Who I Am Now

Our reality has lost the presence of some fine people recently. 

To the friends and family, to the Ancestors who have passed:

Who I am Now

 Cloud strewn body of memory.

Sun filled space of heart.

Song of eternity’s spirit.

Flesh of Earth.

Mind of God.

Till we meet again..........

Love,

Rick

(c) Rick Sievers, March 2014, All Rights Reserved.

Offering of the Shadow

A man who has lost his dream has lost his way.

                                                                                         Aboriginal Saying *

Last night the wind whistled through the crevices of the half opened window. Ghostly dreams came to me. A frantic quality spun my slumbering.  I woke up this morning and realized I did it again. I stuffed the shadow so deep that it exploded out as the light of morning rain began to fill our room. There it was, my shadow, falling upon my head.

So I did what I do to hear the voice of God within me: I wrote. Above the journal was a fire of my breath. I asked the empty page: What is the truth that my body has given me?

And a whisper rises from the dusty corner beneath our bed: You forgot me. But I am here, always have been. Do you want me to come out and play within your waking dreams? Or must I manifest myself in some dark spot on your skin or soul?

I answered the shadow: I gave up everything for love. Sold the land, turned from the career, weeded instead of painted, all for the family, this home. But what have I really offered you, shadow in the half opened box? Do I offer up my life to serve what is crying deep in the darkness of my chest?

I wonder where the longings go when a person is nice and open and a servant to the whims of working hard? I'm reminded of an old Star Trek episode (The Enemy Within) where Captain Kirk is split into two bodies. The soul in one body is the good, kind, sweet version of Kirk. The second soul is one that is reckless and rash and emotional. The nice Kirk wanted to do away with the shadowed half of himself. But he found that he could feel little joy, make no big decisions or follow his rightful longings without the power that the shadow Kirk possessed. In the end both halves were joined again. And Kirk lived a fuller life knowing the powers of both goodness and passion.

I committed myself to write and pray every morning. But over time the "necessities" of the farm and family and finances have eroded the practice. But even worse, I began to write as nice and poetic as I could. Trying hard to make it right and good. I had forgotten that some of the best poetry, prayers and praises come from the messy, inarticulate scribblings. Just write whatever comes. Don't corral the wild mustang, at least not yet. Let the wild words be themselves. Then gentle some of them with the bridle of editing... but do that later.

Today I'm reminded of the blessing of the wild shadow within. I'm also reminded of my plaintive statement to the shadow: "I gave up everything for love of these people and land." That sounds good and noble on the surface. And it is these things. But the statement also carries the waft of resentment and sacrifice, all at the expense of what longs to sing the soul free. Resentment is a soul crusher to everyone in the family.

A Spirit that lives between the passion and goodness speaks now with simple insight: When offering something, the giver is as blessed as the receiver. And I interpret to also mean something in reverse: When sacrificing one's joy for a cause, the result is most often a harm to the creative passion that longs to come forward in the world. So, this is my litmus test: Do my acts of service come from a place of offering and joy, or from sacrifice and suffering? Am I blessed while I bless?

Which gets me back to that dusty dark voice from beneath the bed. What does s/he have to offer? How do we feed and nurture the creative exuberance that longs to be visible in the world?

There is a place in our chest that never sees the light of day. The heart lives there, flooding our body with living love, all inside the dark cave of the body. What does your heart say? Has your head instituted sacrifice as a penance for the heart? Or, on the reverse, have hidden emotions run about the house screaming, breaking boundaries that hurt others.

What are the choices of freedom? Is freedom just about going back and forth between the shadow and the light in our soul?  What would a co-creative marriage of the heart and the head mean to your life? How would that marriage change your daily practices?  Late at night, when all the house is asleep, what does the wind whistling through the widow say to you?

Love,
Rick
* PS The image is a full size self-portrait, based on a shadow projected on the wall. This was done in a wonderful dance class through: ecstaticdancers.com in Portland, OR.

What you resist, persists, as the old saying goes. 

(c) Copyright words and image,  Richard Sievers, March 2014, All Rights Reserved

What of Today?

What if this day were it? The whole life left to you wrapped up in this one last day?  For 155,000 people on the planet today will contain their moment of departure. Someday, perhaps soon, you and I will also dive into this great wandering river of souls.

I woke this morning happy and free. I woke considering the seeming finiteness of this life experience. It may sound paradoxical, but the realization that death was coming sometime in my life allowed me to be less afraid and more grateful. The first thing I mused upon waking was "What if I were to leave all of this today, say at 6 PM? What would I savor? What would I miss if there was anything left of this awareness I call "me"?

For one thing, I'd miss watching my wife. Like right now, she is outside the cabin window walking in a bathrobe, sweats and knee high mud boots. She's so beautiful. She is breathing in the silence and dew song as she walks through the pasture. I'd also miss watching her stitching prayer flags, being so content and intent. And there are other experiences: How about the feeling of warm sheets in the morning? Or the fragrant loam of the garden flowing through my fingers. I'd miss the white of this very page and smooth skin of its waiting. I'd miss the whoosh of a raven's wings weaving through the rocky headland's forest. Then there is the joy of tears when meeting the gaze of another person who sees you. The salt spray sea. I'd miss that. Or leaving on a trip early in the morning and watching the desert bring up the sun from within the hum of the car. I'd miss laying in the warm May grasses with my beloved.

This partial list is a microcosm of my life at this moment. The list meanders and grows with every precious day on earth. Holy. This life is holy. What is your list today? Study it for a moment. Do you recognize the miracle of what is breezing through your awareness? And what of the sad beauty of all that slips by, unseen, unknown, uncelebrated?

I write to you, happy. Happiness needs to be shared and celebrated... happiness being such a rare wonder nowadays. What is the meaning of sharing this life with other people, other beings? What is the meaning of our connection with each other, right here in the ethers of the internet?  Perhaps a theoretical answer is not so important. Perhaps the idea of "me" and "you" and future and past is not so relevant. All I know is that there are moments worth celebrating, perhaps all of them. And so many moments are worth sharing with those you love. I love writing to you, here, now! It's the sharing that enlivens the experience.

If you knew that 6PM was your final hour, what would you savor? What would you share? How would you share your experience? How would you listen to and see another?

Holy is this life. Precious. And sacred, the sharing at the altar of breath, the breaking of the bread or gratitude and drinking in the rich red wine of experience.

Love,
Rick

(c) Copyright Richard Sievers, February 2014, All Rights Reserved.

The Terror & Joy of Realizing Oneness with the Soul

The Rune Hagalaz: Elemental Disruption

From the Radiance Sutras*:

That space is bad,
This space is good,
The ride is rough,
Or the going is smooth,
We are thrown into suffering,
We are thrown into joy.

Beloved Soul Mate-
Find the space in the center,
The shimmering spaciousness
Encompassing all opposites.
Here the essences of creation are at play:
Earth, water, fire, air and space,
And the senses that perceive them.
The center is the dancing ground.

It's one of those weekends. We've all had them. Every effort seems to be thwarted or even repulsed. This weekend we cancelled a long needed camping trip due to thunderous winds and pelting rain. My beloved partner was sick with a cold. The new computer was on the fritz, needing a  reset. The barn leaks into the open tool boxes. Then to top it off the dogs on either side of us begin a duet in sharp staccato. Enough whining...You get the picture. You've been there. Seemingly important stuff being thrown under the bus of fate, out of your control. None of it is life threatening, but the feeling of resentment, or worse, may rear it's tentacled head.

For me, the resistance to what was/is came forward in the straining to not hear the barking dogs. I have a particular panic response to the sharp barks of dogs. For whatever reason, my pulse flashes, my thoughts turn in fast circles and I feel beside myself through the barking. The dog near the fields where I work all day has been on a tear. Hours of barking, right at me. Well, his lurching songs finally spun me into a panic last night. Then he began again at 5:40 this morning, a series stabbing surly complaints. Canines bared. It was all quite loud, at least to me.

At 6AM I put a note on the our kind neighbor's door. "Can we check-in about the barking?" I query. Fear of offending our good neighbors was knocking inside my head. I walked back down their driveway. The mist was rising just above the lemon sun. Suddenly all was a sweet silence. I was not out of my body, looking for the noise anymore. I was present.

So, I prayed the sweetness into me and back out onto the land... and to the dog. A young rabbit watched me pray from a clump of rye grass.  Then he fled. The panic from the primal barks. the fear of offending friends, the wondering if i'm inadequate, all went scampering away upon the nape of a rabbit's neck. All the shadow material flew off into the hedge, there to hide and shiver in the thickest tangle of thorns.

The Loving Spirit descended and said "They are all Me: the neighbor, the snarl, the staccato stutter of sunless sounds, the bent man called by your name, the rabbit in the beauty, the fear itself... All Me."

"Hmm." I replied. "I still feel the weight of this world and the meanness of struggle. I still feel the collective loss of our world at large: the cutting remarks, the stupid wars, the cowardly killing with words, even the loneliness of God walking on a country lane."  Yes, God walking back home with a fearful man. With me! The Fear itself, like an element of silent sky came crashing through the darkness and into the dawn. Then it dissipated for luxurious moments. Enlightenment... for moments.

Whatever the struggle, it's just another experience. Joy comes wrapped in every guise possible, even in the voices barking from the dark woodland, or the worries spun around a sleepless night.

Love,
Rick

* The Radiance Sutras Are an ancient yogic text. The title roughly means "The terror and joy of realizing oneness with the soul." There is a nice little translation of the Sutras by Lorin Roche, forward by Shiva Rea.

(c) Copyright Richard Sievers, February 2014, All Rights Reserved.

Letter to My Daughter

A Sunflower for the Strong Women in My Life

This is an open letter to the regrets, rejections and longings that roam out in the world of the imagination. It is especially aimed at those regrets rising from decisions to turn away from someone you have loved... and later regretted.

For all of those that have ignored the hard and joyful paths that the heart has called from, to all those that have turned away from a love instead of claiming their inheritance as a human being, to all those that have listened more to their fears instead of their wonder, I write this letter. 

On a personal side I write this letter to someone I let go of, someone I turned away from so many years ago. Yet my heart never hardened in that fateful choice. I write to someone I miss and have never known. I hope this letter reaches you dear one of mine. This is the only way I have to get it to you.

I also hope that this inspires other readers to view and transmute their regrets before this precious time on Earth is done. Not just to wallow in the "what ifs" or to feel sad or to be self-critical. No! These modes of not dealing with regret serve no one very well. Talk to the missing and the rejected, even if only in your mind-heart. Just let the words flow. Perhaps there is wisdom within the sadness. Perhaps the regret can be transformed and become a flame in the heart, allowing you to live in service, humility and freedom.

My Letter:

Hello Daughter,

All these years. All the passing years without you. You are twenty-two years old now. Are you out there? Sweet woman-child, I wish I would have reached out and cared for you, took you in, been your father. Daughter of mine, are you gone forever? What sadness to never have known your smile, the curve of your fingers, the stars in your tears. Are there are so many tears between us?

Sometimes, in the dead of night, I hear a young woman’s voice whispering my name. Sometimes I see tracks in the snow outside my window that were not there before. Sometimes, when I am waking, the house tells me that you have just woken and are in the other room, with a beam of sun shining through your curtain. But then I get up and the house is empty.

In as many years as you have been here on Earth, I will be leaving or gone. Will I meet you in the other world? In this world, I wanted to tell you about my life: the life that courses in your veins too. I wanted to listen to your voice and to know you. But there is silence. Are you there?

How do I live my life to honor you, to rectify my inattention, to be a friend to someone sad or hungry? How do I be kind and real to everyone I meet? Who knows, I may pass you on the street. I may see hair and eyes like my grandmother’s. I may wonder and muse as you slip right on by.

I don’t have much wisdom to say. Most of the wisdom I’ve learned is hard won and drilled deep into the fiber of my bones. I “know” so little compared to the time when you first fell into this world.

All I can say is that most of the stuff you fear is not worth the energy of fearing. You will probably regret what you did not do more than what you did. Like I regretted not claiming you when I had the chance. In my ideals I feel that life is meant to be free in. Even if you are poor or lost or confused there is a place within you that is safe and joyful. You are Creator’s beautiful art, always. Don’t listen to the naysayers, the ones who have bought into hunkering down in their caves. And more than that, let go of the naysayers in your own head. I listened to those mumbling voices inside of me once, and lost you.

Daughter of mine, do you hear my voice, so far away, yet near?

Love,

Rick

Thanks for reading.
RS

(c) Copyright on Image and Words, Richard Sievers,  February 2014, All Rights Reserved.

My Child, I Love Thee

"What is grace?" I asked God

And He said:

"All that happens."

St. John of the Cross*

 

This is a transcript from my journal from August of 2013. This was a private conversation which I thought was meant for me alone. Yesterday, as I looked back on last year’s highlights, I became aware that I can share this with you. Perhaps there is someone in this cold winter that can benefit from the sweet mysterious conversation I had during the peak of summer. I don’t mean for this to be ultimate truth. It was my truth at the time. I hope that the loving wisdom I experienced can inspire you to have your own conversations with what/whom you call sacred.

A note about the name: “God”. I offer this as a name that I have used for what is holy to me. I’m tired of the dogmatic and religious who have hijacked God’s name in the name of being right. I want to use this name respectfully and inclusively. Use what name you will, or none at all. Also a note about the word “thee”. I know this sounds antiquated and dramatic. But it’s what I heard. The word feels akin to the word “beloved” when I use it in my journals. The parentheses are my interpretation.

~~~

August 26th, 2013 7:32 AM

I woke up this morning feeling worried, even anticipating the next door neighbor’s dog barking. “I’m going to have to deepen my practice now.” I said to myself. “I want to be deepening my view instead of making up phantoms and disturbances.” So I came to the writing desk. I sat still and quiet on the outside. Yet on the inside the dog was still barking again and again. Then I tried to cover up the fears with planning my day, conniving my schedule, organizing the uncontrollable wending ways of life.

Then I prayed.

Words came.

And I listened the best I could listen.

“My child, I love thee. I love the rambling voices in our head. I love your stillness at the desk. I will love you all the way home. Now I will offer you the power to soothe your fears. I will help you to: listen but not heed, desire but not need.”

And God spoke deeper and deeper within me. Or should I say that my awareness dove deeper and deeper within me. I heard what is always there. Here are fragments of what came forward:

“How long will you travel this road, small one? Are you willing to grow up and become all that you are and always have been?”

I answer, “Yes, papa, God, Father, Mother. I will pray with you. You are my rock.”

And S/He replied in a thousand whispering voices all at once, like the ocean, like the wind:

“Child, I will love you in your universe. Though I stand apart from all your worries and fetching ideas, I hear all that you say. Pray or ramble… it makes no difference. I esteem thee as my own, my beloved, my small voice chattering, praying, and living in the dark. I see all. I will share the awareness of my senses beyond sense, so that you won’t have to make up a world of pretend.”

“As it is on Earth, so it is in Heaven.

As you love your inner one (child) living in the dream dark, so I will love thee.

Love is perfect in my grace.”

All (beings, things, manifestations) are voices in the dark.

I am the body of the Universe.

Integrate and see through my eyes.

Touch through my hands.

You no longer have to make up a world to feel secure.

And when it is time of no time, you will awaken, and (you will see that) all that you are will have been Me all along.”

“My chatterer, I love thee.

I Love Thee.

I Love Thee.

Continue your talking. I will listen.

I have no choice but to listen, because you live in me. You are becoming me.”

 ~~~

I mused to myself during this time at my desk. Perhaps I am a voice in God’s head, or perhaps in other parts of his/her/its body. If God can love me unconditionally and guide my foolish ways toward perfection, then I can do the same for the voices within me… no matter how afraid or controlling or trivial. As I grow I can learn to love the other voices and beings, in this world, who dream of eternity while thinking they are separate.

Aho, such mysterious wondrous wisdom, Great One. Thank You.

~~~

And the Great Mystery answered:

“As you learn to love yourself, you will learn deeper and deeper secrets of my love for you. And you will awaken to loving all of me (creation) with purer and purer compassion.”

“As you move through the fear inside of you, you will grow fearless in your countenance and discover the peace that is your spirit.”

~~~

The trinity hovered above the desk.

The first said: “Now be me.”

The second said: “Now fly with(in) me.”

The third said: “Now sing my song.”

Love,

Rick

* John wrote this after he'd been imprisoned and tortured by his brothers in the church.

 

© Richard Sievers, January 2014, All Rights Reserved