Today I delve into the realms of silence. Meditation with the Buddhists in the cottage above the river. All day we will sit. All day we will watch with mindfulness – breath, movement.
I have never done this before, though I have wanted to experience a Vipassana retreat for many years. Often these meditations are offered for 10 days (or more) at a time. We’ll see how I do with one day.
Last night at the question and answer gathering, our guide spoke of Shantideva, the 8th century monk that gave a renowned discourse on the way of the bodhisattva. Pema Chodron dedicated a book to it, “No Time To Lose”. Here’s an excerpt of her commentary on the human mind and our nature. The truth of what’s she’s saying, you could laugh or cry or both. Today, I’m hoping to get fitted with those leather shoes.
We’re neighbors that live along the back road of the lost coast. We sit around the fire with plates of deep-baked ulu in our hands, bare feet crossed in summer grass.
The Songwriter’s words drag me from primal smoke and flame to the virtual realm of cyber-speed ether. 3am. Those are my words. Cast to this diaphanous space in some hope of grasping something tangible. Touching something real.
The Songwriter smiles and reminds me that he likes to start his morning with a little ritual, part of which includes reading my random threads. My mind scans to recall my latest posts. More poetry than prose, as of late. Watery and vulnerable.
Good god – someone is reading this.
As July marks the surpassing of 10,000 visitors to the Archives (as per WordPress site stats) one would think I’d realized that these words do fall on cyber-eyes.
But I’m like this. A DJ on the radio, playing my music, talking on the microphone, pretending I’m alone in a room. Until the station manager reminds that at any given time, 5000 people are tuned in. I’m a writer waking at dawn, sifting through dreamy spaces on an internet landscape. Skimming mundane details. Revealing deep pockets. Feigning that no one will see.
I spent a little time recently, just reading some of the daily chronicles here. The titles seemed unfamiliar. The words reaching me from places that had been lost in the bustle of full sunlight. Forgotten in the day’s cell phone calls and scheduled drop-offs.
Who was this woman writing?
She is still in my discovery. She is still compelled to rise and come to this screen. And this morning, she was resting. Sleeping in well past 5.
slowly
as liquid
you came and stirred the places
that slept
quiet
rising like steam
those spaces
still
and thick
no sound
breathing
your story
35 days without bathing
deep in holy mountains
stumbling upon waterfalls and hot springs
soaking all day
in the river of the white goddess
the oasis
unbidden
it was me
you say
that swirled in eddies
gushed in distant rushing spates
there with you
in sacred waters
these hidden pockets
inlets
curving stone
are surfaces softened
smoothed
by time’s lapping
I want to be forever in their carving
pooling waterways
spill and seep
as I soak
in the haven
of your story
an alchemy of elements
the mystery of our collision
where we are sourced at the wellspring
offering oasis
in the dry
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