May Day! Walk to the Daylight!

Picture - Javier Robles

"A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being   what God means it to be it is obeying. It "consents," so to speak, to creative love. It is expressing an idea which is in God and which is not distinct from the essence of God, and    therefore a tree imitates God by being a tree."

        - Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation 

The Big Bang

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May Day! Walk to the Daylight!

On the first morning of May the wondering continued -

Someone said a Big Bang started it all.

What caused that bang or made those millions of parts

Blown to pieces scattering across the heavens ro give birth

To planets, stars, and on and on?

Imagine the universe a blank canvas with Jackson Pollock

As the divine creative force splattering colors

And leaving the result to interpretation?

Imagine believing that rolling multiple dice at once

Would lead to some mysterious unpredictable magical jackpot

Of magnificent complex creations interconnecting

With other accidental conceptions beyond simple imaginations.

Calling Mother Nature - "Can we start all over again?"

Who dared to make rivers and mountains borderlines?

Did  the origins of species determine who and what would own how much?

Isn't there a truth woven in-between the lines of the great poems or songs?

Take a look at all the wasted things we thought we've known.

And how little humanity has grown.

Walk into the daylight ,  appreciate spring flowers,

Stopping the counting of minutes and hours.

Sometimes the real existence is being mindful 

To how all is sacred

Leading us to where we need to be.

The oldest living human on earth 

Said her longevity is a direct result

Of giving up worrying years ago while paying attention

To those broken and serving those in need.

Sometimes when hopelessness seems to be winning

Walk to the daylight... It is a choice.

Take off the coat of guesses and defenses

It all may surprise you . Remember how -

Augustine asked from that lonely outpost

"Is anyone out there?"

That ever-present mysterious holy voice responds whispering,

"Yes"

- JF Sobecki

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Jackson Pollock

For What Binds us - Jane Hirschfield

https://youtu.be/MQb5g5CISn4

Life is a Walking

https://youtu.be/ZQYPlEoU9ko

and some music....

Some Bridges - Jackson Browne

https://youtu.be/Z6GEXPYrb8U

Morning Glory - Subdudes

https://youtu.be/fHRiH6mlBMQ

California Stars - Wilco

https://youtu.be/Mi9l10pzMeI

Morning - Beck

https://youtu.be/unZkASVfF74

Something to smile

The Meaning of Life - Everyone Loves Raymond

https://youtu.be/FZb4jBE0Gr0

amdg

Copyright JF Sobecki LLC all Rights Reserved  2021

May Lauds: Spiritual Exercises of a Prodigal Son

A monk sips morning tea, 
it's quiet, 
the chrysanthemum's flowering. 

Translated by Robert Hass

by Matsuo Basho

Lauds

a service of morning prayer in the Divine Office of the Western Christian Church, traditionally said or chanted at daybreak, though historically it was often held with matins on the previous night.

Morning Video - something to sit and watch and listen
    if you don't live near the sea.

https://youtu.be/A2_yg19Pu7Y

    ..............

May Lauds

So what is all this excitement about sleep and waking?

Does the drama of the darkest of darkness

Transforming into bright illuminating lightness and warmth

Really demand all the attention

That poets, songwriters, spiritualists and therapists give it?

What is this mystical authority that consumes our spirits

As we wake from journeys in dreamland ?

Spiritual exercises for daybreak have proliferated

volumes and practises for thousands of years.

Apollo, Helios and Ra dominated ancient myths as

Rising suns were the focus of f pre-Jesus poets

And cultures along the pacific rim.

Friends and strangers query

the contemporary pilgrim

As to his early rising

And solemn pre-dawn practice.

“You have access to anything you want 

And anything you need,” they say.

“There are pills for sleep

and energy shots to prime your heart in the morning.”

The pilgrim humbly asked

“What of gratitude?

What of mindfulness?

What of the ever magnificent power-filled 

Purity of love and serenity discovered in all of nature?

What of the sacred essence that energizes the soul,

The heart and the mind in one

Illuminating moment”?

He added that his waking moments

Are not with the expectation of the enlightenment

Experienced by Buddha

But an opportunity to take as much time as necessary

To be present  with the holiness that

Connects everything in the universe.

“ I believe I need to practice… to be spiritually , emotionally and physically energized

With love , peace , compassion , joy and hope

With the hope that I will remember to remember

That all creation is a sacrament

Even my own imperfect prodigal life.”

- JF Sobecki

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Why I Wake Early
by Mary Oliver

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and crotchety–

best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light–
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.

What to remember when waking

In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake,
coming back to this life from the other
more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world
where everything began,
there is a small opening into the new day
which closes the moment you begin your plans.

What you can plan is too small for you to live.
What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enough
for the vitality hidden in your sleep.

To be human is to become visible
while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.
To remember the other world in this world
is to live in your true inheritance.

You are not a troubled guest on this earth,
you are not an accident amidst other accidents
you were invited from another and greater night
than the one from which you have just emerged.

Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window
toward the mountain presence of everything that can be
what urgency calls you to your one love?
What shape waits in the seed of you
to grow and spread its branches
against a future sky?

Is it waiting in the fertile sea?
In the trees beyond the house?
In the life you can imagine for yourself?
In the open and lovely white page on the writing desk?

-- David Whyte  

Lauds Gregorian Chant from Assisi

https://youtu.be/eC6OKIYXBxQ

A Time to Rise – The Subdudes

https://youtu.be/POpw9TcKMHk

Morning Has Broken – Cat Stevens

https://youtu.be/we-n-Zmglt0

A couple of songs for the road

The Prodigal Son – Ry Cooder

https://youtu.be/HEUIZWyieAk

Slow Turning – John Hiatt

https://youtu.be/2L22C5IJTfE

Happy Birthday and Happy Anniversary Leigh and Hal!

“One day I will find the right words and they will be simple”

        - Jack Kerouac

“The only truth is music”

       - Jack Kerouac

 

Copyright All Rights Reserved 2018 JF Sobecki LLC

An Endless Summer Reflection

“'Cause down the shore everything's all right


You and your baby on a Saturday night”

 - Jersey Girl , Bruce Springsteen

What is this place that draws pilgrims,

Sailors, fishermen and sun worshippers

To the unending expanse

Of this ocean of mercy ?

Here is the mystical wonder

Where the boss’s aurora rising illumination,

And wonder-filling warmth, is born

Again and again,

Over and over,

Until the pilgrims get it right.

Unionized gulls clock in

Beginning their work

Accompanied by prancing Bishop sandpipers,

Present and proclaiming their pious purpose.

Is it any wonder how

Children naturally delight at the beach’s edge,

Nurtured at the breast of mother earth?

Who is this magnificent artist magically making

A perfect peace-filling paradise for souls

Seeking satisfaction and solace?

The island troubadour’s voice

Can be heard, if one listens,

Of Atlantis’ sending ships

Spreading the promise of the universe.

But what of the source of

The origin of the song’s spirit ?

The constancy of waves,

The Surf’s up, sacramental sands

Sharing the simple sacred secret

Satiating every discerning heart .

These are the Days- Van Morrison (smart phones click on link)

https://youtu.be/_lyve_egY8o

Surfs Up – Beach Boys ( Smart phones click on link) - (for the member of the band)

https://youtu.be/yEHtAabekTw?list=

amdg

May Day Morning Meditation

“The disciples were full of questions about God.

Said the Master, “God is Unknown, the Unknowable. Every statement about Him, every answer to your questions, is a distortion of the Truth.”

The disciples were bewildered. “Then why do you speak about Him at all?”

“Why does the bird sing?” said the Master.

Not because he has a statement, but because he has a song.

The words of the Scholar are to be understood. The words of the Master are not to be understood. They are to be listened to as one listens to the wind in the trees and the sound of the river and the song of the bird. They will awaken something within the heart that is beyond all knowledge.”

     - “The Song of the Bird”

         Anthony de Mello S. J.

The pilgrim wonders if this bird singing before the first light of day proclaims or celebrates the forthcoming illumination and warmth. He meditates in questions. Is it a song of anticipating something really great and magnificent? Is it the song of farewell to the darkness and aloneness of night? Is it an aria of hope and gratitude? Is this a prayer that echoes my own heart’s yearning? Does gaining any understanding of the motivation of this song or the nature of this feathered co-pilgrim make a difference in life?  Listening to the wind or being present to the simple gentle swaying of the new born leaves in the not quite dawn mystically fills a void in a way no other experience can fuel his fire with a genuine equanimity of love.

The absence of the sweet morning songs during the previous barren grey season is quickly consigned to oblivion. Seasons change. Impermanence. The swift V formation of geese gliding piercing the morning sky celebrate as they honk their way north while the union gulls are diligent in their work effortlessly making their announcement that the tide is in and the beach is now ready to welcome sun and sea worshippers alike.

An unseen owl continues her repeating query as the pilgrim attempts to let go and let the May morning fill his soul. “No more questions,” he says. “No answers .No solutions.” Being present without distraction is truth, is life. After what seemed to be an endless wait-filled moratorium the morning sun finally makes her unpretentious yet majestic appearance above the horizon on the ocean of mercy. The pilgrim exhales and is humbled and free , 

Morning Phase - Beck ( Smart phones click on link)

                                         https://youtu.be/UvKbBkiYN9Y

Will there really be a morning – Conspirare ( Smart phones click on link)

https://youtu.be/aa9Zx_3K0DA

Morning Poem

Every morning

the world

is created.

Under the orange

sticks of the sun

the heaped

ashes of the night

turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches ---

and the ponds appear

like black cloth

on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.

If it is your nature

to be happy

you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination

alighting everywhere.

And if your spirit

carries within it

the thorn

that is heavier than lead ---

if it's all you can do

to keep on trudging ---

there is still

somewhere deep within you

a beast shouting that the earth

is exactly what it wanted ---

each pond with its blazing lilies

is a prayer heard and answered

lavishly,

every morning,

whether or not

you have ever dared to be happy,

whether or not

you have ever dared to pray.

  - Mary Oliver

amdg