Questions & Answers
Posted on Jul 27th, 2008
by 
Centria
Centria
This Moment is a precious jewel.
Are those just words to you, or are they action?
Can you coil your energy into a rope
and lasso the Moment,
or is the Moment simply passing without awareness
like words on a blank screen?
Is the past truly gone for you?
Is the future only imagination?
Where does that leave you?
Do you have the courage to fully trump whatever
cards the Moment offers, to bring your naked essence
to the table, to be raw and Present,
beyond labels, beyond belief?
Can you sit in the answer-less question,
without fear, without attachment?
Can you read words and use them?
Can you listen without asking
more questions?
Can you ask questions without
expecting an answer?
Is your answer no?
Is your answer yes?
The Moment doesn't care.
She just is.
She's the answer appearing
simultaneously
with the question mark.
She is
the empty fullness of you
before confusion or thought supplies its
million answers.
The Moment IS who you are now;
you are the answer
and the next question.
The space between:
Is that where you've been hiding?
Are those just words to you, or are they action?
Can you coil your energy into a rope
and lasso the Moment,
or is the Moment simply passing without awareness
like words on a blank screen?
Is the past truly gone for you?
Is the future only imagination?
Where does that leave you?
Do you have the courage to fully trump whatever
cards the Moment offers, to bring your naked essence
to the table, to be raw and Present,
beyond labels, beyond belief?
Can you sit in the answer-less question,
without fear, without attachment?
Can you read words and use them?
Can you listen without asking
more questions?
Can you ask questions without
expecting an answer?
Is your answer no?
Is your answer yes?
The Moment doesn't care.
She just is.
She's the answer appearing
simultaneously
with the question mark.
She is
the empty fullness of you
before confusion or thought supplies its
million answers.
The Moment IS who you are now;
you are the answer
and the next question.
The space between:
Is that where you've been hiding?
Access: Public
answers
August 2008 
many hugs :)
Hi Elisa! thanks for the hugs this morning & now I know what you look like, too. I was wondering how anyone would ever comment on a poem like this. You have the perfect comment, and I am going to take that hug this very moment and go make a cup of coffee.
You have a great day!
((((((((HUGS)))))))
WoW! Thank what a wondrous poem, and wondrous thoughts…. stir the mind, heart and soul.
I am LoveYou are LoveWe are LoveJeff
Wow…that's a great poem. So glad you wrote/shared it!
Osho said, “Listen to the spaces between my words.”
Gibran said, “Let there be spaces in your togetherness.”
My friend Kathy said, “The space between: Is that where you've been hiding?”
So true.
you always inspire me! love you
you, you only, exist - rilke You, you only, exist.
We pass away, till at last,
our passing is so immense
that you arise: beautiful moment,
in all your suddenness,
arising in love, or enchanted
in the contraction of work.
To you I belong, however time may
wear me away. From you to you
I go commanded. In between
the garland is hanging in chance; but if you
take it up and up and up: look:
all becomes festival!
ty so much for understanding
it is a nice thing to see
it is possible
We are glad you are not hiding. You being us so much here dear one.
love, aley
Gosh this is powerful! Good, fantastic job. Throw it out there and be free for yourself.
Blessings to you, for bravery. sherri
Hello, dear friends! Hope all of you are having a good day in between all the questions & answers…. I must admit to not writing anything except the first two lines. After that, the Moment took over and I awaited spellbound on the chair to see what It would say next. You special beings are all my answers in this moment and there's no other question right now except to travel to some of your blogs and see what's happening in YOUR lives. Blessings to all of you. YOU are special beings….
do we ever write anything? or say anything? we are all inspired by… what, we don't truly understand. yet, you wrote, and i thank you for inspiring me and the rest of us who have loved your poem
Nicole, good questions! Do we ever write anything? I think it depends on what awareness we're viewing it from. Sometimes it does feel like we're crafting things, thinking them through, a co-participant in the forming sentences, seeking for words. I feel like that sometimes, more like a co-creator. Other times it feels like the words are pre-formed and pre-thought….and one's only “job” is to be a channel to allow them to come through. Like being able to be empty enough not to do anything, not to sculpt words, not to figure out how to say things.
When we're one with Awareness, Awareness writes and speaks and does its thing.
When we're feeling our human-ness and boundaries and limits (and there's nothing wrong with this; it can be a lovely state), then our writing peeks through bodies and fingers and searching minds and crafting.
I'm writing these words right now, or co-creating them with the Universe this morning. They're not coming through as wide and open as this poem blossomed yesterday.
On the other hand: what I think you're saying is that you want me as a person to feel good about having written the poem. Hold on one second, let me find that energy, that feeling. Ahhh….there it is. Thank you, Ms. Nicole!
hehehe giggles
I've read this a few times now. Very lovely. Thank you!
Hey EmmaTree and Ms. Elisa! Love to see you both this morning. Elisa, thanks for the giggles (I giggled when I read your giggles)….and EmmaTree, thank you for reading the poem more than once. The poem thanks you. As do I!
i did want you to feel good about writing what you did, and to acknowledge the special role you had as being the unique channel of oneness that only you can be… but more than that, i was trying to make a point about in general how hard it is for us to know where things are coming from. sometimes i might think something is really totally me and i may be really borrowing from someone else or riding on inspiration from someone else… i find this all truly mysterious and delightful
Ahhh, yes, Nicole, that makes sense. It is so mysterious and delightful……and so many degrees and inferences that dance in between the mystery of it all! And we try to freeze-frame it and make sense of it all, but the next moment is already dancing past. (and who knows who wrote that sentence? and who cares?) :)
thank you, Kathy…
Thank you CG, I am so glad you stopped by to read it.
On an interesting note (in exact opposition to everything I've written thus far) I noticed yesterday an absolute and sudden identification with the poem. Instead of feeling detached and like Spirit wrote it, suddenly there was something in me that wanted to claim it as “mine”. I wanted everybody to read it. From total detachment to total attachment.
At first I started feeling uncomfortable with this new Moment of attachment and wanting to push it away and return to the initial detachment. But attachment is the new moment! Ego is the new moment!
Go figure….we humans are very very strange beings…..in every new moment. :)
yay for being human! contradiction, thy name is homo sapiens sapiens lol
Kathy, I smiled when I read your comment but not because of the attachment to it, but because of the recognition of what you were really speaking AFTER the fact.
This happens to me so constantly. I tell you, many MANY times I look back over my writing and I think: “Who said that? Man, that person is wiiiise!” Then it's like “That might make some sense in my own life! Duh… why didn't you think of that? Actually, you did…!”
My sub-conscious works very healthily and happily overtime. I don't try to claim the output whatsoever. I am guided, plain and simple. In my work this comes in handy since I do not rely anymore on remembering things and details. I figure the most important things will come out when I open my mouth or my fingers or whatever. I've never been more 'intelligent' than when I quit using my brain to retain stuff and went straight to my heart for more important things.
I'm now trying in a roundabout way to be more aware when I do this because I've definitely learned that I am usually speaking to myself with these 'messages' and 'utterances' lol I would probably cut down significantly on stresses if I just go 'there' more consciously.
But we keep learning more and more, don't we?
Any by the way, I don't endorse the impetus around 'attachment'… what about 'connection'? All of our intentions aren't always evil and greedy! Was it totally selfish, in this case?
Thanks for sharing once again. sherri
Moment simply passing without awareness
I do this at times because i can rest on auto pilot but I actively attempt to monitor my thoughts & feelings. Mostly my feelings. I like the the connotation that belief is a verb. That our shared belief here is a call to action. We can choose to allow our choices to matter.
Thank you, Kathy, for sharing this powerful poem. During the times when the past is totally gone and there is an awareness that the future does not yet exist, I find myself in an often uncomfortable state of uncertainty, yet it is an opening to all possibilities.
Hey Nicole, contradiction is homo sapiens, indeed! (we're contradictory and proud of it? !!)
Sherry, That's exactly how I feel so much looking at what comes out of my mouth and fingers….who is saying that? And so much of the time: I am usually speaking to myself with these 'messages' and 'utterances' . That is SO true! Also, very fascinating twist between the words “attachment” and “connection”. If you wanted to say more about this, it would be fascinating. You are right, it wasn't all “selfish”….
You know what it feels like sometimes when we create, whether it's a piece of art, a painting, a poem, a story….it's almost like they're children we've birthed. So did we create the child or not? Yes and no. They are our children, but the universe created them, and our “job” may simply be to guide them and eventually let them go into their highest and truest possibilities.
Being a mama (and a daughter) it seems so challenging sometimes to let go and trust. I was feeling yesterday like this poem was a child, and didn't want the little child to be hurt or rejected. But was not staying steadfast in the trust that the “child” of the poem would do what it would do….go where it would go….and that would be just fine.
Hello Night Phoenix, so good to see you! You are sharing so much here on Gaia with that notion of belief as a verb. You're also right in saying that our choices matter. Sometimes just expanding our awareness brings us into the arena where more choices are possible….not just the auto-pilot response. Thank you for commenting.
Lenore, yes, I like the way you put it: that uncomfortable state of uncertainty, yet it is an opening to all possibilities. That's what the space between question and answer feels like. We're suddenly back into not-knowing and hopefully we proceed much readier from Presence, from freedom.
Blessings to all of you.
“The Tao that can be told is not the eternal tao,
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The named is the beginning of 10,000 things
The namless the root of all beginnings.
Nameless name, the root of her mysteries.”
As the old saying goes… your participation is not required for being it. It is and always will be exactly as it is.
Kathy, you made my head spin in a good way. I gave up counting yes and no answers about half way through. :)
yay! DonBear is here… you did it Kathy you drew him in! I have missed you, DonBear! and as usual you are so right :)
Hi Don, always nice to see you. Yes, the old Tao, with her wisdom, always “the finger pointing at the moon.” I would say that she is the space between the questions and answers, as well as the questions and answers themselves. It is exactly what it is. We could say no more, or we could continue creating. The next question might be, “What do you choose in the next moment?” Or we could simply be still and wait and see what arises.
Eric, were you actually counting the yes and no answers? (big grin)
Hi again, Nicole…..! I agree with you, DonBear has lots of wisdom to share with all of us.
“It is not birds that speak, but men learn silence.”
~ Kathleen Raine
Hello, Mr. Ben! That's the coolest quote….how true…..
let's listen to those birds for awhile
in silence.
thank you for your wisdom.
The book I took that quote from is a great read. I'd recommend at least reading the section on silence and the human relationship to the larger natural world. I read that book long ago, but I came across it the other day.
I was mesmerized by that passage because I understood it in a deep way. My mind is chattering so often that I forget about deep silence, a silence that goes beyond the spaces between thoughts and words. Its much easier to experience that kind of silence if you've spent some extended time in nature. I live on a very non-quiet street, but I have experienced a deep silence in the city. Maybe that is why I love nights… it is so much more quiet at night.
That deep silence can be so life-changing. I spent almost a month in and out of it last January, and it penetrated to the core. Hard to describe what happened….. You are so right about nature being an assistant to that deep silence. Living in the middle of the woods where we do, it's somehow conducive to leading one there.
But, like you say, the nights also contain that element of quiet that leads to silent spaces beyond thoughts and words. You're lucky you can stay awake. I am one of those people that closes down almost completely at 10 p.m. and sleeps for 8-9 hours. So I miss all that beautiful night-time with all its gifts….except in the sleep and dream worlds. Thank you, Ben, for being You and offering your insights wherever you go.