Wanting Nothing

When in the ethereal grip

of a meditative state,

you want nothing.

The spiraling gold shaft

twines with its silver sister

to braid earth and heaven.

Twisted in that coil

you want nothing.

You hang weightless,

suspended,

held in the embrace of the Universe

by the unconditional energy

that is always there

and has always been there

and you want nothing.

 

Would life have been less painful

if you had known this all along?

Or do you embrace this image

Of spiraling gold and silver

simply to escape the pain?

Impossible to say.

 

Is this needs must?

Or a secret revealed?

 

It doesn't really matter,

for you are wanting nothing.

 

 

Copyright © 2015 Ann Tudor

www.anntudor.ca
http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

Honest Words

May my speech be impeccable,

without sin or fault.

May my words reveal the heart

whether directly, straight from the heart,

or indirectly, taking circuitous routes

to discover the roots

of the words that grow

in the depths of the heart.

 

I will summon honest words

and bid them come forth

unhindered, uninhibited

from a heart

inhabited by dreams and memories,

by fleeting thoughts 

that rise from passing occurrences,

life's serendipitous events.

 

All of this informed, of course,

by the most open attention,

the most serious and tenderly playful attention,

the awareness of joy and prayer,

the mindful loving of this so mysterious,

so beloved life.

 

May these honest words

be heard,

recognized,

and carried through time and space.

 

Copyright © 2015 Ann Tudor

www.anntudor.ca
http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

Updraft of Light

An updraft of light is in opposition,

I can only assume,

to the downward-pressing black cloud

that is my familiar.

 

When I feel, fleetingly,

this updraft of light,

it suffuses the atmosphere

with the possibility of joy.

 

Up is better than down,

they would have us believe.

Yet the pull of gravity

(all downward, as I understand it)

is essential to our being who we are.

We fasten our feet to earth

with magnets of consciousness,

and it is this awareness that allows us,

in our headier moments,

to follow the updraft of light.

 

My black cloud pressing down, down,

therefore anchors me

and ultimately allows me

at times

to be carried by the updraft

to a lighter life.

 

 

Copyright © 2015 Ann Tudor

www.anntudor.ca
http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

Finding the Nearby Heaven

I find and lose and refind my heaven, an unrefined and raw heaven that appears at its convenience—or, more aptly, appears when I remember to call it into existence.

 

Oh, how can it be, that I lose or forget that state of grace? What a forgiving Universe to let me forget and remember, lose and refind, the very essence of my life,

my native home, my birthright.

 

At the very least you'd think I'd keep a list of all those actions (or lack of same) that bring me once again to where I am always, unbelievably, welcomed.

 

It is astonishing how carelessly I let it go, making my farewells with all the insouciance of the proverbial spouse stepping out the door to buy a paper. Bye-bye Old Heaven, Old Home. See you later. Alligator.

 

So here's my sometime list of the things that call me back to Heaven. I'll post it on the fridge where I'll be sure to see it.

 

At the top of the list is sound. Sixty years it took me to find my sound. My monthly toning group begins each meeting with the body's groans and ends ninety minutes later with deep, resonant ohms. The overtones echo through the cells of my body, which will long hold the memory of the sound. Sound ripples, stirring the fluids and connective tissue of the body. I feel it change my cells. Movement begins within me and changes the composition of who I had thought I was, in my forgetting.

 

The list I will post on my refrigerator is brief but effective. One item only: SOUND. Is sound my heaven? Or is it simply (simply!) the track that takes me there?

 

 

Copyright © Ann Tudor

www.anntudor.ca
http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com