As I sit in meditation, there is eagerness to interpret the dream, to make meaning of it.

SMD whispers, “Not yet my love. Stay close to yourself. Do you have your energy body? Emotional body?”

Trusting this voice, I become meek, cultivating patience and reverence for the process by systematically sensing earth, space, the flow of metta, fire for image.

The dream is strange. I see many fish enclosed in a large space by a fence or cage. At first they are all still, but then they are flapping around. One by one they pop out of the cage and become young children dancing a melancholy dance.

“May I be free,” one child sings.

I feel the child within inspired to voice her own desires.
“May I be seen and heard.”
“May I love and be loved.”

I think of all the undocumented immigrants, the students protesting in the US who are being deported.

The heart center becomes a gray, swirling storm, aching for the light of the Brahmaviharas to shine through.

*****

Hiking in the rain, I imagine the rain as Kwan Yin’s tears. The pitter-pattering sound against my raincoat becomes the sound of thousands of hearts beating fervently in prayer.

“May there be more sanctuaries of love than sanctuaries of hate.”

*****

“And what would that give you?” the voice asks. Is it the voice of SMD, Kwan Yin, Mother Earth? Does it matter?

Then I would trust in a universal benevolence, more powerful than greed, hatred, and delusion. I would trust citta as a meaningful extension of it.

*****

Down by the lake, its surface generously receives the raindrops, the tears, the prayers, swallows them whole into its murky beyonds.

The eye of a weak sun peaks through the gray above. Someone is watching, eternally watching.

And my bones know, there is more than this.

Don’t lose yourself.
Don’t assume you know 
what I need either.
Create what you need 
out of this image for healing,
and discover that I am more
than your limiting ideas 
of what others need.

All being suffer, have this volcanic
eruption of dukkha from within-
undigested material that 
attacks only in darkness 
when one is most vulnerable.
What is the remedy, the tincture 
of trust that will cure?
Grant me autonomy
and I will show you…

*****

There is humility in this image, the image that I thought was me and is now more than mine. “The Medicine” for my suffering changes moment to moment, day to day. “The Medicine” for the suffering of others also changes moment to moment, day to day.

What a gift to be able to stay close to myself, to fill out and resonate with the energetic and emotional body, to cultivate space and ease in this vihara, to impact space and ease in others.

*****

Benevolent breath
Fill me with purpose
Receive my inadequacy
As a distant memory
You are the baseline beat
To every song I sing
My entry into this world
My exit off this stage
​
Stay with me
Remain with me
Watch and pray
That I fill this body
Completely 
To honor you
To know myself
To sense the song in others
And begin the improvised duet 

Heart Nebula by G. Parker

The image begins as a dream, one where the main character feels embarrassed at her vulnerabilities being exposed. She is also claustrophobic, overwhelmed by the number of people occupying her personal space. Who are they, and how can she escape?

Is the dream mine, or does it belong to someone else? My mother-in-law is stuck in a nursing facility in India, wanting nothing more than to return to her home and live out her last days with space and ease.

Space and ease. Something about these words carry a significant resonance, like bells at the end of a religious ceremony when the priest is chanting an ancient Sanskrit prayer. The words are not only invoked in present time, but from the accumulated karma of past lives, the possibility of seeing and sensing with more sacredness in the future.

Carrying the dream and it’s multiple interpretations like a warm shawl to morning meditating, I allow space and ease to fill the body with meaningful intention. The mind is eager to apply teachings of Soulmaking and emptiness to the experience, to think its way to a profound insight as a candle of sandalwood and jasmine is lit to invoke a meditative trance.

But the bodies memories are ancient, slowing the mind down to feel the elements that have shaped it – rivers carving canyons, heat and wind molding earth, the stardust of all life being exchanged through cycles of respiration, porous skin, a beating heart influenced by the rhythms around it. Humbled, the mind yields to its wise ancestor, the body, and waits.

Space and ease. The energetic body begins to relax. The emotional body becomes a sanctuary – a temple, a church, a synagogue, a mosque, open natural space to receive the vulnerabilities of others and mirror back their beauty, strength, and resilience.

The heart becomes a doorway to boundless compassion, not only for a body sitting here, but for a mother-in-law in India, a partner there trying to honor his mother’s last wishes, patients recently encountered who felt complex because of ‘extra’ needs, a politician who appears narcissistic and aggressive, and so many other countless beings I have overlooked from contraction and dis-ease.

May this artful insight, empty of a single person, place, practice, or state of citta, filled with love from multiple beings, places, practices, and states of citta, be for the benefit of all.

What is this color of healing,
this drop of kindness introduced
at the crown of the head,
diffusing through the whole body
with shimmering beauty
in the midst of breakdown?
I know I’m going to die,
that we all will perish
with dread or delight
depending on inner
and outer conditions.
 
Why not write a poem,
listen to music that lifts me
up from despair on wings
of hopeful possibilities?
I refuse to ignore this tincture
of love flowing through me--
a river of meaning mixing
with other tributaries on the way
to Right Understanding.
May i be a refuge for many.
May we be a refuge for all.