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The Journey of Prayer and Devotion
Poetry by Gill Schwartz


IN THE WALK OF THE SPIRIT

I've been walking this black band of highway for some long while now. There are faint memory-traces of the land about me to either side as parched desert, or deep forest or glacier. Now there are fields, crops of ripening wheat and tall stalks of corn. The sun crouches low and the darkening roseate sky tells me it's late in the day.

For some while now, too, I've seen where this road ends up ahead where the land itself ends. As I draw near it, I see the edge of the earth and the widening abyss beyond. Now, with sudden finality, I'm there. The land beneath my feet, out in both directions as far as I can see, ends here and drops straight down into a shear precipice. Beyond there is nothing but open, endless sky.

I stand, breath held, in bewildered awe. All this long-walk's while I've felt a comfort and rightness, a sense of hidden guidance. But now, in this place of nothing but total self-surrender, I close my eyes, uncertain, before this terrifying scene. I look behind me along this road I've walked so long, too long. Do I stop here, turn around, retrace those steps. A heartsick thought. No urge for that at all.

All that world of passing appetites and pointless desperations is finished, to leave me free of all that's been. I turn back to the abyss, in weary resignation, and, taken by powerful fantasy, a daimon's tricks, or true guidance from above, I warily step out, beyond this earth's edge.

My stomach lurches in body-clench as my full weight drops. But, with a reassuring startle, my foot finds a resting spot, only inches lower than my body-sense had anticipated. Something IS there to hold me, invisible but solid. Using that resting place for the one foot, mystifyingly reassured, I step out with the other.

A step is taken
that aims for nothing
until the place is shown,
the foot then firmly placed
where there was no place before.
Another step in faith,
another revelation.

As the rearward foot releases
in reaching urgency,
its weight supporting place weakens, dissolves.
All that is left is a trail of has-beenness.
In the Eternal Plain lie these hazy tracings,
sometimes wandering, confused, often alone,
yet striving, yearning towards that Light.


In total surrender and total freedom, I effortlessly continue, trustingly guided from one brave, unknowing step to another, far, far out. The flat face of the earth-ending precipice fades behind me. Before and about me, there is only the heavenlies, boundless seas of blue space, rolling mountains of clouds.
Still something is here to guide and sustains me, something other than me but within that opens me to spiritual depths that, before, had been beyond me.

Gradually, up ahead, a luminous house-covered mountain comes into view, the source of its brightness unseen but felt. Approaching, I'm pleased that all the houses have white flowing shapes, like a Mediterranean village. The low twisting rows of houses are bright and milky smooth with endless layers of whitewashing.

I walk through serpentine stone-paved passageways between the houses' high-windowed walls. The aura of the town evokes memories of many other towns familiar and dear to me. It reawakens the stirrings of forgotten aspirations, past longings of my soul and of my flesh, desperate needs that had been quenched or denied, ineffable dreams, never fulfilled yet still vital -all these rise to be known in a new and dispassionate way and now released from the fabric of my psyche. Fears and pains, loss and shames, layers of wounding and defenses wash away as I shed the shields and misbeliefs that had protected and imprisoned me.

As these fabricated selves dissolve, my Essence is revealed more clearly than I can consciously contain. I recognize that It has always been present. Steadily, this inner light of Self continues to show forth, ever clearer as I work my way through this celestial village.

Who is to follow a trail wrought only of faith
and destiny, save he who can truly believe?
Who is to step from a place graced solid
to where there is no place at all,
save he who has no other way to go?

As I leave the city's last arched passageway behind me, I see a vast globe of splendor in the far distance, the Source the village's inner glow but palely reflects. Ten-thousand suns bright, golden white, indescribably majestic, yet without biting glare. The Sun of Truth, I'm led to understand in my innermost being.

Images, feelings, understandings blossom into my awareness through coming into fuller resonance with the Sun's vibration and energy. All realms prayerfully open with Its Light. Spirits, angels, celestials of all kinds abound and I'm gifted with insights and perspectives from these beings that teach and guide me. Perfect Presence intoxicates me.
As I'm powerfully drawn, longing to merge with It, veils of false self dissolve from me, falling away, disclosing me more fully to Its awing Presence. As they dissolve, so limitations and restrictions in my mind and sense of self release. Till no form is left, thus no shadow is cast. Though I'm freed of shape and substance, I'm still completely me, thinking, feeling, knowing. Me, and yet every other being about me is also present and known to me as I am immersed in the Sun's rays of Compassionate Illumination.

Gradually, I'm aware there are many other beings about me, some human, others not, each drawn on their own unique pilgrimage towards this Source and Center. All these other beings too have also been cleansed down to their Essences. From every corner of the universe, they follow their shimmering paths, drawn by this Effulgence, as I am.
The Sun of Truth's all pervading light is all around and through us, all enveloping, permeating, casting no shadow. There is no time. It is the Now from before Eternity began.

I'm thrilled, seething with joyful anticipation as I'm moved towards It without action or effort, floating in the happiness of It's allure, with no evidence left behind me but the shimmering path.

Eons pass unnoticed as I'm drawn closer, though the distances still are infinite. They go on forever. Sometimes there's a flicker of memory of some other reality, some other way of being. But they fade quickly as there's little left of me for them to cling to and I swiftly reabsorb into the ever heightening presence of this Ultimate Reality. In It's radiance every thing, thought and feeling is in its fully evolved, redeemed state. Here, nothing wants for anything.

The pillar of flame of my being comes into finer resonance with this Resplendence before me in bliss-filled coming to At-onement. It is the High Love calling of God's sweet desire to reunite with His sons and daughters. It is the Source re-merging with the sparks of Its Essence that had been sent forth as reflections and minions of Its truth.

 

 

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