That which is always and already That is innate and inherent, as well as that which moves towards its infinite self-experience and knowing. Moving into diversity of experience and towards self-knowing and self-realization in all its guises is the nature of the One in its Play in manifestation. This measurable, relative universe provides the opportunity for us to experience Self in relationship with itself. So we are at once always and already complete. Yet the nature of manifestation is to experience this and in order to do that there is a here to a there; a process, which leaves open the possibility for our seeing the illusion that we are other than what we move towards or aspire to... and that we can be more or less That. When we believe that what we are reaching for is other than what we are, we concretize our perceived separation from it and obscure the awareness of the divine suchness which is always and already innate in all. Adding on top of that the illusory notion of "enlightenment" as a measurement of realization ends up further obfuscating That which is innate and our birthright into something apparently unreachable, or, possibly reachable with exceptional grace and "hard work." In a sense it makes rare something that is very natural and ordinary and obscures from our awareness the always already suchness in all of life including the mundane.

~~~

We feel a separation from what we aspire towards when we do not recognize ourselves as the same and one with what we are seeking.   The more that we 'seek' what we believe is other than ourselves, the more we concretize or reinforce the very illusions of separation that stand in the way of realizing our aspirations. This sense of separation is fed by our identifying solely through our individuation. 

Our Divine Nature calls to itself from within to be realized, which is such a beautiful expression of the Divine Will in action. Yet through our habits and illusions of separation it is translated like a nag that wants something it is not, which can then distort things. 

This distortion is compounded by our tendency to identify ourselves through the effort of our aspiration and then the need to invest more and more in that effort to validate our selves. When we have a vested interest in what we have built, we tend to continue to fortifying it with our beliefs. Within the momentum of that dynamic, non effort or stopping is not even a consideration because of the fear of failure, of the unknown, of non-being or of ceasing to exist.  Our actions and thoughts then become defenses against that.  Defending ourselves against the unknown is a path enmeshed in preconceptions and away from the realization of Truth. Our mental associations and representations of what we see further obscure or add story to what is.

"Not knowing" or not giving energy to mind and its constructions is a path towards getting beyond mind's limitations, but when aspirants deny or refuse Knowledge that comes through Silence and beyond mind so as not to give energy to knowing, they can stop a very divine flow and remove themselves from the very essence of the Truth of their being as the Allness that Is and Is Not, that Knows and Knows not.

Speaking to the Seeker in Conflict with Seeking

Trying to deny seeking is chasing your tail in one direction, and seeking for what you believe you are not is chasing your tail in another. Not allowing this innate aspect of yourself moving towards self-realization in form because of feeling that it will obfuscate self-realization is creating for yourself a double-bind.

You are at once "always, already" That and there is nothing that you can do or that you need to do to BE That ---- AND you are That coming to realize, know and experience self as the many faces of That in manifestation. If you allow both as they arise in your awareness you will not create division around it. My sense is that depression comes as a result of suppressing one and not accomplishing your ideas of another while judging yourself for it.

You are at once "always, already" That and there is nothing you need to do in order to BE That - AND you are always realizing Self through all of life. Realizing depression, Realizing joy, Realizing peace, Realizing sleep, Realizing unconsciousness, Realizing bliss, Realizing forgetting, Realizing suffering, Realizing awakening, Realizing something, Realizing nothing.

Can you find any place in your awareness which is undisturbed or unaffected by your seeking? Can you find that which is unperturbed by seeking or not seeking or what appears to be the conflict between the two and could include either or both?

~~~

Seeking is an innate aspect of Consciousness as a force of play in this relative, material, space-time universe. Consciousness, the Divine, God, seeks to know and experience ItSelf in Its infinite diversity as and through us. Where it becomes a paradoxical bind in the experience of the seeker, is when what is seeking perceives itself to be not of the same substance in its essential nature as that which it is seeking. It is then when the seeking separates oneself further in experience and identity from that which one aspires towards.

It is like trying to deny the inherent nature of the Divine within manifestation to deny the essence which seeks for or moves towards more of itSelf. Every cell seeks to be realized. When speaking about "letting go", "stopping" and the "always already" unconditioned self without acknowledging this, we set up a paradoxical bind in our beingness which creates a tension and conflict when "doing" or the desire to perfect or achieve happens, even if it arises out of this essence which moves to realize more of ItSelf.

Essence seeks for more of itself or moves towards its self-realization in manifestation. In manifestation this "seeking" or moving towards is innate. There is nothing but That; all movement can only be That being itself and whatever direction we might perceive it going, it is That going towards itself, either in awareness or in ignorance. May it be in awareness.  All eyes open to awareness dancing itself.

Ellen Davis - © 2000

Revised © 2008

In honor of Valentine's Day,

May it be a joyous one, full of love and the delight of being.

Infinite love, light and romance,

Ellen

On Romance

romance is the perception of lover as she looks upon beloved

romance is the way God makes love to itself as you

romance is seeing the beauty in life

romance is the way your inhale floats so lightly upon your exhale and your exhale empties itself so completely for your next inhale

romance is the way the tree soaks up the water from the earth and extends its branches towards the sun

romance is the will as it inspires your next breath, your life as it spawns your next heartbeat

romance is the way you say mmmmmmm when you let the sun kiss your skin

romance is letting God as life make love to you regarding and regardless of what it looks like

romance is feeling his touch in his absence as strongly as you do in his presence

romance is a complete surrender to nothing beyond this moment

romance is the way the leaves stand at attention smiling with or without the sun

romance is kissing your teardrops as they fall from your eyes

romance is the play of the wind in your hair, the rain on your roof, the smoke as it lingers and lilts in the air

romance is your longing for a lover, skin to skin, heart to heart

romance is what you do to your thoughts creating them into realities

romance is knowing that we all breathe the same air...that you are breathing his air, that you are breathing his air...

romance is Rodin, Rumi, Michaelangelo, Shakespeare, Cezzane

romance is your delight with cooing, gurgly baby sounds, a child's song and laughter, the way you hold your breath waiting for Chopin's next note

romance is the way you make love to your story, adding to it, embellishing it, creating it just so, that you may swallow it with greater glee, or regurgitate and reject it with ever more passionate drama

romance is embracing the story that you believe you need to survive until you see that you don't need it as it dissolves along with who you thought you were; it is the kiss of disillusionment on the breast of freedom; it is having no idea

romance is the starlight dancing on your brow and the moon's mysteries making love to your imagination

romance is a bird in flight

romance is seeing earth as god's amazing artwork

romance is the way thoughts devour the silence and silence devours thoughts

romance is the way we forget, making remembering all the more meaningful

romance is the way lovers tease each other, holding back, holding back until they explode with desire

romance is the way we as life tease ourselves, holding back, holding back until we explode, implode, dissolve, rebirth, realize, die ... in cycles of infinite variation

romance is the way you tease yourself into believing that something is limited and not that you are limiting

romance is the way your feet caress the ground you walk upon

romance is the way we share our thoughts with each other not even realizing whether others want to or can hear them

romance is our desire to connect, convince, to touch, to trigger, to get reaction

romance is a mother's wailing for her war torn children

romance is the desire to protect at any cost

romance is the play of knowledge hiding behind ignorance

romance is the play of ignorance hiding behind knowledge

romance is the way these boxes connect us to the world

romance is the collective mind as it seduces the individual

romance is the individual as it fights for its autonomy

romance is the sky as it touches the earth

romance is the scent of a rose as it wafts through your nose

romance is the way a shield forms around a broken heart

romance is the way the heart that loves heals its wounds

romance is the way the earth soaks up the rain and feeds it back to the clouds

romance is the way the wave slinks up to the shore and retreats back into ravenous ocean

romance is yipping dog enthusiastically wagging tail, your squirmy laughter as it's licking your face

romance is the fire that burns within you as you create your dreams,
long for them,
wait for them,
reject them

romance is giving it all up and letting God dance you

romance is your saying romance is dead and believing it

romance is the eye of the beloved as it peers through our one heart

romance is God celebrating itself as life

-Ellen Davis 2/14/01

Happy Solstice!
and a
Joyous Holiday Season
to you

To this love affair of the earth with her sun
these days with their night
and our hearts coming to know themselves
as one

To our breathing ever deeper into the present moment,
our widening embrace of shadows and light,
To dancing our joys and eternities into time
and the light of our days into our night

In love and care for the earth and all of Her inhabitants,
please join me in sending blessings of peace and heartened awareness to world leaders and people everywhere.

Om shanti shanti ommmmmm


All of my love and blessings,

Ellen

Photo by Bob O'Hearn

On Intuition

Intuition is informed by the essential suchness of the depths into which it has plunged. It is the breath of flowing awareness that occurs through stillness when preconceptions are out of the way. It is a song that arises in the dance between an immersion into what is before one and a clear connection of the heart and third eye chakras. The heart is a bridge of information from the root to the crown, from the earth and from that which is beyond. Through its allowing embrace, the heart is the melting pot, and integrator, and each chakra is like a receptacle of another aspect of awareness in interfacing with the world. Intuition is inclusive of past knowledge without being tied to past knowledge. It is the result of deep listening within and a grace of inspiration in connection with that which inspires it. Intuition is the grace of a yoga of awareness with knowledge, and of the silence that informs and allows for that. A function of intuition is self-trust. Conditions of intuition are the fire that burns at the heart of stillness and silence.

In the visual and performing arts and music, intuition can be a subliminal arm of inspiration, aesthetics and taste. It informs composition, the harmonies that resonate and the accents that contrast. It informs vision and expression that propel expansion and an evolution of consciousness.

Intuition is a yet to be realized voice whispering to be recognized. It echoes wisdom of the soul because like soul, it looks at the conditions and play of time through a timeless eternal awareness.

Sometimes transrational knowings, such as psychic perception, and whatever cannot be proven, such as higher truth consciousness, are called “intuition.” These transrational knowings are sometimes hidden behind what we can more easily prove or recognize, or what we are less embarrassed to call “intuition.”

Intuition is the voice of one's innate creative intelligence in communion with its surrounding conditions.

- Ellen Davis, copyright November 2007

Prabhath requested that I write about intuition and this is what came today: Intuition is the breath of flowing awareness that occurs through stillness when preconceptions are out of the way. It is a song that arises in the dance between a clear connection of the heart and third eye chakras; the heart is a bridge of information from the root to the crown, from the earth and from that which is beyond. Intuition is inclusive of past knowledge without being tied to past knowledge. It is the result of deep listening within and a grace of inspiration in connection with that which inspires it. Intuition is the grace of a yoga of awareness with knowledge, and of the silence that informs and allows for that. A function of intuition is self-trust. Conditions of intuition are stillness and silence. In the visual and performing arts and music, intuition can be a subliminal arm of inspiration, aesthetics and taste. It informs composition, the harmonies that resonate and the accents that contrast. It informs vision and expression that propels expansion and an evolution of consciousness. Intuition is a yet to be realized voice whispering to be recognized. It echoes wisdom of the soul because like soul, it looks at the conditions and play of time through a timeless eternal awareness. Sometimes whatever cannot be proven or transrational knowings, from the psychic to a higher truth consciousness are called “intuition”. These transrational knowings are sometimes hidden behind what we can more easily prove, recognize or what we are less embarassed to call “intuition”. - Ellen Davis copyright November 2007

As Love meets Love in form, as it recognizes itself, it spreads everywhere waking itself up to its own glory!

It is the difference as it wakes up to its sameness through the play of the poles; as it it is embraced in the rapture of the oneheart, tingling more manyness into oneness, more diversity and multiplicity into unity.
it is one tasting itself through two.

sound loves so much it grew ears so that it may hear itself
beauty loves so much it grew eyes so that it may see itself
the senses are born from the love that we are in its delight to taste itself
you are born from the love that i am so that i may love myself
i am your creation
you are my love
we can see this when there is no one to be yours
and no one to be mine
being breathed sublime
faces of the divine
at play
in the fields of
time

Ellen Davis,. copyright 1999