photos by Emily Romano
The night we met
There was a time when I tried to separate my life from love.
But I could not. Even though I tried.
In the spring, in the old grove forest.
I witnessed a bodhisattva returning to the world.
Felt that warmth of a whole heartedness
in my bones.
Some 26 years ago, on March 15th, in Austin
on West street at 8pm,
in a candle lit zendo.
My life turned on a dime.
Not because I was seeking,
but I felt my Self found.
Breath of stardust shared the air.
Once refused drops of wisdom water
were tasted, were remembered.
I forgot, I was the butterfly and the dream.
Nothing was required
so love returned in me.
As I leaned on the staircase rails
and felt home.
Mythical home, the one they write stories about.
Home, was feeling awe.
Without elevating one thing over another.
Without naming something as sacred and something as not.
Without someone being allowed and someone not.
In the quietness of night
I danced with ancestors
who told me, this is what I meant to say
when I had words.
We have only touched the surface.
We are the fingerprint of trees.
Breathing one self fulfilling samadhi after another.
—Cassy Shoshin
A letter for the heart of the matter
A letter for the heart of the matter
number 61
What was written on a page.
What was written on my heart.
Stanzas of nature unfolding it’s dreams
like wild flowers in spring
remember to always plant two sunflowers
during the day they turn toward the sun
but at night they turn to each other.
Isn’t that the way with endarkenment and enlightenment
I wonder if the birds that plant them know.
Know that this the way.
Spring after winter after fall after summer.
While I walk a road with well worn signs
following a path that has led off the map.
I am a cardboard knight
whose lost the key to their heart.
So I keep it locked, keep it close,
more faithful to the lock than anything else.
Stepping off into the old grove tall trees
the softness of the carpeted forest floor
muffles all of my thoughts.
Light making it’s way through the leaves above
sparkle and shimmer like gold keys to many doors
When this letter finds you,
read it right away.
Trace the places that form each word,
let the ink run through your fingers
into a river around the rocks.
into the flow
—Cassy Shoshin
“with empty hands I pick up the hoe” ~ Mahasattva Fu
I sit in silence and take backward steps.
In silence I say something.
When staring into a blank wall,
sometimes I notice what is there.
And what I bring to the page…the paper I stand on is blank.
I notice my conditioning but am not lead by it.
To meet the ground and hoe
with my thoughts and beliefs set to the side
or laid down completely.
How else could I possibly meet you?
If I can only sense a reflection of myself.
Or create closed and permanent ideas about “other”
Because creating categories… a shelf of many boxes.
Categorizing is the root definition of prejudice.
Which may be comforting
in the vastness of space and time.
A process that might give me reference points
in order to draw a map.
But it is an illusion of grounded-ness.
Because it is formed outside myself.
Choose to go deep within
to touch the roots of bodhi tree
to find your roots.
The ones that connect all of us
then
float in the realm fragrances.
In silence I say something.
—Cassy Shoshin
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