"Three coins into the sea, Captain. One for the stars, one for the sky and one for the ocean."
He says, "What need have they for money?"
"It's not about need, it's about showing reverence."
*Tricia Levenseller. Daughter of the Siren Queen.
* * *
We speak of reverencing God, holy things, holy places. We hear of respecting others, loving others, tolerating others, forgiving others. How often do we hear any comment about or encouragement to reverence others?
Reverence is left to the domain of religion. Yes, reverence is a religious experience, but not an a religion experience. Reverence is a natural, universal experience. Religion expressed as a reverential response of gratitude and praise is as everyday as holy day.
A religion persons, however, seem to think to worship, to reverence, anyone, anything, but their god would be blasphemy, something that would offend their version of God. Yet, when you see into another, your withinness looking into the other's withinness, you see God - not a version of God. God's isness, in that moment, sees God's isness. One seeing, one isness.
Now, how can we not feel some need to reverence that of the other, when God sees God in the other? Here, we are past Thou with Thou, or God with God. There is, now, Thou looking upon Thou, no difference.
* * *
Presence adores and loves Presence, eternally, in one moment of pure, spontaneous seeing of the other. And this applies to nonhuman species, too. The Heart of Life is in all that lives, summoning, by simply being, praise that lifts us beyond trivialities into the heights of subtle, sublime bliss.
And, thereby, this joyful adoration leads us beyond the forms of this world to the formlessness of Grace, which exists before the form of the other. Through that form, reverence, praise, and love are evoked. God is evocative. We are evocative. In the motion of reverence, Life that is appears in forms to commune with forms and, thereby, to reach that of the Other in the other. Yet, to reach that, to touch that, we reach and touch ourselves. In that one touch, distances are no more.
Hand Searching For Hand
i sit beside the bed i with bowed head, closed eyes she speechless, closed eyes
some say she is dying
i say "No" to no one
i know she cannot
she preparing to shed human disguise a veil of the Glory
she holds my hand eyes still closed hers and mine
hand as dear to me as if hand of Christ
it is that hand
moving hand searching for my hand holds, pulls on my hand
holding tightly then loosely
again again
i with bowed head with closed eyes worship reverently not some god somewhere but here
she an Altar she Spirit Sky
every
mother father brother sister friend anyone anywhere
no distance between us everyone
what can I say to say rightly? nothing.
now, today, disguise gone temple torn down appearance that came, left
looking through her Light i worshiped the Sun she remains, is
i miss her smile i already did
she gone lives on - how?
i feel the warmth of her hand i always will always will
* * *
There is a way to touch and be touched, Heart with Heart, and, therein, Heaven pours upon you luminous bliss. How could a love like that ever die? How could we not be inclined to worship in the presence of each other?
