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Gathering of Peace
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On the spiritual level, health is realizing that we are integral to this universe, not a part of it, not a microcosm of it, but coextensive and consubstantial with the Whole, the true Center. The awakened soul is characterized by presence of heart. Through its purified imaginative powers, the awakened soul raises the earthly and ephemeral facts to the level of spiritual incandescence. By virtue of its reconciling power it brings about a loving marriage between the natural self and the Spirit.
*Kabir Helminski. The Knowing Heart: A Sufi Path of Transformation.
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The Heart Travels
Looking out this window... verdant vista of trees
and plants, plush, after cold, bare winter -
spring adorned now in warmth and green.
Same rocker, lights out, serene Sunday morn;
sitting solitary, sipping slowly, hot tea in clear cup -
this is prayer... for chosen to be.
Matsuda Sencha...
cultivated by a family far away from here -
a hill covered with tea bushes... leaves
of slender spears, vivid forest green -
overlooking a valley, the family home.
Generations of like blood and shared love -
one after another, have given the world
this gift I hold in my hands ...
Soft sweetness and lemon notes.
Spinachy aroma, roasted hints of nori seaweed,
subtle bitterness to the taste,
intense yellow-green to the sight.
But can descriptions, however true they seem,
tell the intimacy of appearance and savor
or the mystery of the space and time,
wherein I sit alone, enjoying the stillness and quiet,
tangible libation and intangible presence both imbibed?
This delectable offering, now held in these hands -
from soil to leaf - crossed land and sea,
Japan to Maine, family to me ...
like the heart travels
person to person,
land to land,
and communes with those dear ones
others call dead ...
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Capping Verse
The heart, we are, is love - presence, spirit, life -
formless presence clothes itself with form,
boundaryless spirit accepts boundaries.
In the heart, no distance between
Japan and Maine -
or you are here, they are there,
the mandala of passing shadows everywhere.
Yet, in the realms of form,
the boundless travels, and a cup of tea
can be a sacred offering from far reaches,
unfamiliar faces, and never-seen lands.
Some say the Word became flesh -
I say, the Word becomes flesh -
matter, spirit clothes itself ...
energies streaming in endless succession,
subtle depths leading to subtler depths.
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(C) brian k wilcox, 2026
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