spiritual – Page 5 – Janis Dehler

The River of Sadhana


In a night vision, the meandering timeline of my life 
floats before me, like the river that flows past my house, 
winding its way south, touching here and there, while 
always moving in the direction of intent.

Challenges and joys that went before are seen,
as I float on to this moment. I see my learning 
and my fears, when, as a child, I do not understand.
I see confusion, tears, aloneness, transitions, 

moving in time, trying to find my way from there to here, 
with deaths, friends, shame, insecurities, curiosity.
I feel sadness and joy. I am a child, then a teen 
in my self-centered world, lacking awareness
 
and understanding. I see my marriage, my babies, 
the delight, the loss, their gifts to me. I see me, 
catapulted to awaken to my life, to shed old skin,
as I long to create, find purpose in being, alter perceptions. 

I enter deconstruction—spiritual crisis— and am stripped to bones. 
In newness, I am embraced. Through friendship, divine manifestation, 
love, compassion, forgiveness, and healing, I find I am enough. 
All the iterations of me.  All one. All love. 

Joys. Challenges. Acceptance. Strength. Understanding. 
In allowing and accepting, the way opens. Amma, holy one, 
names me—Sadhana, spiritual practice. This name guides me, 
as I seek to know the meaning. To accept my path. Learn to allow, 

to create, to accept light, to accept love.
I enter my day with the message: 
open arms, open heart, receive, give, be.
Be gentle. Be patient. Be love.

“Anything can become a spiritual practice once you are willing to approach it that way—once you let it bring you to your knees and show you what is real, including who you really are, who other people are, and how near God can be when you have lost your way.”
Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith

“The goal of spiritual practice is full recovery, and the only thing you need to recover from is a fractured sense of self.”
Marianne Williamson

“Spiritual practice should not be confused with grim duty. It is the laughter of the Dalai Lama and the wonder born with every child.”
Jack Kornfield

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Spring Cleanse

spring rains foster growth
polished windows allow light
cleansed hearts emit love

“Self-care is never a selfish act—it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer to others.”
Parker Palmer

“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”
Buddha

“Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin, as self-neglecting.”
William Shakespeare

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Life’s Becoming


So many seasons of spring
have I walked this earth:
to see the sun rise in its rose and blue
striations; to hear the morning chatter
as chickadee and finch wake; to witness
green leaves rise from soil with the promise of
rose tulip, purple iris, or yellow crocus.
Like an infant who wakes to see Mother’s
face anew in this morning, I feel joy
in anticipation, expectance of renewal, 
amazement in life’s becoming.

“What a strange thing!
to be alive
beneath cherry blossoms.”
Kobayashi Issa, Poems

“Is the spring coming?” he said. “What is it like?”…
“It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine…”
Frances Hodgson Burnett

“It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.”
Rainer Maria Rilke

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The Flow of Compassion

El Camino IV, The Flow of Compassion by Janis Dehler

In the fall of 2017, I hiked the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain. When I returned, I created a series of paintings depicting my emotional, physical, and spiritual experience. Recently, a print of El Camino IV, The Flow of Compassion was purchased. I did not share my experience and the meaning of the work with the buyer but allowed her to see what was there for her. This week the collector sent me her perspective on viewing this art as a review to post on my website. As we enter the Christian Holy Week, I offer you her words, her intimate experience of self-awareness. I feel deep gratitude in being able to touch the life of another embodied spirit.

I sense the flow of something powerful within me and through me as I take in the vibrant colors, flowing and attuning to my inner being, awakening a deep knowing of the nurturing of my broken heart by compassionate people in my spiritual community. As I look more intently at this amazing work of art, I see a cross.

My thoughts go to Jesus as he suffered intense beatings after his arrest; after he heard the declaration, ‘Crucify Him’! and while he hung on a cross, slowly dying.

I remember reading his response ~ Forgive them, for they know not what they do! And I feel a powerful movement through me and in my heart ~ the flow of compassion.

I am in awe of his response. Instead of blaming the darkness, Jesus brought in the light of forgiveness, through compassion.

Now my thoughts go to myself ~ I have been blessed by the flow of compassion toward me; I have allowed the power of compassion to flow through me to others, and finally, I have forgiven the one who broke my heart.

Eileen

“All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart.”
Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.”
Plato

“One love, one heart, one destiny.”
Bob Marley

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Due North


Sandhill crane seeks rest
before the flight north to home.
I journey with birds.

(photo by Leo Dehler)

“Sometimes the people around you won’t understand your journey. They don’t need to – it’s not for them.”
Joubert Botha

“It’s a funny thing coming home. Nothing changes, everything looks the same, feels the same, even smells the same. You realize what’s changed, is you.”
Eric Roth

“You will never completely be at home again because part of your heart will always be elsewhere. That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place.”
Miriam Adeney

As It Is

There was a time, I looked back, like an explorer who seeks the river source; I sought to know the origin of my pain, my fear, my suffering.

There was a time, I looked forward, like a seer who tells the future; I sought to know where I was going, the plan, the purpose of this being.

There is this time, I look out, just as it is; I seek to live each moment as it presents—the pain, the joy, the will to be, the heart open, as it appears.

“Tomorrow is tomorrow.
Future cares have future cures,
And we must mind today.”
Sophocles, Antigone

“Every instant of our lives is essentially irreplaceable: you must know this in order to concentrate on life.”
Andre´Gide

“In a world myriad as ours, the gaze is a singular act: to look at something is to fill your whole life with it, if only briefly.”
Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

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Movement Slows

Seagulls stand at water’s edge,
in stillness, they look out to the gulf,
webbed feet tickled by gentle waves—
born from tranquil water. Unexpected peace 
after a week of wild roar. 

Within the calm,
sanderlings also cease their scurry, 
gather at water’s edge and appear to
cluster in quiet conversation, then,
rest in contemplation.

Movement slows,
lovers walk hand in hand, 
while nature ceases her uproar,
inviting us to stop and observe,
the sacredness, which is now.

“When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall; it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient.”
Margaret Attwood, The Panelopiad

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”
John Lubbock, The Use of Life

“They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, the voice of perpetual Becoming.”
Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

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The Kiss

Sun kisses ocean

as sparkling jewels adorn her

with adoration

“Lovers alone wear sunlight.”
E.E. Cummings

“Adoration is made out of a solitary soul occupying two bodies.”
Aristotle

…the sea…it is my favorite thing, I think, that I have ever seen. Sometimes I catch myself staring at it and forget my duties. It seems big enough to contain everything anyone could ever feel.”
Anthony Doerr, All The Light We Cannot See

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When Prayer Was Magic

Once I thought prayer was magic: 

If I pray hard enough

God will give me what I desire. 

I was young and did not yet know

grief and despair. 



I grew in knowledge of sorrow and joy, 

and found no being who could 

change the course of the many things 

that bring us suffering, as was told, when

once I thought prayer was magic.



Nor did outward prayer give me

what I yearned for, which may 

conflict with another’s longing.

Who does this being listen to?

If I pray hard enough,



I am told, if I am good enough,

follow the rules, listen to authority,

learn to be pure like the saints,

deny myself,

God will give me what I desire.



Then I learned to go within:

to know prayer as silence, 

to focus, allow, listen, sit in peace, 

open to universal wisdom. Not taught to me when

I was young and did not yet know:



the connection is within the seed of the divine inside of me. 

All consciousness, open to love, forgiveness, and grace

changes me; I then join with others as 

we open to joy, and ease that which is our

grief and despair.


(Thanks to WP friend, David, for his teaching of a ‘cascading’ poem.

“It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without heart.”
Mahatma Gandhi

“Prayer is the inner bath of love into which the soul plunges itself.”
St. John Vianney

“God speaks in the silence of the heart. Listening is the beginning of prayer.”
Mother Teresa

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On To the Source

Seeking rest 

and renewal

we weave our way: 

down and around,

like the stream

then the river 

flowing 

to the source— 

the ocean.



We meander, 

then feel the tug: 

the ebb and flow 

vibrating

pulsing, 

soul connecting 

us to her—

origination.

Returning is the motion of the Tao.

Yielding is the way of the Tao.

The 10,000 things are born of being.

Being is born of nonbeing.
The 40th Verse of the Tao Te Ching

“We know all too well that what we are doing is nothing more than a drop in the ocean. But if the drop were not there, the ocean would be missing something.”
Mother Teresa

“I have seafoam in my veins, I understand the language of waves”.
Le Testament d’Orphée

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