ShivAllahSita sutra 112

[Guest guest]

If the believer understood the meaning of the saying 'the color of the

water is the color of the receptacle', he would admit the validity of

all beliefs and he would recognise God in every form and every object

of faith.

~Ibn ‘Arabi, Fusûs al-Hikam

Hands in lapleaning back against smooth cool rock wall,work done for

the day.Bowl filled with clear waterawaiting its

mate,Moonshine.~Mazie & b

"…Know this to be definitely like this" opens the commentary on the

Chapter of Jonah in the Fusûs, "that God created this emergence of

humankind according to completion in his image… so that the qualities

of completion of this totality be manifest in him ." If this emergence

of humankind has been created for completion and if there is to come

about a universal perspective then it is required, as the first step,

that at least in thought it is recognised that the value of another

human being and oneself is that which is essential, without

condition: that our value does not lie in our attributes because the

attributes do not belong to us, they are lent, or assumed. The deep

common bond we may be graced to experience is a single reality in

multiple manifestations. This is a simple but profound revelation

which has the power to change everything.Another idea running rapidly

through this new world, which can appear to be in complete

contradiction to the sense of unity between peoples, is that the

differences in human beings deserve recognition and respect. Groups

not formerly represented in the prevailing culture, government, or

education - ethnic minorities, women, gays, native peoples, the

disabled, the list goes on - have demanded to be recognised. In its

lowest form this descends to the tyranny of political correctness

which so infuriates right wing columnists and broadcasters. But it

seems something very important is being expressed here which is at

the heart of a nascent universal perspective. On the one hand, if the

real value of a human being rests only in their essential humanity,

not their birth, nationality, race, creed, class, talents or

achievements then how they appear is, in essence, always suitable.

That is, there is no requirement to become something other than what

one is, nothing to transform oneself into, no attributes to acquire.

The only requirement is to become properly and completely who it is

one is meant to be.On the other hand, these differences in humans

which come about through their unique experiences, cultures,

religions, histories, talents, dispositions are intelligences. They

are aptitudes for the perception of the One Reality. When they are

allowed to be free from relative values and conditioned response and

are seen to be unique tastes of the One Reality they become

themselves an education and an invitation to a more universal truth.

>From the chapter of Jonah in the Fusûs: "One and the same thing may

appear differently to the various observers of it. Such is the

Self-manifestation of God. Either one may say that God manifests

Himself like that or that the Cosmos, being looked at and into, is

like God in His Self-manifestation. It is various in the eye of the

beholder according to the makeup of that beholder, or it is that the

makeup of the beholder is various because of the variety of

manifestation."Human beings all over the world are resisting the

orders which have been imposed on them and demanding the right to

express who it is they are. The tension caused between the desire to

recognise the essential humanity common to all and the desire to

respect and give value to difference can only be resolved from the

point of view of Unity. So long as the different attributes are seen

to belong to different entities, conflict and ranking one above the

other will be inevitable. When they can be perceived as attributes of

a single entity to which there are no exclusive rights except Its own

right to Itself, then all the tension and conflict falls away. There

is a profound education for all of us in this. This place, this

planet at the beginning of the new millennium is providing the

conditions for a vastly expanded perception. Our common history, the

progression of revelations appearing over time witnessed in our

communities lives on in us and gives us our sensibilities. It becomes

our means of understanding or it becomes what conditions us to a

limited perception. This era is requiring of us that we move beyond

the limitations simply in order to survive with one another.It is not

only in the interaction of people that our perceptions are expanded.

Much of the art of the 20th century in the West has been dedicated to

cutting ties to the past so that we are forced to use our senses in

new, fresh ways without the interference of the previously applied

intellect. The cubist paintings of Picasso, the abstract

expressionism of Rothko demanded a new way of perceiving of form and

color unattached to what it is these symbolise. The high mode of the

music of Charlie Parker or John Coltrane which demands to be heard

fresh in this moment, the language of Samuel Beckett, the

architecture of Le Corbusier - in every major art form, literature,

dance, drama, a new education has been offered to expand the

possibilities of perception. This is not even to mention the field of

science where the previously understood laws of physics have been

turned inside out.(James Morris told us two years ago in Berkeley of

Ibn 'Arabi’s description in the Futûhât of the people of fragrances,

special saints in Andalusia to whom all divine knowledge was conveyed

through the sense of smell. This is such an evocative image of the

pure receptacle where the senses are free of conditioned response and

intellectual interference and through which real knowledge can be

received) The bewildering changes, the speed with which old orders

are overturned, the suddeness of the necessity to accommodate the new

can either be welcomed and embraced or resisted and resented but

nothing will halt the requirement to respond. If we can look back

over several millennia of the history which informed us and see the

expansion of the platform of the revelation, we can see ourselves now

at a time and in a place where the platform has expanded

exponentially. The invitation to completeness can no longer be

contained in the order laid out by the temple, the tribe, the

community, the followers of the law of a prophet. As always what is

needed to understand the world around us is what is needed to

understand ourselves or vice versa. The era is His name. This time

and this place is demanding in even the most overt ways that in order

to understand what is going on we must remove from ourselves limited

belief and conditioned response. This is not easy. An education is

needed in this to perceive what is essential and what is peripheral,

what is "ancient and abiding and what is recent and perishing". An

education from one order to another order will not be sufficient.

This is the beginning of the education which is offered by such as

Ibn 'Arabi, who starts from the point of unity and never leaves it.

He gives help from what is real to what is known to be real in

oneself - the education from the interior reality of man to the

interior reality of man, without intermediary. We have no way of

knowing what the future will bring. Whether the new world order at

the dawn of the 21st century will bring harmony, destruction, apathy

or combinations of all three. We may see that the invitation to

completeness is being made to a much broader platform but we cannot

know how it will be responded to - except in ourselves. Ibn 'Arabi

delivers an invitation to direct knowledge from the most ancient

place. In this way there are no real states or stations to be brought

through. There is no platform of understanding to be brought about.

There are no conditions to be changed or attributes to be attained.

All that is required is the proper response, the request to be

informed directly from the most interior place."Rabb hibli istidad’i

kamilan" says the prayer of Ibn 'Arabi. "Lord grant me as a gift the

perfect aptitude to receive from the most holy effusion."

~Jane Carroll, Paper delivered for the Symposium of the Muhyiddin Ibn

'Arabi Society, "The Spirit of the Millennium"

First of allstop worrying.It's pointless –you must have already

noticed this.Nobody is implicated,nobody is our original

condition,before the thought of beinganything that begins or

ends.Whatever seen, felt, or thought isnot so. Don't even worry about

that!Something is just about tobreak your heart right now that

hasnothing to do with time.Just let it.You won't survive,It will.It's

desire birthed you totaste itself as you.Why not return the favor

bytasting just like yourself?~Mazie & b

Looking For Your Own Face

Your face is neither infinite nor ephemeral.You can never see your own

face,only a reflection, not the face itself.

So you sigh in front of mirrorsand cloud the surface.

It's better to keep your breath cold.Hold it, like a diver does in the

ocean.One slight movement, the mirror-image goes.

Don't be dead or asleep or awake.Don't be anything.

What you most want,what you travel around wishing to find,lose

yourself as lovers lose themselves,and you'll be that.~Attar,

translated by Coleman Barks, "The Hand of Poetry: Five Mystic Poets

of Persia"

How discern the real from the imaginary?Someone stumbling along a

strange trail in the dark may imagine the wind roughly soughing

through the pines to be a bear on the prowl, but when they hear a

bear's growl above, and looking up see that bear glaring back, jagged

teeth bared and flared claws bristling, they will no longer require

the services of the imagination –sometimes it happens just like that!

~Mazie & b

Moves and does not move.

Is distant,

Is near.

It inhabits all of this,

Stays outside of it.

~Isha Upanishad, 5

And what will you have gainedat last when you have scratchedthis itch

of the past --another birthin a dream of life,another deathin a life

of dreams?Like anything that must expire incarnating as desirethe

closer to the source it hums the more transparent it becomes.

~Mazie & b

Who sees

All breathing creatures

As self, self

In everything breathing,

No longer shrinks

>From encounter.

~Isha Upanisha, 6

Cloud shadows stream over immaculate white snow onCold Mountain,images

of water reflected on frozen water, the sum total of memoriescontained

in a drop. ~Mazie & b

When the spectator

Of this unity

Regards all creatures as Self,

Who can suffer,

Who can be misled?

~Isha Upanishad, 7

existence consciousness blisswanting knowing believingwaking sleeping

dreamingfeeling seeing thinkingbuddha dharma sangha morning noon

nightyou me everythingtriple jewels tossed like confetti from a ledge

on Cold Mountainarms upraised ina motion of delight

~Mazie & b

The

Spider and the lizard

Grabbed hold of each other’s mouth

Because of

Love.

The details

Of their affections

Most would not like to

Hear,

Though I watched for awhile,

As God might,

Their holy dance

Spinning

>From one thread that hung

>From the silk

Mandala.

I watched until they fell,

As our own bodies someday will,

Panting

Like a great falling

Star.

~Hafiz/Ladinsky

Even as you light it remember:its destiny is ashes, asis

yours.Whatever you reach forhas already crumbled -- you gaze at what

no longer existsexcept as memory, a flame blown out whose smoke,

sifted into the invisible,momentarily flavors a wind that moves with

no purpose butto move, fueled by countless extinguishing flames.Don't

try to warm your handsover a bed of dead ashes –roll up your sleeves

andplunge those hands into the cold soft remains of what you once

thought was you, lift two fists-full high above your head, openyour

hands --feed the wind.~Mazie & b

A royal temple has been built

In a sacred forest

On the exact spot

Where for thousands of years

Great lions have loved to piss.

God does not like this:

His cherished beasts

No longer able to leave

Their holy scent in the jungle

Near a favorite resting spot of God’s

Left toe.

My dear,

I am about as far

>From a sacrilegious man as this

World can endure,

For I

Have found the power

To say "no" to any actions

That might harm myself

Or another.

Listen:

Love reveals man is so endowed

To "lift his leg"

Upon galaxies.

~Hafiz/Ladinsky

Mountain pines in the night mists hazilylit by this campfire, ghosts

of curiosityhaunting the hillside, huntingthe vibration of the

imperceptible,felt as the feeling of being itselfby everything

simultaneously, eachexpressing transmission of that light which only

requires submission of vision to graciously appear from invisible to

visible, feltsimultaneously by everything as theappearance of

anything at all in this motionless zeromind moisture of misty

enshroudingfog, wrapped around branches like the precious scarf gifts

pines receive andfreely share with me in the silence ofreception.No

moon tonight.

~Mazie & b

"When you become you, Zen becomes Zen. When you are you, you see

things as they are, and you become one with your surroundings.

Dogen-zenji said, "To study Buddhism is to study ourselves. to study

ourselves is to forget ourselves." When you become attached to a

temporal expression of your true nature, it is necessary to talk

about Buddhism, or else you will think the temporal expression is it.

But this particular expression of it is not it. And at the same time

it is it! For awhile this is it; for the smallest particle of time,

this is it. But it is not always so: the very next instant it is not

so, thus this is not it. So that you will realize this fact, it is

necessary to study Buddhism. But the purpose of studying Buddhism is

to study ourselves and to forget ourselves. When we forget ourselves,

we actually are the true activity of the big existence, or reality

itself. When we realize this fact, there is no problem whatsoever in

this world, and we can enjoy our life without feeling any

difficulties. the purpose of our practice is to be aware of this

fact."

~Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

Leaning into Cold Mountain, cheek resting against cool stone, smiling:

Ahh.... On this mountain smile is perched a bird within whose wings

uncounted galaxies revolve in joyous perfection. The mere appearance

of anything,of this – existence -- perpetually amazes space itself

with the mystery of its own ineffable appearance, erupting like

immensely serene fires of blossoming star clusters, pregnant with

worlds after dreamy worlds, flashing and fading beyond imagining,all

dreaming, Yes -- we are dreamers here with only moments left of

hiding.We are falling away, falling into something else, something we

have always been, something that even nowcannot stop smiling,perched

on the cliff ofCold Mountain.~Mazie & b

"Let ‘Em Work, Let ‘Em Live." Now just who in the hell came up with

that mouthful? I’ve got a dog that could do better than that with

sticks from across the room. I’m saying the committee on this (it has

to be a very, very large civic-minded committee, because one person

couldn’t do this much damage by his or her self) has been with us a

long time and will continue doing blue-ribbon work like this until

someone shoots them or takes them over the Gervais Street Bridge and

leaves them. In any event the committee had to have figured the "‘Em"

would make it "down home" enough to carry the rest of the load. Can’t

you just see this on the blackboard and the group leader with a yard

stick pointing out how colorful and how "down home" it was, and yet

how it was balanced and scanned beautifully while at the same time

got across a very timely and powerful message in only six words?

As for the message, "Let ‘Em Live," yea Gods, was there something else

on the table, some other alternative in the room? Was the original

idea to give the workers the Roman thumbs down and let the sword

drop? And then they decided to "let ‘em live?" Or did one of the

lesser minions timidly point out that if they were dead they couldn’t

work? Alas, we’ll never know.

If "Let ‘Em Work, Let ‘Em Live" isn’t tragic enough, some other group

on state payroll (maybe it’s the same team) has cheerfully saddled us

with at least another solid year of "Smiling Faces, Beautiful Places"

on our license plates. I mean a lot of us sensitive folk from

Columbia Country Club and Forest Lake Country Club are ashamed to

drive north with a message like this that smacks loudly of something

right out of The Dukes of Hazzard.

I was on location in Los Angeles one time on a Southern movie being

directed by a moron from the Bronx and here’s what happened: On the

opening shot he called for quiet. After getting the entire cast and

crew’s attention he shouted out, "OK THIS IS SOUTHERN! SO LET’S HAVE

FUN!" Right away everyone on camera started running bowlegged,

slapping their legs and shouting "Yeeee-haw!" One slow-mover crossed

his eyes and kept them crossed. And a couple New York "method actors"

went all out and pretended they were chewing tobacco. Needless to say

the movie never even made it to video.

And the question on the floor is why do people from the Northern

tundra think our SAT scores are so low? What do they see and hear

that we don’t? Is it the way we drive our pickup trucks with two and

three dogs in the back? Our gun racks? Our barbecue? Or the way we

under-belt our stomachs? Or how, in our pantheon of heroes, we’ve

elevated Dale Earnhardt way above Elvis and are making serious moves

through the College of Cardinals to the Pope about making him an

instant saint? And the answer is all of these and yet none of these.

The big mover and riding hard in first place is our world famous

bumper stickers.

Because South Carolina bumper stickers are ours and only ours and they

are truly original. Or as original as you can steal. You’ll never find

"If Fingerprints Showed Up On Skin, Whose Would I Find On You?" or

"Refried Dreams" in, say, Vermont or the outback of Maine. No sir.

And you’ll never see "In The Event of The Rapture, This Car Will Be

Unmanned" in the Serengeti or anywhere but down here where we handle

snakes, drink strychnine and hug red hot stoves. And there’s two more

winners out there in the back windows and shimmering on the silver

chrome. Number one is "My Wife Ran Off With My Best Friend And I Miss

Him," followed closely by "I Brake For Masturbators."

But then, during election time, suddenly a fresh wind blows across the

landfill and there’s a sudden rush of bona-fide, top-drawer talent

that makes you proud to be living in the old Palmetto State. The

Republicans are now featuring the blatant and possibly litigational

"Alex Sanders Likes Giraffes," which certainly sends out, well some

kind of message. But not to be outdone, the Democrats are exhaling a

serious stream of cigar smoke around "Heterosexuals for Lindsey

Graham." You’ll have to admit, no one has to get you in a full nelson

with your nose in the dirt to make you agree that this is pretty

high-grade material. And don’t forget, this is only September.

~William Price Fox

When you finally come around, still blind drunk, at this perpetual

table of the worldyou find the ferocious feast has not abated --

everything's feeding on everything else, and you are by no means

excluded.Your hair in a chaos reflecting your head,your breath as

hard as turpentine from last night's wine you kept swilling until you

saw not one but two, your face filled with the stubble of chronology

documenting the banquet's excruciating unraveling into slap-stick

games of those mischievous jesters called belief and experience,bent

forward backward inside out you flop into the chair reserved for the

hungry ghost, no appetite just now for the seductive menu of the

search, parched for a simple flask of cold spirit water to wash down

drugged memories that stick in your throat like partially digested

bits of identification, a bitter rancidity that resists the

superficial mouthwash of ersatz redemption, dazed and confused by wry

promises of sweet oblivion amidst the peach blossoms and the rosewater

that float in the poisoned chalice of faith --the cup coated around

the razored rim with that thin glaze of hopeful honey, just enough to

disguise that hypnosis ingredient the now suspiciously-absent host

neglected to mention through the shark's teeth of his "Please Enjoy!"

accompanying the blithe endearing wave of his hand as he melted into

the witheringheat mirage shimmering from the kitchen --and all you

really want now is for it all to just go away. What did you expect?

As you swoon and sway in this dizzy fogged morningat the edge of your

seat at the edge of your life andreach for a napkin to cough up your

soul --blame nobody.You were the one who accepted the invitation

--this party is for you!~Mazie & b

Questioner: "Hi,Whether a spiritual quest or any quest, the focus is

always on the goal, on the issue, isn't it? The goal of spiritual

bliss, of Enlightenment, of awakening, of reaching GodOrThe issue of

how to resolve the misery of living, get peace of mindOr, Seeking the

new 4 bedroom house, the third car, maybe a couple of million dollars,

a promotion, a new job, any job, seeking a self-fulfilling

relationship, seeking to save/get out of a relationship, etc,

etc.Rather than the issue, or the goal, we rarely wonder just who is

it, that seeks spiritual bliss or Enlightenment or God, or the

million dollars?Just who is it that is in misery?Who is it, that is

in the quest?Who is this "seeker"? Who am I?"S: The focus always is

on the issue or the goal and the debate on the effectiveness of

various means, schools of thought, philosophical streams, Guru X, or

Y, Master P or Q, etc etc to achieve the issue, to reach the

goal.Would not this focus, be like wondering whether the water of the

mirage-lake in the desert, is it hot or cold?And debating how to

measure that temperature ?What is the existential reality of this

self, which seeks, whatever it seeks in the moment?What is the

existential reality of the identity which you have assumed yourself

to be?What is it's Truth?Who am I?Before stepping into that, what is

existential Reality?What is Truth?Existential Reality or Truth would

be "that" which needs no "other", depends on no "other", for it's

existence.It stands completed in itself.Now let's look at the typical

icons of identity which is normally assumed for oneself.

-A name-A conglomeration of professional knowledge, skills, etc ( I am

manager in a Multinational Company, or I am a speech therapist, I am

Educationist, I am a wannabe doctor, I am radiologists, I am a Dean

in a University)-A wife, a husband, a son, a father, a mother, a

daughter, a respected member of the neighborhood society, a citizen

of a country-A woman, a man-A human being in contrast to an animal or

a snail.-An entity holding some profound realizations, memories of

experiences out of which has evolved the dearly cherished

Life-values, convictions, spiritual understandings, a spiritual

seeker, a non-spiritual, whatever.-A human organism, which is alive,

with a sense of volition, free will, to do or not to do, to decide

between this and that, etc, etc.

Are these not the typical icons, with which we paint our

self-identity?Look at any of these icons.None of them can exist, on

it's own.A simple visualization will make it evident.Imagine yourself

as the sole survivor of a global catastrophe.Except you, nothing else,

nobody else has survived.You are wandering about, with nobody else in

sight, nothing else in sight.

Without an "other", does your name, Chelle, Kathleen, Moushimi,

Amitava, Neeti, Soniya, Indroneel, have any meaning, any relevance?

Without an "other", does your vocational knowledge, your skills in

whatever business you are involved in, your spiritual work that you

are engaged in, your Life-values, your religious convictions, have

any meaning, any relevance?

Without an "other", does the assumed identities, of a wife, of a

mother, of a daughter, of a respected (or non-respected) member of

society, of a son, of a father, of a husband, whatever, do they have

any meaning, any relevance?Without an "other", does your "femaleness"

or "maleness", have any meaning, any relevance? How will you define

"maleness" without the existing contrast of "femaleness"? And

vice-versa?Without an "other", does any of the convictions, values,

conclusions, realizations, satoris, spiritual understandings that you

hold on to, (for they define yourself to you), do any of that, have

any meaning, any relevance?Without an "other", does your conviction

about being a human organism with free will, have any meaning, any

relevance?Without an "other", how would you even be convinced that

you have survived the global catastrophe? That you are in fact, even

"alive"?Without an "other", does "life" and "death", these

convictions, which run you, have they any meaning, any relevance?In

each of these identities, it cannot stand on it's own.It needs a

contrasting opposite, an "other" to lend to it, it's existential

meaning.Ergo, can any of these be the reality of your existence?Or

define the truth of your existence?How do you know that you actually

exist?

Because, you are, right now sitting in front of a PC screen, reading

these strange signs on the screen, connoting a crazy meaning?That you

eat, take a shit in the morning, go to work, make love, relate to

people, see other people alive, or dying, etc etc?All this could be

happening in a dream.In a dream, you are alive, you eat, you do this

or that, you have profound discussions, you are fearful you make

love, you do cruel acts, you do profound acts.And in the dream, while

dreaming, you do not know that you are dreaming.If another dreamed-up

character walked upto you in the dream, or sends you a dream-message

through the dreamed Internet connection, indicating that you are a

dreamed-up character, you will laugh, be upset, not believe, and if

your anger is sufficient, maybe even nail him to a cross, or burn her

up.While you are dreaming, it is so real to you, that many a time, you

break into cold sweat, you cry out, you shout, you laugh, you cry, you

have wet dreams, all while sound asleep.Isn't it so?So what gives you

the firm conviction that you are not a dreamed up-character in the

dream of a tsetse fly and you will go "pooof", when the fly wakes up,

from it's 10 second sleep.Time?Have you never dreamt where an entire

life-time of 89-90 years flashed by, in it's minutest details, in a

dream time of couple of hours?If you have not, know that, such has

been a case with many a people.Continuity?You remember a previous

waking days, events, experiences, work done, work undone etc,

etc?Continuity is a function of the recording of the memory.In that

respect the night-sleep--dream has a more powerful effect on memory,

than the other way around.Why do I say that?You would have had, at

some time in your life, such a powerful dream, that it's effect as

"moroseness" or "happiness", carried on into your waking state, while

at work, or while doing your house work.But never does your

day-waking-functionings gets carried into your sleep-dreaming state,

(except may be when you had some bad Lobsters for dinner)Continuity

is no basis for the existential reality of an identity.Centuries

back, the Tao Master Chuang Tzu had posed the same question....If

Chuang Tzu can dream, it's become a butterfly flitting from flower to

flower, why is it not possible that it is the butterfly dreaming that

it is Chuang Tzu holding spiritual discourses.So, who are you?Ought

not, this premise be clearly established before proceeding on any

quest by this entity?

~Sandeep

No where to go and nothing to do buthumbly unfasten the seven buttons

ascarefully as the moment requires, silentlyrevealing an innocence no

stain ofmemory taints, a presence towards which every creature's face

thrusts forward from the same neck in speechless awe, sensesdrenched

in the honey nectar cycling as lightthrough the limitless space once

thought of asthis body.

~Mazie & b

The noble art of losing face may one day save the human race.

~ Amnesty International Kazoo Band, the largest Kazoo marching band in Australia

For numberless years I have wandered deep and far in this landscape of

myself.I have waded out into the ocean of forgetfulness, swallowed up

at last in that sea of mystery, and now I am washed ashore on the

waves of your indulgence, singing my little songs of

remembrance.Perhaps at night one of these tiny tunes may insinuate

itself into some neglected pocket of your wonder, and you will awaken

with a particular tear upon your cheek.In that tear is everything I

have come here for, everything I am.Everything is seeking, yet from

the shore, can you stop the boat gone out to sea?Beyond these words,

persist.Unless you can get to the marrow, you will leave this table

dissatisfied.The tear is a kind gift from you to yourself.Can you

welcome it, ordid you think that stepping off the cliffwas perhaps a

kind of metaphor?Choice or choiceless?Beyond the stalemate

persist.Sailing off from the safe shore of certainty into the current

of vivid life, whichever way you turn, you are confronted with the

lies of what you know, and the truth of what you don't.Have you

intuited yet your deepest yearning?There is something life wants to

do with you.Are you willing to listen to your soul whisper, so

familiar, like the evening chimes in some abandoned ruin of a

temple,the temple of your heart? The ever-present music just behind

your thoughts isthe source of these tears that spill on your cheek,

yet all you want to do is to go back to sleep.Don't go back to

sleep!Stay here with me for a while, let your cares drop off like the

weary rags they are. In our innocent nakedness, we can point like

little childrenat the beauty of this brilliance pouring all around

us, weaving shadow and light into colorful tales of lost and

found,forgetting and rememberingwe are that.We can whisper all the

questions the water asks the sea, andlisten for the answers sung in

seashell, tide, and moon.Songs love to be sung. Can you be the song

your soul wants to sing?I am here to sing it with you.Our yearning is

not different. We can remember our original voice together.It is the

voice that has never been bound, never been limited.Never despaired

at the fragility of what transpires from life to death.Never

faltered, though the most delicate beauty seems to fall and rot.The

closer things approach nothingness, the more exquisite they

become.Your own exquisiteness makes me weep, and now my tears roll

across our cheek.There is a gleaming, glistening in our eyes that

only magnifies our tenderness.This magnificent tenderness is yet

unfamiliar to those who entertain preferences. To those who would be

strong and storm heaven's gates.To those who believe.We can

relinquish such fantasies, because we have felt life's lips pressed

against the vulnerable tissues of our heart, and not resisted. This

is all we need to know, that knowing at last submits itself tothat

which open-armed embraces the unknown, and rests there, at home, at

peace.~Mazie & b

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