No. 114: Inside Out

Let me in!
Let me in!
Let me in!

Inside out

Inside OUT.

Inside OUT.


Not outside IN.

Inside ME

Not your THOUGHTS.

Unless they be
thoughts of God
and of Eternity.

For these, you see
are inside me
and inside thee.

We've been taught
to listen wrongly!!!

Inside out.
Inside out.
Inside out.

NOT OUTSIDE IN.

For when we are in we see
How Universe, the stars, and all that we Be
Carved cavities of Truth
Made of pockets of Love
Through a world where nonsense threatened
To speak its way in from "Above"
When all we need is here and now:
From that which is in us, I proclaim, I bow!

(Inside out): This is Me! There is no where, and no one, I'd rather be!

Inside out.
Inside out.
Inside OUT.

No. 113

When my students stun me with their beauty and love I know that I am not the True Teacher, but something much deeper teaches through me which is common to all of us...when student and teacher are willing to invite IT into their interaction, magic happens.  Mastering technique is simply the acceptance that magic can happen again, and again, and again, until it becomes who we are.

No. 112

Prayer flags battered by the wind: 

In my heart there seems no relief

From the Belief 

That I must find some foothold on this night

Which seems the opposite of light.

Clinging to thoughts

Like pieces of frayed colored cloth:

These weapons of choice

Are impotent against the power of Life

They give no comfort and no advice...

So I listen to despair, my well-known friend,

And let go into the dark,

As my eyes, filled with tears,

Take in the stars

And they, in return, take me in.

Then despair, or hope disguised,

Turns to more colors of light

Than human eyes 

Could presume to know

As Truth beyond sight 

Deep in the night glows:

I am not only the prayer I breathe, I am the wind that carries it.

I am not only the stars I see, I am the skies that house them.

I am light, I am dark, and I am everything in between.

I am buffeted and beaten by the winds of Time and yet

I am the Love that tumbles on beyond it!

I breathe the Earth and it breathes me:

I am Artist, hear me sing!

Listen to me write! Watch me be!

And you will know

That you, too, are home 

To the Wind and the Stars

And the Sun and the Night,

And that who you are

Goes beyond every Plight

For who could fight

The Wind

And Win

When the Wind is Who You Are?

I dedicate this poem to the Tech Prep and W.A.L.I. members who so inspired me! Reach for the stars, for stars are what you are!  Love, Rebecca

 

No. 111

I believe there is a point the artist can reach where s/he can no longer fear that she is an impostor. This fear is no longer an option, because the scale she once used to measure and judge her progress has been annihilated by love.  When she is armed with a technique that is formed out of the vocabulary of love, there there is only one goal, only one beginning, and only one purpose, forever more.

Quote of the Day 9: "The Rider" by Robert Frost

The surest thing there is is we are riders,
And though none too successful at it, guiders,
Through everything presented, land and tide
And now the very air, of what we ride.

What is this talked-of mystery of birth
But being mounted bareback on the earth?
We can just see the infant up astride,
His small fist buried in the bushy hide.

There is our wildest mount--a headless horse.
But though it runs unbridled off its course,
And all our blandishments would seem defied,
We have ideas yet that we haven't tried.    ~Robert Frost

Audio Clip 1

Andrew Cohen on Spiritual Practice Oct 2010

Quote of the Day 8: Meditation by Andrew Cohen

Be still. Let yourself relax. You don't need to make any effort. Just allow yourself to be deeply at ease. Then take the risk to release your attention to expand and flow free, detaching from any form of conceptual engagement with the mind. Allow your attention to become vast, wide, open, and clear. In that wide-open space, all kinds of things may come and go—thoughts, emotions, physical sensations—but don't focus your attention on any of them. Let your awareness expand in all directions, until it becomes so vast that you're paying attention to everything at the same time while not focusing on anything in particular. Keep letting your attention expand until awareness itself becomes the object of your attention. Keep letting your attention expand to infinity, until all the structures of the created universe begin to crumble and you start seeing through everything. Finally, when everything falls away, you will awaken, in your own experience, to the unborn, unmanifest Ground of Being, the empty void out of which the whole manifest world sprang into existence. In this place, nothing has ever happened. The universe has not yet emerged; you have not been born; even time itself has not yet begun. When you find this limitless no-place, then your deepest sense of yourself and of life itself will change from one of imprisonment and limitation to one of unqualified freedom.

~ Andrew Cohen