We seem to move indiscriminately on the road of time because we cannot see the patterns of spirit in the dust, or the restlessness of the wind as it scatters our ashes to build new homes, and we are afraid of the secret places of the soul that hide around the next bend.
@Home Studio – 228th poem of the year
Chopra, Deepak. The Way of the Wizard: Twenty Spiritual Lessons for Creating the Life You Want. New York, United States of America, Harmony Books, 1995, pp.136-142.
Runner ups for the dusty road photos to accompany my poem:
The only way to escape perpetual immaturity is to ache to go beyond the boundaries we have set for ourselves as acceptable, normal, safe, and comfortable in the now. We must stretch outward through the discomfort of reaching for what we do not yet recognize as reality to grasp ahold of our destiny and allow desire to materialize again and again and again until we see that the direct path to God has been our longing all along in the form of wishes and needs we did not even understand as yearning for the perfection of pure love.
@Erica’s – 193rd poem of the year
Chopra, Deepak. The Way of the Wizard: Twenty Spiritual Lessons for Creating the Life You Want. New York, United States of America, Harmony Books, 1995, pp.129-135.
Runner ups for the Arthur crown photos to accompany my poem:
The madman who lived in a hut deep in Camelot forest was named Will for a reason. He claimed to have no king, despite Arthur ordering him to come forth and explain. According to his wife, grief had walled him up after his son died in a tragic accident. The man named Will decided to perish unless God himself appeared and made plain the reason for suffering. Arthur sat all night speaking with the man, who he felt closer to than anyone else in his kingdom, for he keenly felt the suffering of his people the poor, the sick, the burdened. Arthur shared the wisdom Merlin taught him, rather than struggle against evil, realize that it does not actually exist. We create heaven and hell with our own will, invent duality, evil and good, light and shadow, chase our tails to our own detriment and create despair. We must allow our will to be free to choose to reject this duality and permit unity to be born in our hearts and minds, rather than sealing ourselves up in a hut deep in the woods of grief where we await our deaths.
@Genuine Joe’s – 175th poem of the year
Chopra, Deepak. The Way of the Wizard: Twenty Spiritual Lessons for Creating the Life You Want. New York, United States of America, Harmony Books, 1995, pp.123-128.
Runner ups for the Forest Hut photos to accompany my poem:
The laws of nature answer to no man. Striking a match creates a flame. Lightning fells a tree. The sun entices the earth to pirouette. We are all caught in complex webs of cause and effect, a butterfly effect of chaos unfolding smoothly. Synchronicities, narrow escapes, answered prayers, divine coincidences, lucky accidents, the knowing of intuition— all are clues you’ve left so you’ll recognize yourself through the disguise of the material. We must respect the mystery, but pursue it ruthlessly if we hope to find what we don’t even know we seek.
@Home Studio – 149th poem of the year
Chopra, Deepak. The Way of the Wizard: Twenty Spiritual Lessons for Creating the Life You Want. New York, United States of America, Harmony Books, 1995, pp.116-122.
Runner ups for the divine coincidence photos to accompany my poem:
No matter where I go, there I am, at the center of my universe, with every vector of possibility extending outward to infinity and beyond. When I can settle and still the turmoil of my soul, I can see the heavens in my own being. I know the sun does not truly rise in the sky, nor is the horizon the edge of the world, yet I live as though I believe the earth is flat and this is all there is to my being. It is a lie that the past creates the present and the present creates the future, when memories of the future can inform the present and change my very perception of the past I thought I knew. I can live tomorrow’s dream today if only I choose to look beyond the veil and accept that I am a wizard, rather than a human bound by fate. I am the relationship between nowhere and now here because I have localized eternity to this point in time and choose to focus on this present.
@Home Studio – 143rd poem of the year
Chopra, Deepak. The Way of the Wizard: Twenty Spiritual Lessons for Creating the Life You Want. New York, United States of America, Harmony Books, 1995, pp.109-115.
Runner ups for the Eternity photos to accompany my poem:
Love is a universal force, not an attachment or extension of the ego. The opposite of possession is an empty vessel ready to be filled to the brim with the energy of love that is freely poured out by the one who loves. Rather than wait around for an image of love to reflect our own or hope they repair our brokenness, why not tap into the source that can fill the void and seal the cracks and make us whole so we can learn wholehearted true love? Out beyond memory of personal past filled with shame or guilt, rejection or resentment, lies the “quiet experience of Being.” True love is not a void of lack papered over by denial, but entering the essence of self that is the wellspring of love, the simple silent home of the beloved.
@Home Studio – 106th poem of the year
Chopra, Deepak. The Way of the Wizard: Twenty Spiritual Lessons for Creating the Life You Want. New York, United States of America, Harmony Books, 1995, pp.102-108.
Runner ups for the Renaissance photos to accompany my poem:
Pain is not truth; it is simply what we must endure to find truth. This body we are experiencing is an embroidered flower, merely representative, beautiful, but artificial, not the full living embodiment of the flower. Thoughts are guests checking in and out of our quaint inn, just as this form is temporary, a visitor who will travel on. We take death so personally, spend a lifetime preventing loss, projecting fear from our own ignorance, denying our own place in the circle. It is only possible to lose what is not real. Even if we think we’ve lost everything, what remains is what is real.
@Home Studio – 93rd poem of the year
Chopra, Deepak. The Way of the Wizard: Twenty Spiritual Lessons for Creating the Life You Want. New York, United States of America, Harmony Books, 1995, pp. 96-101.
Runner ups for the circle of life photos to accompany my poem:
“God made this world, so it must be interesting enough to keep His attention. If you find things growing tired or stale or predictable, perhaps it is you who have lost the capacity to be interested.” Merlin-Deepak Chopra’s The Way of the Wizard
This shadow world we grope through in darkness must be illuminated inwardly to see the real. Once we know something to be true and bind the experience with the label of words, the trap has sprung. Reality is the trembling of a delicate bird we have caught, its heart thumping in our hands like a quivering reed, who will perish if we hold it too long. To go beyond the frontier of the known, we must “forget everything and anticipate nothing.” Only then will we pierce the boundary of perception that challenges our familiarity with our limitations, reveal spaces enmeshed in our everyday awareness that are nuances, textures, aromas of beyond. The unknown will beckon us from our shadow prisons, and we will fly away, release by our own hands.
@Home Studio – 90th poem of the year
Chopra, Deepak. The Way of the Wizard: Twenty Spiritual Lessons for Creating the Life You Want. New York, United States of America, Harmony Books, 1995, pp. 90-95.
We must learn to contain both chaos and order, swirling atoms, firing neurons, never ceasing electrical storms matched only by coherent thought and organized cellular function. A rose in seed form looks the same as a bean or a violet. Only invisible twisted twin strands delineate its inevitable destiny. Yet, we worry about becoming, spend struggle and effort to assert our determined uniqueness. Why not surrender to fate? A rose by any other name (and all that) is a universal truth. When pressures push this way and other, we try to impose order. Yet, attempts at control run counter to the grain of life. Learn to accept the unpredictable, make peace with entropy, embrace all potentials, so the opportune impulses can flood like inspiration into life, and the bud naturally unfold into a rose.
@Home Studio – 75th poem of the year
Chopra, Deepak. The Way of the Wizard: Twenty Spiritual Lessons for Creating the Life You Want. New York, United States of America, Harmony Books, 1995, pp. 85-89.
Runner ups for the rose bud photos to accompany my poem:
“You are your own alchemist, constantly transmuting dull, lifeless molecules into the living embodiment of yourself.” Deepak Chopra’s The Way of the Wizard
Constant flux and empty space are the stuff of solidity of which we are made and insist are real. Whereas, the cloud of energy, shadow and light, layers of love around a timeless soul core are supposedly fantasy imaginings. Whose version of truth gains most traction has less to do with rightness and more to do with convenience, since substantial introspection is hard and surface knowledge is easier to tolerate. Turning yourself into gold is an alchemy most are unwilling to pursue, and would rather label distasteful or nonsensical than undertake an inconceivable quest.
@Home Studio – 45th poem of the year
Chopra, Deepak. The Way of the Wizard: Twenty Spiritual Lessons for Creating the Life You Want. New York, United States of America, Harmony Books, 1995, pp.80-84.
Runner ups for the AI alchemy photos to accompany my poem:
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