Shivakti, Complete Collection of Poetry

SEPARATION ANXIETY

I was haunted by a fear

that I did not belong or fit in,

that I had lost my connection with nature,

that I had lost my union with something more,

that I had been orphanedor worse, abandoned.

And so I began a spiritual journey

to find what I thought was missing.

But what was missing was only

my willingness to accept

that nothing is missing.

IN MY HUMANITY

Much of my life I have longed for the Infinite

and labored to rise above my humanness.

What a surprise after all these years

to find the divine comfortably at home

in my own human heart.

What a surprise after all the searching

to find the Beloved so firmly imbedded

in my humanity.

What a relief to discover

there is nothing I need do,

nothing I need become.

I sigh and relax a little

becoming softer and less fearful

in my humanity.

WHO AM I?

Will I ever know the truth of me?

Will I ever find one solid unchanging thing of me?

Is there an unchanging part of me?

Or am I a flow of electrons, a stream of energy,

a nebulous filament of shifting consciousness

not a person, nothing solid at all?

I used to know who I am. Now I do not.

I stop asking the question

and turn to what seems real to me

somehow I am.

Someday it will be said of me, “she is not.”

But “I am not” is impossible for me to say.

The most basic truth I know is that I am.

And however that came to be, I am grateful.

However long these moments of being last,

I am grateful.

ENOUGH

So often I’ve wondered

when fate turned me back upon myself

and there was so much aloneness

Would I be enough to fill the emptiness?

When my idea of God

was dismantled by my searching,

leaving me with just myself

Would I be enough to fill the void?

When my framework of right and wrong

and what ought to be was disassembled

Would I be enough?

When my reliance on what others said,

or thought, or taught was dissolved

Would I be enough?

I don’t know if it was courage, desperation,

or the thrust of Grace itself that drove me

to find out if I would be enough.

But a time came when I had to turn within

just me, by myself, alone.

And into that trembling emptiness I haltingly whispered,

I love you … I trust you …

And what has come from that

is so much more

than merely enough.

ASPECTS OF ME

There are aspects of me

which seem to be bigger than me

which are most mysterious.

There are aspects of me

which call things into my life

in the guise of coincidence and synchronicity.

There are aspects of me

which provide me with unexpected gifts

in alignment with my deepest intent

the mechanics of which are beyond my comprehension.

Some people call this God

and see it as a personalized entity

existing outside of themselves.

For me it is a magnificent Mystery

beyond my personality

yet still so intimately ingrained in me.

I call it my Beloved.

SOMETHING

Once in a while

I feel as though I catch a whiff of it

a telltale fragrance in the air,

a faint track in the sand,

a fleeting motion in the corner of my mind.

But when I turn to look, it is gone.

Nothing is there.

Nothing is there

and so I have doubted,

feeling an anguish more than I can bear.

Deeply have I considered the implication

that nothing may be there.

And yet my heart will not agree

and insists that something is

something I might not be able to identify,

something I might not be able to detect,

yet something I subtly sense everywhere,

something that like the sirens’ song calls to me

and sets a resonance in me,

something I’ve come to love

but cannot give a reasoned why,

something I simply do not want to live without.

And so I cast aside my doubt

and let my heart speak to the unknown

Oh, my Beloved …

SURRENDER TO LIFE

I surrender to life

knowing that within its play

there are many roles I may read for

and only a few I’ll choose.

But regardless my choice

I cannot escape life’s vicissitudes,

its progression across the stage,

its full complement of experiences and feelings.

I surrender to Life

and I accept,

with gratitude and awe,

this gift of consciousness,

this being here at all.

LET ME BE LOVE

Oh, my Beloved,

the only thing I want

is to be one with you.

Yet this form you have pulled

from yourself as individual

does not hold oneness well.

So while I am in this body,

if I cannot be one,

let me be love.

Until I can be one

with all my human heart,

with all my human soul

let me love you.

Let me love you every where,

in every thing,

in every one.

Oh, my Beloved …

DUALITY’S BEAUTY

Across the street I see jacaranda trees

their purple glory fallen away,

barren between bloom and leaf,

a thousand naked limbs reaching for the sky

doubled against a mirrored wall.

A familiar wetness slips my eye

and with cool finger traces the contour of my cheek

as I am overcome with joy and a longing

to melt into oneness with such Beauty.

So the Beloved replied:

Oh, my beloved, don’t ever think that raising your head

out of the sea of oneness and saying ‘I’

is anything less than a holy event.

Why do you spit upon the face of ‘I?’

To declare ‘I’ is a miracle of consciousness,

a deliberate thrust of the Beloved

to burst apart and become two

thus becoming both

explorer and the explored, seer and seen,

knower and known, lover and the beloved.

Don’t ever think that seeing Beauty

is less than being Beauty.

Don’t forget in your love for the Oneness

that Duality is Its sacred child.

Duality is the blessed consciousness

by which I come to know

how splendid I am against a mirrored wall.

THE BELOVED’S INVITATION

See me … touch me … know me.

Don’t hold me to a higher purpose aloof and apart.

There is no purpose higher.

Hear me … taste me … smell me.

I have laid myself before you in infinite array.

Why do you wait to partake?

Feel me … sense me.

Let me see who I am

through your eyes.

Come, my love,

I have poured the wine and called forth the music.

With trembling breath I await your embrace.

Let us dance this time together.

Know me … love me … aum.

MY PRAYER

May I live

in such a way

that when I die

this ad

will never appear

in the classifieds:

Estate Sale

Dreamcatcher

Never Used

DON’T WAIT

Hurrydon’t wait!

Don’t wait to love.

Love whatever is near.

Why lose one moment

of this delirious ecstasy?

Don’t wait

for a special someone

to come along.

Love what is close at hand.

Love a tree, a caterpillar,

the stranger who bumped

into your grocery cart.

Why wait another minute?

Let us feast right now

on this delicious expansion.

Love now!

CALLED TO AWE

When I hear the bells of a church and the format of religion

calling me to worship, I cannot go.

For many years I answered that call

and threw myself to the floor as if I were dirt.

But now I cannot go and pretend that I am nothing.

And so I am branded as proud.

But it is not a thing of pride for me.

It is a thing of honesty

of knowing I am something more

than merely a body of dirt.

The something more that I am

of which I am unable to speak clearly

is part of the grandest of Mysteries.

To throw That on the floor

would surely be sacrilege for me.

I look around and everywhere I see the Mystery of Mysteries

in birds and trees, in mountains and seas, in the existence of every thing

universes entwined in universes unto infinity.

I see it in you and feel it in me

and I am swept into a wave of awe.

Some are called to worship.

Once I was too

but now I am called to awe.

I have risen.

EVER SO QUIETLY WITHIN

Oh, my Beloved,

Sometimes I wonder where you are

when the beauty I see in the world becomes so commonplace

that the thrill of seeing you dims with the familiarity.

For a while I grieve the loss of the thrilluntil,

in the emptiness, I begin to notice

that my heart is smiling still

ever so quietly within.

And my sadness seems a trifle phony

like an old routine that has lost its vitality

because my heart is smiling still

ever so quietly within.

Oh, there you are, my Beloved.

Have I told you lately that I love you?

WHAT AM I TO DO

I asked my Beloved:

“What am I to do

with this time on my hands?”

By Beloved replied:

“Live, my dear,

LIVE!”

HOW DO YOU FALL IN LOVE

If you want to open up,

start by saying thank you.

If you want to feel life in a positive, joyful way,

start by saying thank you.

If you want to have peace within your being,

start by saying thank you.

If you want your spirit to soar,

start by saying thank you.

If you want to know the Mystery,

start by saying thank you.

So how do you fall in love?

You start by saying

thank you.

REST IN IT

What does it mean to rest in the Mystery?

To stop struggling with it.

To not worry about definitions

even though I play in definitions.

To trust that what I’m resting in exists

and to stop trying to prove that it does.

To accept that it is there

naturally there, intrinsically there.

I don’t have to earn its being there for me.

It simply is thereperiod.

To rest in it means

I can take a deep breath and relax.

The “something more”

I’ve been trying to find

simply is

and it is there, in me.

I belong.

I am home.

WHO IS THE BELOVED

Within myself I asked, who is the Beloved?

There came this knowing reply:

How many days over the eons

have you asked that question!

If you multiplied those days

a million times a million,

there would not be enough time

to say all the words describing

the Beloved.

Better for you to tell me

who you think the Beloved is not

and there we shall see

your own

divine

limitation.

Thank you for asking.

I love you.

PERIOD

My teacher said he loves the Mystery

and the Mystery loves him. Period!

Something inside of me thrills to this certainty.

Something in me is light and free and joyous

with this simplicity.

Indeed, I love the Mystery,

and the Mystery loves meperiod. That is all I need.

I love and I am loved.

This is the base in which I rest,

the substratum that supports me,

the prevailing belief-attitude I chose to hold.

This is the truth of meno further explanation needed.

And now what I do with my days, hours, and minutes

is whatever I want to do because I know that:

I love the Mystery

and the Mystery loves me.

Period.

SALT

Suffering is like salt.

Too much dries us out,

wrinkles and hardens us like a pitted prune.

Too little and our minds and bodies

fail to function well.

In the soup of life

a certain amount of salt brings out the flavor

and adds enjoyment to the meal.

Too much makes the whole meal inedible.

Thank you, my Beloved,

for the salt in my life.

One of us is a very good cook!

THANK YOU NOTE

Sometimes when I feel lost

or gripped by ennui,

I turn to nature’s grandeur or beauty

like a flamingo sunset or the stars in the galaxy.

I give thanks for these

and feel the shift in me

as if the purpose of my life

(at least for the moment)

may simply be

to acknowledge what I see,

to say, “Ahhhhh… yessss!”

to thank and to bless.

Oh, my Beloved, what I have seen!

What I have loved!

What has touched my soul!

If my life is nothing else

may it be

a thank you note.

GRATITUDE’S WAY

There are reasons to say thank you,

millions of them the mind cannot deny.

But I love you comes harder to the lips,

as if the tongue were bound and tied.

I love you is surrender, a melding in the heart

from which there’s no return and the mind has little part.

Sometimes it is easier to fill one’s mind with gratitude,

more honest to say thank you than to say I love you.

So I’ve found things to be grateful for

blue skies and mountains high, grassy meadows,

a dancing horse and miles of trail to ride,

food on my table and shelter from the rain,

coffee with a friend, a way that eases pain,

eyes that can see, ears that can hear, a mind that remembers.

All these things I hold dear

the ability to wonder, the strength to breathe,

the way things work out to settle my needs,

dew drops on spider webs, music that thrills,

finding a way to pay my bills,

surviving my youth, enjoying my age,

being able to sit with a wonderful sage,

my successes, my losses, my loves and my life.

The list goes on and on

with “thank you, my Beloved” my constant song.

As my litany is growing slowly flowers a knowing

of what I really long to say“I love you, my Beloved.”

And somewhere deep inside a boundary line melts away.

CHOICES

I choose

to live, to laugh, to love

and to do the things that stir the aliveness in me.

I choose

to learn and grow and change inside and out,

and not to trap myself in rigidities.

I choose

to let myself feel curiosity and wonder and awe,

and to have respect and gratitude for all things.

I choose

to feel my emotions, all of them, rather than fear them

and thus castrate my humanity and my compassion.

I choose

to be responsible for my attitude, my outlook, my perspective

responsible for the way that I live my life.

And when I am confused or over-whelmed or unsure,

as I sometimes am

I choose

to trust that something in me loves me and will assist me

and so I am quiet and listen when it speaks.

I choose

and it makes all the difference in the world.

MOVE OVER HAFIZ

I no longer separate

the relative from the absolute.

Everything that is relative,

separate, unique, individual,

is intrinsically infused

with the absolute.

It is my joy,

as well as my pain at times,

to participate in knowing, touching,

tasting, seeing, smelling, hearing,

and feeling these infusions.

But I would not have it any other way.

I am the beloved,

wrapping my heart around

an unnamed One with a billion names,

kissing a mystery

I can only fleetingly know.

I stretch out my hand

and lead the Beloved

into my life.

(Move over, Hafiz.

You aren’t the only one

who knows how to dance!)

ARROGANCE

It’s such an outrageous arrogance,

even though it’s quiet and makes no demand to be heard

by anyone except me.

I no longer pour over spiritual texts

nor contort my existence into strangeness

in order to feel worthy of my life

or in order to feel I belong.

I have done enough.

I no longer hungrily attend workshops, seminars, or retreats

incessantly seeking to clarify my philosophy,

change my character, or improve my soul.

I have done enough.

Changes within myself happen now with a gentler morphing.

There is nothing new for me to hear,

and there is no expert out there more relevant for me than me.

How did I get to this state

where I no longer feel the insatiable urge

to be fixed or an anxious desire to grow?

Have I become so complacent with myself (as others might say)

or has a deep confidence in my Self arisen to claim the day?

It’s such an outrageous arrogance

who would have thought it of me?

Who would have thought it of me!

FINISHED

Oh, my Beloved …

I can go no further than those three words.

My most fervent prayers have been reduced

to this all-inclusive simplicity

Oh, my Beloved …

I can go no further

before something rises up within me

and I am swept away.

Oh, my Beloved …

I was going to say I love you,

but you already know

and have answered me before my words are formed.

I wanted to say thank you;

but before my thought was finished

you have showered me with even more gifts.

You have silenced me, my Beloved,

and have left me with just your name

beating as my heart

Oh, my Beloved.

WE’VE COME A LONG WAY

We’ve come a long way from the days

when we worshipped the sun as god.

We know what the sun is.

We know so much more

about the composition of our universe.

And once we know

we cease to worship.

Sometimes when we cease to worship,

we throw everything out that it touched.

I know I did.

And the years passed.

But my heart wasn’t happy, my soul wasn’t full

until I re-claimed gratitude and awe

into my knowing

and re-installed love

as the way I would be.

I’ve come a long way

to clear my mind of out-dated perceptions

and return to my heart its freedom of expression.

Oh, my Beloved,

I love you.

TOLERANCE

I know people

who are not involved with nor attracted to

the spiritual journey.

They appear to live happy, healthy, normal lives.

That is something to consider

when thinking that spirituality

is the only avenue to bliss.

And so I see that the only thing I need to know

is what works well for me in my own heart.

My path may not be the road for you.

But our destination is surely the same.

I think we will have many interesting tales

to share with each other.

I WASN’T STRONG UNTIL

I wasn’t strong until I knew

until I could see

until I could accept deeply inside of me

that I have a choice.

Indeed, I am always choosing

to either do or not do,

to be or not be certain ways.

I can accept the results of my choosing

without passing responsibility to others

because it has been my choice.

This is the grandeur of freedom.

This is how I create my life.

I claim my choices!

I DANCE

We do our dance of love wherever we can

with whatever is near.

For some it will be with their children,

for others with parents, or family, or friends.

Some will lavish their love on a pet.

Some will embrace trees and flowers and all things of the earth.

Some will pour their hearts into causes filling broad categories of service.

Some will not even be able to name whom or what they love.

Once I thought there was a hierarchy to these things.

Better to love a dog than a dandelion.

More valuable to love a man than a mountain.

How foolish I was!

Now I know it matters not

what we love, only that we love.

The deepest fulfillment in any life is simply to love.

To loveperiod!

And to let love’s dance lead us where it will.

My heart smiles in happiness

for I do know that I love.

And so I dance.

WELCOME HOME

For so long I thought home

was in a different place, far away.

So I wandered the universe

to different towns over many hills,

into many philosophies and religions

of grander and grander truths,

among varied peoples with seemingly warmer arms

always seeking a different existence

at higher and more rarified altitudes.

And at each place I visited

another version of “welcome home” awaited me,

until I understood the truth is

I have always been home

whether I recognized it or not.

PEACE IN PARADOX

What freedom!

To live life’s paradoxes

not with explanations

but with wonder

and gratitude.

THE NATURE OF LOVE

Love makes me laugh.

Love makes me cry.

Love breaks my heart.

Love lets me fly.

Blessed be

the nature of love.

LOST AND FOUND

Sometimes in my growing knowing it feels as if

I have lost connection with everything outside of me

as if I have lost my Beloved in the jacaranda trees

and my compassion for others has grown distant

It feels as if I have lost god and good and all my altruistic ideals

upon which I relied as my foundation.

It feels as if I have lost all I held dear

and in a sense I have.

But when my tears have stopped, this still remains:

that even with everything gone, still I am;

that all aloneby myself, still I love.

And it is the being-that-loves

who unfailingly transforms the edges

of my perceptions

and allows me to see again

with renewed wonder

the splendor of my Beloved

in the jacaranda trees.

THE PAST

The story of my past, my personal history,

is like the empty shell of a used cocoon

whose function is finished.

For an important but ultimately tiny moment

it held a shape for me

while growth occurred.

But neither the form that entered

nor the life that has emerged

bear any resemblance to that hollow casting.

Why spend another minute

examining the wrinkles and ridges, twists and turns

of such an old and temporary skin

when beautiful wings fan the air

lifting me to a broader reality.

DIFFERENCES

My teachers hold certain concepts dear.

I have other ideas that I cherish.

And you, my friend, treasure thoughts of your own.

I find myself at ease with these differences

no desire to reshape myself around another’s beliefs,

no urge to mold you around mine.

Our differences entertain and expand me.

Like children peeping into the house of reality,

each of us looks through a different window

and sees a separate room.

Yet our different points of view do not diminish

the underlying truth of who we arethe essence of you and I.

So why should we be threatened by our playtime differences?

Let us relax and enjoy this game.

Sometimes we engage in animated debate;

sometimes we do not. It really doesn’t matter.

Amid all this play I stop a moment

and look into your eyes

where I see no difference.

In wordless silence

I know I love you.

This is the only reality.

SPIRITUAL MATURITY

I seem to have fallen out of “spiritual life”

into Life itself.

When did that happen?

Yet my perceptions are still infused

with melodies of awe, gratitude, and love.

My actions echo my perceptions.

I feel whole and I am at peace.

My mind, though curious,

knows satisfaction.

I love the way I see through these eyes now.

Om, Shanti, Om

A MYSTERY IN ME

I sense there is more than just me living my life

something’s there that is me

yet isn’t fully defined by just my personality.

There is something more beneath it all

something basic, something I can’t define even though I try.

Whatever that something is,

it pervades all that I am and all that I see.

It provides for me, bringing things to me

in the most unanticipated ways.

And so it seems more than me,

bigger than me, outside of mea mystery!

And yet this mystery is actively in me,

flowing through me, pushing the edges of me

sometimes, somehow reaching through me to touch others.

I feel it happening

but I know not how it worksonly that it does.

I feel so elated to have participated

and yet so humbled in this process.

Sometimes all I can do is whisper

Thank you.

I love you, whatever you are.

I love you so much.

Poems from

The Beloved Mystery Within You