Without a Place and With a Place

Sunday, September 15, 2013:

FIFTEEN YEARS

Fifteen years ago today the life I led hit bottom. I have celebrated this day ever since September 15, 1998. I don’t need go into the details but I can say that my spiritual journey took on a new dimension since then. I like to call it the bodhisattva path. The bodhisattva path is one of compassion. In the dark night of the soul I found the guiding light that directed my feet from despair to the dharma of the Twelve Steps and the Sangha (fellowship of the spirit) of Alcoholics Anonymous. I am not ashamed of this admission. I follow the light of compassion, forsaking the snares of delusion, whereby I free my heart from the bondage to self. It is the greatest miracle of my life that I found the Heart of Compassion… the power of forgiveness and the joy of sobriety.

From the words of Saint John of the Cross excerpted from a couple of stanzas of his poem: Sin Arrimo y Con Arrimo (Without a Place and With a Place).

Without a place and with a place

to rest-living darkly with no ray

of light-I burn my self-away.

My soul no longer bound is free

above itself it rises hurled

into a life of ecstasy,

leaning only on God. The world

will therefore clarify at last

what I esteem the highest grace:

my soul revealing it can rest

without a place and with a place…

I savor the poems of Saint John of the Cross. My experience bears his truth in my heart from this last stanza of the poem.

Love can perform a wondrous labor

which I have learned internally,

and all the good and bad in me

takes on a penetrating savor,

changing my soul so it can be

consumed in a delicious flame.

I feel it in me as a ray;

and quickly killing every trace

of light I burn myself away.

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