The Man with The Guitar

I am sitting in an airport in Portland contemplating what might have motivated me to impulsively by two cd's from a lone man playing his guitar and singing through a simple one-speaker setup in the concourse. Perhaps it was the feel of the notes as they floated through the air of a generally impersonal space. Perhaps it was the desire to support one with such courage as to do what he loves in the world. Or perhaps it was what he said to me.

After sitting for a while with what can only be called half-listening ears, as I shared the first phone conversation with my husband after a weekend apart, I walked over to the man. He sat, guitar in arms, singing and playing into microphones, with long gray hair and a lengthy beard. He was beautiful.  As I approached the table where his recorded gifts of music lay, he stood and greeted me. "How much are your cd's?" I asked. "Fifteen dollars for one, twenty five for two, or thirty five for three," he responded. "But may I first tell you about them, so that you may know which to choose?" "Absolutely," I replied.

But before he began to describe each cd and his journey with it, he asked me, "Do you play?" "What... guitar? I used to. And not very well," was my surprised response. "Oh, that's not what I was talking about," he said. "That doesn't matter. What matters is the feel of it. There is something that can be expressed through music that cannot be expressed any other way. It's like a young boy in the forest whacking on trees with a stick. Nothing else quite reaches that place. It's like when you play a single note, and you can't help but play another just to see where it takes you. This is why it doesn't matter WHAT you play... even a kazoo. It only matters THAT you play."

And then his soft attention turned to his creations there on the table before us. One by one he explained to me: this one is a live cd with many things edited out from airport conversations, this one he prefers because it really captures what he does, and that one came one night as he sat with his guitar tuned particularly low as the moon shown in the window. I stood before the array and was mesmerized by this man and the loving awareness with which he spoke of his songs. "Now, aren't you glad I told you about them? You wouldn't have wanted just to grab one, not knowing what you would be getting."  

And that was it. I asked him about cash or checks and where the nearest automated money machine might be located. Then he returned to his guitar and began his gentle soothing of the passersby as they rushed from flight to flight, some sitting at tables to eat, and others barely listening as they spoke to loved ones through cell phones. I returned, chose two, and acknowledged my gratitude.

Perhaps it was compulsive buying that motivated me. But perhaps it was something else. The gift this man gave me just had to be returned. And I am thankful.

Transparency

And you thought I was going to write on the topic of transparency.

No, tonight I will share yet another piece of my soul that has attempted to find it's way into words.  This is where I let myself give it to the world.  Maybe because I know so few people read this.  Or maybe just because the act of opening up the depths of my heart enough to allow this to be seen, to be read, and maybe to be related to seems like a step in the direction of the complete and utter transparency that I find myself seeking.  So without further ado, tonight's snippet of something that resembles poetry:


Looking in Your eyes is like making love to the Beloved.
The air is thick with this unspoken intimacy.
Your very Presence stirs the deepest recesses of my soul,
And in Your absence still you remain.


Sacred obsession,
Quiet embrace.
What ancient contract must bind us this way?
Lovers of soul,
Forever entwined.
This question unanswered gently tortures my mind.


Whispers of "I love you" slowly flood my being,
Drowning the temporal in this unending sea,
Threatening to unravel my hearts neatly woven strings.
Looking in Your eyes is like making love to the Beloved.




Thank you my friends!

Blessings,

Serafina

Hating the Hate

So today I have come across yet another story of the Westboro Baptist Church:

Westboro Baptist Church to picket funerals in Tucson

And I am keenly aware of the hate being propagated here. But the thing I am most aware of today, is the hate that we automatically aim right back at them. It often seems like if we don't respond with disgust and bitterness in the face of something like this, that we are in fact encouraging it. That unless we voice our absolute and utter disagreement and our thoughts on how this enrages us, that we may be seen as condoning it....

But is this really true?

When Jesus said to bless those who curse you, he didn't mean to first make sure everyone knows how wrong the one doing the cursing is, and then, in your infinite wisdom and goodness, to "pray" for them. He simply said to bless them, to love them, to pray for them, and to forgive them.

So what does it mean to bless? The first definition I came across online was this, from thefreedictionary.com:

bless 

tr.v. blessed or blest, bless·ing, bless·es

1. To make holy by religious rite; sanctify.

2. To make the sign of the cross over so as to sanctify.

3. To invoke divine favor upon.

4. To honor as holy; glorify: Bless the Lord.

5. To confer well-being or prosperity on.

6. To endow, as with talent.

Wow. To invoke divine favor upon? To confer well-being or prosperity on? To honor as holy?!! 


This doesn't mean that you have to agree with what is being done. But this is what we are asked to do and to feel towards the people who are doing the cursing. Because they ARE holy. They are made in the image of God just as you and I are. They are beautiful.


I know that for me, this isn't my first reaction. And I'm sure for many of you, it is the same. 


But what if we could recognize that our reaction to them is even more crucial to Peace then their cursing? Think about it. What you focus on increases. Where attention goes, energy flows. These are not just fun little cliches. There is a very small group cursing. But the entire nation sees this on our televisions and internet and even though it does not ignite us to hate the ones they hate, we are still focusing our attention on this hate. We still look at it in disgust and anger and hurt. And so then the number of us experiencing this reality becomes far greater than the small number doing the cursing in the first place. As we curse them, for cursing another, and the cycle continues. 


True Justice can never be found from within this cycle.

True Justice can ONLY be found through compassion, through love, through seeing past the hate to the Truth of who these people are, through the eyes of understanding, and through Seeing as God Sees.

It's like what happens on a day when I am truly exasperated with my 3 year old. She yells at me, and I yell back. And in this cycle of frustration and anger, only more frustration and anger are created. There is no Peace to be found, and it does not in any way teach her Peace.

"Whatsoever you do unto the least of these, you do unto me." Right?

So when we see a story like the one above, will you join me in transforming what you find within yourself? That is really the only place that you can transform hatred and anger, isn't it? So when we look at them, let's bless them. Let's "confer well-being and prosperity on them." Let's "invoke divine favor on them." Let's "honor them as holy."

Does this seem completely backwards and counter-cultural? Good. Then we may be beginning to just barely touch the surface of the Rhythms of Peace that we were created for.

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It is my prayer that the members of the Westboro Baptist Church would come to know that they ARE Love and that they are loved. That each individual would experience utter and complete compassion and forgiveness in their own soul so that this and this alone would pour forth from there lives. Where there is the most capacity for hate, there is also the most capacity for compassion. May they come to Know Peace.

It is my prayer that every individual, including myself, who witnesses acts of hatred and anger and bitterness, would awaken to their own capacity for transforming these things within themselves with compassion, forgiveness and understanding. That Peace would reign in our hearts and minds drowning out and completely dissolving every hint of that which is embodied in the cycle of bitterness. May we each know that only place we are responsible for healing is within ourselves. And may we have the courage and clarity to open to that healing.

Blessings to you!

Serafina

Prayer for Becoming Peace in 2011 (and always)

This was written by my beautiful momma, Tawni Waters. And I could not possibly dream of saying it better, so here it is!

I saw the world once through the eyes of All, and it was perfect, all things breathing in and out in an endless symphony of harmony and love.  I knew I was a piece of a great Whole, and that Whole, when seen in its entirety, went by the name of Love.  I felt myself to be the object of intense and unfathomable love, though in that precious moment, I fathomed it.  All things became beautiful and perfect, even the ugly things.  I knew that God had never been far away, that I was, in fact, engulfed in God, that I was, in fact, a part of God.  I knew that by touching the steering wheel, I was touching God’s face, that by breathing the air around me, I was breathing God.  The illusion of separation vanished.  All hatred, all guilt, all fear fell away, and I knew that we were all growing to become something that we already are.  When we strip away the pain and the fear and the guilt and the rage and the hate, we are already One.  Time is a gift, given to us, from the Whole to itself, to watch the beautiful and miraculous process of its coming to completion.  A completion that outside of time and space, already is.  So healing is not a process of change, but rather, a process of uncovering, a glorious process of peeling away the untruths that have been laid like black rags over the golden core of what we already are.  We are one.  We are love.  We are loved.  

I pray that this year, I will manifest more of the peace that already is within me.  That I will honor myself with all of the tenderness, compassion, and kindness that I would give a child.  Because within, we are all children, most of us scared and lost and desperately searching for a place of safety within a world that we perceive to be cold and dark and terrifying, suffering as we do under the illusion of separation. 

I pray that when I hate, I will have the presence to look within and ask myself what is scaring me so much that I feel I need to protect myself with hate, and then offer that broken place within me the gift of perfect, Divine love, so that place heals and becomes love, offers love to the thing that it once believed it hated. 

I pray that I will be given the gift of sight, so that I will see the Divinity within all things and honor every man, woman, child, dog, cat, tree, and cactus as I would honor God.

I pray that I would understand that in the reality that Is, this is all complete, that none of the lies and the pain and cruelties exist, that within even the most broken human there already exists a core of love, and while I may not be able to find it within myself to love the cruelty that their broken places are manifesting, I pray that I will find sight, to see beyond the cruelty to the golden core.  

I pray that for me, there would be no us and them, only us.  

I pray that the peace that is uncovered within my heart bleeds from me, creates a glorious and invisible sea of light around my being so all that walk into it, even those that do not understand it, even those that do not speak to me or look at me, even those that actively hate me, are touched and healed by the Divine love that is flowing through me.  

I pray that I will remember what matters.  Not money.  Not things.  Not achieving.  Not earning acclaim.  Just being love. 

I pray that when I die, whether this year or fifty years from now, I will have burned a hole in the illusion of separation, a glowing, glorious, explosion of "let there be light"  that expands and continues to burn and grow long after I, as I exist is this particular time and place, am gone. 

And I pray that on the days I forget to do all this, on the days I forget what I am and manifest cruelty, I will have compassion on myself and thereby continue the process of becoming the peace that lives within me. 

Blessings!

Serafina

A Love Poem

I wrote this poem over two years ago.  Tonight, I find myself enthralled by the truthful expression that it was and still is for me.  And so, beloved, here is a piece of my soul:

What is it in the eyes

More can be spoken in one moment

Yes, just one instant

When two eyes meet

Than could ever be expressed through words.

Your countenance is at rest

Yet your eyes

Oh, my friend!

Your eyes tell a story

Of depth and longing

Truth and passion

Reaching inside of me

And touching my soul with one glance.

We have relegated lovers to those who marry

Or those whose love fits within the confines

of our comfortable borders

But what of the others?

For the sake of jealousy and possession

For safety and fear

One love, we say.

One to whom you may give yourself.

But what of the others?

What of the lovers of my soul?

Yes, my soul does have lovers.

One whose eyes captivate me.

Another whose passion enthralls me.

And still one more whose very presence

delights the deepest part of me.

Only one lover, we say.

The heart has no such boundaries.

 Blessings,

Serafina

I AM... not my body.

Hello Beloved,

First, I MUST express my gratitude for having running water again! And what a blessing it certainly is. Thank you my dear husband for staying up late to dig up and tighten the leaking coupling. And for installing this wonderful new (used... but close enough to new!) sink and new non-leaking kitchen faucet! This is a very helpful Christmas present "from us to us" and I cherish it.

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On to my post now: :-)

I AM... not my body.

I mean surely, my body is an ever present expression in this world of who and what I Am. But it is not me. The real me goes much deeper than this, and is, I believe, eternal.  And the experience of this truth is something I am finding to be absolutely invaluable in my everyday life.

I read this last night:

"A friend can be a Divine mirror showing you areas of yourself that you had hoped to hide from the world. They encourage you to shine the light of Love on these areas and embrace them, to see that they really had no power at all. For in the light of Love all things are healed."

The thing about this that moved me so deeply was the concept (or rather even the experience I have had since then) that in the light of Love, all things are healed. And that this light is one that we, our Selves, can shine on the areas where we are struggling. Something about the imagery of this really resonates with me. If I can shine the "light of Love" onto something I am struggling with... whether physically, emotionally, or whatever... than it follows that the "I" that is doing the shining, or the directing, of that Love cannot actually BE the problem that I am seeking to heal. Are you following me?

To really get what I'm trying to say here, you will have to experience it. I don't think words will ever be enough.

In a moment that you find challenging, for whatever reason that may be, ask yourself or remind yourself to "shine the light of Love" on this area, as it says above, and embrace it. Visualize it however works for you. See yourself directing actual light and Love onto this area, onto yourself. Sit with this imagery for a bit (or if you can't actually sit, just let it sit internally) and be with it. Have compassion on the you that is being impatient or cranky. Or on the you (or me, ha ha) that is at that moment a tired mom with a cold that is being crabby with her dear one. Feel gentleness towards this, just as you seek to feel towards others. Because, in truth, how can you give to someone else what you have not given to yourself?

The experience that will ultimately come out of this is that you are not your body, and you are not this impatience or this anger or this frustration or whatever it may be. And somehow, when you look on these things that you see in yourself in this way, they just dissolve in the inherent healing of this Love.  Somehow, you find that this thing you have struggled so much with, really never had any power at all.  From within it, we cannot seem to heal anything in those moments. For all our trying, the thing just persists and persists and persists. Yet, if we can just make the slightest shift in our perspective... the shift that takes place when you begin to focus on shining the light of Love on these areas, the thing literally just falls away.  It feels like the classic example of "What you resist, persists." When you stop resisting it, when you move into the place of embracing it as the Beloved, of experiencing compassion towards the you that is struggling so, this slight shift makes all the difference.

And once you can do this for the "dark" areas in you life, once you know and have experienced how this transformation, this Divine transformation takes place, you can shine that same light of Love to others, extending the same compassion towards them instead of judgement.

Take it for what it is worth to you, but this current, this rhythm of peace was magic for me this morning. I cannot say that I will not struggle at all again today, but I know what it felt like for the weight of my struggle to begin to simply vanish under the Love that began to shine there, from the Me that I Am.

I AM... not my body.

Blessings and thank you for your presence here!

Serafina

Victory!

Hello Beloved,

What a magical season we are in, no? Today, I must admit, I find myself stressed. Both of my girls and I have a cold that seems never to go away. We have no water, as a toilet was running all night last night thus effectively draining our holding tank. Our propane tank is almost empty and when I called yesterday for a refill, they said they may not be able to get to us today. And in all honesty, I've just been something of an emotional wreck yesterday and today. I have been seeking victory over these stubborn emotions, you see.

It's been a very slow process of waking myself up again and reminding myself of the Truth. At least it always FEELS like it is slow. With every breath that I am mindful of, I find myself letting go. With every thing that I can be grateful for, I find I begin to remember. And with every moment that I choose to be fully present in, I am aware of the Perfection of All That Is. In the back of my mind through these past two days, this one sentence has been taking root:

"Know that we attain God when we Love, and only that victory endures... in consequence of which no one is defeated."

This is just such a breath of fresh air to me. Literally, it feels like my hungry soul finds nourishment here. It's difficult to explain otherwise, but if you've experienced this, then you know what I'm talking about.   :-)

THIS is the victory that I seek. Not the fleeting victory of getting the water fixed... again. Not the seemingly satisfying completion of having a clean house... (though this one could be a whole other blog). Not the ego's desire to be the perfect mother who can do it all and never speak a sharp word. But THIS. THIS victory in consequence of which no one is defeated. THIS victory that is the only one that endures. I will be satisfied with nothing less than "attaining God". And so, I find, I will be satisfied ONLY when I Love. And the only moment that I can ever Love is right now. This very present moment.

How many times do I find this to be the answer? Over and over again the answer? It's like Love Itself calls to me... underneath all of the crabbiness and overwhelm, it calls to me. "Come back," She says. "Return to Me now. Right now. For there is no other moment of Return except for now. And in this 'now', know that all that is asked of you and all that you are truly asking of yourself is to Love. Stop the rushing. Stop the complaining. Stop all of the desperate attempts at keeping up. And Love. Love this One standing before you now. This husband. This child. This friend. This stranger. Love this One. And in THIS you will find victory, the kind in consequence of which no one is defeated."

Blessings!

Serafina

P.S. The following book has been incredible as a tool for remembering "right now", for it is the only time and place that we will find the true rhythms of Peace.