In a faithful bound
I surrender
To all that was and will be
I surrender
To the piece of peace I want to see
I surrender
And to the loving ties of your promise
I surrender.
The voice echoes but is real no more
For I have given it no power
You are there and I am here
Alone in my missing mate’s demand
To be and not to want
To seek and not to find
To want and to not find satisfaction
It is where my heart resides.
I find peace in knowing what you are
and question what I am not
Amidst the vanquished harlots that call my name
I stand tall knowing that nothing is the same
And cry tears of joy in in this resounding victory
A wait for your return.
The dream has just but started
The mind has all but surrendered
To the Heart, to the desire of Something I cannot see
To the Soul, to the guidance of Something I cannot hear
I open my arms and shout the words
“Take me to that place!”
In a trusting act of knowing
I surrender
To the words of my true Love
I surrender
To the Light that the Ajna follows hard
I surrender
To the silence left when doubt is gone
I surrender
To Love, I surrender.
~
Author: tomgrasso (Page 1 of 38)
Imagine the rawness of it all
The time we shared, the sweet smell
Of love cascading through our minds.
Remember the rapture
The beauty we had to stop
But could never end…never end.
Feel the lightness of my touch
The instant the bumps rise
and the echoes of your moans
Fill the space around us
I am silent for I am there
Where you want me to be.
Mouth full, heart rearing down
You scream in holy ecstasy
A prayer that sings a holy praise.
You…me…we…
Forever entangled in this moment
The beads of our sweat mix
Becoming one full salty sea
As our sanded shorelines melt
And merge into one splendid Eden.
Whisper in my ear my Love
Ah, that voice that curls my toes
And makes my hands grab all sorts of things
Scratch me, mark me, make me yours
In the way that says we were here
Worshiping in this place we call home
A place that isn’t truly a place at all
But a description of all we live to be.
And all we ever where.
Finally the release I surely wanted to delay
The moment this Universe was created
The moment all time and space began
We walked together through the sand
Paused to watch the Sunrise
And called this place our Home.
I never want to leave this place
Can’t we stay here just another lifetime more?
We will surely meet again my Lover
When I call out your name and remember
This, our moment of Divinity
Against that, our moment of humanity.
Together we have journeyed beyond Earth’s surly bounds
And walked into a Lightness of Being no mind could dare create.
We are Love, We are Lovers still.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN-AyNsDtN0]
~
In my dream…
We danced to this song in the candlelight, your head nestled on my shoulder, our hands intertwined, our hearts matching rhythm as our minds drifted into the moment. The song itself is short, but in my dream it never ended; continuing into the ecstatic Dance our Souls have through the pleasures our bodies provide.
I awake…
Tears streaming down my face, my hand instinctively reaching for the spot where you should be, remembering that you are not there. You are here, in that place where my Mind, my Body, and my Soul meet. You are singing in that sweet voice to me, looking into my eyes, healing…
You caress my face, and lean in to kiss me. Heaven, this Kingdom of God, is here in my midst, and I feel fortunate to see it as I kiss you in return. In good time my Love, in good time. These moments apart only serve to highlight the greatness that is our togetherness, the box only serves to highlight our freedom, the mind only serves the experience of the Soul.
So here I sit, drawing a painting of Love with the written word hoping you feel it too…knowing that I’d step out of a plane without a chute just to wrap my arms around you and fly through the air with Love in, out and all around me. There is no beauty in safety here, the beauty is out there, daring us to embrace each other as we kiss the clouds and feel the wind in our Beings.
I am inspired this morning. What a gift you give this happy soul!
In my Garden of Gethsemane
I walked along with her
She could not know my suffering
A worm stuck in my own cocoon.
The wounds I bore
She touched them
And they opened
I screamed silently until I could be silent no more.
She did not mean it
She could not see they were there
And I hid the bleeding
Until our river ran crimson with untold memories.
By touching them
She healed them
The flesh, it tore
But allowed the Light to enter.
There are some Souls
Who bless our lives with presence
Who heal us even amid the suffering
Such is Love.
I wonder what wounds I touched in her
And I weep at the thought of the injury
Even as I pray that I healed her too
A reflection of the Light she is to me.
I can see her now, clearly
The clouds of torment gone
The attention to wounds forgotten
Love eternal reigns the day.
In the ending a new beginning
In the loss a prize eternal
I bask in the tears I shed for her
Such medicine the salty rivers give!
I feel her now not through a pain soaked curtain
But through a warm vessel of Light
The Sun, the Moon, the Stars
The Glory of a Dancing Tigress.
I felt the Universe unfold in beautiful awe
As she fell into my arms weeping
Telling me a million stories
Without ever saying a word.
And I heal…
That moment I came down off my cross
And turned it into just another tree
I fell in love with me.
Right there, in my Garden of Gethsemane
Where the Beloved showed me who I am
Right where the wounds became no more
Right were she touched where no one has touched me before.
I wrapped my arms around her
Our sweated Beings merged
I loved in that moment like I’ve never loved before
I swallowed all of her she’d allow me to have.
I ceased to be in that moment still
The final thread of my veil fell away
Or so it seems that weighted cloak is gone
Lifted by a selfless act of Love.
I do not pretend to know tomorrow
There are many crosses with many weights to bear
Yet in this instant I fear no more
I am free in this, my Garden of Gethsemane.
“It is not what you look at that matters, it is what you see.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
…
Love is the greatest source of pleasure and pain ever created by the Universe. It proves to us we are alive, and gives us a reason to look at ourselves through eyes full of both clarity and clouds of tears. It sums up the human experience provided we experience its opposite, and such a relationship between love and fear allows us to know who we are.
In Love, we can both experience the suredness of solid ground but also the impermanence of our own foundations. We can observe the unsteady security of where we stand, and we can easily lose our focus unsure of our own existence. We can seek the safety of the ground while flying high above the clouds, and once landed seek to fly again. We can feel grounded while floating among the stars if for only a moment to realize that the ground is nothing more than a figment of our imagination. The real glory lies here among the stars if only I could shut my mind down long enough to see them.
The mind’s purpose in this seems to be to both define and distort Love. When I see the mind working, and I ignore it, Love stands as the foundation for my life’s purpose. I feel Love, I am in love, and I know where I am clearly and without reservation. When in mindless focus, I hear the voices of the past dictate to me what this is. The mind creates stories, withholds truths, plays games and creates conditions by which Love is, and surely this distortion creates the suffering that only Lovers know. We create conditions, we create stories, we play games and then we suffer from them.
The Pond
So, you come upon a pond. It’s still waters invite you as you feel a thirst within you. You walk to its peaceful shores and kneel to take a drink.
You pause, seeing its beauty you don’t want to disturb. Such tranquility, such peace and such beauty are found in this place that even
Photo by Tom Grasso
through your thirst you take a moment to soak it in. Soon, however, the thirst takes over and you cup your hand to drink.
You break through the surface of the still water creating ripples that extend far beyond where your hand meets the water. You drink, feeling the coolness of what the pond offers travel all the way down into your Soul. You realize now how dry you were, and you now cup both hands to drink larger quantities of water. The ripples are now larger, but you fail to notice because you are now focused on your thirst. Soon, you are full of the water and you barely notice the pond at all.
Your thirst satisfied, you now realize that you are hot from the afternoon sun. You strip naked, and dive into the pond without paying attention. You reopen an old wound on a rock and the once-clear waters are now stained with the blood from this wound. You are now bathing in a mixture of the pond and your open wound, they have almost become one. You splash and play creating some fresh wounds in the process. The pond is no longer a beautiful, peaceful place but rather a place of turmoil and injury. You lose sight of what drew you here in the first place and become selfish in your need for more. The once calm shorelines of this pond are now rough with the wakes created by the action/reaction of flesh, mind and water. The waters once crystal clear are now clouded by the silt stirred from the bottom and the blood from wounds created in mindless activity.
Soon, you are near drowning with exhaustion, and you begin to fear the pond. You barely make it back to shore when you collapse.
Photo by Tom Grasso
You look at the cloudy waters of this now rough pond and you wonder what ever led you to such an ugly place in the first place. You dry off, pick yourself up off the sand and travel onward until the thirst returns. The pond becomes still again, and the silt once again settles to the bottom revealing a calm, peaceful, pristine place. Another traveler will soon be welcomed here, drawn by the beauty of this place.
A Choice
We all have a choice when we find our pond. We can’t help the stories our lives have created in us. We cannot help the wounds we bear from our journey. We all get thirsty, and we all want comfort. Yet, we often find our search for satisfaction creates the opposite in those we cherish the most. We aren’t satisfied with just a drink, we need the entire cup. We aren’t satisfied with the immersion of our Selves into the cool waters on a hot summer day we need more. We aren’t mindful of our actions and the reactions they cause. We forget that the pond has silt on its bottom, and we have our wounds, and mindlessness only seeks to activate both.
We all have a choice to make in our own relationships. Remember what drew you to her in the first place. Remember the beauty of this pond and the reflection its stillness provided. Remember that your story is only important if you make it important; your wounds will only reopen if you push them to break and if they open they only matter if you allow them to bleed.
Drink from the pond with care. Walk in, but do so with peace in your purpose. Sit, and enjoy this place and the moment you have. Allow it to embrace you, to comfort you, to hold you up and offer you a place to relax. When the winds come and the waters become rough, all it to be without your wounds being opened. Sense that “this storm too shall pass” and that what drew you here in the first place will return. Remember that the tears that you shed become One with this pond. Be still as often as you can be. Enjoy.
This is the lesson I have learned painfully over the past few months. I realize that I don’t want to leave this place, that exhaustion too is impermanent. I love it here, and I want to be here in the stillness and peace that Love provides me. It’s beautiful here, and in knowing this I can only ask for forgiveness and healing as I wait for the waters to become peaceful again.
Source: Dashama Konah (Facebook)
Life is a series of events threaded together to give us a “movie” version of still events. At least that is how I see it.
Recently I have been challenged and in that challenge have not only had to step way outside my comfort zone but also had to reflect on the experience. This was not your ordinary “I dove into the pool without feeling the water” step, it was more like I dove out of a plane chasing a parachute someone had thrown out of it. I didn’t plan on stepping off that plane and free-falling without security, but step off I did. I’m still not sure what the outcome will be other than saying that the joy is in the flying as long as I don’t think about the landing…
<insert laughter and applause here>
So, here I am flying through the air not truly enjoying the experience. Why? Because I know that at some point gravity will win and I will hit the ground while most likely not living through the experience of landing. That is what experience, “common sense” and what knowledge I have on the subjects of gravity and human flight have told me. I cannot survive this plummet without a parachute, and even with one survival is not guaranteed. So I desperately search for the security of the free-falling parachute because I don’t want to feel pain or die.
And I begin to question why I jumped out of the plane in the first place. Why did I jump? What insanity drove me to step off a perfectly good airplane into something unknown? At this moment in fear I question everything. I probably even start to flap my arms believing that I could stop my descent or perhaps even fly. I begin to reason that maybe the landing won’t be so bad, and I begin to resist the knowing of what is to come. My human mind ignores what my scientific mind is telling me.
In all of this commotion, I forget to enjoy the experience of now. How great would it be to take flight? How about the rush of air over my skin, the sunlight on my back? How about the sensation of falling? How about embracing the clouds as I pass through them? The end is inevitable, but to lose sight of the present moment for something I cannot change is the insanity. Why am I not just enjoying the ride as I look for the parachute that could change everything?
Fear: Friend or Foe?
Fear does this to us. It distorts the present moment if we allow it to. I do believe that fear is not only a very necessary component to our human existence, but that it can be our friend if we don’t cater to it. If fear controls us, rather than the other way around, we get a distorted and sometimes fatal view of our existence. Hitting the ground is the inevitability of our existence here, and if we focus on
Source: chrisroll
that or some magical afterlife we are doomed to miss out on the still photos that will become the movie of our time here.
So, back to our analogy. I know my end is near even if I survive this tumble through our atmosphere. I will die someday, so why not choose to live this moment? I come to peace with the future as just a dream since it does not exist beyond my mind’s creation. I have nothing to fear now in this future just as there are no monsters under my bed or no boogie man hiding in the dark corner of my room. Neither exists in that present moment when I shine a light into them, and the monsters I thought were there become nothing more than the empty air I now tumble through. The present moment becomes that light I shine into the dark corners I fear.
This helps me focus on now. There is a calmness that comes with that type of presence that some would call “silent strength”. You can feel intention course through you like a laser. As you become calm you are ripe with purpose. My present moment is enjoying the fall as I look for the parachute. After all, there is a reason I stepped off that plane even if I can’t explain it. That reason was to enjoy this experience; the one I have having right now.
Now I begin to feel the air rush over my skin. It is exhilarating and aids me in the focus. Now I can feel the sun warming my back as I peer downward at the clouds. Through their whiteness I can see the ground below, but my focus remains on the emptiness of this air I tumble in. Air is a remarkable thing, you can’t see it but you always know it is there. Without it you cannot survive which leads me to another analogy I created once when discussing Love (or my understanding of Love. Yes, I speak best when speaking in analogies):
There are two large boxes. One is normal and one is a vacuum. They look identical as you look at them, so what’s the difference between the two? There is none until you try to breathe. Love is the same thing. Egoic love and True Love may look identical, but just wait until you try to breathe… 🙂
That’s another story for another time. In this one, I focus my ADD-ridden mind on my comfort zone. As I tumble to earth…no, let me change that to appreciate the present moment…as I have the experience of falling for the first time I am now enjoying it. I am present and serene. I embrace all that is in this moment without concern for what may be because what may be does not exist. I am in joy! Happiness always seems to fill the void left when we push fear out of our present moments. It is, however, the fear that allows us to not only understand, but be grateful for, the happiness in this moment. It’s like taking that first sip of cool water after working hard in the heat, you can feel it go all the way down into your Soul in a way that would not be true if thirst did not exist. Use fear as your friend and become mindful of it when it is contrary to your joy. You will find great pleasure there.
What happens at the end of this story? Frankly, it is irrelevant to me so create your own ending if you must. I’d suggest, however, that you focus only on the flight and the beauty of risk in our human experience. Take the step out of the plane, and care not about the landing but instead focus on the flight.
Why Step Out of Your Comfort Zone?
The benefit to stepping outside of our comfort zone is growth. In my very real case it involved Love, joy, anger, pain and Love again. Well, let me say that Love never disappeared from the equation, it was just completely distorted by mindless fear. I don’t take all of the
Source: scottchan
blame for this, but I do know only I have the power to make choices for me. The Lover in this equation is the only person who can make her choices. It seems two people who have been so fortunate to find the power of great Love will always be forced to decide between the power of the mind or the power of the Heart when the two don’t agree. Lovers have the power to choose between focusing on the landing or the flight. What we find more often than not is that when focusing on the flight we fly forever, but when focusing on the landing we are sure to find it quickly.
So, I’ve decided to step out of my comfort zone again. Why? Because the awesome feeling of flight demands that I experience it. I don’t care about the landing, and have made few plans that include such a thing. I have stepped out of the plane into the beautiful blue sky. It is here that I will learn and experience, and it is here that I will do my best work. It is, what I now see, the meaning of the phrase falling in Love. We step out of our comfort zones and fall. Sometimes we land brutally hard, other times we fly forever. That outcome does not matter to me now. What matters is that I enjoy the flight. While my mind begs that I never land, my Soul is completely focused on the now.
To review what I have learned in this scene of my life. I’ve experienced the beauty of True Love, the pain of fear, the manifestation of that fear in anger, jealousy, and loss. I’ve known the contrast of what was with what became and now just want to know what is (you may want to reread this last sentence). That is what the lesson here is, enjoy what is. Enjoy the now in joy. When the moments of human mind that so afflict us all invade this joy, try to refocus the attention on the joy. Speak your Mind in Love, not your egoic mind in fear. Do not fight, discuss. Do not fear, Love (and remove the comma from that sentence too). When you believe there are monsters under your bed, shine a light under there to see if they are real or not. Don’t assume they aren’t and don’t assume they are and for pete’s sake do not just go poking around with a knife. Your dog may be under there chewing on your shoes. Look for yourself and know what is.
Pretty good lessons, huh? That’s why I thought I’d share them with you. As to the ending of this story? Well I don’t know what it is and the only part that cares is that egoic mind. It wants to create drama and fear, and so far I am not letting it. I’m on to its game. It will win some and will lose some, and my practice right now is to give it one helluva losing record.
Peace.
I see the story in her eyes
The sunset when they close
The sunrise when they open
The rain as the tears spill from the sky
And I know I am lost within them.
I feel eternity in her touch
The gift of time and space in her grasp
The remarkable sense of Being in her caress
The quakes as reason runs to hide away
As her lips fill the void the mind has left behind.
To be so joyfully lost in this moment
Is to know the Eternal Paradise
Where everything and nothing merge to a Heart’s sheer delight
And you know that you are home
As you are lost in the panicked state of ecstasy.
You are lost in her…
Just walk with me for awhile. Hold my hand, as we calmly stroll down the mountainside. Pause with me as I pick you a daisy for your hair, and look at me with the intention of your Soul as I gently brush the hair from your eyes. Lean up to kiss me as only you can. Allow me to cradle your head in my hand as I breathe the Love from my Soul into yours while inhaling all that you are into mine. Share this perfect moment with me my Love, and let me share with you the Sunrise in my heart as I accept the Universe within you.
She came to me in a vision But I was not dreaming I was no longer a man nor she a woman But two Souls united by something far greater than either alone.
You offer an embrace that stops time in its tracks. My Love, you are here in my arms and I in yours. My heart wants to scream as it touches yours but words are obsolete in this moment. I want to stare into your eyes but look away for fear of betraying this vulnerability. I am where I belong, and I know it all too well. Is this weakness? Is this insanity? Whatever it is there is no currency in existence worth losing a single moment. I just want to be here, now, forever.
Time stands still in this moment's awe As this Love pours from my mind, my body Time cannot exist in the presence of this Love I've abandoned all sense of knowing any thing at all.
I hear your voice and my mind goes blank. I close my eyes and listen to the sweetness of your sound. I heart jumps, my skin tingles, my breath quickens. My reactions betray a simple truth…I am in love with this woman, this Soul. I was born to be here this moment, and I enjoy it all without reflection. I am a Mountain again, and I know my place among the valleys and rivers my mind gives life to. I feel the Light in my eyes and see the Sun in my head. I will not leave this place again.
Through the ups and downs Lefts and rights, laughs and tears I remain faithful to the cause that Love demands In It I find who I am destined to be.
I touch you and feel your skin. It’s as if Indra himself had touched me with a lightning bolt so intense the layers of who I was were burned away revealing who I am. Gone are the voices, the fears, the anxiety replaced by the serenity of knowing. Flowing through my mind are the words of the sacred Vedic hymn:
Indra, you lifted up the outcast who was oppressed, you glorified the blind and the lame.
Yes, my oppressed Soul has been lifted. The blindness that drove me to such suffering has been cured. In this moment, I have been saved from the affliction of the mind that handicapped me into painful distortion. The dragon within me has been slain, and I am free. The Love flows freely out and I can feel you again. I can feel your Soul speaking to me. It guides me to where you want me to be. It shows me where the bandages are. It gives me the courage to follow the directive I so want to own.
A river flows through my Being And cascades down this fallen prayer You are there to drink it up And to quench the thirsts of mindfulness.
Smell…see…hear…feel…taste
It all in a million glorious moments
The rush is nearly too much to bear
As I sink into Her soul.
To feel…it…again
My eyes well up in tearful praise
Of what my Heart has always known
I am here…and I am Hers
For eternity.
There are no voices save one
It shouts Love’s unending hymn
And brings me to the moment of pure ecstasy
To which I never shall return.
It is true, in Her eyes blue I have seen It
In Her lips full I have tasted It
In Her delight I have heard It
And I am here…and I am Hers
For eternity.
I try to reason it all
But it makes too much sense
So I throw away that part of me
That tries to describe the indescribable.
I know all I need to know
As She let’s it go and falls on top of me
As She bears her soul and falls into all of me
In tears I cannot let this moment go.
In my heart I have heard it
In my soul I have felt it
And in my entirety I know this truth
I am here…and I am Hers
For eternity.
I feel perhaps a fool
A fool of my own mind
My own dreams…my own emotions
Dancing circles in a square box.
I sit in the corner of this ring
No one with me as I stare across the box
There is my adversary, staring back at me
Laughing, “I own you.”
I feel a chill run down my spine
I cannot win this fight
I stand to answer the bell…alone
I know what is coming.
I portray an air of confidence
The path I have traveled has not prepared me
I’m not ready, my mind is in shambles
Even as the body is willing to give and take.
“I’ve been playing you”
I feel those words shoot across the cage
“And now you will die”
Or so the voice reminds me.
I look out at the mindless crowd
No friendly faces look back at me.
I’ve given them up for the fight I cannot win
And they in turn have done the same to me.
So I look, ready for my destiny.
Ready for the pain that is to come
Ready for the scars about to be created
Yet going to answer the bell regardless.
The bell, it rings.
The body, it presses on
The mind, it becomes numb
The heart cries out for what it must endure.
the end.