The moment you say, "I've got it," it is gone. Even before you recognize it, it is gone. What is most real, this is ultimately elusive, infinitely so. You can no longer hold this, than you can hold the wind in your hand. And, like the wind, when you clasp around this, you push it away. And if we call this a mystery or the Mystery, or God, or anything or anyone, what have we said? Something, and nothing at all. I have written and spoken of this for many years, and I have said a lot and nothing at all. When the time comes, being led inwardly to cease speaking of this or the ceasing by death of the body, I will, still, have said nothing. If all I have said were forgotten, that would be okay. Truth lives only in the moment and never in words, regardless of how words may lead us to the mute Silence wherein Truth lives within Itself.

This morning, I stood on the banks of the river, my frequent Sunday morning sanctuary. The river was remarkably boisterous. The wind blew, the rapids roared, and great chunks of ice were carried along the flow. After a time of praying the great mantra of compassion in Tibetan, Om Mani Peme Hung, I continued quiet prayers, still with eyes closed. I entered, soon, a silent affirmation of the Fruit of the Spirit, the first being love. In this silence, love was felt everywhere, no boundaries were present in consciousness. Still, with eyes closed, I continued through the Fruit, slowly, mindfully, realizing the brokenness of our world and its need for healing ~ joy... peace... patience... kindness... goodness... faithfulness... gentleness... temperance. Yet, love remained, through it all, this inner, yet embodied, sense of love everywhere. Love without walls.

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The wind blows where it wishes. You hear its sound. But you do not know where it's coming from, you don't know where it's going. So, this is the way with everyone born of Spirit.

*Jesus. Gospel of John.

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The Wind's Footprints

plunge yourself in the Water
until your breathing rises from the Depths

there's a Sea without a name
drenching shores with a moving Face

see, You Are One With That! don’t just admire
admiration alone puts you to sleep

you don't make wild love with a lover
simply adoring his or her beauty~
you surrender yourself!

intoxication comes not by applauding the wine
so with Spirit... drink up!

why live in rivers, streams, and lakes, on land,
when Home is an Ocean that waits?

adore so ardently the Watery Abyss to
become the Font in which resurrects your every death

there're baptisms many but
what This is heralds all others though true...

~someone dropped a holy book in here ~ dead ~ and
out grew a flower with hope for the world~

we're bees flying joyfully
imbibing our nectar from the shine of the Sun of Light

~some angels just flew overhead~I heard my name called~
am I being inconsistent, not making sense? I hope so,
we all need a frequent dose of senselessness~

live for the Ocean, marvel at the teeming Life,
become one with the One that receives the many-faced Christ

don’t read this poem with two eyes
there's only one gate to the infinitely-faceted Wisdom

Truth is out to find you
seeking must cease to receive

and as for consistency, forget it,
the Wind's footprints never leave a straight line

*Brian Kenneth Wilcox. "The Wind's Footprints~A Senseless Poem."

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All we talk about in spirituality, none of it, is meant to make sense. Even the word spirituality really means nothing~just ask a number of persons "What is spirituality?". Making sense is another subtle attempt to take control. All that matters is unconditional, and unconditional cannot be grasped. What lives in the heart cannot be held, only loved.

What is space like? It is boundless, so what wall are you going to lean on? You can lean into spaciousness, but not on a wall, a wall is not there, nothing is. Nothing supports you, but that nothing is intangible.

At times, this can feel a little scary. Still, just knowing that nothing you hear about Life makes sense can bring some relief and humor, a sense that the craziness of the path you are on is okay, and beautiful.

With time, you begin to relax into the sense of being suspended without a feeling of boundaries, and past and future begin to vanish. But, for now, it is okay to be where many of us are, running to and from freedom. We are, after all, socialized to flee freedom, to be a rock amid other rocks on the shore of Mystery, rather than wind caressing the Waters.

Yet, about that senselessness of it all, we could observe an irony, that senselessness itself begins to become clear. An amazing clarity emerges, and we feel no need for the previous answers. We do not feel a need for the questions, either. Finally, we learn to laugh at the senselessness, and we feel no need for it to make sense, while, somehow, we do not know how, it has all become remarkably sane, so we too.

* * *

So, here, we are left, finally, with an Ineffable. The mind searches for this Something, but cannot find it. The mind cannot know it, for it is not an object. We gather information, yet what do we do when information cannot give us the knowing our heart longs for? the love we ache for most deeply?

* * *

Walking back over the river, I felt this Ineffable. I come to this river to be receptive to the invisible Life still and, yet, moving within the world, to rest, to contemplate, to enjoy simply being. I often close the eyes and receive the wind blowing cold upon the face and penetrating the layers of clothing. Yet, often here I, likewise, feel a subtle frustration. I face and sense the Immensity, and it keeps moving just outside my reach. I can no more hold it than this breeze blowing on my skin. I feel as though I can and cannot touch it, though it is all around me, around us, holding me, holding us. Hence, this freedom is elusive, and we must progressively live into the Mystery, a Mystery that will remain a mystery~this we must, finally, accept and love, by blessing the Life that is so intimate to us that we cannot have it, only it have us. And in it having us, we do not know how it has us. And the Unknown is brought near to us by our unknowing. And, in the surrender, we are loved, and we are discovered by Love. But what is this Love, so unlike the loves we once believed in? It is the Mystery, too.

*Brian Wilcox. 'Kennebec River~Winter Series no. 2'.

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*The theme of "Lotus of the Heart" is 'Living in Love beyond Beliefs.' This work is presented by Brian K. Wilcox, of Maine, USA. You can order Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, through major online booksellers.