Conscious Universe - Notes and resources
Greetings!
Here are a listing of the poems and music that I shared at the Conscious Universe Retreat in Portland January 31st - February 2nd. Please let me know if there's anything I missed!
Also, if you want to send a positive affirmation or reminder to yourself, you can do so through my Postcard Page. You can post date it to receive it on the day of your choice! You will need to log in to access this function, but that's a free service and easy to do!
Lastly, don't forget to do the gratitude dance!
Love and light!
Patrick
Poems/Writing
- STORY WATER
by Rumi
translated by Coleman Barks
A story is like water
that you heat for your bath.
It takes messages between the fire
and your skin. It lets them meet
and it cleans you!
Very few can sit down
in the middle of the fire itself
like a salamander or Abraham
We need intermediaries.
A feeling of fullness comes,
but usually it takes some bread
to bring it.
Beauty surrounds us,
but usually we need to be walking
in a garden to know it.
The body itself is a screen
to shield and partially reveal
the light that is blazing
inside your presence.
Water, stories, the body,
all the things we do, are mediums
that hide and show what's hidden.
Study them,
and enjoy this being washed
with a secret we sometimes know,
and then not.
- A Ritual to Read to Each Other - William Stafford
If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dike.
And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.
And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider --
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.
For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give -- yes or no, or maybe --
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
- Rumi - Trans. by Coleman Barks
The way of love is not a subtle argument
The door there is devastation.
Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom.
How do they learn it?
THey fall, and falling, they're given wings
- Until One is Committed - Goethe
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.
Whatever you can do,
or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius,
power and magic in it.
- Rumi - Trans. by Coleman Barks
God's presence is there in front of me,
a fire on the left, a lovely stream on the right.
One group walks toward the fire, into the fire,
another toward the sweet flowing water.
No one knows which are blessed and which not.
Whoever walks into the fire
appears suddenly in the stream.
A head goes under on the water surface,
that head pokes out of the fire.
Most people guard against going into the fire,
and so end up in it.
Those who love the water of pleasure, and make
it their devotion, are cheated with this reversal.
The trickery goes further.
The voice of the fire tells the truth ,
saying, "I am not fire. I am fountainhead.
Come into me and don't mind the sparks."
Music
Theme music for retreat - (Native theme with Tibetan chanting)
Breathwork Music
- Kozuma - Album: Shaman's Breath - Professor Trance and the Energizers
- Ijeilu - Album: Feet in the Soil - James Asher
- DRumming Circle - Album Shaman's Breath - Professor Trance and the Energizers
- Send in the Drums - Feet in the Soil - James Asher
- Pemulwuy - Feet in the Soil - James Asher
- Tsunami, Chaos - Album: Tribe - Gabrielle Roth and the Mirrors
- Nomad - Album: Nomad - Nomad
- Tsunami, Stillness - Album: Tribe - Gabrielle Roth and the Mirrors
- Track 2 - Winds of Devotion - R. Carlos Nakai