“We are vanishing from the earth, yet I cannot think we are useless or else Usen would not have created us. He created all tribes of men and certainly had a righteous purpose in creating each… There is one God looking down on us all. We are all the children of one God. The sun, the darkness, the winds are all listening to what we have to say.”

Apache leader Geronimo, who died on this day in 1909

“We live within an earth full of wild reciprocity, each being- the rooted, feathered, winged, furred and scaled all bring their own medicine, their own purpose to themselves and to their wild community.
Our bodies, woven from nature, are made of this love.
So gifted are we with tools that show us our care, that speak our core each day, in a language older than words,.
Eyes that show us of the beauty of this world, hands and bodies to feel the wild waters, the touch of petal and child’s hand.
Our breath that softens, calms and clears.
Our feet that take us to forest, meadow and river.
A tongue to taste with, to speak our truth to whisper our spells.
Minds and hearts that dream, ears to listen to song, wind, water and word.
A nose to smell the delights of spring the fruits of autumn, the death of winter and the fullness of summer.
This body, this toolkit is full of love, and it shows it each day, it holds you in each moment.
Remember the beauty you are made from, listen to the reciprocity of bone, skin and blood.
Know how you are held.”
Brigit Anna McNeill

“In meditation
my mind wanders,
but I don’t.

In meditation
the moth keeps dancing
around the flame.
The moth is the Lord.
I am the flame.

In meditation
the sea is wild
and the boat is small.
It is a dangerous crossing.
The ferryman paddles
furiously.

My back to the waves,
I sit in the bow
calling to the boatman,
“Follow me!
I will lead you to the other shore
where my Mother is waiting.
She will pay you well.”

In meditation
when you touch
that other shore
the ferryman awakens.
There is no ocean, no boat,
no passenger.

Only the Mother
singing the waves,
wearing the dark
blue veil
of the boatman’s breath.”

Fred Lamotte

Second Sight by David Whyte,

“Sometimes, you need the ocean light,
and colors you’ve never seen before
painted through an evening sky.

Sometimes you need your God
to be a simple invitation
not a telling word of wisdom.

Sometimes you need only the first shyness
that comes from being shown things
far beyond your understanding,

so that you can fly and become free
by being still and by being still here.

And then there are times you want to be
brought to ground by touch
and touch alone.

To know those arms around you
and to make your home in the world
just by being wanted.

To see eyes looking back at you,
as eyes should see you at last,

seeing you, as you always wanted to be seen,
seeing you, as you yourself
had always wanted to see the world.”

“Each individual experiences life in two worlds. There is the outer world and there is the inner world. One is the realm of the effect while the other is the realm of the cause. When we surrender to the sensory impressions of the outer world, then life is in the realm of effect, and we continually find ourselves in situations and predicaments that feel beyond our control. However, if we live from the inside out, we then live as masters. The interior, inner world, is the essence and the cause of the outer.”
Rav DovBer Pinson

“To say that we are the presence of God in this world is not a metaphor. We are the face of God in this world, and God’s voice and hands. God changes outcomes in this world only as we change them. God is not an independent agent, in other words. God is dependent upon us. The active agency of the divine life emerges through our choices and actions.”
Galen Guengerich

Today is the feast day of Irish Saint Gobnait. Her legend tells that she was born in County Clare in the fifth or sixth century, and went to study the monastic life on Inisheer in the Aran Islands. Here an angel appeared and told her that this was “not the place of her resurrection” and that she should look for a place where she would find nine white deer grazing. She travelled around Ireland and eventually found the deer at Ballyvourney in County Cork, where she founded a monastery, kept bees and cared for the sick, using the healing properties of honey.

St. Gobnait and the Place of Her Resurrection by Christine Valters Paintner,

“On the tiny limestone island
an angel buzzes to Gobnait
in a dream, disrupts her plans,
sends her in search of nine white deer.

She wanders for miles across
sea and land until at last
they appear and rather than
running toward them

she falls gently to wet ground,
sits in silence as light crawls across sky,
lets their long legs approach
and their soft, curious noses surround her.

Breathing slowly, she slides back
onto grass and clover and knows
nothing surpasses this moment,
a heaven of hooves and dew.

Is there a place for each of us,
where we no longer yearn to be elsewhere?
Where our work is to simply soften,
wait, and pay close attention?

She smiles as bees gather eagerly
around her too, wings humming softly
as they collect essence of wildflowers,
transmuting labor into gold.”

Returning Home by Kashmiri mystic and poet Lalla (1320 – 1392),

“I rushed here and there, longing,
seeking and searching, day and night.
At last I returned home and found
what I was looking for—the guru inside!
Like grasping a star, I held on.
Controlling my breath,
like fanning a flame with a bellows,
my heart-lamp came alight.
Breathing on that light,
the chaff that separates me
from my true nature scattered.
Now even in darkness
that light holds me tight.
Go ahead, rule a kingdom—no rest there.
Give it away—your heart’s still troubled.
Only free your soul from desire—
the soul that never dies!
Better yet, while alive, die.
Then you’ll know the truth.
Your reputation is like water
carried in a basket.
If you can hold the wind in your hand
or leash an elephant with your hair—
sure, then you can hold onto it!”

For Beauty by John O’Donohue,

“As stillness in stone to silence is wed
May solitude foster your truth in word.

As a river flows in ideal sequence
May your soul reveal where time is presence.

As the moon absolves the dark of distance,
May your style of thought bridge the difference.

As the breath of light awakens colour
May the dawn anoint your eyes with wonder.

As spring rain softens the earth with surprise
May your winter places be kissed with light.

As the oceans dreams to the joy of dance
May the grace of change bring you elegance.

As clay anchors a tree in light and wind
May your outer life grow from peace within.

As twilight pervades the belief of night,
May beauty sleep lightly within your heart.”

An Invitation to Give Up Being Advanced by Fred Lamotte,

“Spiritual egos make a distinction between “beginner’s techniques” and “advanced techniques.” Their intellect wants something difficult to do, a sense of accomplishment. That is why so many new age teachers speak of their spiritual “work.” Do they ever speak of their spiritual “play”?

Ease is the cure for dis-ease. The deepest, most healing spiritual practice, we ease into. In fact, we do not practice. We let go of practice. Only the absolute innocence of the beginner, starting over again each moment, can experience the end of the journey, the goal. For the goal is always already attained by Grace.

The goal is never an achievement done by “advanced” practice, but the dissolution of the do-er. It is known by un-knowing and done by un-doing. This can only happen to the effortless. The most powerful meditation is the simplest, the most natural.

When you really look at people who carry a bag of “advanced” techniques, you often see a weariness behind the stiff mask of their perpetual smile. Or they look tentative, because they are always taking the next step, and never completely here. Only the beginner dwells in eternal freshness, the greening power of the heart. The beginner is never advanced because she is present.

In the deepest and most natural meditation, you never have to leave your body. Every atom of your body is already woven out of swirling stars, and rooted in mycelia for a hundred subterranean miles in every direction. No wind can uproot the beginner. No wound can puncture the intergalactic stillness in the Beginner’s core…

When you meditate, be a beginner. Always feel the freshness of the first day of creation, “in the beginning,” when God and his breath, the Goddess, create the universe again. Now is the beginning. Now is the end of time. How could now be advanced?”