The Spirit's Compass : Rays of the Timeless Sun

What lies beyond the veil of waking life
This mortal frame cannot begin to know  
That cosmic dance outside our sphere is rife   
With mysteries too vast for minds to show  

Upon what distant shore does consciousness alight
When sleep unmoors it from its earthly berth
Adrift along the tides of darkest night  
To realms unseen since life's primordial birth

What truth, what wisdom waits in hidden depths below   
For earnest minds that seek with patient care  
Plumbing imagination's vaults to grow
Enlightened, shedding dogmas that ensnare

But where to start this quest, which path leads to the core
When maze-like paths confront the wandering soul    
Each branching off in turn to thousands more
Winding through canyons vast beyond control   

Perchance a guide may come, some inner voice direct
Lead through the labyrinth with steady hand
Yet how to know its whispered words reflect
True course, not lure of mirage o'er the sand

For many claim to know the way, profess great light   
But blindly follow tracks themselves have laid  
Mired in their certitude and ego's might   
They lost, not found, in webs themselves have made

No guru holds the key, no scripture maps the trail    
No holy men nor sages have the road    
Alone, unsure, each hero must unveil  
Their path, for truth cannot be simply showed

From deep within must rise the seekers' light    
kindled to flames by life's unending quest       
To pierce the veils of ignorance and night
And blossom forth from spirit's silent rest

Each breath a step along the great unknown  
Heart's compass pointing through the trackless wild   
All progress made through faith in self alone    
The inward godseed nurtured as a child

By slowly tending garden of the soul  
Plucking up weeds of anger, pride and fear   
Cultivating buds of insight take their toll    
Still progress comes, redemption drawing near

For cycles pass and seasons turn in time   
And steadfast effort brings its rightful yield   
Hard-won lessons gleaned from reason's climb   
Feed wisdom's harvest in the higher field

Yet higher meaning hovers just beyond  
However far the journey takes its flight  
The end but leads to vistas yet undrawn   
New ruptures in our known reality

Each peak unveiled makes larger worlds outside   
The more we learn, more mysteries abound   
The quest goes on, horizons open wide   
New realms emerge, significance profound

For consciousness transcends all limits known  
Expands beyond all earthly schemas mapped  
Mind but a seed, cosmos thickly sown   
Beyond thought's grasp, imagination's capture

We scale great heights, plumb ocean depths for years  
Gathering fragments of life's mirrored face   
Still our small vessel on this sea of tears   
Bobs in the waves, MINUTE in time and space

Yet sense the immense presence deep within  
Though cloaked in flesh and bone and blood awhile   
A vital force connecting all things kin   
Threading diversity in generative style

Mere mortals gaze up at the starry dome  
And marvel at its vast unending reach   
Yet fail to see eternity's true home   
Lies not above but seeded in our breach  

All time's horizons, space's outer bounds   
Lie coiled within the spirit's compass rose   
All worlds, all possible realities sound  
In symphonies the eternal now composes  

So seek not heavens in some distant sky   
Nor spaces graced by saints beyond the veil   
Here, now, the sacred meanings glorify   
This breath, this heartbeat, knowing-without-fail.

What purpose does this fitful dream portend  
Flickering candle-flames soon snuffed away?
For what grand mission were our spirits sent
To dwell in flesh but for a breathing day?

Are we no more than motes to dance unseen
In sunlight rays through forest boughs that screen
The purpose of it all from minds too green
To grasp life's meaning though their hearts do lean

Toward some elusive end beyond the mire
That traps our chariots in adhesive gyre    
Of small concerns and never lifts us higher   
Than drying river beds parched of desire

Oh how the soul yearns to breathe the air   
Of higher realms beyond this mortal lair  
To cast off bindings that imprison bearers
Of cosmic spirit shackled by earthly cares
 
Yet answers lie below not in some over-soul    
Truth dwells within, in caverns of the whole    
Where essence meets existence, merges, melds    
Beyond divisions mind's deductions yield

No ladder leads from earth to distant stars    
No ascending path escapes what simply are      
Here and now the sacred truths leave all their scars  
To waken dreamers from their slumbering bars
 
How many lifetimes must this lesson take    
To watch the mind's illusions slowly brake    
Upon the rocks of living wide awake    
To what we are before all else we make

For we are beings unconstrained by time    
Vessels that shine with light sublime    
Seats of awareness frothing forth like rhyme    
Across the cosmos in delighted chime
 
The worlds arise and fall on waves unseen    
That stir the One to don the many skins    
Of forms that bide a while, then shatter gleams    
Of brilliance into shards whencess it begins

On and on and on the dance of life    
The rhythms ripple through with joy and strife   
As suns explode in brilliant bursts of light    
And laughing children play in tender nights
 
We are the stuff of stars and dust of dreams    
No speck too small, no galaxy too grand    
Not to reveal the spirit that gleams    
Behind all skies, within each grain of sand

Awaken, wake from slumber deep within    
And know these worlds their meaning mythic spin    
Are but the shadows cast by light unseen    
The timeless sun blazing through all beings.

We are that sun, its rays refracted through    
The prism forms that split pure light in two    
That truth and beauty ever shine anew    
The one made many, clothed in me and you.