My joy has not been found in the endless classrooms of forgiveness. The joy of my journey is not in the shame of repetitively naming small self-absorptions. Certainly, there is relief in surrender. I come again to remember, I am holy, you are holy. But joy is not expressed through the personal witness of error. There is a color here I am trying to explain, a beatitude.
Behind perception’s eyeball, a gently smiling awareness wafts, whose compassion turns tears into pearls of great price. The love I have wanted since coming into form is behind the journey, the practice, the practitioner, within me – watching tenderly.
It is not the pop of perception’s pimples or mop up of the sewage of beliefs that sets me free. It is Her, gazing upon all that torments a heart; Luster, like a falling star upon a field, long covered by the shadow of an ebony night.
I have been digging up old bones, pocking that turf with giant holes, never noticing the enveloping, the Intimate Knower, the gentlest Eyes Which hold everything.
So quiet, She appears when all the drummers in your circle have gone home, and alone, you notice the sublime stillness;
As if thousands of leagues under the sea, your tiny little tin can submarine fills with intimate communication.
A sweet sliver of light reaches through a crack, precious to a child locked tight in a closet. All her Mind is That;
Like a vast unnoticed brilliant blue sky, toward Which I am blind, until the red hawk flies by.
The shovel of forgiveness has been in my hand so long, it’s become an appendage. Necessary tool, but then, I don’t want forgiveness to become my vocation. Awareness of Adoration is the purest of dedications.
I’m not saying I am giving up digging or its merciful harvest. I can’t be sure what it is I can say of Love. Unnoticed, the deeper Un-winder of mind works diligently toward innocence.
The Star, the Intimacy, once so far from me has dropped like a sun into my heart, a human heart which has been steadfastly opening to flush my blood with Love.
But She, her subtle profundity, hushes every part of me. I am a beached fish returned to Water, aware of Being Caressed.
