Nonduality"
Nonduality.com Home Page

Click here to go to the next issue

Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nonduality Highlights each day

How to submit material to the Highlights

#4423 - Friday, November 11, 2011 - Editor: Jerry Katz  

The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights    


Representing Veterans in all countries... the "good" guys and the "bad..."  

Remembrance Day in Canada  

On November 11, 1999 Terry Kelly was in a Shoppers Drug Mart store in
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. At 10:55 AM an announcement came over the
store's PA asking customers who would still be on the premises at 11:00 AM
to give two minutes of silence in respect to the veterans who have
sacrificed so much for us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bXGZr-IJJ4    


     

THE VIEW FROM THE GLEN

 

by Cathal Ó Searcaigh

 

from the current issue of

 

I R I S H  P A G E S

A Journal of Contemporary Writing

 

The Linen Hall Library

17 Donegall Square North

Belfast BT1 5GB

Telephone: ++ 44(0)28 90434800

Email: info@irishpages.org

Website: www.irishpages.org

 

1.

 

I'm enjoying a quiet, outdoors Sabbath. Alone I make my way through the bog along the sinewy trails of sheep. It's an evening of scudding clouds and murmuring water.

            Out here where green life thrives I'm refreshed by birdsong and the scent of honeysuckle. I become attentive to wonders; to the white drift of hawthorn in a hollow, to patchy sunlight on a hill, to the chant of green foliage on Joyce's farm.

            I thank an ancient older tree for its nurturing breath and courtesy in front of a pink rhododendron. I'm grateful to have an intimate place in the midst of this bountiful community of grass, trees and soil.

            My senses mingle with their essences. I know that to be is a blessing. In this sacred moment I want all things to be happy. The earth spins, the trees sway in the wind, the light glides along a hilltop, all is alive and all is dance. I pity those who are estranged from the earth. There is nothing more ennobling than to touch and be touched by this beauty.    

            Bound here between the ether and the abyss, on the edge of edgelessness, I give thanks to this earthly fate for giving me the gift to wonder, to be surprised, to tremble. My salvation is here and not in any other world.

            Today my religion is a creed of amplitude; an open heart that asks the branching tree and the tunnelling earthworm for the truth. This clear mountain stream; steadfast, giving, spirited, tells me all I need to know about the Dharma. A moss-covered stone is as edifying as any sacred scripture. In the presence of still lake-water at Loch an Ghainimh I know the relevatory power of silence.

            I feel a vibrancy in every atom of my being that brings me into alignment with blazing galaxies and with blades of grass. After all every particle of my body comes from that primordial orgasm of matter that begot the universe. I'm an exudation of that primal energy. Today it flows through me with an aching love to coalesce, to be whole again. Every part of me and every part of you; every grain of sand and every blade of grass contains a configuration of the whole. All living matter be it minute protozoa or a supernova are all intertwined in the bounteous weave of creation. Seán Ó Ríordáin, the Irish language poet, recognised this cosmic dynamic in a poem called "Ná Fan". "Níl áit ar fud na cruinne nach ann a saolaíodh sinne" [There is nowehere in this universe where we have not come to be], is I think, one of his most visionary insights.

            We live in grim times. The intricate balance in nature, that interweave of parts, is coming undone. In the name of development, economic growth and progress we are all complicit in the ecological holocaust that is laying waste our world. Countless species are being wiped out, radioactive waste and toxic exhausts foul our waters and spoil our air. The detritus of prosperity, the effluent of greed is killing the earth. Only when we become one ecological congregation, a wholehearted fellowship of love, swearing allegiance to the branching tree and the tunnelling earthworm will we bring the earth and ourselves back into a natural alignment of needs.

            Lucky for me I can enjoy a quiet, outdoors Sabbath in a place where the ecosystem is still diverse and thriving. For that I am grateful. As morning dawns and as evening darkens, I give praise for the bright spill of light that allows me to see the unfolding universe of wonder that is Mín A Leá, Mín A Craoibhe and Caiseal na gCorr.

 

~ ~ ~

 

contributed by Gabriel Rosenstock

 

 


 

 

Let the words flow. Let the silence cradle them. Breathe in and out. Rest in your awareness. The words will cease and the silence will begin its rhythmic sway. All of your life you have been longing to stop chasing the dream. It is always one step ahead of you. Know this.

You don’t have to live up to your own expectations. There can be an end to self-pleasing frustrations that wind up going nowhere. Every day you feel new hope but it is turned in the wrong direction.

Listen to your failures; they teach you much more than your slim successes ever will. So somebody likes you;  yet you are just another phantom of their soap opera, a cameo appearance by someone called by your name.

Up high there is a cosmic order with no room in it for misguided egos. It sees to it that only the genuine garner wisdom that is usable. Down below there is only evil, pollution and dreariness. It crouches in the corners of your heart waiting to spring on you when your physical energy falls below a certain point. Hear me.

Feel the void. It has a name that can only be heard when all hope is gone. When holidays crash and burn, when every Hallmark Store closes and the revelers have retreated back into the woodwork. This is not a game for sissies or falsely optimistic dreamers.

If you would feel your way into the chasm, you must drop low and pray for patience. Who knows? Maybe you will come up with the winning number. That would be zero.

Vicki  Woodyard
http://www.nondualitynow.com



top of page