Tag: surrender

paradox

On By Amrita Skye BlaineIn Daily reminders, Musings, Non-duality4 Comments

paradoxParadox: 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

“let it go”

On By Amrita Skye BlaineIn Daily reminders, Musings, Non-duality3 Comments

This is a re-post from Panhala Poetry. It spoke to me so strongly I’ve reread it five or six times. Enjoy this e. e. cummings poem.

let it golet it go – the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise – let it go it
was sworn to
go

let them go – the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers – you must let them go they
were born
to go

let all go – the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things – let all go
dear
so comes love

~ e. e. cummings ~
(Complete Poems 1904-1962)

threshing floor

On By Amrita Skye BlaineIn Advaita, Daily reminders1 Comment

bow downLife is a threshing floor. Have you noticed?

I remember a couple of times when I was raising my son, there had been a great deal of challenging news too close together. I really needed our world to stabilize, to settle, so I could catch my breath. Promptly after that wistful thought the intensity doubled, and I realized that we had been in a stable period–I just hadn’t experienced it as such. That was a heart-sinking moment; I had to reach very deep inside to increase my capacity.

In hindsight, “increasing capacity” means to surrender more deeply to what already is. Nothing to be done, only to be undone.

I was given a prayer back then by the remarkable seer, Frida Waterhouse. I was instructed to get down on the floor much like the man in the photo and give it all up. I can’t quite remember the words; I know the languaging would no longer satisfy.

The image of the threshing floor is a lovely teaching: winnowing away what is not needed–or not true–to expose the sustenance within.

Amrita Skye Blaine, 2013
photo credit