How to Live Simply

A dialogue that came to me while writing in my journal this morning:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Please note: When I address the Beloved, I use the word God. I hope this is not distracting or triggering for some people. For me, this word is meant as the most inclusive, welcoming to EVERY person and beyond any particular religious persuasion.  And my personal agenda is to take the word back from those that have used it in a hateful or closed hearted manner. I address the one that I experience shining as pure love everywhere and in everyone. It is the still and quiet voice within.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 How do I live simply, God?

"Take a year to fill the pages of this book.
Then lift out a single sentence.
Give those words away, with no name attached.
Burn the book.
Begin the book again, as if for the first time."

That's a tall order, God.

"You will do all these things anyway.
(If you do it willingly you are truly free.)*
The meaning you seek is the space
between the words.
That space is sufficient.
That space is everything.
That space is me, within you."

Then, how do we live This day together, God?

"The Compassionate Spirits are here.
They know the winding ways of time
lead always to the place that is no place at all.
So, tend your garden.
Give all (that you seek and have)* away,
even in the exchange of wants and desire.
Love your friends and enemies,
especially those inside of you...
the ones you call yourself. 

Tell me one thing more about this living simply.

"Be free, write, say, sow, reap what wills itself 
out of the bardo called LOVE."



Love,
Rick

*(Parentheses) Are my interpretation.


Copyright Rick Sievers, July 2013, All Rights Reserved 

The Desk and the Mist

A rare summer mist hovers over the cabin. 

The grasses in the field are bent 

like an army of monks in prayer.

Outside I recognize the new Earth.

The old is healed, renewed and vibrant 

with all possibility.

Inside, I linger over my desk:

loving this altar of solitude, my old friend.

I fashioned the boards with my own two hands.

But first the grain ripened 

in the rings of sun circles and forest song.

Me and the desk, both from the wild, 

bent for a time, refined, awaiting renewal, 

cleansed by the morning mist.

O, Sacred Earth come.

O, Beloved, come.

Rick

(c) Copyright Rick Sievers, July 2013, All Rights Reserved

I Am Woven Into the Fabric of the Universe

A message I received while in circle with my shamanic friends this weekend. This was meant for me and my periodic embarrassment of being inspirited with gifts and love. Like many, I am often afraid to be different. I am often afraid to state the truth within me which is not yet quantifiable. This may help someone else out there too...I hope so.

"What happens when you don't channel the spiritual power that is yours to give with love? Others may fail or pull up the slack. No longer apologize, minimize or trivialize our holy humble purposes in your life. What right have you to deny what is wondrous and loving within you? There are consequences for you resisting alignment with Love (Love=The Beloved and Compassionate Ones). The ancestors, animals, the Earth itself may suffer."

"The World of Love is diminished when you diminish what is Most Lovely in yourself."

An inspiration for this post was a song:
Heart of the Universe
by Peter Kater and Snatum Kaur
Love,
Rick

Copyright Rick Sievers, June 2013, All Rights Reserved

God Does Not Kill!

Julia Sievers ca. 1870s

To the religious ideologues who insist they know what is right and wrong, to those who kill in the name of all that is sacred and true and to those who wonder why hatred appears to bloom in our world, a letter from my Great Great Grandmother written in her journal 1898.

"God does not kill! Neither by flashing lightning, the whirling wind, the roaring water.... God does not kill with poison, pestilence, plague, famine, or flame. God does not kill with disease or disorder, with heartache or headache... God does not kill anyone, anywhere, or at anytime!

The doctrine that God takes away a child to punish or afflict a parent; takes away a husband to humble the wife... that God comes into a family like a lesson of destruction, to kill afflict and sadden; that God bankrupts or burdens any one good or bad; the doctrine of providential affliction and distress and sorrow; This is (an) unloving, godless and pitiless doctrine, (it) has no place in the thought of today only because it has had the sanction of the hoary ages Not because it is true, or reasonable, or good, or acceptable, or helpful, or hopeful.

Julia Sievers ca. 1940

(It is) Not because the Bible, or philosophy, or history, or science would have us believe it. But simply because we have been taught it, and have not had the courage to deny it.

God pities and helps, and guides and leads, and teaches, and hopes for us, but does Not destroy us, or hurt us, or hinder us. The theologian may have to teach us apostate thought to harmonize us with his system of so-called truth, But We Know Better; and in all justice and fairness let us quit accusing providence of inspiring crime and promoting disease, and in encouraging death....1

"Think and speak love, joy, peace, truth, Mercy. The Good is here and it is ours, it is for  you and me and to you and me.

In exalting the faculty of the Soul, we annihilate in a great degree the delusion of the senses." 2

Written by Julia M Sievers, Dennison, Iowa 1898


I love you Great Great Grandmother. May your prayers of love and clear thinking bloom in our world.

Rick

Notes:

1. Julia's hand written journal is full of quotes and prayers and thoughts, all in devotion to God as she understood him. I was only the second person to ever read this passage until today. She notes that she adapted this first section based on an editorial from the Fort Worth, (Tex) Register.

2. This last four lines has the name "Martin" inscribed underneath it.


Copyright Richard Sievers, March 2013, All Rights Reserved

Eternity of Moments

My Brother and I in August 1972, three months before he passed away. These are happy moments that still live in my body.

Moments
of silence like song.

My brother in Idaho 1972.

Moments.
That's what I have,
moments in a circle
that once looked like
a straight line.   

 From my new book Simple Life

If you had just one moment to begin eternity in, if there was a moment from which you could launch into forever, what would it be?

Pause and sit with this.

Is it hard to choose just one moment from your life?

Or is it  hard to choose any moments?

What does the answer say about your life or your presence in your life?

Let's narrow down And expand the scope of the question.

Choose a person that you currently consider a close friend. What moment in your life with them would you choose to carry with you into eternity? Any? Many? Are there regrets that need to be released or healed?

And expand even more: 

Think of a past person, animal or place you've loved. Is there a moment you had with them that you would want to carry with you, or even live in? 

Now go deeper and refine the question again. 

What about experiences that were mixxy, perturbed and challenging.  Was there an instance of clarity or healing that you would choose to recall in eternity? What about someone who has vexed you. Did that person touch you and bring joy nonetheless?

Looking at the question in another way:

Today... What if this day were The Day you'd live forever? What if you could move through this very day without regard to linear reckoning? What would you choose to believe, to do or inhabit? Which senses, sights and bodily sensations would you want to foster?

If this very moment was the launching point for eternity what would you pray or think or do in your life right now?

This is my glimmering on life:

The Moment of Eternity IS NOW.

I wonder if our heavens and hells and purgatories are not out there somewhere, someday. I wonder if the supposed afterlife is more akin with how we choose to inhabit and really experience this life.

Lately I've felt this existential challenge about what is all this work and experience for? What's the point? Is this all there is? How much do I really inhabit my everyday experiences? And does it matter that I do? I've wonder if hell is really just a way of regret. Perhaps hell is when you realize that you've lived disconnected and separate throughout life. Like there was no real joy and now it's too late. Well it's never too late to re inhabit your life, or re-enliven memories of your particular experiences.

I have a theory that a life purpose is simply to share all my experiences with Creation, Creator and Community when it comes time for this particular body to dissolve. At that time no experience will be either good or bad. But I think that the quality of how we inhabited experiences, the Vital essence of our bodily life, will be like manna to our spirits.

So I ask the questions again. 

If this were the launching point of eternity how would I be present in my body and life, how would I connect with people and love them in a way beyond sentimentality and yearning? How can we really be with each other in this gift of life and living? As William Stafford said: "Someday is now."

 Rick

PS. The series Two Weeks in an American Ashram, will continue later in March.

(c) Copyright Richard Sievers, March 2013, All Rights Reserved.

Days 9-10 You Say...I Say

If you receive a version of this blog sent by email press the title link to see the blog in its full format. This posting is a segment of my ongoing series Two Weeks in an American Ashram begun in November 2012. To see the previous entries just scroll down or click on Journal Archive at the right. 

Heard in Prayer:

Child of mine:

You say that you have not done enough to match my grace.

My Grace is sufficient; that's why it's called grace.

You say that you have mostly failed in your callings.

I say that by Grace you serve 

and by Grace you offer what you will.

You say that your mind wanders too much, 

that you are too much a hermit and too little a friend.

I say that my Grace fills the space between your words.

I say that you are beloved on earth.

I say you are wholly mine.

I say you are a strand 

in the very fabric of my purpose 

here in this world of now.

Peace,
Rick

(c) Copyright Richard Sievers, February 2013, All Rights Reserved.

Day 8: Patience of a Cedar Tree

The Ancient Cedar Tree that Became My Sanctuary in the California Hills

This posting is a segment of my ongoing series Two Weeks in an American Ashram begun in November 2012. To see the previous entries just scroll down or click on Journal Archive at the right.
          

“Quiet friend who has come so far,

feel how your breathing makes space around you.

Let the darkness be a bell tower

and you the bell. As you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength.

move back and forth into the change…

In this uncontainable night,

be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,

the meaning discovered there…”

Rilke*

   
There are over a thousand acres to be free in. I walk. I am a wanderer in the hills of this intentional community. The rolling oak strewn, mesquite tangle of central California is my land today. I wander and survey all that I steward with presence and remembrance.

I walk for miles, through savanna and forest. I traipse through the village of people who have chosen to live in a binding freedom with each other. This place of farms and frictional unity. This splatter of homes that have stood through forest fires and schisms and holy blessings for over forty years.

I wander through the central square of the community and its humble collection of white clapboard houses. I walk by the little shops full of gems and amulets of astral magnetism. I wander past the temples and the altars. Then through the herd of goats and deep into the woods.

In the middle of all of this community and beauty I feel that familiar voice, a tinge of I am alone, even here. Which I now believe is a spell I have woven deep into the tangle of my life.

I am more than half way through my time here. Halfway in any endeavor often is a time of resistances. Today I am tired of the sacred songs. I feel non-pulsed by the lofty texts. I am slightly wary of the people that smile at me. And yet… And yet, I know that this is real here. There is family here. That community of virtue and devotion is real on this earth. A tug occurs between the old and the new within me.

So much of the world’s pain has come with me, even here. I need to let that go.

“Just breathe” I tell myself.

I take in three circles of breath. I feel the wind move in spirals through my sinuses. I feel the welling of living air in my lungs. I taste the happiness of release as I exhale. Then I hear the clouds moving through the trees. I am standing beneath a mighty cedar. This being is gnarled from storms, burnt from lightning, bruised by man and his machines. Yet it continues to stand here. Magnificent. Ten feet across. And perhaps 180 feet tall.

I lean into the tree. I sit. I watch the land and empty myself the best I can. But I continue pondering and recalling the old spell that wends its way through me: I am alone.

I think of my father, as I often do at these times, how I miss him. I think of the family who has declined to speak with me and won’t tell me why. But I don’t spiral any further into the inner night. A voice clear and ringing rises up through the wisdom of my body. The voice is from someone who is beyond all names. He speaks:

“You’ve known no father. I would be your father, in a family of love, right here, inside this time, inside me.”

I answer the voice: “Please be patient with me. The sadness is deep in this world. I want to grow closer to you.”

And the reply: “I am eternal, outside of time. Patience is not even a reality of need for me. Remember, the kingdom belongs to the prodigal. What has abandoned you on earth will never harm you in the ascension of now.”

Profound, mysterious and yet clear words.

A simple peace moved all around me. When I breathed in again, peace took root as a small seedling within me. Much like this ancient sentinel of a tree that began so small and now touches the clouds. I knew that I must have patience with myself. And I saw glimpses of love that is real and true and lasting… right here, right now.

Rick

*Rilke From Sonnets of Orpheus, Part Two XXIX

Selection from Rainer Maria Rilke's In Praise of Mortality, p. 132

Trans: Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy

Copyright Richard Sievers January 2013, All Rights Reserved