​What does it mean to be 
wedded to your own heart,
circumambulating 
around a maple tree,
the sacred fire of longing 
lit from within?
27 years ago you followed him
around a holy fire, believing
you had finally found 
the missing part of yourself.
For years you deferred 
to his standard,
his intelligence, 
his strength,
doubting your own poetic intuition 
in favor of mainstream masculinity.
Slow down and listen 
for what the sacred masculine 
has to teach you.
The second marriage 
is a private affair.

What if the unintelligible 
language of the wind
is a poem 
spoken just for you? 
Would you whisper it
to the next being you meet
with the same devotion?
The birds trill 
with merriment and mystery
of a morning that welcomes
you into the womb of the forest.
Here, you are a walking tree
rooted in an underground network 
of connection and belonging.
Trust your heart’s superpowers,
inhabiting the temple of your body
with joy and compassion.
Emerging from the forest,
delivered by newborn hope,
you belong to all beings.
Just like you, they all want
to be happy, safe, and free.

I would be a stepping stone to a path with an unknown destination, but filled with adventure. 

I would be a fine mist settling over a mirror before the reflection is revealed. 

I would be the dawn transitioning darkness into light. 

I would be a blank page waiting for an incredible story to be written or a drawing to emerge. 

I would be the silence before meaningful music was composed and then sung or played. 

I would be a creative womb, nurturing ideas without aborting any one of them prematurely.

There is only one interior design that is you.
Don’t let anyone decorate your inner life
without your explicit permission.
How would they know if you want
a firm or soft couch, the space
between each piece of furniture,
what type of knickknacks you’d place
on the end tables? Let the wall art
reflect what you care about most.
Even if they are not direct windows
into your soul, they could be snapshots
to deeper desires yet to be recognized.
Whether the space is cluttered, bare,
or something in between,
make room for yourself
to be, to breathe,
to fill the unique design
of your inner sanctuary.
Only then will the rest of the landscape make sense.

​
I’m fascinated by the intersection of emptiness and metta.

This month I received a birthday gift that I did not want - a flare up of chronic SI joint and gluteal muscle pain. Still there was significant appreciation for emptiness teachings.

I wasn’t a victim of a single cause or condition. Nor was I an expert on perfect management in extinguishing the burning sensations of pain. Perceptions of pain were determined by my relationship to it. When it took center stage, the attention shrunk, and there wasn’t much space for anything else.

Seeing and sensing through the eyes of the Brahmaviharas, the areas of pain transformed into an island of discomfort in a sea of healing modalities and support. The attention stretched to include ice, Advil, supportive family members, joy for my partner getting back in shape, a compassionate physical therapist, concerned patients expressing empathy, an image in supine meditation posture of the heart space pumping a champagne like bubbly substance to the rest of the body that softened, soothed, and allowed experience to be as it was, even held in celebration.

What if time is empty - past, present future - all empty of a single cause or condition that made me? What if this pain is not mine, and belongs to a divine intelligence?

The universal song is composed of both high and low notes. When dukkha arises, may I remember that others experience this, too. When sukkha arises, may others experience this, too.

“When self, time, separation, and even suffering are seen as empty, a devotion to the endless commitment of love is felt without burden.” (Seeing that Frees, Pg 327)

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.

There is never a dull moment to practice.

Is it night sweats caused by extra spice or sugar from dinner last night, a muscle spasm from a disturbing dream, or something else? The condition has been ongoing for three years, evading a specific diagnosis, even by my own medical mind.

I do not like this mysterious condition that causes a significant portion of the back body and limbs to tense and contract. Trying to attack it with many modalities, including hormone replacement therapy, dietary changes, cooling the ambient temperature of the room, more conscientious and calming sleep hygiene before bed, I'm up again this morning before the alarm.

Fearful and frustrated, I’m inspired to try a different approach. Laying on my back, the support of the bed supported by the earth is grounding. Compassionate breath fills the whole body with a soothing, intimate massage from the inside out. Metta flows in abundance. A fire is lit in the heart’s hearth in reverence for this phenomenon, trusting the body's wisdom for a meaningful practice to arise.

Susurrations of the words contraction and  e x p a n s i o n  are heard from another dimension, imploring me to embody them in this one. I realize I’m dealing with a duality! A vision of a flower expanding in sunlight on the inbreath and contracting in darkness on the outbreath begins to fill the body. Expansion depends on contraction; contraction is born from expansion.

I slow the breathing down intentionally to feel the whole transition of bud to blossom, growth to compression. Bud and blossom are not separate, connected by a meaningful continuum. I’m invited to love the whole cycle, softening the preference for one or the other. The effect is humility and awe at the design of human experience. The blossom, the expansion is only part of the sacred story.

There is never a dull moment to practice.