Tag: poetry

art, art appreciation, Creativity, drawing, instinctive meditation, journaling, meditation, Memories, mindfulness, poetry, writing

Drawing Memory

Adele Satori
Image shows a pastel drawing of an ocean beach. There are waves coming to shore. On the right is a large boulder, with a yellow sun just to the left of the boulder.

Consider all the pain and all the pleasure
You have ever experienced
As waves on a very deep ocean which you are.

From the depths, witness those waves,
Rolling along so bravely, always changing,
Beautiful in their self-sustaining power.

Marvel that once, you identified with
Only the surface of this ocean.
Now embrace waves, depths, undersea mountains,
Out to the farthest shore.
~Insight verse 136, “The Radiance Sutras”, Lorin Roche, PhD.
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The image I drew in a recent Playing With Creativity and Meditation class that my friend Andrea Abrahamson and I co-teach at the online Radiance Sutras School of Meditation. It was her turn to facilitate, and the theme was travel.  

Going into the meditation, we were invited to attune to our senses. I live on a really busy street, and the ebb and flow of traffic began to sound like ocean waves to me.  I could see the image I drew so clearly, so out it came.  As I worked with the pastels, my fingers blending the colours together also sounded like the ocean to me, so I played with that… moving my hand and much of my body, creating the sound of the ocean. The movement of waves. The tingling of my fingers reminded me a little of the sharp tingling of sand under my bare feet.

It’s my favourite little beach in Pacific Palisades, and is still closed after the January fires. I looked at the satellite map recently, tracing the route down the twists and turns down Sunset Blvd. that I’ve enjoyed driving.  So much is gone; I’m not sure when I’ll have the heart to make the drive again. It’s so wonderful to have the memory of it, and now this image, as one of my doorways into meditation.

inspiration, instinctive meditation, meditation, music, poetry, spirituality, spoken word

Sutra 16, The Radiance Sutras

Adele Satori

Sutra 16

The roar of joy that set the worlds in motion
Is reverberating in your body
And the space between all bodies.
Beloved, listen.

Find that exuberant vibration
Rising new in every moment,
Humming in your secret places,
Resounding through the channels of delight.
Know you are flooded by it always.

Float with the sound.
Melt with it into divine silence.
The sacred power of space will carry you
Into the dancing radiant emptiness
That is the source of all.
The ocean of sound is inviting you
Into its spacious embrace,
Calling you home.

“The Radiance Sutras”, Lorin Roche, PhD

creative practice, inspiration, instinctive meditation, journaling, meditation, spirituality, writing

The Universe Woke Me, and I Listened.

Adele Satori
Image show yellow ginko leaves on a grey cement sidewalk. A single drop of water rests on the center leaf, and a reflection of the sun is visible.

I woke up at 2 AM. Not uncommon, but this was different. I distinctly heard “Enlightenment. Enlightenment.” O dear goodness, brain, please let me go back to sleep. And yet it was persistent.

“Enlightenment. The light in me.” I had an urgency to find pen and paper, turn on a light that pierced the darkness, and write. I feel sometimes it’s important to share the process as a creative person, so here’s what came, only reordered slightly for clarity.
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Enlightenment. The light in me. Becoming light. Finding peace. Finding innocence. Uniting with my inner child. The inner child as light? Innocence.

Innocence lost. Is it one defining moment, or a series of events?

Reaching for the light in me, like reaching for a glass of water. The thirst is quenched for a time, and then we refresh.

Innocence. The “pure” soul- or maybe better- or orginal soul. Full of wonder and awe. Exploring things deeply with the whole being because everything is fresh, and new. Experimenting. Figuring things out. Kids’ drawing showing aspects of what they see and feel.

Rising to the surface in times of joy- eating an ice cream cone. Looking at the sky. In times of sorrow- calling for Mama when hurt. Saying goodbye when driving away from a burning house (not mine. I saw this on a video). In times of hope- reconnecting with someone…the video I saw of a man taking his 5 year old son to meet his Grandmother for the first time…. there were two little boys standing on those steps.

Do those who live closer with Nature retain more innocence? Do artists?

What does pura vida mean? Pure life. Living in deep appreciation.

Getting the wonder taught out of us. Being taught to conform, rather than discover our full potential, unbound by convention.

“Personal growth” as commodification of the journey back to the soul.

Enlightenment is a process, not an end game. Not a competition. Not a hierarchy. Vibration is simply vibration. The colonization of communing with the soul is rampant.

Feeling like something’s wrong if we don’t know what our life purpose is (what do you want to be when you grow up?), as if it has to be ONE THING FOREVER, when the purpose might Universally be to learn, discover, love (the world around us, people, our selves) while we are in this body.

If we are lucky, we are born into an environment where we are nurtured, protected “just enough”. Not all beings have that privilege.

Has tech “stolen” that from kids? How seeing packs of kids out roaming is so rare any more.

Healing the inner child as reconnecting with that pure soul/original innocence.

The other day I wondered if when we die, we step fully into our happiest moment/memory before the next adventure begins.

Reaching. Obtaining. Enlightenment can’t be possessed. It’s the dance and music of the soul.
********************************************************************************Well. That was quite the adventure! Much to ponder. Seeds for creating. Seeds for being.

creative practice, inspiration, instinctive meditation, journaling, meditation, mindfulness, perception, Personal growth, plants

The Dance of Opening

Adele Satori
Image shows white wild iris with purple center.

Life-changing events aren’t always monumentous, boisterous, or catastrophic. Sometimes they are subtle, silent, and a matter of timing.

The other day I was sitting next to a koi pond at the Self-Realization Fellowship International Headquarters. I closed my eyes for a moment, to better take in the sound of bird songs mingled with distant traffic, the scent of the nearby pines, and the peaceful play of the water falling into the pond.

I opened my eyes and noticed that a single petal of an iris bud was reaching out. As I was admiring shape of the petal, and the pattern of the yellow markings, something amazing happened. Very slowly, the rest of the petals opened, ever so slightly. My had flew up to my mouth in shocked awe of the best kind. When I was a kid, one of my favourite things was watching timelapse movies of flowers blooming, and here I was, witnessing a flower opening itself up to the world, right in front of me!

I became so attuned to that single flower that everything else fell away. The petals were performing a blossom butoh- slowly pulsing slightly opened and closed. If I hadn’t been paying attention I wouldn’t have noticed. Each dance open a little further out, and each dance in a little less closed.

There was no breeze. I then saw that before each movement outwards, the stem of the plant did a slight undulation. rising up to the flower to give it momentum to open a little more.

The whole while, I sat there with silent tears making their way down my cheeks. My whole being was filled with wonder and connection to creation. And I thought what an apt metaphor the opening of a flower is to one’s own journey of growth- unfolding to reveal the beauty that’s hidden within.

When the flower’s dance had slowed to the point I could no longer perceive it, I stood up, bent over close to it, whispered “thank you” and walked through the rest of the grounds, pausing now and then to witness the slight movement of leaves and fronds.

I walked out the gates a different person than I was walking in- maybe myself a little more open. I saw it as a sign to have find the courage to unfold, and reveal the beauty hidden inside.

I invite you in the coming days to make time to sit and witness more intimately the world around you. The songs of birds. Shapes of clouds. The pulse of life around you. What subtle moment might transport you into a new way of being?

creative practice, instinctive meditation, meditation, poetry, spirituality, writing

Just So

Adele Satori
Image shows a rippling sunlit pool of water surrounded by rocks and ferns.

I started as expected.
The Way
it is done.
Eyes closed.
Hands folded just so.
Then I felt my bones
pressing into the stone seat.
A blade of grass
Tickled my foot.

My eyes opened.
I watched bees gather
at the waters edge
to share a drink
and talk of sweetest flowers.

Two butterflies dared each other
on invisible currents.

Bird landed,
flitted
and chirped.

A rock leaned over to talk
to a tree.

Tree curve echoed
the curve of the creek.

And I knew.

It is every bit as much a prayer,
being part of things as they unfold,
As to sit.
As expected.
The Way
it is done.
Eyes closed.
Hands folded just so.

~AMS 16 Aug 17