Once a young woman asked me,

“How does it feel to be a man?”
And I replied,

“My dear,
I am not so sure.”

Then she said,
“Well, aren’t you a man?”

And this time I replied,

“I view gender
As a beautiful animal
That people often take for a walk on a leash
And might enter in some odd contest
To try to win strange prizes.

My dear,
A better question for Hafiz
Would have been,

‘How does it feel to be a heart?’

For all I know is Love,
And I find my heart Infinite
And Everywhere!”

by Hafiz, I Heard God Laughing

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, who you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your Life.

poem by Derek Walcott

- Martha Graham

Yo tal vez yo no seré, tal vez no pude,
no fui, no vi, no estoy:
qué es esto? Y en qué Junio, en qué madera
crecí hasta ahora, continué naciendo?

No crecí, no crecí, seguzí muriendo?

Yo repetí en las puertas
el sonido del mar,
de las campanas:
yo pregunté por mí, con embeleso
(con ansiedad más tarde),
Ya estaba lejos mi anterioridad,
ya no me respondía yo a mí mismo,
me había ido muchas veces yo.

Y fui a la próxima casa,
a la próxima mujer,
a todos partes
a preguntar por mí, por ti, por todos:
y donde yo no estaba ya no estaban,
todo estaba vacío
porque sencillamente no era hoy,
era manana.

Por qué buscar en vano
en cada puerta en que no existiremos
porque no hemos llegado todavía?

Así fue como supe
que yo era exactamente como tú
y como todo el mundo.

—————————————-
Everybody

I, perhaps I never will be, perhaps I was not able,
never was, never saw, don’t exist:
what is all this? In which June, in what wood
did I grow until now, being born and born again?

I didn’t grow, never grew, just went on dying?

In doorways I repeated
the sound of the sea,
of the bells:
I asked for myself, with wonder,
(and later with trembling hands),
with little bells, with water,
with sweetness:
I was always arriving late.
I had traveled far from who I was,
I could not answer any questions about myself,
I had too often left who I am.

I went to the next house,
to the next woman,
I traveled everywhere
asking for myself, for you, for everybody:
and where I was not there was no one,
everywhere it was empty
because it wasn’t today,
it was tomorrow.

Why search in vain
in every door in which we will not exist
because we have not arrived yet?

That is how I found out
that I was exactly like you
and like everybody.

by Pablo Neruda from The Sea and The Bells, translated by William O’Daly

- from FLOW by Mihaly Csikzsentmihalyi

In your natural state as Oneness, there is no need to focus in order to discover yourself – any more than point A can know itself by focusing on point B. Point A can only know itself by letting all focus, attention, and searching subside back to its origin.

This is an open invitation for a simple resting, a return to the ground of being you have always know.

- Mukti – “Don’t miss the Stop Sign”

Imagining Self: Rose Message
By N. Teddy Goldsworthy-hanner

How do you imagine Self? Life’s history is like a feather being blown along in the wind where one is not merely defining but creating meaning, inventing a record of distinctions – the myth of freedom and escape – imagining Self.

The world, a mimicry of assumptions where one wishes to be valued, wishes to be cherished. The world, a place where one can barely find the history of meanings, where one’s self-perceptions are hardly valid. Is all there is material inscriptions where no one looks beyond to the written?

Art is an activity crucial to self identity and liberal humanist belief, a barrier against those who would deny validity of Self.

Poem & Photograph by Deborah Cottrell

When we experience that silence,
we remember who we are,
creatures of the stars,
created from time and space, created from silence…

Silence is our deepest nature, our home, our common ground, our peace.