DON'T GO BACK TO SLEEP

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.- Rumi

I love the below article.

It is referring to Wayne's Dyers pbs special "inspiration...your ultimate calling"

Whatever it is you say that you want, cherish it and let the want to. Allow yourself to be irresistably attracted to the one thing that you cannot resist and give yourself completely to it. It may be that you are pulled irresistably to write, to paint, to dream, to make the dreams of others come true...it may be something else. When you do that, you are inspired, "in-spirit". Dyer says that when we do this we are the closest to Source that we can possibly be.

He quotes the Persian poet Jalalud'din Rumi in saying:

"The morning breeze has secrets to tell you
Do not go back to sleep"

Do you find yourself waking in the middle of the night for no reason? Is it at relatively the same time every morning? No matter when I go to bed, I have what I call a "five hour wall" that I hit and will waken, sometimes with no agenda, sometimes with a full bladder, needing the bathroom. Dyer says when we waken like this, to put your feet on the floor and don't go back to sleep but allow yourself to experience the morning breeze...or at least that quiet, fully-awakened state of mind that is closest to the Source. Get your biological needs taken care of and invite yourself to sit quietly and be open. Things will come to you in this time that you might never expect or have access to any other time of day.

When I waken like this I am fully awake, and usually talking to myself, itching to get on the computer and having completed another project, writing or plan in my sleep. I notice as Dyer says, that when I go back to sleep I have difficulty remembering these beautiful poems and fully-fleshed plans when I wake up later in the day. Good case for keeping a notebook or digital recorder next to your bed.

Dyer also quotes the great Indian sage Patanjali on the subject of inspiration:

When you are inspired by some great purpose,
some extraordinary project,
all of your thoughts break their bonds
Your mind transcends limitations.
Your consciousness expands in every direction.
And you find yourself in a new,
great and wonderful world.
Dormant forces, faculties and talents come alive
and you discover yourself to be a greater person
by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.

Go for what juices you, even though right now you can't see how it will pay the bills or possibly work with the living situation you have or, or, or, or...

Address these thoughts, beliefs and blockages to living fully expressed and in flow with the universe with your favorite energy therapy. These thoughts and beliefs bind us and keep us from fully expressing as Source. As you lose this bondage, those dormant forces, faculties and talents Patanjali speaks of will pop out of the woodwork with an energy and swiftness and appropriateness that will astonish and delight you.

And you will discover yourself to be a greater person that you ever dreamed you could be, honest and for true.

By Maryam Webster
http://maryamwebster.blogs.com/

Literary Cafe

Mark was the featured poet at the Literary Cafe in Tremont on Thursday. if the first link doesn't work....try the second one.
Literary Cafe


Mark reads his poetry

Amazement

Below is a poem by Mary Oliver. She is actually from Cleveland, but doesn't like to admit it. I highlighted my favorite parts of the poem in green below.

She reminds me to be as authentic and real as I can which sometimes takes a lot of courage. I don't intend to be just a "visitor" here.....I want to fully engage and connect with others. Happy Ground Hog's Day. -Michele

When Death Comes

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps his purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering;
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

The Dance

The Dance
by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

I have sent you my invitation,
the note inscribed on the palm of my hand by the fire of living.
Don't jump up and shout, "Yes, this is what I want! Let's do it!"
Just stand up quietly and dance with me.

Show me how you follow your deepest desires,
spiralling down into the ache within the ache.
And I will show you how I reach inward and open outward
to feel the kiss of the Mystery, sweet lips on my own, everyday.

Don't tell me you want to hold the whole world in your heart.
Show me how you turn away from making another wrong without abandoning yourself when you are hurt and afraid of being unloved.

Tell me a story of who you are,
And see who I am in the stories I am living.
And together we will remember that each of us always has a choice.

Don't tell me how wonderful things will be . . . some day.
Show me you can risk being completely at peace,
truly OK with the way things are right now in this moment,
and again in the next and the next and the next. . .

I have heard enough warrior stories of heroic daring.
Tell me how you crumble when you hit the wall,
the place you cannot go beyond by the strength of your own will.
What carries you to the other side of that wall,
to the fragile beauty of your own humanness?

And after we have shown each other how we have set and kept the clear, healthy boundaries that help us live side by side with each other, let us risk remembering that we never stop silently loving those we once loved out loud.

Take me to the places on the earth that teach you how to dance, the places where you can risk letting the world break your heart.
And I will take you to the places where the earth beneath my feet and the stars overhead make my heart whole again and again.

Show me how you take care of business
without letting business determine who you are.
When the children are fed but still the voices within and around us shout that soul's desires have too high a price,
let us remind each other that it is never about the money.

Show me how you offer to your people and the world
the stories and the songs you want our children's children to remember, and I will show you how I struggle
not to change the world, but to love it.

Sit beside me in long moments of shared solitude,
knowing both our absolute aloneness and our undeniable belonging. Dance with me in the silence and in the sound of small daily words, holding neither against me at the end of the day.

And when the sound of all the declarations of our sincerest
intentions has died away on the wind, dance with me in the infinite pause before the next great inhale of the breath that is breathing us all into being, not filling the emptiness from the outside or from within.

Don't say, "Yes!"
Just take my hand and dance with me.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer



By the author of the book THE INVITATION. Excerpted with permission from THE DANCE (to be published September 2001). Copyright (c) 2001 by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in whole or in part without the permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 10 E. 53 St., New York NY 10022

Mira's Poem