Especially Pogniant

The predominant silence in which the animal world lives is very touching. As children on the farm, we were taught to respect animals. We were told that the dumb animals are blessed. They cannot say what they are feeling and we should have great compassion for them. They were tended to and looked after and people became upset if something happened to them. There was a great sense of solidarity between us and our older brothers and sisters, the animals. One of the tragedies in Western religion is the way that we have been so elitist in reserving the spiritual exclusively for the human. That is an awful, barbaric crime. When you subtract the notion of self from a presence, you objectify it and then that presence can be used and abused. It is a sin and blasphemy to say that animals have no spirits and souls. One of the cornerstones of contemplative life is going below the surface of the external and the negativity. The contemplative attends to the roots of wrong and violence. Because the animals live essentially what I call the contemplative life, maybe the most sacred prayer of the world actually happens within animal consciousness. Secondly, sometimes when you look into an animal's eyes, you see incredible pain. I think there are levels of suffering for which humans are not refined enough, and maybe our older, ancient brothers and sisters, the animals, carry some of that for us.

We recognize compassion in the willingness of someone to imagine himself into the life of another person. We recognize its presence in the withholding of huge negative moralistic judgment. We see compassion in the expression of mercy, in the refusal to label someone with a short-circuiting terminology that condemns her, even though her actions may be awkward. We see compassion in an openness to the greater mystery of the other person. The present situation, deed or misdeed is not the full story of the individual, there is a greater presence behind the deed or the person than society usually acknowledges.

When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight,

The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.

Weariness invades your spirit.
Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.

The tide you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.

You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken for the race of days.

At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.

- John O'Donahue -

To live the life I would love.

I bless the night that nourished my heart

To set the ghosts of longing free

Into the flow and figure of dream

That went to harvest from the dark

Bread for the hunger no one sees.

All that is eternal in me

Welcome the wonder of this day,

The field of brightness it creates

Offering time for each thing

To arise and illuminate.

I place on the altar of dawn:

The quiet loyalty of breath,

The tent of thought where I shelter,

Wave of desire I am shore to

And all beauty drawn to the eye.

May my mind come alive today

To the invisible geography

That invites me to new frontiers,

To break the dead shell of yesterdays,

To risk being disturbed and changed.

May I have the courage today

To live the life that I would love,

To postpone my dream no longer

But do at last what I came here for

And waste my heart on fear no more.

The Journey

Every time you leave home,
Another road takes you
Into a world you were never in.

New strangers on other paths await.
New places that have never seen you
Will startle a little at your entry.
Old places that know you well
Will pretend nothing
Changed since your last visit.

When you travel, you find yourself
Alone in a different way,
More attentive now
To the self you bring along,
Your more subtle eye watching
You abroad; and how what meets you
Touches that part of the heart
That lies low at home:

How you unexpectedly attune
To the timbre in some voice,
Opening in conversation
You want to take in
To where your longing
Has pressed hard enough
Inward, on some unsaid dark,
To create a crystal of insight
You could not have known
You needed
To illuminate
Your way.

When you travel,
A new silence
Goes with you,
And if you listen,
You will hear
What your heart would
Love to say.

A journey can become a sacred thing:
Make sure, before you go,
To take the time
To bless your going forth,
To free your heart of ballast
So that the compass of your soul
Might direct you toward
The territories of spirit
Where you will discover
More of your hidden life,
And the urgencies
That deserve to claim you.

May you travel in an awakened way,
Gathered wisely into your inner ground;
That you may not waste the invitations
Which wait along the way to transform you.

May you travel safely, arrive refreshed,
And live your time away to its fullest;
Return home more enriched, and free
To balance the gift of days which call you.

~ John O'Donohue ~

From a dear friend.

So much of what delights and troubles you
Happens on a surface
You take for ground.
Your mind thinks your life alone,
Your eyes consider air your nearest neighbor,
Yet it seems that a little below your heart
There houses in you an unknown self
Who prefers the patterns of the dark
And is not persuaded by the eye's affection
Or caught by the flash of thought.

It is a self that enjoys contemplative patience
With all your unfolding expression,
Is never drawn to break into light
Though you entangle yourself in unworthiness
And misjudge what you do and who you are.

It presides within like an evening freedom
That will often see you enchanted by twilight
Without ever recognizing the falling night,
It resembles the under-earth of your visible life:
All you do and say and think is fostered
Deep in its opaque and prevenient clay.

It dwells in a strange, yet rhythmic ease
That is not ruffled by disappointment;
It presides in a deeper current of time
Free from the force of cause and sequence
That otherwise shapes your life.

Were it to break forth into day,
Its dark light might quench your mind,
For it knows how your primeval heart
Sisters every cell of your life
To all your known mind would avoid,

Thus it knows to dwell in you gently,
Offering you only discrete glimpses
Of how you construct your life.

At times, it will lead you strangely,
Magnetized by some resonance
That ambushes your vigilance.

It works most resolutely at night
As the poet who draws your dreams,
Creating for you many secret doors,
Decorated with pictures of your hunger;

It has the dignity of the angelic
That knows you to your roots,
Always awaiting your deeper befriending
To take you beyond the threshold of want,
Where all your diverse strainings
Can come to wholesome ease.

John O'Donohue

Averted Vision

It's a technique you can use with your eyes, to intentionally focus slightly aside of the thing you want to see. What it does is allow the more light sensitive areas of your retina to capture more of the scene. Especially good when looking at stars, or dim objects.

For me, for the last few years...

I have been using this.

To see the better parts of life more clearly. To look away from the center. To be able to see things that otherwise would not have been as clear.

One thing about averted vision.

You have to look away from what you want to see. Just by a hair.

In the process, you have to look away from those things that can distract you.

For me, that means.

My father.

My ex wife.

They have their needs.

And they are not in line with mine.

Let me make this abundantly clear.

I do not care about your needs, Dad. Not at all.

I do not care about your needs, my ex wife. Not at all.

I have born the burden for too many years.

I am averting my vision.

To see what I need to see.

And neither of you are in view.

Good versus Evil

Been pondering and discussing this subject a lot lately, with close friends.

And it has been the definition of my life.

Some of the evil I battled was within myself at one time. Ferreting out demons that plagued me.

But now, it has grown to be so much larger than that.

I am at the center of a circle.

With an encroaching horde of barbarians. Looking to lay me low. And not just me. Attacking those who have befriended me. Those who support me. Those who love me.

In the last few months and weeks my eyes have been opened to it.

And they are ramping up their efforts. Becoming bolder. Attacking. Openly.

Trying to take all the good. And destroy it. For their selfish ends

In the last few years, I have been painfully looking for the right path.

When I make a mistake in judgment, or try to take control, the universe kicks my ass. Of late, in a huge, unmistakable way.

I am still waking up to what this is all about. Trying to learn to see what the right choices are

For me and my life. My future. And how that relates to the people I love.

Clearly now there are signs everywhere. I am picking up on them. Understanding what is going on. What people are doing and why.

And inevitably, my conclusion is very simple.

There is a battle being waged. A test of wills, but more than that.

A test of faith and of love, and of the combined power of loving friends.

I am now aware.

And I now see.

And my answer to evil is simple.

Dead silence.

The People I have Met

During this journey.

The best among them. All wounded souls. All people with great loss, heartache and obstacles.

So very many

So incredibly talented.

They have turned to nature for their peace. For their calm. For their life.

Some are photographers like me.

Others bring birds to life by carving them from wood, to the point where you swear they could take flight at any moment.

Some write beautiful poems. Inspiring words. Heartfelt.

Some just close their eyes, and listen. And connect.

All of us. My friends.

Have lost.

Almost everything.

Marriages.

Jobs.

Their health.

But we all share one thing.

We connect.

With nature. With the outdoors.

With our soul.

With each other.

I love you all.