In a shifting sand ceremony -
a world of tea and story and codex -
the truth approaches, silent and unspoken
like longing never settled and always
in expectance…

it isn’t the amber in transparent cups, nor the flames;
not the tent or bright rug, nor the scent of horse
and sheep on the hot wind,
but in the things we make, not me or you,
but us, we –the things we make that last (so precious few)
that’s where you find me, and I find you.

…of things that know no borders and no language can describe
or hide within the vastness of a tiny star,
or even smaller universe, where things we should keep
and things we should not embrace –

and us?

We are merely the need of something larger than that star
or universe approaching in things we make,
not me or you, but Us, We –

the things we make that last are so precious few,
that’s where I find me, and you find you.

And later in the coolness of tonight,
the taste of desert tea still in my soul,
I will surround my memories with a vision
of earlier awakenings and a shifting sand world,
for nothing changes in this dreamtime realm,
but remains deep within a moving heart,
silent, unsaid, reaching down to us through longing
woven into the fabric of life…

a shifting sand ceremony -
worlds of tea and story and codex –

…into the truth arriving,

silent

and already Known.

This, then, is our ordeal.

 

The wildness here is like no other. Even in the wildest range of mountains, there is solid ground for us to put our feet on. Here, there is nothing solid.

 

No safety.

Only our boat.

 

Only our small cramped boat that is being tossed about in the wildness of solitude. Even in the sudden calm and doldrums of the sea, there is a wildness, a language that we know but can not speak. In this stillness, we languish, hoping for a wind to take us west, north, south, east. Somewhere. The horizon is everywhere. Distant; smudged and misty. No island. Nothing solid. Only the wild stillness and silence.

 

When the island appears, it seems as if it does so from nowhere. Perhaps it rose up from the bottom of the sea. Perhaps in our stillness we have moved more than we perceived. The island that called to us long ago, the island that has always called to us, has been reached.

We put ashore on the misty and mystical shore.

 

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I hadn’t expected it and maybe it was the change from the slate blue lake to the closeness of the green of the island, but once I set foot upon Innisfallen, I knew it was a special place. I wonder if, as I suspect,  it is inherently spiritual or if the centuries of learning, contemplative practice and service make it a place more spiritual than most.

I wonder if that is possible, that any one place can be more alive than others. I doubt it.

I suspect very strongly that Innisfallen is inherently spiritual, but I also suspect very strongly that the years of work that happened there make that spirituality more available to the dull senses of the all-too-common and limited human.

At any rate, as soon as I set foot upon the island, I knew. It was like seeing a lovers face after a long absence, but it was also the thrill of new love; the excitement of seeing new life and knowing that that life is surfacing from somewhere deep within the cosmos, emerging here for whatever reason. I knew it, and I was thankful for knowing it.

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I stood facing west once and watched a mountain dance, watched it change slowly, from the first timid breaking of light to the final remoteness and inevitable return of darkness – absorption and radiation… green slopes upwards to the grey summit, spotted here and there with green. During the long dance of the mountains day, the clouds came and went, changing the intensity of light, the intensity of green or grey or white.

By midday the colors, vibrant in the absorption of light, delighted in their creativity and re-imagined the mountain into being. All too soon though, the intensity of light waned and the mountain and I passed from vibrancy into hushed waiting. The early mountain evening came and when the shadow of the mountain at last overtook me, I found myself still waiting, longing to recede with the green into the dark where there are no colors, only a darker shade of black to remind me of their presence.

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Low flight Wingtips touching Water of a mountain lake
Lovers below the surface at last embrace
no-need for air and stars and moon reflecting the pattern
from the cave stone floor of what can never be seen
Naked eyes are here Seeing clouds dancing to songs
of crickets and shamans show Flowing mountains
of eagle wings

Serpents float to the surface and become lovers
gasping in the sacred scream and an arm around me
Smoke filled room and chanting tongues of safety
and of space and of falling through the womb
and falling through may the gods be with us in the center
I searched

I searched
the universe for You welcome

welcome

to the otherworld

my friend.

Clouds Coming Down

And counting days forgotten,

I dedicate this place

with gifts from far away -

gifts I don’t want to give.

Is that why at night

when old fog betrays

steps of darkness in the meadow,

the swaying of young birch,

and the rushing of the stream

conflict the motionless,

meaningless hand of time?

Moving differently if at all,

I see curves of the beloved,

along hills and contours of trees -

the sighing of clouds coming down.

I’ll be leaving again soon,

in the silence of uncertainty,

but now, on the edge of fear,

an innocent star accompanies me,

across the high horizon -

I watch it every night,

knowing I will leave.

So counting nights forgotten,

I dedicate this place

with gifts from far away -

places I will never see.