Heart

'Wild Earth'

"I felt its urgent demand in the blood. I could hear its call. Its whistling disturbed me by day and it's howl woke me in the night. I heard the drum of the sun. Every path was a calling cadence, the flight of every bird a beckoning, the color of ice and invitation: come. The forest was a fiddler, wickedly good, eyes intense and shining with a fast dance. Every leaf in every breeze was a toe tapping out the same rhythm and every mountaintop lifting out of cloud intrigued my mind., for the wind a the peaks was the flautist, licking his lips, dangerously mesmerizing me with inaudible melodies that I strained to hear, my ears yearning for the horizon of sound. This was the calling, the vehement, irresistible demand of the feral angel - take flight. All that is wild is winged - life, mind and language - and knows the feel of air in the soaring "flight, silhouetted in the primal".

Wild - Jay Griffiths

Metamorphosis

Yesterday evening when I was closing my window a dark green large grasshopper landed at my feet. It was the largest and darkest green grasshopper I have seen. With a hook at its tail. It had an incredible energy. I am 2 floors up and in a very urban environment.
So I am very curious at being visited by a dragonfly last week and this week a grasshopper.
This is an image of an Aztec carving of a grasshopper.

Darshan

From intro in book 'Rumi ~ Gazing at the Beloved'.

"Just as archers fix their gaze upon a distant target before loosing their strings of their bows and sending their arrows flying, so do lovers of God fix their gaze on the face of God, each releasing the soul so it too can fly toward its target where it celebrates its homecoming. All spiritual paths teach us that if we want to find God, then we need to turn directly toward God, come face-to-face with the energies of the Divine, and then surrender to whatever encounter creates our lives. But where do we turn? And where exactly is that we find the face of the Divine? Is it everywhere? Or in one particular location only? And can perhaps a particular location, a particular face, serve as the doorway to the face of God?
One way to look upon the face of God is to create on image of God, either a painting or a sculpture, and then gaze at that image for an extended period of time. This practice can be found in the Greek Orthodox church where icons of saints and personages from the Bible are the only companions that monks and nuns take with them into the isolation of their cells during long periods of retreat.
When one fixes his or her entire attention on these images over long hours and days, the images may come to life and enter into animated dialogue with the practitioner. Many devout Hindus create personal shrines in their homes and temples in which images of a God or Goddess serve as the means for personal dialogue with the Divine. It is said that the eyes of these images are the most important of all the facial features, for by creating eye contact the image a devotee achieves darshan, a sanskrit word meaning "seeing and being seen by God".

Will Johnson

Poem by me! - Monday, July 23rd, 2007

Earth Air Fire Water
Sing with your Body

Your Body the Hand
Caressed by the Gods

~

Winds of Angels Fly
On the Desire of the Gods

Dance in the Desire
Of Belonging

~

Feet Whisper Love
Beating in the depths of your Heart

Dance with Thunder
Sweet Sweat Tears of Angels
Raining in your Body

~

With every Mortal Breath
The Gods taste each Moment of Creation

Sweetness and Bitterness
Life and Death.

Mystery - Friday, 20th July, 2007

I loved these quotes on website for Feri Camp May 07

"Mighty Guardians of the Elements of Life!" In doing so, we are calling upon the vast Beings who Guard the Elements of Life! Our Guardians are not representatives of the Elements. They not only have the Elements of Life within them, they are the Elements of Life Itself; the stuff of creation; Life-force in its most raw, power full and unmitigated form."

"We not only have but are the Circumference and the Center of the Elements of Life. As such, we are the presence of the Mighty Ones."

"When invoking the Guardians, we call upon the Seventh who is the Center and Circumference of All. Who/What we are invoking is the Self in Alignment. Each of us, individually, is the Seventh Guardian."

Angel from God - Thursday, 19th July, 2007

Last night I watched 'My name is Earl' - varies in quality but is touching and delightful. This episode Earl was an Angel - sign from God for a character played by Roxanne. He very eliquently said that if she chose to see him as the Angel to allow her/give herself permission to be who she truly was then great!

This morning an Angel sold me the 'Big Issue' - homeless magazine. He always says 'God Bless you'. Such a gift. A black guy who still has the rough edges of smoking too much grass...and when he says 'God' it doesn't come with Dogma or 'you shoulds'. Just a gift. And my heart sings when he says it. And I am hesitant in naming him as an Angel. Names have such power and words come with such ownership or this dogma or this meaning.


I have ordered the book - Wild: An Elemental Journey by Jay Griffiths. Here is a quote from a review in the Guardian newspaper by Mark Cocker: "The wilderness for her always in a distant setting, such as the Amazon or the Australian outback. She has nothing to say on wilderness at home, nor on more positive European responses to the wild. To give one example, the blackbird I can hear singing now in my garden as I write is a point of contact between the cultural and the wild. Our gardens are a form of open woodland, often richer in wildlife than the surrounding farmland. Blackbirds thrive better in gardens than in any other habitat. The reason Amerindians don't fear and destroy the forest is tha that they have domesticated it by their knowledge and their cultural appropiation of its qualities. In short, the rainforest is for them a form of garden".

Shedding Skin - Wednesday, 18th July, 2007

Inspired by Reya's Blog and then intern by Susan's here is my first entry.

My experience yesterday of the red dragonfly visiting me at my window is still present with me. My thoughts were still on Reya's Blog sharing her experience of nature.
Previous to the dragonfly I had been witnessing my downstairs neighbours young cat meeting the ginger tom. Cats are extraordinary. The tom stood his ground staring. This went on for ages. Until the neighbour came out and the tom ran a little distance away. However as soon as it noticed the young cat running after him, he promtly lay down. He did not stand, sit. No..he lay down proclaiming that piece of land his terrority!

Thinking of who I have been and who I think I am....in fact not being present!...and I have wondered if I can link in with the still point of the flight of the dragon fly...then maybe I can be present.

Here is quote I read from Peter Gabriel being interviewed in the Big Issue..which I related to...

"We are not often able to see ourselves, and if you look at the fringes you see the centre".

Which also leads me onto reflecting on the centre of oursevles encompassing the all. If I truly 'got' that my ego mind would truly be in a panic!

Yesterday I was connecting with the part of me that want to hurt that which I love. Madness!...apparently William Blake has written a poem about this perversity in human nature.