72 years, EveryNow is visible! Share peace, love, abiding joy
Author: Peter Pilley
Once it's visible, EveryNow simply must be shared. Peace, love, abiding joy. It can be yours. EveryNow.
Much of who and what this writer is I share in my various blog posts on my slowly growing EveryNow on the WordPress website.
~Love is present E v e r yN o w
“… in the garden of my heart the flowers of peace bloom beautifully…”
In my view, The Great Bell Chant is a shining example of the best fruit that the wandering Journeyer may find hanging from the low branches in the Endless Orchards of Facebook.
I am sure that I have no need to compare present bliss with past contentment or discontent.
What shook my heart nearly to pieces, or what filled it brimming full with light and peace has no meaning and no bearing on the “I” that calls me by my name with no sound.
I am certain that I am founded in love, and I am steadfast in knowing I am a delicately tuned receiver of love.
Beyond this, and before this inloving outfurling, I am in a place of great safety. I am in this sacred space of peace and love hand-in-hand with all humanity.
I pause to see, and am astonished!
I share without effort the life of every living thing with every living thing.
The humblest of the minor animals unselfconsiously show the highest in status of the human order what the true and pure essence of archetypal royalty can be
Clearly, while this artistic representation is bucolic whimsy, there is in truth nothing whatsoever either fanciful or unreal about it.
Ingrained in our Original Wild consciousness are forested places where it was our lot to experience arduous toil, and apprehension of mortal dangers, ranging from being injured, and losing our way in the dark, to attack by strangers or wild beasts.
In these same places there thrived entire populations of those non-human companions, who lived in and shared the seasons of the forest with us.
These wild spirits, with whose survival our own was bound together, soon became these same tamed and familiar furry and feathery creatures that we were given to anthropomorphise for the increase of courage, for the continuity of precious knowledge and out of a deep pagan respect for the wildness which their small warm bodies seemed to incarnate alongside our own.
The picture I look at speaks to me about the continuity of millenia of human settlement, when word of mouth rose and set the rise and fall of time in the stars and the planets, and in human hearts long before books, clocks, towns.
One of the few duties incumbent upon me as a Friend is to reflect the innate grace of my friend, so I might help sorrows to be drawn back into perspective, so dark byways can be lightened, and so Love can again be seen by the one whose hand stretched out for it once so blindly.
It’s relatively easy to stop, eyes closed, and allow time for my sound-horizon to expand like a huge magic bubble, with me, ever so pleased, at its center.
It’s less easy, but still surprisingly enjoyable, to do the same, deploying my sense of smell.
Expansive sight is the hardest, because my eyes are a forward extension of my brain. And for reasons of basic survival, the brain has to keep up a distracting dialogue with the insistent voice of the ego. But expansive sight brings rewards of great riches!
Consider: “The most important people in any society are the children”
Perhaps it is symptomatic of an underlying need for change that English Law, with its concrete heritage traceable down the centuries, continues to step over and past people and their pain, and chooses instead to make much of property, wealth and territory.
There are those who think “cats, dogs and paperclips” first, and who place children, teachers, nurses, doctors, emergency service workers and public servants, and retail shop assistants ways down on the scale of human value and respect.
Excerpt from Gary Renard, ‘Disappearance of the Universe’ the chapter titled ‘Better than Sex’ –
Then one woman had the courage to get up and ask the monks how they could go so long — in one case, thirty years — without having sex.
The monk who had been celibate the longest, and who spoke English as well as the Dalai Lama, thought for a minute and then surprised the audience with his reply:
“When you’re coming all the time, it doesn’t make any difference.”
In my day, when enough comes to a peak at sufficient, it contains the sum of all joy.
If I allow myself to come into close connection with some external event, it can show me clearly and directly a total, utter and complete satisfaction – “sufficiency”.
It is the presence of sufficiency which links directly to the sum of all joys.
There are treasures of astonishing variety and abundance to be found in the realisation of Sufficiency.
The lines in Genesis touch this: “God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.”
If I go out and about and bring some forethought to my steps, when I encounter a delight, I need not let it enter me and then pass me by.
I may see a kindness by one road user to another, hear a birdcall, observe the scent of a flowering shrub, board the right bus at the moment I needed to travel.
I may be kissed, and as I stop taking breath, all the breaths I have ever breathed are contained in that kiss.
Any joy piercing the living moment is sufficient.
In the split second I try to explain it, repeat it, recall it or record it, it is already long gone.
The value – the treasures – to be found in any experience is in my inborn ability to allow that quality of sufficiency to overtake both it and me.
If I can only stop trying to dream, I can awake to find I am being dreamed by my dream.
I believe the concept of “nothing” is a misconception that comes from lazy dualist attitudes. I believe we, alive and sentient, get to access a little of everything. Every one of us enters into and is entered by more or less of everything.
I say “Nothing” is a fiction, only a cynical fiction.
I could wax lyrical about everything, but there’s no need. Everything is its own best advocate.
Like a brilliant earth-grazing meteor, “everything” is uncompromisingly ready and poised to penetrate consciousness from one instant to the next.
Nothing never happens. It only fleetingly seems to “be” in the moment before “Everything” kicks off in its true incarnate form, EveryNow.
A moment’s reflection reminds me there is no before, only the moment. By the way, it’s every bit as sweet or sweeter as the cadbury’s chocolate of the same name.
If you agree with me that “nothing” can be safely set aside, then what remains? It is the ever-increasing attraction of greater or lesser degrees of sufficiency of witness.
The quality of “Everything” is safe; it’s body heat; it is peace; it’s unity; and it is quite obviously bigger on the inside than the outside.
The most exciting thing about this “Everything” thing?
“Everything” loves with indiscriminate super-abundance, and it even loves those lovable people who propose the existence of nothing.
. . . We are all “different” and some are open or not open in varying degrees. I am coming to believe it matters little what states of openness we are at. It matters more how frequently we engage curiousity and courage.
“May my mind stroll about hungry and fearless and thirsty and supple” Doing all of that obliterates cravings after concepts like Nothing. You, friend, are the Goose in the Bottle. It’s time to exit
One of the most speedy routes to a grace of reconciliation is touched upon directly here.
🌱🌸🌱💮🌱🏵️🌱🌺🌱
How unrelenting is the pain of unresolved love?
How confusing the search for the heart of a lover?
How to keep from tumbling into uncharted emotional waters when our affections are drawn headlong towards another?
The need for certainty in the intentions of the loved person can begin as a rosebud, but it can rapidly grow up on so many different possible pathways that we see only thickets of confusion and painful thorns.
There are, I believe, only a small number of heart to heart meetings which thrive and continue in parallel harmony.
At the first signals of reciprocated affection, the mind leaps to take control of the aroused beating heart.
The mind assigns to the person who has come to the foreground of the heart’s attention a variety of labels, all of them inappropriate and irrelevant.
The person is the object of affection, the person must be targeted as if there is an immediate risk of loss.
The multicoloured spectrum of desires and aspirations, incubated for perhaps years in the closed sanctuary of the heart’s tranquil solitude, are placed like diadem and crowns – for want of any immediate proof to the contrary – like royal clothes, jewels and heavenly anointing perfumes on the shoulders of this beloved person who has appeared in our life.
If I have made peace with my heart, if my first best friend is my heart, I will be taken by surprise, interested, even amused at the way my mind tumbles over itself to take me over and attempts to lead me on this dizzying helter-skelter journey.
But after my awareness of the mind’s antics passes, it’s time to allow my heart to sing its powerful melodies and to fly on its own terms, not outwards in the direction of the other person, but inwards.
Inwards the unchained heart, glowing with love and gratitude, can be freed to soften the cravings of the soul for recognition and for celebration of its purity.
No soul needs to possess another. All souls with no exception are pure. They require a particular essence of peace in which to celebrate their natural joys, their gifts of purity. One soul seen in the mirror of another magnifies and glorifies both!
At last, the heart may trust it will find a mirror where a few of its own qualities, not all, may be reflected in some of the qualities of the heart of another.
The rocks have no eyes to see, but their nobility is not blind.The rock surfaces of our solar system’s bodies are newly being seen.
After at least four thousand million Earth years, our eyes are given photographs of landscapes on comets, asteroids, moons and planets.
For sure, a rock is a rock, a stone is a stone. Unconsidered and unregarded, the rocks rockiness and solidity rest in a millennial continuum.
The rocks share our Sol, our Star. The rocks had nothing to do with humans’ fleeting, squishy goings-on.
These rocks have no eyes to see, but their nobility is not blind.
The starkly naked surfaces’ untouched virginity sing an unsung song of purest silence. Silence is their eternal home. Home whose roof and walls are set all about with stars.
The polarities of light and shadow deceptively belie the rocks’ motionlessness on the surface by reference to the gentle unvarying hug of gravity.
The rocks do not have eyes to see, but their nobility is not blind.
Fear for the blindness of the robotic vehicle, for it lacks nothing except a program to show respect for millennial nobility.
Despair at the next footstep, drill hole, test blast, mineshaft.
They do not have eyes to see, these rocks, but their nobility is not blind.
For these rocks
over and over again
are blessed by Angels.
For these rock landscapes
are the privileged domain of Angels.
Here are much travelled landscapes
which carry no footprint.
Land where Angel tears have not yet fallen.
Barren, breathless, beautiful bodies
whose astral surfaces are devoid of the stain of blood.
Humans have not, nor do Angels need to have the keys to these Edens.
So stand, give reverence to our Earth rocks! Give praise for their lyric skills of silent communion!
Rejoice in the reflections I see in the primordial rocks of Gaia!
They knew it full well, the broad-shouldered builders of henges of monolithic stone.
They, the magicians of prehistory, knew that simply by our being near enough to see the rocks with every sense at peak perception, we are all magnified and mirrored in the community of stars.
What moves me in the quotations I read and see posted with photo illustrations on Facebook?
Some are eye-catching compositions, and a lot of them catch my eye.
Many have words that I am grateful to sip thoughtfully and with gratitude, like a nice cup of tea after coming back home.
I made a decision, when I first began my Facebook odyssey, to create my own posts, with words I pick and compose, framed or illustrated by photos or drawings I make.
This impulse is from a desire to discover what meaningful truly means for me. I can do it by my deliberate avoidance of the copy-and-paste response.
If I let myself click Share and pass on, I am chucking a valuable opportunity to discover and see and savour what it is that drew my attention in the first place.
Words from the finest minds and the brightest hearts in this world are an inspiration and they deserve our fullest attention.
These exceptional people, whose words cross my field of vision, are not like the blades of grass I tread on. They are more like venerable majestic ancient trees, and their lives and the wisdom and beauty of their words merit respect and regard.
Where I stop and stand still in admiration of a landscape, or an old and picturesque settlement, it is my awed response which I deeply feel.
My feelings of awe are a sure barometer of the truth of my experience, as I become aware of the evidence all around me of the precious Accretion of Time.
For me and for almost anyone, the urge to speak, or to exclaim this awe is natural and immediate.
So this is my starting point.
Awe is my pencil. My heart is my notebook. The eyes behind my open eyes are my cinematographers.
I dive deep to find my words, because I know they will flow as soon as I step over and go beyond my quick-fire, gut-feel, rapid response impulse
Contrary to the impression the mirror gives me, I am not just one, with one identity. There are entire communities of ourselves living life, living lives, ‘inside’ all of us.
Some of our constituent soulmates (for want of a better phrase) stay out of sight for all sorts of reasons.
They may need anonymity or have to preserve incognito status to effectively keep me sane and functional.
They may be capable of playing their rôle from birth to death without recognition by my various selves.
Although, should I decide to turn my gaze, and appreciate the essential life support I am giving my selves, such bright love would spread throughout the village of me, that darkness would find few corners to hide in.
It is always, and always good to go out of my way along the little local roads before setting out on my day, and pause to make acquaintance with some of my own selves.
When I knock at any one of my stranger self’s door, I see all my Selves are intrinsically beautiful, and all have such illuminating tales to tell.
Small wonder it can take a lifetime to get around to befriending every one of who I am.
I, we, you are love.
Being collectively engaged in being love, I, we, you are eternally adored for who you all are by who we all are!
What moves me in the quotations I read and see posted with photo illustrations on Facebook?
Some are eye-catching compositions, and a lot of them catch my eye.
Many have words that I am grateful to sip thoughtfully and with gratitude, like a nice cup of tea after coming back home.
I made a decision, when I first began my Facebook odyssey, to create my own posts, with words I pick and compose, framed or illustrated by photos or drawings I make.
This impulse is from a desire to discover what meaningful truly means for me. I can do it by my deliberate avoidance of the copy-and-paste response.
If I let myself click Share and pass on, I am chucking a valuable opportunity to discover and see and savour what it is that drew my attention in the first place.
Words from the finest minds and the brightest hearts in this world are an inspiration and they deserve our fullest attention.
These exceptional people, whose words cross my field of vision, are not like the blades of grass I tread on. They are more like venerable majestic ancient trees, and their lives and the wisdom and beauty of their words merit respect and regard.
Where I stop and stand still in admiration of a landscape, or an old and picturesque settlement, it is my awed response which I deeply feel.
My feelings of awe are a sure barometer of the truth of my experience, as I become aware of the evidence all around me of the precious Accretion of Time.
For me and for almost anyone, the urge to speak, or to exclaim this awe is natural and immediate.
So this is my starting point.
Awe is my pencil. My heart is my notebook. The eyes behind my open eyes are my cinematographers.
I dive deep to find my words, because I know they will flow as soon as I step over and go beyond my quick-fire, gut-feel, rapid response impulse
Gratitude for the hard-earned gift of observing time stand still! It has taken sixty years to arrive and it is a partial total eclipse of desire for which I am truly grateful.
Gratitude for the multitude of people who have shaped and are shaping me. Be they family or not, dead or alive, many have freely given to me of their time out of the goodness of their heart.
Their benign influences I know have saved me from my own ignorance and saved me from death, both figurative and real.
Gratitude simply for being alive to tell this now, so many exciting decades into this one single preciously cherished life.
The View at 72+ 