JOURNEYINGHEARTBLOG.COM

Body and Mind

Yonatan — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 18:15:00 GMT

I have a view of pristine forest and a vast oceanic expanse. The sunsets are red, marvelous, uplifting, Divine! The house is open air – no windows where the view is just wood to stand on and half a wall dividing the living room from the bedroom. Outside is a garden filled with little pineapple bushes (did you know pineapple grows on bushes?), bamboo, papaya trees and other herbs and plants. There is also a coconut opening station!

All this has proved to me once and for all that wherever you go, there you are! Can you believe I feel restless when I lay on the hammock? Can you believe that I walk around looking for something to distract myself from myself? Chocolate, watermelon, tobacco, Maya, TV, anything to not experience the noise, mental badgering and self dialog that is constantly on rampage inside.

It is similar to a silent retreat in that way. You get to really see what is going on inside. The actual answer to, ‘why am I not happy?’ At least at retreats there is structure. The mind likes structure. It knows what it is doing next and it’s at least quiet on that front. Here it is just me. Me and nothing. No direction, no need for anything, no chore to do. What is so scary about that anyway?!

So I decided to blog.

The Market Place

Yonatan — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 22:23:19 GMT

I am writing. I am writing to tell a story, but not a short one. Though it
will be told in short. I will tell a story about a market. The market is
closed but it is adorned with decorations meant for a celebration that will
never happen. The owner of the market is a great supporter of the current
nominee for mayor of this small town. They have been friends since they
were five years old when their town was a small fishing village without a
white person in sight. Today it is a haven for sex-tourism and the violence
and drugs that go with it.

His mother told him that after helping his father with picking hooks from
his nets he met another boy doing something similar. The families, though
living in the same small town for a long time, never connected. There was
distance due to some ancient feud nobody really knew or cared about. The
boys connected and the families very easily forgot about any inherited
distrust.

They chose different paths - business vs. politics. Of course one
necessarily involves knowing much about the other, especially when one is
successful. Their relationship and success complemented their friendship.
The market supported the nomineeâ€™s desire for change. The market wanted
freedom from power thieving paid off clerks and so did the candidate. They
all thought something could be changed.

John F. Kennedy said that when you donâ€™t listen to words of protest you make
violent protest necessary. Violent protest was about to become something
seriously considered by the members of this community. Indeed considered by
members of many surrounding communities. This is how civil war begins. But
it hasnâ€™t yet. There is still some hope and not enough despair. People have
things they care about and need to protect. Rebellion is born of despair and
knowing that what you can lose is so much smaller than what you could gain.

Just so in spiritual awakening. Awakening is more about rebellion than
anything. It is about overthrowing the burdenous lust of the mind and ego
into freedom. When you have tried everything polite society has to offer and
still youâ€™ve been tricked and the election was rigged. When drug lords have
paid off the police in your head so that the hooker inside of you who is
needing her cocaine is willing to sell herself for a moment of safety and
some bread and water.

Celebration at the market was squashed. People were shot. Nominees and
owners alike fled. They told the people to be calm and stay at home. There
is a time to live and a time to fight oppression. In the world that is. The
Middle Path is not in the world. Peace is not created by a sense of
separation. Peace is created when people come together and learn and heal.
It is true that in the end it is not the fight that solves things. It is the
dialog, seeing into the mirror, dying in your opinion to merge with all
points of view. Love. Acting with love. Empires collapse when your actions
are from love. You might die. You may not be successful and you may not
overthrow anything but you will have learned something eternal. And in the
long run of human history you will have made more of an impact on peopleâ€™s
souls.

We fight with love, our oppressor is our lover. Our oppressor is the one who
is separate from us. It is our pain.

Crab's Eye View

Yonatan — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:51:00 GMT

Earth and Fire and Water

Yonatan — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:31:00 GMT

A desire to churn

To embolden

The tired.

The dreading.

The timid.

Spending time with

admiration. Left me angle –

Small dark corner to

the cobwebs.

Living leavened bread

from desert springs

not for all. Who by fire?

Who by boiling water? Who

by mass of crumbling ash?

Who to starve?

There is nothing new

under The Sun. Night and day

inspiring life in a pinpoint

of light. Marking Transition.

Where the gap

begins, where

it ends.

Not Earth and Fire and Water.

Not Air not Mind. They will betray

you all. Before the curtains draw.

Before the hero comes,

and after triumph.

Naked you came.

Naked you depart. The road

of excess leads

to the palace

of wisdom. And to the liberation

of the heart!

What Is!

Yonatan — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 19:48:00 GMT

What is

Love when it washes

away blood flesh

bones when

shedding is bursting

quiet like moles

What is

love when it suckles

light for space

The Gardener my mother

my twin enamored

with what I’ve come

from me

What is

love when it livens

rooting nourishes grounding

catalyzes becoming cauldron

grail life-full

fountaining breath

because…

What is

love when it sitting

beside dying transitions with

always there kissing never

lonely always one always

alone ?

Love!

Yonatan — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 22:16:00 GMT

Talking again… ten days of silence and talking again seems quite natural. But I have gotten a little overwhelmed. Needed to just sit in the shade for a while at the beach taking pictures of crabs.

It is cliché to say that love is always there... waiting, abiding, hanging out without notice of what is actually going on. But it is true when you experience it in the deep silence of your soul. It is the essence of ‘just being’. Romantic love? Nothing but a concept - but not in a bad way. In a liberating way! No need to expect that something other than what is will happen. Be it joy in your companion, desire, annoyance… whatever… no fear. And that is true with anything I guess.

Yes, anything… everywhere… when you unlock the garden of mystery inside and give yourself time for the mind to quiet down, you can discover what a true meeting is. When to people who know who they are smile at each other it is like a thousand mountains laughing, and my heart is still reverberating that gem. I don’t think it will ever have the need to stop.

The ego has so many ‘buts’ – really it is all it knows. It has tried to convince me that the ineffable and boundless wellspring inside of me is boring. Nice try…

So anyway… here I am… nothing to do… nowhere to go… I guess I’ll just welcome what so ever comes across my path with my full and undivided love and attention. Lol!

Thank you Universe!

Pachamama Lazy Afternoon

Yonatan — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 23:04:00 GMT

Shakti as

a clay statue is

staring her arms

meet her hands

form a circle

at the base

her torso

emphasizing power of

Goddess

Her eyes are closed.

There is a woman

sitting with one foot

on a table, her fist

supporting her

forehead she rests

now alone

I don’t know The Goddess

she, like me, might dwell

in a sand box playing

with trucks

or am I still

only a child?

A blue lizard

is now gazing at

the tree Shakti

has rested

her weary bones upon.

Recognizing the Present Moment

Yonatan — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:29:00 GMT

I was sitting a few nights ago. We sit in silence every night as a community for 45 minutes. All seeking stopped. It was simple and yet, there was no making sense out of it. I suppose desire was still there but I wasn’t longing. The pain of longing was saturated with the knowing that what I was sitting on was god. Sometimes when this happens I can feel myself fight it.‘No!” I exclaim “I want fireworks!” But there was only that deep peace that comes from being filled with the nectar of the gods. I guess the grass is always greener to the thinking brain! LOL!

There are no trumpets when you enter the present moment.There is no meaning in you. the biggest block to this moment is the fear of annihilation or meaninglessness that come before what is silent. When there is only chair… bed… cushion… bush… creak… grass…there is no OMG involved – silence and life need not proclaim themselves to themselves.

In what is silent there is no I and yet there is also I. But it is an I that is friends with the bush outside your window, recognizing that it is the same life within – different branches of the same tree. You and the stars, you and the volcanoes of Hawaii – simply branches of the same tree!

Don’t expect any trumpets when you arrive. Expect the personality to defend itself by feeling bored! Follow your bliss… sure… but also follow you boredom. Until it leads you to your quiet. And in your quiet there is nothing to do and the memory of I simply fades in to nothing until only living love remains.

It is thinking’s job to protect the self – an evolutionary mechanism if you will. It protects us from dying by conditioning us to fear or love certain things causing pleasure or pain. It is an important mechanism of survival for the unconscious human. There are many ways to move beyond thinking.All the spiritual techniques that have been invented are essentially tools for this. Thinking continues to adapt to them – true to its purpose of protecting the self. Sometimes a technique we try brings us to a source of peace. We then spend our lives attempting to recreate this experience when thinking has already adapted and it is preventing the very peace you are seeking by attempting to grasp it and contain it.

Whatever practice we do doesn’t matter. What matters is our ability to shift our awareness and rest in the unknown. This unknown burns like a fire. We need to keep tending the fire in order to produce heat. We do this with our awareness of the unspoken/unspeaking. In meditation this is to rest in the knowing of who you are. The thinking brain protects the self by distracting awareness with fears and desires. Our task is simple. Remain aware of who you are (the pre-verbal experience not a definition) no matter what you are doing and where your attention rests. Have it be like an intuitive voice inside even when your thinking is grasping at heat as if it could contain it – even when your thinking is attempting to define what it is knowing. You need do nothing else. And eventually there will be nobody to even do that once the burning has lit the way.

My hands

Yonatan — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:08:00 GMT

The yellowing pages turn

eerily standing

between the oak and

the holly

Glazing some leaves

with sunlight God

has chosen

to let others sleep

a while longer.

I turn another yellow

page my great

grandparents in shades

of gray stare at me

solemnly

in Victorian outfits.

Thank you

I whisper

with the gentle breeze

of early morning.

Thank you for the light

that has passed on

generation to generation

In response the leaves

around me ruffle sunlight

dances with my smile.

The yellowing pages tremor

in my hands

Ceremony

Yonatan — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:59:00 GMT

Last night we had a short and touching ceremony to open the tenth season of pachamama. Beautiful songs and gratitude to Pacha Mama. We are all together with family.

Ceremony

Fire evolving

ashes as creak

into nothing

is given

a grain of existence

offered metaphor

for my being.

My very being.

All my being.

All this as children

dance with flowers

and grown-ups listen -

the music

tears of love

Song of the River

Yonatan — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 22:47:00 GMT

He stood singing by the river. A new song. One had never heard before nor imagined to be. The river was not shallow for this time of year, as some have told him. About knee high at its rocky center and shallower close to the shore, of course. Where the river turned from flowing east to flowing south deep swimming holes formed and it is in one of these pockets –under the shadow of the tropical flora that he saw the opening. He normally would not hesitate to go in. Today was different. He had not gone on a journey like this for a while. This is what he wanted though.

To prepare himself he stood firm and still with his eyes closed. First he noticed the sound of the river. How had he missed it? He laughed to himself. He hadn’t of course but the clear crystal-like sounds awaken like a bird at dawn when the eyes are shut. Nature allows this. Back in the city, to close your eyes and hear the sounds of traffic and yelling and hammering is abusive. No wonder people lose touch with the silence within them.

After the sound of water running over rocks he heard the wind in the trees. Yet another thing it is hard to find pleasure in when you are surrounded by air hitting concrete. At it’s best it brings with it smells from restaurants serving food that is devastating the planet. At its worst,well, you’ve experienced these city winds. The wind in the forest will speak to you if you listen. It carries the fragrances of life itself along with its wisdom.

He took one step forward and touched his toe to the water.Whispers from the water could be heard - voices from the realms beyond. He remembered these realms. The creatures within them peered at him like eyes in the mist - some voices fierce, others gentle and yet others whimsical. They are beings like ourselves but who have listened to the wisdom of the land. Beings unique to their element. The water beings like open containers for the creative force of the universe itself. Earth beings, like stethoscopes, attuned to the heartbeat and flow of life and death. The air beings, like secrets being told by giggling children, like blessings holding up the very space that life can be in. And finally fire beings, like laughter from ten thousand portals into ten thousand universes and all the souls within them celebrating.

He removed his toe from the water laughing with childish joy. He opened his eyes, ran in to the water and dove deep into the wisdom and play of the mystery beyond.

Striving

Yonatan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 01:26:00 GMT

What if I told you that you could never attain anything? Well, at least not for very long! A state of mind…? Sure you could attain that. For a moment. But can you attain awakening? Do you attain it when you wake up from sleep in the morning? It happens because something deep within has actually just let-be what is.

Lets experiment for a moment. If there is something you want right now, name it. It can be candy, to scratch your toe or enlightenment. It doesn’t really matter, they are all the same thing. You have an idea of what it would be like to have those desires fulfilled. And you would have an experience of some sort if you managed to manipulate your physical or mental world to fit with your idea (which again as nature would have it – doesn’t last very long). So whatever your idea is, the experience you managed to have would inevitably change and you would be back in the throws of addiction trying to get back to a particular state of physical or mental consciousness.

The experiment is, for just this one moment to stop trying to attain to that something. You allow the wanting to be, because stopping the wanting is beyond your power. It would cause you pain to try and stop the wanting. Stop the ‘striving for’ and just see who is there. Who is present when you are not striving?

If this is the first time you’ve ever done this you may be fumbling around trying to find something. Trust your initial experience. Initial before the mind kicks in saying ‘I’ or ‘me.’ Before that mental I kicks in there is a ‘nothing’ - an awakened place of nothing. What were to happen if you were to begin allowing that place to be every time you started striving? Experiment and see…

Blessings on your journey!

Incubating Seeds

Yonatan — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:13:00 GMT

Sleepless

breeze sweeping

earth my hands

enamored with

edible leaf

plant. Me

the garden

sweating

at 8am

hammocking in plastic chair.

Tom drumming his fingers

on his bag blue

containers of last

years poison waiting

to be fertilizer now

that the distance has taken

their potency.

Aloft on a Coconut Palm

Yonatan — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:02:00 GMT

There is a guy aloft

on a coconut

palm.

If there is

a coconut with your name

you know fate

has called you. I did chose

though, to sit

right here.

He is scaling

another palm walking

up as if it were flat

and he, a monkey –

machete tied

to a ten foot rope

like a tail.

The Nature of Ego

Yonatan — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 23:21:00 GMT

Ahh… wonderful mind… hmmm… where are you? I have convinced myself of your existence. I have given you shape and form as God did me. I have called you ‘mind’ and Ego, I have fought you like Don Quixote fought windmills.

When I ask myself, ‘what is mind?’ I have a vague experience of, well… ‘something.’ But what if that something is just a ‘something’ and all this talk has convinced me that this something is more a thing than any other idea floating around.

And actually, the same applies to ‘I.’ There is a vague experience but is it not merely a ‘thing’ I have constructed? Is this not true for anything I have an experience of and have given a word to?

Where are these ideas floating around you might ask? Well… certainly not in my mind! If anywhere they are simply in the all/everything and nowhere in particular. Sounds strange? But ask yourself if it isn’t true! And before you start doubting your own experience, listen to what is speechless in the answer you receive.

In Hebrew there is no word for ‘mind.’ Maybe there is a good reason for that!

the Demiurge is a Gnostic term for the created who thinks it is creator. In the Gnostic myth a being was created or maybe it was ‘Spirit given form.’ This form congealed and became, ‘I.’ This ‘I’ was a thought. This thought ‘I’ produced other thoughts. Some of those thoughts were ‘I am God’ or ‘I am creator’. The Gnostics say that this thought ‘I’ became the creator of all that is in matter – this is why the world is imperfect – because it’s creator is imperfect – a thought that is not true. A thought that is separate from its source and ignorant of it. The primal misperception as it were.

In each one of us there is this God – this demiurge. In each one of us there is a thought ‘I’ who does not acknowledge that it is only a thought and not the creator of that thought. It goes on to create many twisted things and many pleasurable things all in an attempt to service this ‘I,’ this ‘self.’ It is happening every moment.

We have learned to call this ‘I,’ Ego. We use our thoughts to fight it – to get rid of it. But it is the very thoughts created by the ‘I’ that are fighting it. This fight is what gives the ‘I’ meaning. To eliminate the ‘I’ - do not fight it, simply recognize that all the thoughts that it produces are as mistaken as their origin. Awaken to what is beyond ‘I’ - simply rest there and all delusion will gradually disintegrate like clouds on a sunny morning. Can’t beat that… (-:

Learning to Love

Yonatan — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:05:00 GMT

Summertime sun plants itself

In that tear shadowing all

the paintings on the wall. You

have been staring at those paintings

of Goddesses and Gods,

They never stare back, do they?

Something nagging always

nagging like plump juicy fruit

begging to be gorged on.

The broken hearted have

learned. We try

and call them

back into striving,

like calling a bird back

into her cage.

Who? Where? What? How? When?

We all slip

eventually from

our delusions. Rushing traffic

on the other side

of a hedge is not

the ocean. no matter

how much I want it to be.

In the same way,

love is not love

until you’ve surrendered

your desire;

created the ocean

with your tears.

re·al·ize v

Yonatan — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:34:51 GMT

1. vti to know, understand, and accept something
2. vti to be aware or conscious of something, or to become aware
of something
3. vt to achieve in actuality something that has been hoped or
worked for

Astounding isn't it? How we cling to that which we want to get rid of most
(our ideas of what is). Astounding! How in our search for everything, we
fear the ultimate demise of 'me'. Masters talk about the death of self and
being reborn. It seems that is usually the most promulgated part of the
teaching. People forget, or leave out (maybe they just stopped reading at
that point), that it always comes down to being both. Both born
and unborn. Sure we change in the process of discovery and that
change can seem like death to 'little-me' but really, what is the Heart of God without the
Heart of who you are?

Being always away you lose contact with living and the full expression of
light-in-extension. Being only in your own solidified and separate being is
lonely. We allow what is and then we allow it to shine through the unique
lens of our hearts. Only then are we One. In our unique expression,
realizing 'One' and the true meaning of being in-love.

The irony of realization is that we have so many ideas about what it is like
to realize something. Realization can never be an idea. It is the thing
itself, which never EVER matches our idea of it. What fun would that be!?

Just Another Poem that Points the Way

Yonatan — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:32:52 GMT

Journeying Hearts

to every corner beg

to come before

salvation. In the warm

encounter of a dreamy state

we’ve often glimpsed

the majesty of love.

Together - a tribe

of living-dead

before their queen -

mesmerized climbing

to the source of light – and after

Hero’s Journey

they are turned away

to find their own.

Who am I? You’ve asked.

What breath, what scent,

has carried me thus far?

Why do I come? Leave all

the world behind

for this obsession?

To know is not the goal

To die is not the goal

To have is not the goal

Pointing the way is the fear.

Pointing the way are a thousand books

and teachers. Forget them!

It is The Secret

itself calling you

to be, to go beyond -

to the tiny speck of absolute

that lives

not

truth or sorrow, all the while,

allowing it to be -

that savior all the world

has known - has waited

for return. You

are savior now.

You’ve known but have not

trusted. The journeying heart

has always been

the cradle of conception.