Morning Reveals Itself

Morning reveals itself: 

morning reveals itself to me in its hours just before dawn, and every part of me respond to its hushed tones, my breath matched to its quiet motion, heartbeat even paced and slow in its rhythm, my thoughts are few, subtle, passing without the fanfare of my attention. I find myself meditating before I even reach my cushion, as if pulled to a more significant silence than my own. 

perhaps it's only myself revealed, with these early hours simply being the gift of my reflection, and I become more fully alive within the silence that they offer. What seems true is that it's a quite seamless revelation, listening to the morning silence and I only hear life in its first stir of another day arriving, feeling its pulse as my own, a single body in a slow stretch towards the coming light. 

morning reveals itself in unexpected ways.

it's in these hours that I'm most restful, more truly myself in the quiet hold of dawn than any other time throughout the day. Morning reveals itself as my original and true nature, this significant silence that allows the motion of the world to unfold through the moments of my listening, and with every sound being a portion of my soul in the form of early song. 

morning reveals itself as mantra.

and that it's all vibration, this being why my meditation starts from first moment of awakening, earlier still, that I am pulled awake by the vibrational qualities of these morning hours, asked to join myself in their silence before the proper start of day. My mantra vibrates as the dawn, light in a slow reveal through darkness, a seamless point of silence and sound meeting in the earliest morning birdsong. It's all revealed to me, no, more truly so, it's all revealed as my own awakening.

morning reveals itself to me...

my light being true dawn. 

and every hour is my awakening. 

~

Peace, Eric 

Magical

Magical: 

it's a point of ego to believe that I have control and a certain power over the aspects of my life that bring me please and the avoidance of many of life's sorrows. Seeing my life more clearly now and I know that it was this very belief that kept me trapped within a seemingly endless cycle of working hard towards building an ego that finally knew success and the failure and defeat of never measuring up to a made believe standard. It was the illusion of control asserted by the appearance of a  false sense of self, ego, magical thinking really, and it always doomed to fail. 

so I say ego, and by this I mean a total belief in an identity that was somehow separate from the very environment that was my true and only home. Ego is simply a label for this false sense of identity, neither good nor bad, but never truly in control of any situation. Ego, in this description at least, is an appearance of a self brought by endless thoughts of who I believed myself to be. It's the voice of parents, teachers, media, and even strangers who offered an opinion in their passing. They all gained a position in my held, wielded influence and control - and all the while I believed the voice was me. 

it was magical thinking.

and yet, 

there always remained a deeper voice of silence, intuitive, a magic found beyond the scope of thinking and beliefs. This was the voice of life, my only true and real self, and it was available to be heard in the moments of my surrender. Ego never really has any true power, believing so was the magical thinking that kept me trapped within its false narrative. Life was simply happening, flowing with every possibility of success and seeming failure and I was always an essential current of its flow, never separate, and never, ever in control. There is magical thinking...and there is magic. 

life is magic,

spontaneous,

beyond the sense of my control.

and this was my eventual surrender, not eliminating ego, but just letting go of the illusion of its control, no longer giving in to its every distraction and demand. My life is magical now, truly so, and not of belief, but by being entirely embraced by life's flow, and that I am a current within its endless stream of every possibility and appearance. 

magical. 

~

Peace, Eric 

Process of Awakening

Process of awakening: 

meditation is part of it, or so it has been for me, and yet it's not the sole means of any process of awakening. I don't believe there is a single method that leads to a direct revelation of a certain truth and understanding of ourselves. It's life that leads us to this point and really it's more if a surrender than it is a great reveal of who we really are. Meditation helped bring me to this point, being a continuous letting go of the activity of clinging to my thoughts. I naturally found myself relaxing to my own company, unconcerned by the flow of thoughts and simply resting in the awareness of their passing - and this eventually, easily, led me to a restful inner silence. 

it was a start.

and still a meaningful part of my life. 

inquiry too has aided the process of awakening, most specifically the Headless exercises of Douglas Harding, pointing towards my actual present experience of emptiness and at once finding that this too holds the completeness of the world. It was an instant awakening, really not a process at all, but a satori of availability, reality always found exactly where I pointed, immediately showing the truth of who I am without need or use of any words. 

indeed, it's beyond whatever could be told.

and perhaps it's my own sorrow that has provided the surest path to my surrender, a low level depression that's filled a large portion of my years, a past struggle with addiction, losing relationships and the love of others. My sorrow brought to me to the point of letting go, a surrender to the magic of the present moment that seemed completely unavailable until the instant I let go.

so it seems to me that life itself is the process of awakening and every practice, guru, and spiritual book is simply a means along the way, valuable for the moment of their need. Meditation and inquiry fuel my artistic inspiration, they are aspects of my life of great importance and I perform them without any expectations of the possibility of enlightenment. 

but they are a demonstration of reality.

an awaken moment of their own.

not needing to be anything more than this.

it's all a process of awakening. 

~

Peace, Eric 

Arrive

Arrive: 

it's always better to let words find me, allowing them to arrive on their own without my chase for theme or inspiration. My preference is to write early in the morning, just after meditation, and I feel relaxed and open to receive the world. It seems a magical time to me, from first moment of awakening the day appears ready made for me to be alive, noting the ease of breath and how everything I need for just this moment is present right now, and that life appears completely on its own without any demand for its arrival. 

somehow.

why should writing be any different? 

words arrive, they always do, and the only question is if I'm content in the silence of my waiting, willing to allow words to find me without my interference offered. I've learned to love this silence, no matter how long, a pause between words and inspiration that seems so filled with the potentiality of all that could ever be written. It's impossible to rush this, and would disturb the sacredness of the pause to even try. It's always better to let words find me. 

a poet learns how to sit in silence.

words will always arrive.

completely on their own.

in this sense, every word ever written is spontaneous in appearance, and that a writer's quick claim of ownership will simply mask the moment of their inspiration. It seems better to not take credit all for their arrival, that my contribution is of patience and the artful arrange of words given. This too is how life proceeds, inspired, spontaneous, sacred in pause as well as motion. I am not the author here, not of these words, nor of how life appears through every moment. 

it's all a gift.

everything. 

somehow now arriving. 

~

Peace, Eric 

Continuous In It's Forgiveness

Continuous in its forgiveness: 

 that we're always forgiving, happening at once, and with each moment found innocent of any past notion of injury or harm, immediate in the healing that it offers. It's just the way of life, having already accepted whatever circumstances appear and now moving in a new direction, continuous in its forgiveness. This too is how we proceed, even as the mind clings to past behavior, blame, and hurt caused by words and the actions of others, we move on, carried by life through its motion. 

continuous in its forgiveness.

and so with this we see that any act of forgiveness is really only a ritual of intent and design, one meant to cause our surrender to what the present moment holds, a reclaim of innocence, and a return to our original healing nature. We are rejoined to life's flow, continuous too now, and free of any claims the past attempts to hold us to. This isn't about forgetting, nor is it letting go of any lessons learned from our previous engagements, we're wiser in this moment, insightful, clear, and our surrender is to the wisdom accumulated by our motion, gaining experience even as our innocence is reclaimed. 

continuous in our own forgiveness too.

of course no ritual is ever really needed, it's just a tool of recognition, reminding us of our own forgiving nature, that are already and always immediately healed of past harm. Yes, scars exist, this isn't a denial of any previous hurt, nor is it a refusal to accept our current sorrows. But healing only and always takes place in the immediacy of right now, each moment is our innocence regained, fresh in its potentiality, free in its offering of new choices to be made. The truth is that we've already forgiven any issues of the past, we're continuous in our healing, always in motion...

innocent.

~

Peace, Eric 

Karman Line

Karman line: 

it's called the Karman line, an imagined boundary of air between our commonly viewed sky and where the infinite reach of space is noted to begin. Hungarian physicist Theodore Von  Karman determined this point as the edge of space, being about 62 miles above earth as the atmosphere thins, becoming less dense and a different quality in its measure. Of course it's a scientific distinction, terms given to the change of air. Yet the reality is simply space, with no real determined point of separation, only that infinite reach that includes our world within its sweep. 

there is no real point of separation.

we're the universe at large. 

if anything the Karman line is a welcoming point, where the atmosphere provides us a greater quality of air to breathe and life to thrive. It's amazing how this is all determined so precisely, as if measured for the ease of our existence, everything so perfectly, artfully arranged for our convenience. Space literally becomes more dense in greeting us, welcoming, changing its very nature for the sake of earth's comfort. This is the only proof of God that I need, and it's no different than any scientific point of view, it's just the operation of the universe, not a God of separation but one of our inclusion. 

that we're the universe at large.

God, as well. 

 and no Karman line is ever measured.

so there is no real point of separation between the atmosphere and space, neither ends for the beginning of the other, no border that determines the existence of the other. There's simple space, the universe changing in quality for the sake of earth to thrive and stars to shine. It's all one thing only, and we are fully involved in this order, aspects of the whole, with no Karman line between us. We're the universe, our bodies made from collapsed stars and we've somehow gained awareness of who and what we really are. Not the slightest bit of separation is ever really measured, only space, emptiness giving rise to form and allowing our existence to be known....

however briefly,

a Karman line of our distinction. 

~

Peace, Eric 

Shift

Shift: 

it's more of an energy shift, certainly not enlightenment, at least not in any traditional description, and not even an awakening of any life altering significance - but just a subtle shift towards an easy understanding of myself, or perhaps really, that I don't know myself at all, a mystery of both emptiness and appearance, a Heart Sutra of suspense as I seem to shift with every introspective view.

it's seeing myself as capacity as well as its fulfillment.

emptiness and form. 

life. 

and more subtle still is the absence of wishing for a great change of any present situation, being content to simply relax in this sense of mystery and allow life to unfold exactly as it will. I find myself more responsive, appropriate in actions taken, at ease to how life responds in turn. It's a shift of energy away from seeking better answers and being more interested in the quality of my questions, exploring possibilities as they continuously unfold. 

what I am now is an inquiry without wish for any answers.

a shift from seeker to explorer.

subtle, more and more,

until...

and that's the mystery - I simply don't know where life will take me, how this inquiry will evolve and what further possibilities will  come to be explored. It's all continuously changing, energetic patterns lasting only for a moment, shifting once more, and I am never the same through any point of notice. What I find now is that it's not a shift of any true becoming, it's not enlightenment, nor even an awakening of any kind, but that I am this shifting energy, always in motion, an inquiry of emptiness and appearance. 

a temporary pattern...

noticed.

~

Peace, Eric