This post is for last week's writing prompt: One Single Impression: Spectacle   If I could see with the eyes of love Nothing could be a spectacle. Nothing could be outside the circle.   If I would see with the eyes of love All would be spectacular. All would be insanely lovely. All would be inside the circle of Joy. ...

About 13 years ago I had a dream that I will live-into for the rest of my life. In the dream, I'm part of the life of a retreat center or monastery of some sort.  The center is on an island and on top of a large plateau or mountain with ocean surrounding.  I can remember walking to the edge and looking downward and outward and feeling ...

I honestly don’t know how it happens so fast.   I spent the most incredible week at home in Bend with my friends.  I had a wonderful day back in Berkeley and then… something started to slip.  The entire day I’ve been fighting this daemon.  Well, not really fighting him as much as trying to pretend, ignore and otherwise ...

The Virtual Tea House is honored to guest host the current blog carnival on 'A Different Prayer' published today, April 19th. Here's a sample of the last 'A Different Prayer' carnival published in early April.    Iman Maleki ''Memories of that house'' Welcome to the April 19, 2008 edition of 'A Different Prayer'. ...

  We had a lively and wonderful gathering for the March Central Oregon Fire Circle last night, March 21st. Great fire with the full moon rising over the back fence. Several new people, as well as regulars and us old-timers came out for the celebration of  the coming of the light or spring AND at the same time the holy darkness ...

View...   I live in a gerbil-cage.  Well, a habitrail, really.   Typically, when I walk into my building, I enter directly into a hallway that is narrow and white.  The floor ramps down quickly and steeply, so that I nearly always “run” down as it feels like I’m being shot down a chute into the constricted bare white ...

The following story, passed on to me by a dear friend, Curielle, who lives in western Colorado, where the mountains meet the canyons and buttes, reminded me of this poem by Sophia de mello Breyner, a well-loved Portuguese poet. I'm Listening   I'm listening yet I don't know if what I hear is silence or God   I'm listening ...