The Practice

Maria Rippo — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 14:10:30 GMT

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Beloved
You sat on the cushion of stillness,
calling it your practice.

You bowed to silence,
to breath,
to the steady rhythm of your own devotion.

You said, I want to awaken.
You said, I want liberation.

And so Love smiled,
and invited you into Her ancient teaching:
The practice is hidden in plain sight.

The weather in your heart,
the waves of your longing,
the sting of betrayal —
each one is a holy verse.

You thought enlightenment would arrive
with the hush of meditation,
but the Beloved was whispering
through your devastation,
your fear,
your hunger to be special.

Every sigh,
every ache,
every tremor of the ego
is Love handing you the practice.

You sat,
thinking practice was stillness.
But She laughs now —
for the real practice is ever in motion:
the breath of life breathing you,
the breaking,
the writhing,
the utter despair,
the surrender,
the remembering.

Each moment,
the Beloved
lovingly offering you the perfect practice
For what you have sought – revelation, freedom.

You search for the hidden,
yet the Truth stands naked in the marketplace,
singing your name.

The mind conceals what the heart knows.
Every. Single. Moment.
is the Teacher.
Every gesture,
a doorway.
Every encounter,
a chance to receive
Your heart’s deep desire.

The cushion was never the practice.
It was always the preparation —
a remembering
of how to open your palms
when Life offers Her fierce, tender gift.

So now,
when Love arrives disguised as chaos,
bow.
When She comes as peace,
bow.
When She tears the veil from your eyes,
bow deeper.

For there is nothing to seek.
The practice has always been
this:
To let Love practice you.

Raudri (Maria Rippo)

Broken Open

Maria Rippo — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:34:47 GMT

Broken Open

There comes a moment
after the shattering
when the noise of grief quiets
and the heart begins to settle.

You look down
expecting ruin—
and find the ground
warm and breathing.

I thought my heart
had broken into a thousand pieces.
But it was only the shell
that had grown too small for the light.

Love struck it
against the stone of truth
until it cracked—
and what spilled out
was not destruction,
but fragrance.

Do you know this secret?
When the heart breaks open,
it becomes earth.

Fertile.
Dark.
Ready.

What we mourn as ending
can be a doorway.

A narrow passage
through which only the essential
can pass.

Nothing false survives the crossing.
No borrowed stories.
No rehearsed hopes.
No ideas of how life
or people
were supposed to be.

All of that
was too heavy
to carry through the fire.

On the other side
there was no promise—
only Life
as She is.

Radiant and ruthless.
Tender and unbearable.
A Beauty
that wounds
and heals
in the same breath.

To be given a body
is to be invited
into the whole feast—
the sweetness,
the bitter herbs,
the wine that loosens the tongue of the soul.

Do not run from the table
when the taste is too strong.
Love is not careless
with what She serves.

For the magic you seek
does not live in comfort.
It appears
only when you can sit
in the tension of opposites
without fleeing.

The seed knows this.
It agrees to the dark.
It lets itself be split open
by that which allows it’s emergence.

Only then
does it rise.

I have lived inside this passage
for two years—
between what was
and what could not yet be named.

And now
I feel the stirring.

What must fall away
is loosening its grip.
What has waited patiently
is beginning to breathe.

So I offer to the fire
what no longer belongs to me.
Old shapes.
Old loyalties.
Old griefs
that have finished their work.

I make room.

Come, Life—
enter freely.

What is true remains
What is alive, remembers.

May my heart dance in the magic—

Whole

Open and

Free.

Raudri (Maria Rippo)

Maria Rippo: The Poetry of Raudri

The Practice

Broken Open