Cloud of Unknowing of the Mystics and Being in Love

Is it possible that the Cloud of Unknowing is also entered by Being in Love? and that such is the awe, the wonder, the gratitude, the sense of giftedness of that moment of being together that no words, no feelings, no thoughts can suffice, or be necessary. Poetry, maybe, can tap it,. .. Because it is a deep heart thing...

It is simply the contemplative gaze that fills the heart, as mother or father gazes upon the child of their love. It is a being fully present to this Very Moment, not thinking of past or future, and ideas have no function. There is a freedom to be fully oneself in response to the other. So The Cloud of Unknowing is not a singular thing, but of a kind of loving interpenetration of the other, mutual and respectul of boundaries.

This kind of loving needs no result or outcome, nothing extrinsic, it is not, e.g., "foreplay." It is itself it's own reward, and as such is a very powerful experience, even a kind of timeliness in the moment. The gossamer veil is thin here, to use a previous metaphor, and the More is powerfully present, even when unrecognized and unspoken.

Is this not the More that the human heart seeks, and which it can find in giving and in loving and accepting another? There is a surrender of ego, of artifice, of playing of games and of testing and guessing. There is simply and powerfully simply Presence in Loving gaze.

We do not find this mystery we call God through concepts, or through the mind,
but only with the heart, by loving. Loving, not merely believing, is what is transforming.

Paschal, letters to a friend.

" It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is
invisible to the eye." --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I am a seed sprouting

I am a seed sprouting, full of
new life reaching for the sun
I am a majestic walnut tree
awakening from winter sleep
beginning to stretch my root fingers once more
I am my two year old granddaughter wakening slowly
to the wonder and love and beauty of each day
I am the crocus who can’t wait for Spring
--sticking out my little head risking frost and snow
I am my four year old grandson full of lust for life
and ready for any mischief.
I am Sleeping Beauty awakening to the delight
and awe of seventy watching dwarfs
I am hands wanting to reach and touch and offer
I am eyes amazed at vision
I am breathing aware of my precious gift
I am taste eager for my first cup of coffee today
I am wonder at the gifts of my life
I am gratitude full of endless appreciation.
I am humility knowing how undeserved
is every moment and every gift
I am blessed with many loves
several very special ones.
I am still the child finding excitement
around every corner.
My Soul magnifies the Lord. . . .
Within my heart I hold a precious secret of
wondrous love - glimpsed only through a dimmed window
May it always shine out of my own dark places.
I am simplicity finding a way through all
my immense shores
out of the deep into the sun
I cannot go anywhere without finding Love.

–Paschal Baute, February 4, 2005

WE HAVE NOT COME TO TAKE PRISONERS

We have not come here to take prisoners,
But to surrender ever more deeply
To freedom and joy.

We have not come into this exquisite world
To hold ourselves hostage from love.

Run, my dear,
From anything
That may not strengthen
you precious budding wings.

Run like hell my dear,
From anyone likely
To put a sharp knife
Into the sacred, tender vision
Of your beautiful heart.

We have a duty to befriend
Those aspects of obedience
That stand outside our house
And shout to our reason
“O please, O please
Come out and play.”

For we have not come here to take prisoners
Or to confine our wondrous spirits,

But to experience ever more deeply
Our divine courage, freedom, and
Light.

--Hafiz, The Gift,
trans. by Ladinsky, Compass (Penguin), 1999.