Peeling the onion—
after the center is stripped away, what is left?
Nothing
I find no thing
Only perfume of the one taste
© Amrita Skye Blaine, 2016
image credit
The price of manifestation in this one-song-uni-verse is a wild, open, chaotic stew, where every thing and all things erupt.
The suffering my adult son is experiencing–all mothers carry this: “the mother gene,” with a scouring empathy for our offspring. If we allow, it burnishes us empty.
I bear suffering differently, now–as everymother, shouldering this particular flavor of stew.
It is not personal.
The only way, is through. All that is required is noticing, which by its very nature, is infinitely compassionate and eternally loving. No longer diving into the painful soup with him does not make me a bad mother. I’m a better mother for not doing so. I’m here, available, filled with love for my son-who-is my-very-own-self.
He knows my cell number.
© Amrita Skye Blaine, 2016
I took this snapshot about forty years ago.
Filed under Daily reminders, Musings, parenting, Surrender
Imagine—we’re floating down a gentle river in inner tubes on a blazing July afternoon. Our butts hang in the cool water, the tube surfaces are warm—growing hotter where the water does not splash on them—and the sun beats down on the exposed parts of our bodies.
Then, abruptly, a whirlpool catches your inner tube, and for a little bit, the tube is spun in place in the river, and you are seemingly separated from the main flow—then the whirlpool disperses, and off the ride goes again.
A while later, an eddy pulls my tube into a bend—a quiet nook in the river—and now I appear to be independent of the main flow. Then the eddy gives way, and the tube rocks a bit until the current grabs it and pulls me back into the main body of the river.
We are always one with the river, but seemingly separated at times. What a delicious metaphor for awareness and embodiment. Awareness is the river—always there, always alive and flowing. The whirlpools and eddies are embodiments—where for a little while, we show up on the planet; we look separate, we may feel separate, but we are never separated—or independent—for one instant from the grand flow that we are.
Then the body dissipates just like the eddy back into that from whence it came, and once again, only one awareness, one river.
Amrita Skye Blaine, 2015
image credit
Filed under Daily reminders, death, Musings, Non-duality, Truth
Paradox: that’s what we’ve got. It’s not something unique that shows up on occasion, it’s the whole, wild, everyday display.
My relative offers deep insight into his friend’s abuse of his body, then drinks himself into a stupor, displaying no understanding of self-care.
The Texas floods sweep away this family, but not that one. The tornado slices through an Oklahoma town—half of it is pulverized, the other half remains untouched.
A terrorist group, in the name of their God, brutalizes children and sledge-hammers ancient sacred sites, while monks chant, meditate, and pray for the awakening of all beings.
Many people busy themselves with asking why.
I find all of it without meaning—the apparent good or the apparent bad. It’s just the phantasmagorical, endless, erupting Now.
The terrible, magnificent Now.
© Amrita Skye Blaine, 2015
Filed under Daily reminders, Musings, Non-duality