quiet breeze of the midnight sun.
Til I let go
and nothing remains
but the slow turning of the earth
in the silent ground.



Ek is net a klein persoon
tussen die maan en die son
en ek verdwaal in die geheime
van die aarde
en die klop-klop-klop van tyd
wat breek oop my vel.

Rus 'n bietjie hier in die koue stilte

se die wolke wat blink tussen die son skyn.

Touching Enlightenment

This morning the hurricane of my mind was buffetting this poor man sitting on his cushion trying to find some PEACE AND QUIET!! Alas.



This got me to thinking; what is it that we are doing when we make the commitment to sit with ourselves each day? It is a bit like the US postal service (let me not get into our postal service: in a queue yesterday for 30 minutes to mail a letter and practice non-attachment to it arriving at all). So...US postal service, rain or shine, good or bad; we deliver. Meditation: hurricanes, criticism, praise, boredom; we non-attach.

Most mornings I use a blend of shamatha practice (calm-abiding) focusing on the breath and body sensation. Our body being completely present in the nowness of experience. The mind flitting through the froth of make-believe future and nostalgic past. Unless we anchor our experience in the rich darkness of our lived bodies we are off on tangents. Intersecting reality only when we take a moment to breath and re-centre in the vastness of our somatic being.

To touch enlightenment, to allow the marrow of it to surround our lives must be rooted in an embodied self. So many of us doing anything to not feel. Our bodies floating like kelp in the sea of awareness, all we need do is to allow ourselves to be held in awareness. To allow this very moment and this moment and this moment. The rise and fall of the ocean waves don't change the nature of wetness ie. of awareness.

Waves crash, life hurts, waves rise, passions swell. Each and every breath surfing the depth of the ocean of awareness. You look to see who is watching...and you feel that there is nothing but the breath, the sun, the waves and a moment stretching into infinity.

So take this very moment to touch enlightenment. This very moment you are whole, you are complete. It was just a fog that has lifted to show you the huge expanse of oceanic awareness that you drop into.

Namaste.

Where is my centre?

We think of centering as a continual narrowing of focus until we touch the pearl… but in practice centering is a continual expansion of focus until we become the ocean - Stephen Levine

I thought to take this quote as a starting point for my meanderings this morning. Everyone from new-agers to healers to life coaches talk about centering. What does it mean to be centered? With all the chaotic whirlwinds of a modern life, it is an important aspect to being alive in the world. Holding your centre in the storm of it all.

With the illusion of the ego as a solid state we might fall into a trap of holding that coalescence of consciousness there. Perhaps there is another way as the above quote initimates. We merge with everything. We centre ourselves in the reality that all is One. All is an expression of Spirit in its many myriad of forms. What is it that seperates us? So, centering becomes a practice of centering yourself in that truth. There is no solidity to hold on to. There is only expansive awareness arising out of the body and shining forth in limitless directions.

Your whole being centres itself in the holarchy of all phenomena. Nested within an infinite expression of forms and interplays of consciousness. We rest in the truth that truly nothing is seperate from us. Centering then becomes an expression of Spirit shining forth in this very moment. Centering doesn't become another dead practice for upholding the small ego on its throne. Centering allows us then to de-centre from ego and flip it on its head.

We centre in Truth. We de-centre illusion. This is Spirit actively living out its truth.

Stories...oh those old refrains

Today, or to be honest for the past few months I have been talking to alot of friends (and other poor bystanders who get caught in the maelstrom of my conversational gravitas) about the stories that our egos like to spin. These long-winded currents that we get swept up into and float along the river of old refrains. Not the truth. Certainly not very useful. Unless you happen to like the story but that is another story altogether. How fickle this judging mind.

Meditative practice is all about sitting in non-judging awareness. The preliminary ground of all phenomena that arise out of just this very witnessing awareness. We make friends with this ground that all states arise out of. We become familiar with our own basic nature that can hold all things, good and bad.

Where do stories fit in with all this malarky you may ask?

What would it be like to be able to watch your story but not buy into it? Meditation allows us the resting capacity of this. Many times I have seen the act of my mind latching onto a simple phrase, and like a spider spin it into crystal lined webs for me to ravel myself up into. If you sit in that space that allows even the story and your part in it suddenly you see that it is all made up. It is all illusion. Illusion in its truest sense - not this reality. Another alternate universe where you are wronged or you are a saviour or a glorious ego-king almighty and powerful.

Each moment is its own truth. When you can detach from the story and witness it you begin to see the truth of it. It has no independant existence. It is like an ethereal mist. You can get lost in it or you can sit and watch it til it passes and make your journey through the wood of life free from blindness. It is all in how you hold it. All in how you practice coming back to this very moment and seeing the truth of it. This is all you have.

And if any of you get it right for more than 5 % of the time...please give me a call and tell me your secret. Practice makes, not perfect, but just right, as it is.

Just a single step

To begin something, for me at least, has always been a difficult thing. In my supplement pack today I got the quote, "Energy creates energy". The momentum of starting something up keeps that very thing going once you have pushed some energy into it.

So why this blog? Just my fingers crossing the atlas of a keyboard and seeing what comes to the fore. I hope to explore issues ranging from bodywork, consciousness, meditation, integral living and many such topics. I want to allow it to be an organic process of sharing and developing these ideas with others.

My fundamental question: what is it for little-I to live a conscious life in this world of complex systems and the immense cosmos? I have always looked up into an inky night and felt a deep connection to this little speck floating amongst the stars and all of us who live on it. The heart longs to connect and know the other...yet we are uniquely us and alone. The divine paradox of aloneness and connection. Compassion our only cord to resonate with others and let that aloneness be something of value. Something to cherish.

A truth: we all suffer. Through that we can connect to the entire cosmos and as Chogyam Trungpa said "our genuine heart of sadness"...stars end their lives in fantastic explosions, we end our lives exploding our life-force out of a mortal coil. This blog an explosion happening in a blogosphere and seeing if a few telescopes are honed in on it.

Little-I. Sitting here. Typing. Allowing my core to integrate with the cosmos and connect to little-you. Take a moment. Breath in this very singular moment. We are.