Mystery of the Universe

This stunning visual expression entitled the “Mystery of the Universe,” sends me spinning. For me, it becomes a metaphor for abiding side by side, dwelling in the creative explosion of life around us, co-existing in our own beauty and our own wholeness, reflecting and celebrating the creation of life, expanding in our love for each other without clinging or holding on, without judging, without trying to control another or without trying to steal the gift of our freedom to live in the creative currents of love in our own unique way of living in the world.

I felt moved to invite you to enter into the painting, to step through the veil of mystery, to make a pilgrimage into a journey of wonder and beholding, and see where it takes you. The music of love in my own heart is my muse and my guide.
Let it become a point of meditation and feel it come to life in your own imagination and longings. Let it ignite and inspire an opening in your own journey to explore the the unknown dimensions of your deeper self.

divine revelation

I glance your way
and see you
with eyes gazing
and listening
to find my voice in the silence
to hear how I will speak
to you
in the opening
of this day
at dawn
face turned upward
arms reaching
everything is open
to catch
these living words
falling from my lips alone

When I see you
and feel the rays of love
and all the arrows
I have sent your way
having pierced your heart
my glance draws the arrows
to head straight
for my own

I have come to earth
as a child
to be held by you
as a mother to take care
of you
as a father to watch
over you
as a teacher to guide you
as a lover to love you
and as a friend
to be with you.

You topple my reign
and send my divine kingdom
tumbling to earth
when you surrender
with such love
and trust

You kindle in me
the same deep desire
to feel your touch
and to be where you are
not watching from
so far away

can a divine king give
up his throne
pick up the phone
or come and visit

is it
possible

who am i asking
am I forgetting that
I am the One
in charge of
impossible

my thoughts send me
falling and falling and falling
from my throne
into your
love
guiding me
straight into your
outstretched
arms

the table
of the earth seems
to have turned
over
on the great one

i think you
may have
listened too well
to my sweet
whispering

the secret
in the humbling silence
of the dawn
is that my kingdom
is only created
as i find my place
in your heart

i am falling into
your laughing eyes
and into
the graceful curve
of your smile

i think this king
is discovering
alchemy
in reverse
to reach you

how did you do that
my dear
you must have
learned
that
from me

O dear one
paradise
is not in the sky
but in being
here
with thee

Song of ecstasy

Oh my Love
you carry me along
circling within you like a song
around and around
the world
then you bring me back
to this silence
we share
and I feel your spirit
moving
just beyond my sight
swirling like an after image
of the light
a feathering flight
of togetherness
in a lilting intensity
of such beauty
I become the moaning
of the reed flute
drawing from your breath
until no one knows
who is playing

Sharing a prayer

I come to you in my feelings of helplessness in these early hours before dawn when I call on your infinite Light and the endlessly flowing river of Love pouring out to us to help us all. We are so slow to awaken to your gifts. I know you hear my prayer, for I feel your Presence in such profound ways. When I turn to you, your spirit stirs within me and my heart leaps in recognition.

I come to ask you as the sun is just below the horizon where I can see it, to ask for healing for so many wounded hearts, to ask your protection for those who are unable to protect themselves, and I pray for your blessings to come to all those who need you so. Your vision can see what we are unable to see. You can see into every heart. May your divine intention for us be my prayer. May your Holy Spirit move in new ways to open hearts to help those in need.

Sometimes, it feels all I can offer are my tears, so I come to you in my vigil of prayer, to search in me for whatever I have to give that could bring a listening presence to one who needs it, to share a kindness to be with one who feels alone, or to turn to you to help the right person to help them when they need it most. You promised whenever we come in love, you would be very near to us, to be with us in our sorrow, and you would dwell within us to comfort us through your very breath and deep love. We feel your life in the rhythm of our beating hearts.

We pray for your help, which is beyond our understanding, but we make a leap of faith to believe what we cannot envision on our own. Show us the way to become a family in this troubled world of ours. Help us to see how Love can bridge any distance, any difference, and unite us as a human family.

Thank you for this beautiful planet with beauty everywhere we turn. Oh help us to be better stewards of it, to take care of such a beautiful place as this… to live and work and love each other. We only ask for just what we need for today, and to have the faith to know that you will help us with tomorrow when it comes.
Forgive the ways we have offended you. We are so slow to learn, because we forget to call on your loving care and the graces you give so freely.

I am deeply sorry and carry a profound sadness for any act of cruelty committed by anyone against another in our human family. I pray for you to open our eyes and our hearts that we might see and feel what pain we cause when we hurt another in any way. I thank you for hearing my prayer.
I thank you for loving us unconditionally, for opening to relationship with us, for inviting us to growth and to help us say yes to life.

You are my life and my love and my soul, my very breath, and without you, I could not even utter this prayer. I am eternally grateful that you have opened your divine generosity to share all that you are with us. Oh, give us the grace to receive it!

May dawn bring us new hope and a fresh awareness of your presence with us.

I love you with all my heart, all my soul, and all my mind, and with all my senses in this life you have given me as a part of this human family you have created.

A divine moment

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There seems to be a quality in the air tonight……….a glowing…..that makes me pause and look around…to look and listen and wonder what is giving me this feeling of such wonder and awe. It is a heightened awareness of the creative power in a given moment. I can almost visualize the creation of the earth in such a moment….the energy that builds and explodes and sends everything spinning setting the moon and stars in place.

first light of new life

feels like the first moment
of the beginning
of a new world

like the first moment of a new life
when these moments
before dawn
are filled with the hush
and hope of something wondrous
being created
as we open our eyes
to behold
the unfolding
of what has no name
blinding us with the light
of revelation
bewildering and anointing us
with freshness
we have never seen before
for no moment
can ever remain the same
as it is already yielding
to the next

no one can stop the flow
and the flowering
of creation

we can only open
our eyes
and our arms
our minds
and our hearts
to welcome and receive
such eternal
giving

In the silence

One of the reasons I enjoy the poetic form, is that it is condensed, and I can allow thoughts and feelings to fall in the fall line of the page. I am resistant to a prescribed form, or a certain way of writing that has an expectation to it. I have been enjoying a wonderfully deep silence in my time of contemplation…..of deep listening…..to see what arises out of the silences.

I truly like to sit with those I care about in silence, but it is difficult for many to be quiet….with a natural inclination to want to share what is happening in our lives.

I am grateful every day to have a quiet place. I am always so thankful to return to it, even if I have only been away for a short time.
My thoughts and feelings draw many people around me, close to me, to just be with them….not needing to talk….just loving them. I know it isn’t always satisfying to others, but it feels like I have waited such a long time to be able to have some time to just be. It must be a significant aspect of my nature, because it is consoling and it gives me such peace.

I can send my thoughts out in all directions…..like the rays of the sun….and they can cover great distances in a moment………and there is nowhere that spirit cannot go. The freedom of it is exhilarating to me.
One of my discoveries in meditating….in reflecting….in pondering all that is happening in the universe……is that when I go in love….I can touch the reality wherever I go. Love moves in a majestically silent way through breath….on a breeze….an etherealization of feelings….rising ethers of heart emanations…..a spiritual journey of faith….hope…..but most of all…for me….through love.
I find it thrilling.

I loved my life and the daily reality of raising my two sons…. and all the places I have been and people I have known, my time of participating and sharing in all those lives in ordinary ways and extraordinary ways. I loved literature and books….art and paintings….teaching in the community, in public schools, and in the university…….enjoy movies…and music that makes me feel………
I appreciate the rivers……..and the beauty of the natural world…..absolutely love wildflowers….sandbars on the Mississippi River….and dramatic beauty of the Rocky Mountains….and the open plains and prairies of Iowa…..the open skies are so inviting and unlimited…..

I love the changing seasons and can be deeply moved by the leaves….green and alive….then changing colors………and falling………and the emergence in the spring of new leaves breaking through the bare branches….uncurling….tender little sprouts becoming leaves…like extended hands. I welcome their return with joy…and I go to my window and my deck often just to gaze at them.
I put my arms around a young tree one time. It was raining, and the raindrops would fall from the leaves and slide down my face and hair. I just lingered there, and all of a sudden, I could see my heart beating in the leaves….the pulsation was transmitted through the trunk of the tree to the leaves. It was so intimate. I let my tears fall with the rain….feeling the gift of creation in such a beautiful way.

I liked to wander the shore along the ocean when I would visit….little sand crabs disappearing when I approached….the beautiful stately herons and egrets were enchanting to me. I could write for hours of the beauty I have experienced.
Sometimes, I bask in it…..shower in it……..drink it in………receive it like communion…or write and sing the joy of it in my poetic expressions.

I feel the depth of silence……because in it is the Centering Love that created it all.
We can know so much about the Creator by beholding Creation…by gazing and enjoying it. Suddenly, I feel touched by it, and I feel the Presence in everything.

It is dawn….holy arising grace of morning light….

Good morning.

For My Dearest Love and Friend

Dear One…..

Just because you are omniscient
and magnificent
and ever vigilant,
how could we not have known
that you would be playful
and funny
teasing and touching us
in creative ways!

I like to wander in your wonder
and ponder
the clues you leave
wanting us to find you
in fire and ice
and in tiny mice
that scurry across our feet
in such a hurry
we scream
with surprise!

Sorry we chased you away
with a broom.
We didn’t know it was you in all
those disguises,
the lumbering anteater,
the braying elephant,
the chattering
monkey,
and the house fly that would
not leave us alone!

How could we not have known!

Asleep and dreaming
I saw your face and reached out
to touch you,
awakening with my hand
in the air,
and I could hear you
laughing!
If we are both human
and divine,
why would you be anything else
but both
when we are made
in your image!

We simply did not know
how infinite your Love truly is
and how quickly
you invent new names
and change places
with countless new faces
to see if we
recognize the delight
in your
laughing eyes!

I dreamed of finding a Love so dear,
but never knew
how truly near you are to me
or what a friend
you can be
in little things
that move my days and nights.
It was you who
helped me up when I fell,
me without a cell phone
to call for help.

I thought
I was so alone!

How thrilling that you
are so willing
to care for every form of life,
to be so sweet
in between painting the sky
and drawing stories
in the stars!
You are always
forgiving
our thoughtless living
and taking this expanding
universe for granted.

You are my dearest love
and friend,
and if all the words in the world
were placed end to end,
I would still have to sing my songs
each morning to thee
to praise and celebrate
all you create
and tell you
how much you mean to me!

You are not just a part
of my life,
you are my heart
and soul and mind and breath,
my whole identity
on earth or above!
You are my dearest love
and friend!

Drawing by Dan Stone (c)

and beauty shows itself to the gaze of love

Incredibly
astoundingly
amazingly
and
unbelievably
when you center
in the empowering creativity of love
beauty reveals itself to you
wherever you look.

Life is a two-sided mirror
but becomes
transparent
to love
and opens
to see beyond
a reflection
to the source of love.

Beauty opens
to Love
to see through the sun
to the source
of light
to travel in thought
from one heart
to another
and to fly
by spreading
the wings of the soul.

Beauty opens
to a Love
that kisses
the tears
falling from
a wounded heart.

My Beloved is a Sea of Beauty

My dearest Love
that fills the sea and sky,
drawing beauty from a flower
with a sigh,
slipping from my lips as a sudden cry
or a murmured prayer.

Whether I die or grow into more
than before,
it is only through
your immensity
and breath of intimacy,
that I thrive in this turning world,
a life unfurled
and unraveling in light,
feeling helpless in your sight
that sweeps over all that I am
in a single gaze
leaving me shivering in the night,
so small and insignificant
before a Love so vast,
so infinite and magnificent,
yet tender and gentle as you touch
my longing heart
calling forth a flooding sweetness
I cannot explain.

I settle in your arms
of sensuous rain and quiet laughter,
overwhelming love
that follows after
the weeping ecstasy of all
I feel for thee.

Your rays create gardens and lands
mountains and rivering streams,
astounding dreams
and towering trees
bearing fruit and shade
giving me a place to rest
as you tend to birds in flight
learning to spread their wings
and watch over tiny things that crawl
in the grass
tickling my toes in the spring.

My heart is torn open by your nearness
as you bless my hesitance
feeling undeserving of divine
magnificence,
you soothe my reticence
kiss away my doubts
and tears of gratitude,
transforming my attitude
of unworthiness
with echoes of kindness.

I am humbled
by your creative beauty again
and again and again,
shocked and surprised at the way
you form a universe
and then swirl in a dancing wind
to caress me with a ray
of morning sun.
O my beloved One,
I am undone!

That One so great as you
should care
for all you create the way you do
is a miracle that manifests
within my throbbing heart
and fills me with love and joy so deep
I cannot sleep.

I lie here and smile all the while
brimming over with happiness
in the gentleness
of your eternal embrace
in thanksgiving
for your generosity
and the privilege of living
in your grace.