Walk A few days ago, as I was exiting the parking lot of the Boulder public library, a small flock of geese—four or five of them—were walking across the street. Now, of course, geese have wings—so they could easily have flown across the street. But for whatever reason they were, instead, walking. The street they were crossing was a fairly busy one, with cars approaching from all four …
Practice Notes: The Jade Plant
I have a Jade plant that I very much love. I purchased it around four years ago, when it was just a small plant—four inches tall, or so. Now, it’s a good fourteen inches tall and wide, quite regal! I can say, with confidence, that over the past four years this Jade plant has grown—has increased in size, at least fourfold. Stealth Growth But have I actually perceived it growing—directly—with …
Dream-Veil World
Dance Dream-veil world: who wove thee thus, As thou, in thine enthralling splendor, Piercest the naught? Who conceived this dream— Now victorious, now shattered and dispelled? Dream-veil space and time: now joy, now grief; The veil dances, moves and whirls, Covers and uncovers Māyā’s naked self— O golden radiance of Infinity! ~ Frithjof Schuon * …
Practice Notes: Adornment
Noticing, in recent weeks, patterns of emotional energy that would seem to be connected to childhood experiences—accompanied by images from those earlier years. All to be welcomed, embraced with tender-spacious intimacy, allowed in their own time to transform, recognized as already liberated. Among the various themes these dreamlike scenarios (these apparitions from Elizabeth’s past) present, …
Practice Notes: Same & Different
Change is a strange thing. While worldly phenomena—including human bodies and minds—seem to be in perpetual motion—transforming, modulating, modifying, adjusting, etc. pretty much all the time—change turns out to be rather slippery to actually find. The reason for this slipperiness is that to say that a particular object has “undergone change” requires that it partake, simultaneously, of …
Trailing Clouds of Glory
Ode on Intimations of Immortality There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore;— Turn wheresoe'er I may, By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more. The rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the …