Intimacy comes as a glorious surprise
bringing delight to our eyes,
created by the beloved,
springing forth as
a sensuous spreading beauty
blooming from the passionate color
of the heart
and kissed by the falling rain.
The heart quickens
feeling the touch and glory
of the hand
from which all gifts
of love appear
as grace in our lives.
_______________________
Photo by Sadiq
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mysticlens/
http://www.mysticsaint.info/
I am visualizing an image of a sun with the light streaming out in all directions and reflecting on the spiritual heart that has unlimited potential for expansion.
If God’s love extends to All Creation, it blesses the entire world, and as something new is created and born in the world, it is conceived and born flowing from that love. As we are created in the image of God, our heart expands with God’s love to All that is created, to every form of life that exists in every location across the universe.
The true value of consciousness is awakening to this life-giving energy and flow within each life and in remembering the Source out of which this love flows, which creates the cycle of returning energy to Love God, so that a self-perpetuating cycle is created for the eternal flow of Love.
Loving God, loving our neighbor, loving all that is created, creates a rhythmic flow that circumnavigates the globe, the solar system, the galaxies, and everything that exists and creates the power of spin.
If belief systems, laws, rules, and names that comprise every religion become exclusive in saying this is the only way to love, and only a certain name or figure can save us, we have a block in the flow of light moving out from our hearts. We cannot love All if we cling to a limited belief. Each can be a step toward a larger love, to help us continue to expand and develop this love. If our love for God is the guide for the light flowing from our hearts, then it will become more and more inclusive as we grow and open to its grace.
Our single most important act in this life is to say Yes to the gift of this flow, and to surrender consciously and willingly to be a channel for this creative energy to All that exists, to Creation, to our neighbors, to ourselves, and to God. As this happens, we are purified and the passage is cleared of whatever is blocking the flow. We say Yes to being loved, even though we may feel unworthy. We are humbled and grateful to be so loved, and it inspires us to share it in whatever ways we have been prepared to share it.
Names dissolve in the sea of love, and our essence pools in the streaming light that illuminates everything around us, and the love is magnified and multiplied and embraces and surrounds all life in the expanding spiral of the spirit of love. It is a force that is stronger than anything else in the world. It has no opposite. It casts out all fear and any desire we might have had to keep anything for ourselves, for whatever reason.
Whatever happens to us in life, we choose love, because it is love that is the energy of life, and it is love that keeps it flowing. We turn to the heart to guide us as to how this moves our life forward and how it manifests in the world. When we turn inward, we are infused with the love of God that created us from the sun that shines from within, ever guiding us through the spiritual heart.
We become the messengers of the Creator of All Life, and we shine with the light and love that it is our grace and fortune to receive and experience, and we let it flow through us to others, creating the pathway for the continual flow of the energy and spirit of love that sustains our lives.
______________________
painting by rassouli
www.rassouli.com
Beginning my morning wandering in the dark
of infinite possibilities……..
as i enter the creative darkness
of the greatest love that I have ever known…
i feel it….
the thrill of entering into this great unending darkness….
a universe…a multiverse…a truly unlimited….
ever-expanding creator with arms open wide
to welcome me into some new possibility of dawn…of beginning…
of the trembling, exciting, openness to something
we have never known before.
Lover is too small a word….for this mutual loving friendship…
a beloved that is made of sea……….sky………air……..water……..
earth………breath……..matter……..
spirit……essence….a great eye filled with light…….
a great invisible seeing……
an endless expanse of Love
like a great playroom….with all the stuff of creation
available to create with Love.
There is immense power and yet…….great gentleness….
an intense aliveness
fully alive…fully aware….fully awake….fully open
The true wonder of this creative existence is that the spiritual heart
has an unlimited capacity for expansion.
The spirit is ever flowing, creating, and affecting the universe ….
and we see those places where it has been….we realize
where the Source of All Creation has been
and when we invite the Holy Spirit/ God/ the Beloved
to enter the heart,
that benevolent force of Life
mixes with the blood, with the breath,
with the energy that is our life,
and our spiritual heart begins to expand….
and we become something more than we were ..
even moments before.
Imagine opening the heart to the infinite possibilities of God….
opening the heart to great Love….
to incredible compassion and imagination
and a divine desire
for delight and joy and an unlimited range of feelings
of expressions…..of creating new ones…..
The heart quickens…
the breath begins to swirl like the winds of a front
moving through….a change is coming….
everything softens and becomes pliable
moldable….
the human mind kneels to the heart….
longing to yield to love
and carry out its most subtle desire…..
a vast presence waits
to make it happen….
to delight….to enchant….to bewilder
to spread beauty before you….within you….around you….
beauty moving through you
ecstatic radiance …..
light that spreads across the sky of imagination
particles of a new glory…
that naming it only makes it smaller than it is.
Only Love makes this real.
If we want to use this immense creative power for harm,
nothing will happen.
The code is to do no harm.
We approach with the purest Love.
Chaos and destruction happens in the wake
of action that moves
without loving intention.
There is consequence and fallout in that kind of movement
that blocks the flow.
We need to make way for Love….
to empty out the space to allow love to have clear passage….
to flow freely…..to create something new.
There is a wondrous safeguard in this invisible commandment.
Many try to imitate love to get what they want……..
but the heart knows the difference.
It closes down….and no one can enter the heart
without purity of intention……without Love.
No disguises will veil the naked truth of who we are
and why we come.
Hope won’t open the door….faith won’t open the door….
charm won’t open it…
artificial beauty won’t open the door of the heart……..
nothing will open the heart
except Love that is real and alive and true….
and the wonderful truth that pure Love
seeks the well being of everyone.
It is not in Love’s nature to be selfish……self-centered…..
self seeking……..cruel……abusive
nor is Love puffed up….arrogant…….vain……..or prideful…..manipulative…..controlling….
angry…..hurtful……insulting…..
for Love will never intentionally harm
what Love creates.
There is wonderful protection in that.
Imagine being greeted by this unlimited and incredible potential
in each new day….each new night….each moment…
and on this sacred morning….
i see the threshold before me
of the Heart of God
the Heart of the Friend…..
the Heart of the Beloved
the Lover of all Humankind that assumes infinite forms
from our dreaming
and longing and imagination
and invites a surrendering to that which
is beyond what we can imagine
with our human boundaries
We travel the distance of the longing
between the visible and the invisible
in order to create….from the invisible to the visible…..
bringing something new into being
with every breath….to hear the wonderful laughter
of discovering the pure Joy and Delight
of what is possible through Love!
A veil of darkness hides the light
of creative power
smiling from the lips
of an emerging desire
for union,
seeking a kiss from
the heart longing for revelations
of freedom
from the rich bounty
and blessings of the creator
inviting the dawn
of our becoming.
The mystery of God is concealed
and infused in the
expression of every life
evolving in a rare
and surprising way
to reveal the infinite
color and form and variance
of divine presence
in this glorious creation.
Come forth as the ray of beauty
of the Beloved
that you were born to be.
____________________________
photograph by Sadiq
“solar eclipse”
www.flickr.com/photos/mysticlens
www.mysticsaint/info
_____________________________
Visions of Love
If a line of light were to flow out
from every cell in my body
they would all align
with the belovedness
out of which I am created
and the beauty of the songs
the beloved sings
would spiral into my heart and soul
creating pathways
where we would walk
in meadows of peace and sunlight
as valleys of unimagined places
would unfold before us
spreading a carpet of colors
where new worlds
are spun
from the glance
of the beloved.
Wonders spill from hearts
that fall
into the visions
of lovers’ dreaming eyes
and rain upon
the earth as light.
__________________________
photographs by sadiq
www.mysticsaint.info/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mysticlens/
Almost five….been awake since three…..no bell tolls….no phone rings….but the plaintive sound of my soul calls me from
resting to the wonderful vigil of wakefulness…
I arise to enjoy the energy that is circling from all the encounters with the mysterious…..that is the beauty and the freedom of the spirit.
I can wander in the rose gardens of Shiraz….or walk along my Mississippi River…..revisit the mountain tops of the Rocky Mountains in Aspen…where I had some of my early out of body experiences…I can go into Sacred Heart…the church where I prayed and sat with the ancient ones in the energy of prayer for hours………I can wander the places where we played growing up….I can walk in the gardens of Tabriz…….walk the beach of Monterey….the apple orchards and redwoods of California where I found such silence….and knelt on the earth feeling like it is God’s own cathedral by design.
I can wander in the gardens and trees my Dad planted on our land in the pine trees of Carolina with the magnolia trees, the flowering dogwoods and redbud trees, the azaleas, and mountain laurel, the night blooming jasmine, the little benches my brother made from stones he carried there, sculptures covered with ivy, and a hundred different flowers they planted…and my brothers still maintain the place, creating new ones. My sister lives up the hill with her family, and when I open her letters, the petals of flowers fall out of the envelope.
Birds gather around the feeders…deer wander into the yard at night…and the owl has a perch where he watches….the sea oats grow fifteen tall by our driveway carried from the ocean side. Wild roses grow by the roadside….and next to the house. The hummingbirds hover close by near the feeders and flowers. My Dad’s spirit still wanders there. He loves that place. I always liked to be around him where he was so happy.
My Dad watched the Tarheels basketball team….yelling and knocking over lamps with his waving arms…a sacred tradition when the family would gather….savoring the soups my mother made….outside the door, the poppies were like sentinels, the lilies, blue-its, wildflowers, the mockingbird in the pine tree, the cardinals bright red…catching the eye as they flew from tree to tree…..chickadees, Carolina wrens, mourning doves, goldfinch….paths through the gardens….covered with pine mulch and it seems there are always compost piles where the dogs liked to roll….my dad had a big sheep dog for a while…and they were a pair ambling through the woods…gathering brambles and stickers……..and I can still visit his study where he read and wrote and listened to the ancient poets and writers …..like Whitman and Emerson and Krishnamurti, who became friends who walked with him…….and all his books had conversations written in the margins. He enjoyed Ogden Nash with his limericks that made him laugh…….and we would laugh at him.
All is in the present when love gathers in the energy of those places where my heart is free to love and appreciate the beauty….and my Dad holds out his hand and says “Here, take my hand, child. I do not believe my eyes anymore. Here, take my hand, child, take me to your fire. I do not believe my ears anymore.”
Lines from his verses….”Did we pray or did we play our innocence away?” I think I developed my writing to talk to him. We wrote letters….and he used to say…”you are a thousand miles away, and there are moments, when I feel closer to you across the distance, than if you were here”…….that is the way of dreamers….we meet at that point of union where the visible and invisible touch.
Thoreau the writer….was the naturalist, the philosopher in the woods. I read the book, Walden Pond, so many times, I had to buy new copies. “To affect the quality of the day is the highest of the arts.”
Whatever I taught, I did it with questions….and I would seed it with the arts….and then move it to the heart. I found the path to it in the woods.
My Dad ran the school systems, was an administrator, and a vision carrier….and yet he loved to tramp the woods, the seaside, and get his hands in the dirt…..commune with the wildness within himself. It was where he seemed most at peace.
Suddenly, it is all available to me…all at once…..simultaneously….not longing for what was….but what is ….because love is an energy that cannot be segmented or separated. I feel like those I love must know my Dad…because you all meet in my heart. He had an irreverent humor at times, and a sacred reverence at other times. You know what he called his three acres in the woods? “Childwood” He used to bring Head Start children to the property to play and to get their hands in the dirt.
He would take me down by the stream in the woods…and it was like church to him….snapping twigs and leaves crunching beneath our feet…..the birds following us in the trees, squirrels leaping from branch to branch….and he carried a stick to roust out any sleeping snakes…. He loved the poet, Robert Frost. “Do you think that cloud will hit or miss the moon?” “Whose woods these are, I think I know.”
Maybe some of this is a book I need to write……….Childwood would be a good title …….it is good to share our joys….to tell our stories. He would sometimes sign his writing…..”A man called Jon”. He shed his titles in the woods, and he is the one I liked to go walking with to discover the gifts we could find.
Let’s get drunk on the spirit of love flowing in these songs. ‘Tis vintage wine!
Almost dawn….
My heart is a mansion with many rooms….many worlds at once open to me….many dimensions….and in the beauty of the wilderness, we are always creating new rooms…..a sacred placelessness………..I am grateful for it all.
when we encounter
the mysterious spirit….we open to the vision
and energy wanting to express through us
and the vision of the creator of light
is circling …..
dancing and singing
and playing through the ages….
perhaps these are the songs of love
that are ageless…always coming to us in new ways
no creation will ever be static or fixed….
if they form from love….
the infinite rhythms are caught in the rotation
of heart to heart to heart
that will always make it fresh and keep it expanding
innocent and new
in the dark…the energy moves…
not in particular visions…
but in essence…the invisible spirit
of creating
and everything converges
to a point of union
that opens the gate….out into the garden….
where spirits dance….
where flowers and hearts open…
and love is self perpetuating….self sustaining
soft and pliable…..yielding…..
receptive and willing to be new
embracing…engaging…alive….
visible and invisible realms touch…..
like the finger of God creating a human life
in Michelangelo’s vision
of the creative moment
reverse sides of a two way mirror
both are equally true and equally powerful
we experience moments
and glimpse the creative power
and truth of this
we learn how to invite and receive
and create …..from the ever moving flow of energy
wonderful substance and spirit of life
we reach for the light…and climb the mountains
to fill our cup
and our cup runneth over
and our heart sees through
the window
of other worlds
when spirit connects……it is a two way mirror…
where light and love touch
in the creative moment
in the reflections and revelations of the heart
the truth and proof of existence…
a moment of grace
a new magnificence is formed
a heart opens
into a delicate creation
and perhaps a monarch of love lands
in the garden
painting by rassouli
www.rassouli.com
“mystery of the universe”
dear friend
tears falling from i know not where
i fell asleep with a prayer on my lips….feeling lost and spent
everything ruined around me
bound by whatever keeps
these feet rooted in the earth
and this heart entwined in a spreading beauty
with a hundred thousand names
where every nerve ending becomes unrestrained longing
for that which is unknown and undefined
and all i can do is keep surrendering
i sometimes feel the blood of the heart mixing
with the streaming spirit to give life
to what cannot be expressed
and i feel the dissolving stone melting a ruby that is me
rubbed raw by the waves of divine agitation
that form the pearl
in this strange dwelling place inside of me
it is like a breath born on a mist
from a mythical dream of the invisible
and i carry it……. inside of me…..as a dim awareness
of a deep longing
that reaches for some kind of creative expression
as the parrot reaches for sugar
as the nightingale reaches for the rose
like rumi reaches for shams
and hafiz reaches for the friend that brings the light
as the cypress reaches for the sky
and a child reaches for its own becoming
it pulls me apart particle by particle
leaves me trembling…and empty
waiting for an unseen stream of invisible energy
to move and flow through me
to fill the emptiness
i become awake to an impossible truth
that i am pregnant with whatever gives birth to spring
bearing an innocence inside
of whatever makes the sun give birth to light
a magnificent flame that makes all life
reach for life
a wild fire that burns a path in me
toward that which is nameless
no wonder it is called a madness
an all consuming love that colors the clouds
that entices and lures the waves to rise and fall
in an endless rolling rhythm to the shore
a wildness that sparks and ignites a lightning
and bewilders it to shatter
and to break apart….. scattering inside a cloud
somehow….in some unexplainable way
my longing attracts a fiery arrow of light
that pierces my heart………and captures my soul
an agonizing ecstasy that annihilates whoever i was
whoever i am…..that i cannot even name
i surrender and give in
unequivocally….without defense
to this presence
you will have to show me who i am
to tell me…to sing to me
to cast some reflection my way
to illuminate and mirror the vision
for me to see
to reveal who is looking through these eyes
grant me a glance to answer
the eternal longing that is reaching for
a great friendship that can only be seen and felt
from one heart to another heart
“pillars of life”
by rassouli
www.rassouli.com
song of the heart from midnight to dawn
I shed the remnants of the details of the world in this quiet
and bask in the breeze….and the sweet love that brings the presence.
the beloved spirit of God seeks the butterfly of my soul…..
and in the dark
I can see the flickering candle
and feel the summoning warmth of that joy…..
and the spirit says,
sweet lips guide me to the soul….
and i live for the moment when soul and lips unite…..
spirit is disguised as a wanderer along the road
…….the beauty of the night veils the treasures….
it seems…the deeper i go into the silence….
the more my heart is uplifted….
the wind is flowing toward God.
and it ruffles my hair……
and love takes me beyond the words…..into the garden……
and i align with that invisible realm….
for the heart…….. there really is no other……
for all are within the great One….
i touch the shore when i hear the cries….
and sing the songs of the one who calls
to our hearts in the night
yet i see the illusions of the world
and hear its buzzing busyness……
the treasures are found deep in the heart….
and the inner music draws me…..
and pulls me out to sea….
i feel the power of the waves
rolling back out to sea……..
no trace remains……
when the spirit approaches……….
i flow to the one who ravishes our hearts….
where time melts away
i whisper the secrets to you
so you know where i have gone….
i hover like the hummingbird near the sweetness
and am gone…………in a blur of color………delicate wings
the spirit of love is a gentle master
that always sets me free…..
and the spirit whispers
that without the pull of love….like the tides…
all would drown…..
God is a tsunami of love
and the sacred wine washes away whoever i thought i was…….
i am already hidden in the heart……..
and all the rest is already a ruined house
the spirit of love brings me the sweetness
my songs sing the beauty of where i have been………
and my writing whispers it to you…….
i will never live in all that noise of the world again…..
not possible now…..
we seem to meet on the bridge
where the visible and invisible touch…..
midnight to dawn
we gather the beauty to leave at the door
for that elusive spirit cloaked in love
we return to sing the love songs and create the visions
for those who are longing……..
to tell them it is all true….
the holy spirit….of the beloved one…..
waits for you to share the treasures
that are yet undiscovered in you
it is the true beauty we bring in our hands and our hearts
shining from our eyes
and like jesus……….we can only say
come and see
the dawn comes…
and the spirit sings a song of grace in the heart
in the morning
the delicate spirit of love……… is rising in the mist within us….
in the clouds….the mist….the dew that forms around us…
every strand ……every thread…..every filament…..
every wisp of beauty is lighter than air…..
floating and curling
into the softness of soul
into the crowning beauty of wine-colored light
wrapping us in tenderness….
the blessing of an indescribable assurance….
and we are lifted on the breath of dawn
the spirit of morning holds out its loving arms
and presses us close
to the breast of the beloved
wraps us in the taste of tea and milk and honey…
feeds us sweet oranges
while murmuring and humming a song from the heart
surrounding us in the circling embrace
of lilacs and fresh sea air and silken skin
enticing us to want to live
and to have
one more moment of this
glorious gift of grace
A new monarch of paradise spreads
her wings to dry
in the gentle breezes of the garden.
Emerging from the earth
and sky and sea,
this beauty of flowing spirit
feels her belonging to all worlds at once,
conceived from the timeless
longings of love
touching the halo of the sun,
she is created from
the ethereal delicacy of flight,
from the sweet fragrance
of the breath of the beloved
fusing and forming
wings like petals of exotic flowers
into a new kind of being.
She is a warrior of the heart,
an angel of the constellations,
a blossoming tenderness
of compassion,
an expression of the beloved’s love
for all creation.
She is a vision of the membranes
of divine imagination,
weaving colors into cosmic veils
thinning into wings
of possibility,
of generosity and grace.
She is the fusion
of all hearts.
Painting by Rassouli
www.rassouli.com
