3 A.M. Meditation by Amy Haible
In the beginning
of the dead of winter,
this warm bed,
a cocoon, while snow
falls gently in the dark outside.
Awake now, warm inside, cold out,
the presence of all awareness calls me
to remember –
the four walls of this room are
but ephemera,
filmy apparitions
made in the geometry
of a silent mind.
Oh mind!
Whose mathematical
precision delights in mazes
this small person cannot fathom.
I could spend lifetimes
going down the road of this
arithmetic, and in the end
each quadratic would simply fold
back into itself until
form after form,
world after world,
universe and universe,
of illuminated illusion,
I would see
that all of it is nothing
but my own self at play
In the fields of a lord that is my Self.
Veiling my Self
To my self,
and finding joy in the rediscovering
time after time.
Until love, and only that,
calls me forward to some long forgotten
final joining,
which would be the beginning of the end of winter,
of all cold seasons, all dim worlds,
gently, calmly, warmly, sighing
themselves back into the one breath,
the one that ends all breathing
and rests in the dark, warm, womb of
eternal beingness.
But now, still the breathing wills
to breathe itself in me.
On the outbreath, I give all to All.
On the inbreath I am knowing
all arises in the One I Am.
It calls out, “Let it arise!”
“Hold to nothing!”
So I rest awake and fully focused.
No thought, however miserable or pleasurable.
No feeling, idea, or sensation is too small or too big.
They are all breathed into this awareness
and returned outward to the great
infinite, empty, fullness
until I am nothing but the transparent
presence in which they arise from nothing
and pass into nothing.
And it is here I find, beyond all doubt,
or reason, that
the peace and joy of God are mine.
That every gift I give is to my self.
That I am nothing but the
giving and the receiving throughout eternity
in endless delight and imagined surprise.
That there is nothing, nothing I cannot take in.
And there is nothing, nothing I cannot breathe out
as all of it is freely accepted and still
there is room for more.