Meditation References
Sunday, May 3 with Michael Muzzy
I see the way the water leaves
and the way the river stays.
- Mayan/Guatemalan poet Humberto Ak'abal
"This too shall pass."
"One day at a time."
- Wisdom often expressed at twelve-step meetings
Sunday, April 26 with Barbara Benton
Link to article with poem:
https://medium.com/@amyselwyn/the-barn-burned-and-i-saw-the-moon-6fe69da2eb15
Richard Rohr’s quote:
https://cac.org/lesson-one-life-is-hard-2020-03-30/
Sunday, April 5 with Michael Muzzy
This is an excerpt from one of the earliest teachings on yoga meditation called the Vignana Bhairava Tantra Re-named for translation as:
Radiance Sutras
Translated by Lorin Roche
#26
The One Who Is at Play Everywhere says,
There is a space in the heart where everything meets.
Come here if you want to find me.
Mind, senses, soul, eternity – all are here.
Are you here?
Enter the bowl of vastness that is the heart.
Listen to the song that is always resonating.
Give yourself to it with total abandon.
Quiet ecstasy is here,
And a steady, regal sense
Of resting in in a perfect spot.
You who are the embodiment of blessing,
Once you know the way,
The nature of attention will call you to return.
Again and Again, answer that call,
And be saturated with knowing,
“I belong here, I am at home.”
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Adrie Kusserow was inspired by Mary Oliver's poem "Wild Geese" to write a coronavirus version of that poem with some slight edits by Michael
You do not have to become totally zen,
You do not have to use this isolation to make your marriage better,
your body slimmer, your children more creative.
You do not have to “maximize its benefits”
By using this time to work even more,
write the bestselling Corona Diaries,
Or preach the gospel of ZOOM.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body unlearn
everything you have learned
(That you are nothing if not productive,
That consumption equals happiness,
That the most important unit is the single self.
That you are at your best when you resemble an efficient machine).
Tell me about your fictions, the ones you’ve been sold,
the ones you sheepishly sell others,
and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world as we know it is crumbling.
Meanwhile the virus is moving over the hills,
suburbs, cities, farms and trailer parks.
Meanwhile The News barks at you, harsh and addicting,
Until the push of the remote leaves a dead quiet behind,
a loneliness that hums as the heart anchors.
Meanwhile a new paradigm is composing itself in our minds,
Could birth at any moment if we clear some space
Remember, you are allowed to be still as the white birch,
Stunned by what you see,
Uselessly shedding your coils of paper skins
Because it gives you something to do.
Meanwhile, on top of everything else you are facing,
Do not let your fear and anger co-opt this moment,
laying its whistles and train tracks across your weary heart.
Even if your life looks nothing like the Sabbath,
Your stress boa-constricting your chest.
Know that your antsy kids, your terror, your shifting moods,
Your need for a drink have every right to be here,
And are no less sacred than a yoga class.
Whoever you are, no matter how broken,
the world still has a place for you, calls to you over and over
announcing your place as legit, as forgiven,
even if you fail and fail and fail again.
remind yourself over and over,
all the swells and storms that run through your long tired body
all have their place here, now in this world.
It is your birthright to be held
deeply, warmly in the family of things,
not one cell left in the cold.
Sunday, March 29 with Barbara Benton
NY Times article, “They Survived the Spanish Flu, the Depression and the Holocaust”
Rebecca Solnit and her book A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster.
also on the On Being radio show: https://onbeing.org/programs/rebecca-solnit-falling-together/
Rumi poem, this might be a combination of 2 of his poems, On the Turn and Let the Beauty We Love:
Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to.
Don’t try to see through the distances. That’s not for human beings.
Move within, but don’t move the way fear makes you move.
Today, like every other day we wake up empty and frightened.
Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading.
Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.