Keep Coming Back
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I know the teaching.
I understand the principle.
Don’t you?
Stillness lives inside.
No matter the externals,
We are able to connect
To the silence.
To the emptiness.
To the void within,
That is Everything.
I know the teaching.
I understand the principle.
Don’t you?
And then—
HAAAAA—
Then there
Is life.
In Twelve Steps we say,
Life on life’s terms.
No shit, Sherlock.
I know the teaching.
I understand the principle.
And then—
There is life.
~~~
We can.
We must.
We do.
We find our way
Back.
We
Remember perspective.
We
Ask for help
In remembering.
We
Relax into
Something
Else
Beside
Our minds.
What do we do?
Do we—
Pray?
Meditate?
Stop?
Make a call?
Hug a dog?
Look around?
Look inside?
How do we return?
How do we ask for support
For our returning?
Our journey back
From forgetting
Back
Into
Remembering?
~~~
Here’s one of my all-time favorite vehicles of return:
~~~
Lyrics:
(Santa Maria, Santa Teresa, Santa Anna, Santa Susannah
Santa Cecilia, Santa Copelia, Santa Dominica, Mary Angelica
Frater Achad, Frater Pietro, Julianus, Petronella
Santa, Santos, Miroslaw, Vladimir
And all the rest…)
A man is placed upon the steps, a baby cries
High above it hear the church bells start to ring
And the heaviness
The heaviness settles in
Somewhere you can hear a mother sing
Then it’s one foot then the other
As you step out onto the road, steppin’ on the road
How much weight? How much?
Then it’s how long? And how far?
And how many times before it’s too late?
Calling all angels
Calling all angels
Walk me through this one
Don’t leave me alone
Calling all angels
Calling all angels
We’re trying, we’re hoping
But we’re not sure how long
And every day you gaze upon the sunset
With such love and intensity
Why it’s almost as if
If you could only crack the code
You’d finally understand what this all means
But if you could
Do you think you would trade it all?
All the pain and suffering?
Ah, but then you’d have miss
The beauty of the light upon this earth
And the sweetness of the leaving
Calling all angels (calling all angels)
Calling all angels (calling all angels)
Walk me through this one (walk me through this one)
Don’t leave me alone
Calling all angels
Calling all angels
We’re trying, we’re hoping
But were not sure how
Calling all angels (calling all angels)
Calling all angels (calling all angels)
Walk me through this world (walk me through this one)
Don’t leave me alone (don’t leave me alone)
Calling all angels
Calling all angels
We’re trying
We’re hoping
We’re loving
And we’re hurting
We’re crying
We’re calling
‘Cause we’re not sure how this goes
(Songwriter: Jane Siberry
Singers: Jane Siberry and KD Lang)
~~~
Returning.
From the inevitable
Lapse,
From the inevitable
Forgetting.
Connecting to something
Anything
Bigger
Than
Our
Minds.
~~~
No matter how many times
We forget,
And forget,
We do!
Friends, that is the human dilemma.
Whenever you notice
The forgetting
In all the forms
It might take—
(Anxiety, fear,
Forcing a solution,
Etc.
Plus/And
A trillion
Options….)
Come back.
Be restored.
Be renewed.
Remember.
Ask for help.
Realign.
That is the dance
Between
Human
And
Divine
That is
Ours
To
Dance.
~~~
Up here in the Berkshires,
The leaves are mostly on the ground.
Some remaining yellows oh, so softly shimmer from the hillsides.
The space around me feels open,
Vast, yes.
Vast.
May we find ourselves
In the vastness.
May we honor
The constriction
And know
It is a doorway
To expansion.
May the highest
Unfold for all.
All blessings,
Aruni