THE TWO WINGS OF THE PRACTICE

In the last two years I have finally dedicated myself to a way of living. This path is simple & yet it is complete. Like the majestic loon, the certainty of this awareness flies with the use of two wings… each no more important than the other. One wing is the wing of wisdom… the other is the wing of compassion. Wisdom & Compassion… these are the two principles I can build my spiritual life around. To see with the discernment of the clear mind. To feel with the deep loving-kindness of the open heart. My practice deepens daily. The span of one life seems too short to enter a full expression of this knowing. I am no longer attached to the outcome. I dedicate myself to the path one day at a time. Wisdom & Compassion… the two wings of the practice. What else is there to know?

THE KINGDOM OF THE LOONS

  In August, I spent seven days in the silence of a meditation retreat on the edge of a lake in sub-arctic Saskatchewan. In the summer, with a generously stocked picnic hamper, a water-tight tent & a good sleeping bag, I felt I was an integral part of the forest. One of the deep emotions I unexpectedly arrived at was that of knowing myself anew as a stranger in a strange land.  I saw that when the nights grew long & the snow started to fly & the devilled eggs & fancy rice crackers were but a memory I could not survive even a few days in that tough landscape. I heard around me the soul-piercing cry & echo of the loons at home in the depths & reaches of their glassy black lake. Loons are regal birds, their backs covered with the splayed pattern of the Milky Way, their eyes red as the last light of the dying sun... certain of their majesty... of their place in this most forbidding, beauteous world. This is a world that requires no human presence. It does just fine without us. I am willing to sit witness at the edge of the many different non-human Kingdoms of Creation.... the Kingdom of the Asteroids beyond Mars... the Kingdom of the Bacteria living abundantly in my large intestine... the Kingdom of the Whispering Birch. I bear witness... in joy... a visitor... a traveller from afar in the Kingdom of the Loons.

SUNSET (Two Loons... Anglin Lake)

Alas... our little civilization is coming to end. My representative leader in the United States of Amnesia is a paper mache parody of the worst aspects of what a human being should be…. (but he is me & I am he… we mirror & feed each the other). So Be It. The world of the ten thousand things … the world of suffering…. the world of samsara abides. & yet…. & yet…. this summer I floated on the deep, black, cool, liquid quick-silver of a northern lake in the evening as the great fiery sun slid behind the black spruce. LIGHT. LIGHT. LIGHT. All around. There are moments so overwhelmingly beautiful it feels like my heart is about to burst from my very being with joy & gratitude.  There are no words to describe the majesty of those moments. The loons were suddenly silent….waiting for the moon to float violet from the eastern horizon to resume their eerie symphony of calls & echoes. You & I have both been there…. again… & again…. the Creation is quiet & certain in its relentless sustaining flow & flowering of bottomless perfection…. I forget… but I no longer doubt. Hold moments of perfection in your heart… in the palm of your hand… & then breathe it in & then...out…. I am at ease in the seat of my being… in the current of my becoming…

NIGHT SKY (Two Loons - Anglin Lake)

Still the greatest mystery: Staring up into the night sky. The vast array. The splayed infinitesimal & endless. How we plunge forward with the details of the moment. Like drops going over the cataract. & yet… & yet….the cosmos sits around us contained & containing. I slow my mind. I open my inward eyes. I enter the emptiness that enfolds… that enfolds all. So delicate. So durable. I dare not breathe. The inspiration ends. Hold. Hold. Hold. Now….release.