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First thing to note is that the new issue of One The Magazine is out!
Contributing authors include Judith Blackstone, Francis Bennett, Miriam Louisa Simons, Shanti Einolander, and many other beautiful souls. As always, don’t miss the different departments within the main menu—Poetry, Art, recommended Books, Music, and Movies, Awake News, and new releases from Sounds True and Non-Duality Press.
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Here are poems written by Scott MacInnis. Scott’s interview, in which he reads these poems, is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKLTp5rPpno&feature=c4-overview&list=UU9GKH2WG7i6KhNb8CqQuCrA
The Essence
The Mysterious appearance of Mind in
Consciousness
Gives rise to the that which is seen.
Thus all of the world appears to be bound by the dualistic laws
of mind.
All that is witnessed is bound by these laws
Only your essence is free.
~ ~ ~
Waking
Waking from this gentle dream
A dream that never came to be
Of far off lands and distant seas
That only live inside of me.
A seamless shift a changing
scene
Where two worlds blend in harmony
An Ocean turns to cotton sheets
A storm becomes a morning breeze
A nation falls without a
word
As playing children turn to birds
Before a thought can lay it’s claim
Before the mind It’s all the same
With recognition creeping
back
Galaxies of stars collapse
A single thought looks for a home
The mountains turn to flesh and bone
As thought and body fortify
So does the world ,So does the “I”
So does a God with karmic plan
The laws nature, laws of man.
This vast existence made so
small
Believing you are vulnerable
A World of suffering and of strain
You long to feel at home again
Awaken from this mortal
dream
This dream that never came to be
Of far off lands and distant seas
Where stillness was apart from me.
~ ~ ~
The I-Thought
Have you ever pondered what
you mean when you say the word “I”?
What most of us are referring to is a bundle of thoughts,
feeling, emotions, and memories, all bundled together.
This bundle forms an Image to which we attach our Identity in
the form of the thought “I”.
This Image we have of ourselves is always changing.
Thoughts appear to arise and fall away.
It is the nature of this I-thought to observe and claim any
arising concepts that are in accord with it’s current self
image.
The arising of a thought and the arising of this I-thought to
claim or dismiss it, are so fast that it appears simultaneous
and therefore goes un-noticed.
Similar to a movie where many still images are projected so
quickly that they create an illusion of continuity,
So this constant scanning and claiming creates the illusion of a
continuous “I”.
When we believe we are our
bodies, thoughts, and feelings, There is an inherent
vulnerability.
For who we perceive ourselves to be is always changing. The root
cause of all suffering is the identification with this
I-Thought.
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Essential Silence
by Vicki Woodyard
There is an essential silence that continually blesses us all. I feel it as I type words into the void. It unreels like an old movie, the kind where no voice was able to be heard. It breathes life into the words of this world. It animates everything. Trees know it and rocks absorb and emit it. Stars beam it down to us in the form of light.
How blessed we are to be that silence and to share it freely. We do that because it is effortless. A strained silence is noisy whereas essential silence is a benediction on this weary world.
The silence seeps in around the cracks of suffering. Like light, it is who we are. As love, it transforms ugliness into grace and grace into miracle. I tend a piece of this silence. I am farming it so that flowers grow tall and the soul’s lushness is revealed petal by petal, word by word.
Silence is the essence of us all. The void from which we spring peppers the world with hallelujahs. It softens the suffering soul and revives the desert landscape. It also shows us the beauty of the desert and the dark valleys of loss. Lest I become overwrought, I shall stop on a dime’s worth of words so you can feel like a millionaire within it all.