This old abandoned ruin of a fortress

now hosts the ghosts of bewildered
roaming animals who may have paused here
one night some life ago,
long after the former tenants
had dropped to mud and dust.

Dazzled by the interplay of clouds
and light through the crumbling battlements,
they must surely have been startled when
the sudden shaft of moonlight
pierced their skins
and buried itself
between their eyes,
silently exploding.

They gather so expectantly around me now,
purring softly and waiting in serene
anticipation for the same shock
of light to strike me, perhaps
so I might join with them
in their bedazzlement, unaware
I have already been speared
at the heart,

nor did I survive
that silvery devastation.

Nobody here gets
out alive.


Fear would have us believe
we are the victim -- the one
that seems to be implicated in the midst
of experience by the evidence of experience --
and for that one, in each moment,
there seems to be a choice:

Love, or fear.

There really is no choice,
hence it is called

The Choiceless.

The choice was made before
the world was born.

Ah, see –

all flows fearlessly
back and forth in the heart,
sometimes still as a calm limpid pool,
reflecting the moon in its waters,
sometimes a torrent
that tears hearts
to pieces –

one only knows by
drowning.

Let the world see,
let everybody see
what becomes of the heart
that no longer resists
going

u

n

d

e

r.

It's more than enough beauty,
kind enough to ease the terror, to
swallow whole
the whole world's tears.


To love or fear –
that's the test.

At the core
the heart knows best.

Open your eyes
and you will see,

division's the malignancy.

Conflicted mind's
a hurtful thing,
obscuring songs
our love would sing.

Let the healing begin within,
this is a war
nobody wins.

Give up the fight
before it begins,
why struggle with
your own best friend?

Our nature is
to be at peace,
to know ourselves,
to let strife cease.

Only we can liberate
the differences
that we create.

There is no truth
more plain than this --

there is no other we can meet
that you can't hug and
I can't kiss.


Imagine space itself
reaching into its own invisibility
for some light with which
to form
etheric masks
of momentarily appearing shapes
that you and I in turn assume to be
ourselves, momentarily forgetting
we are that space.

That's the rascal play
of living light --

it hides itself in darkness
just to magnify the bright.


That flame of outrageous yearning,
burning like a molten ball of iron
deep within the belly,
cannot be assuaged by wise words
or earnest wishes.

It is impervious to affirmations
of sincere intent, or prayers
to any childhood deities lurking
in the hopeful fantasies
of soul salvation.

The greater the resistance,
the hotter that brazen ball blazes.

Whichever way you turn,
it looms before you like an avalanche
about to happen, a sheer
wall of wailing flame.

You can't advance,
you can't retreat.

Standing still,
you will be torched.

All strategies are
doomed to crispy bits
of singed and smoking cinders, yet
in this broken-open humility,
hovering over the ruined battlefield of the soul
like a mercifully cool shroud of true peace,
acceptance envelops each and every weary warrior,
the struggle is at last
laid to rest,
spirit exhales,
the dead rejoice.

~Mazie Lane

Posted to SufiMystic
Sept 29, 2005
#41894