June 2026
In our June issue, we’re offering descriptions of the indescribable through the art of poetry.
Poetry, as an art form, translates the poet’s experiences into words that evoke. A poet might use metaphor, rhythm, or imagery to point toward something rather than pin it down with precise explanation. It’s less like a definition and more like an echo.
In poetry, cadence, repetition, and pauses can mirror the reader’s or listener’s feelings directly, almost like music. Poems can create an experience in the reader that elicits the original feeling. The poetry in this June mini magazine seeks to relay and evoke an experience or “echo” of the transcendent.
The transcendent can occur in ones awareness during the Transcendental Meditation technique: the mind settles to quieter and quieter levels of its own activity and then simply slips beyond mental activity to the simplest state of consciousness, silent inner Being, beyond thought—the transcendent. The Self is awake within, non-active, resting.
During TM, while the transcendental value of consciousness is dominant in awareness, the body is in an extremely deep state of rest, with low respiration rates, low heart rate, low stress-related hormones, increased hormones that support well-being, and so forth. At the same time, the functioning of the brain is uniquely holistic and orderly, or coherent.
Our usual daily experience is a spontaneous identification with the ever changing external phenomena of our lives—for example, as a single or married woman, a student, a mother, a professional, a happy or sad person, etc. In contrast, the transcendental value of unbounded, expanded consciousness is constant, consistent and eternal. Nothing overshadows it.
If you have already learned the Transcendental Meditation technique, this all probably sounds familiar to you. If you haven’t, these poems might give you a glimpse of it. Enjoy!
- Last month’s blog written by women for women
- Poetry by women who practice the TM technique:
- Ann Purcell
- Susan Watterson
- Sasha Parmasad
- Poetry by classically acclaimed poets
- What women say: peaceful paradise
Blog posts
Have you had a few minutes to read our two May blog posts? If you haven’t, the links are below. You can also visit our blog homepage to use our search feature to find articles on a range of interesting topics as diverse as Countering ADHD: From Girlhood to Womanhood from 2025 and This Summer, Let TM for Women be Your Travel Guide to the Ultimate Stay-cation from 2016.
What Your Child Will Get out of Transcendental Meditation
You love your children—they are the sun and the moon and the stars. But sometimes they have difficulties you don’t know how to address successfully. Fortunately, children, as early as age 10, can learn and practice Transcendental Meditation easily in the same way adults are taught. This article discusses what they (and their parents) can derive from the TM technique.
Maharishi: The Family of Nations
“When we look into the possibility of developing a united nation, unity of all nations, what we find is that unity of nations can only be secured on a permanent basis if the procedure of the development of the individual nation develops the nation in a universal breath. The individual dignity of the nation grows, and in the process of that growth the individual nation becomes capable of maintaining its own stability at the same time, and becomes more and more capable of adaptation for the environmental values of other nations.”
Contemporary Poetry
Transcendence by Ann Purcell
Streams of thoughts,
more thoughts—torrents of thoughts,
less thoughts, more stillness,
more stillness, fainter thoughts
Being—no thoughts.
Darkness swells into light.
Stillness moves, ripples on a lake
which swell into waves.
Light breaks into particles
a thousand points of light everywhere
a sparkling sea,
an ocean in motion.
Waves settle down—
pure immovability.
Silence takes form.
Its structure reveals itself.
Points of light
open into frequencies—
gently humming sound particles.
Total absorption.
The only word to describe this
is
bliss.
Consciousness Calling by Susan Watterson
Whatever we feel is consciousness calling.
All we see, all we do, is following
the sacred call of our Essence.
In every intent, it whispers “Transcend”,
and in the transcendent repeats “Transcend again.”
We travel from non-change to change and back till
both together give life to the other, like a loving friend.
That Self refraction, a cosmic fractal, off springs Self-interaction
of virtual reverberations, appearing diverse.
It stirs consciousness into bits of Self observation
that build into patterns, imagined yet impassioned.
Abstraction becomes tactile with all things possible, as if enacted,
but floating in singularity
with no pangs of separation, no need for reparation.
Nothing is created or destroyed, or alone. Nothing ever leaves home.
All possible perspectives are present by Self-reflection,
so nothing is ever done. The one is forever many, the many forever one.
But Consciousness is like a snuggling Mother.
Not content to be transcendent, It must hug and be hugged. It is Divine. It is Love.
Attending its every viewpoint as tiny tots, whether galaxy or dust,
It adores every dot of omnipresence and calls it darling.
The motionless ocean has, to its every sparkling drop, been restored,
collapsed so the Abstract is grasped, the Invisible is seen.
Silence is heard; Stillness is felt;
Holiness is prized; Consciousness is realized.
It even hides its cosmic reality, so to experience individuality.
It calls us darling, and entreats us through whatever we do
until we know It as our Self, our Truth.
Evolution is Grace, moving us, all bits of Consciousness,
through tidbits of happiness till each, bit by bit, transmits to find
Infinity… the tumult of our life
held in Divinity.
NoPoem by Sasha Parmasad
This space is always here.
This is what is present
right now
always.
I am this eternal space
not what appears
in it
no matter what appears.
Classical Poetry
Though earth and man were gone,
And suns and universes cease to be,
And Thou were left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee.
There is not room for Death,
Nor atom that his might could render void:
Thou—Thou art Being and Breath,
And what Thou art may never be destroyed.
An excerpt from
Lines Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth
And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.
An excerpt from “Xinxin Ming” (Inscription on Faith in Mind) by Sengcan
Develop a mind of equanimity,
And all deeds are put to rest.
Anxious doubts are completely cleared.
Right faith is made upright.
Nothing lingers behind,
Nothing can be remembered.
Bright and empty, functioning naturally,
The mind does not exert itself.
It is not a place of thinking,
Difficult for reason and emotion to fathom.
In the Dharma Realm of true suchness,
There is no other, no self.
Formatted in modern poetic line breaks from the “visionary poetic writing”
of Hildegard von Bingen
Humanity,
take a good look at yourself.
Inside, you’ve got
heaven and earth,
and all of creation.
You’re a world—
everything is hidden in you.
Dig into yourself,
for there is a fountain
inside you.
Never stop
probing the well.
Within you
the earth is sustained
by an unseen life.
Jalal ad-Din Rumi (Rumi often describes dissolving into a vast, unbounded presence):
Look inside yourself.
Everything that you want,
you already are.
Laozi (traditionally credited) from the Tao Te Ching
Zero is the incomprehensible number of truth: Everywhere and nowhere.
Conceptual Nothingness, though more real than real, is beyond the limits of the human mind.
Zero and Nothingness are full of energy and intelligence, but cannot be described.
From This Nothingness, all of this Creation arose.
The Nothing is Something, but beyond thought.
From this Zero has all we see hear touch smell taste hear ponder come.
Zero is not the zero the seeker thought.
Zero overtakes the one who has dropped the ego.
There are celestial realms, but they are also borne of Nothingness.
The Secret of Nothingness is that it is everything and much more.
Zero.
Rabindranath Tagore from Gitanjali
The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world…
What women say
“TM has been transformative. I had been struggling with severe anxiety attacks and instead of reaching for therapists or pills, I reached out to a certified Transcendental Meditation teacher.
I thought I was quite literally going to die. I hadn’t slept in days, my anxiety was draining every ounce of energy I had, and there was no life left in my eyes. I was skeptical—so very skeptical. My anxiety had bested me, thrown me completely off my equilibrium and beyond all logic. But my TM teacher was just there, calm and still. So I sat and listened as she reminded me that TM is a simple practice that takes no effort. We practiced together, and for the first time in weeks, I felt at peace.
It may sound simple—but that’s exactly what TM is. A simple practice to clear the stress out of our busy daily lives. TM has turned my life into a peaceful paradise, and I couldn’t have done it without the teacher.
TM is now part of my daily routine—twice a day, no matter what. I’ve never slept better or felt so clear-headed. It’s been so transformative that I’ve introduced my friends and family to it too.
I practice TM because it allows me to show up—for myself and for the people I love—as the best possible version of me. If you want life to feel like your own peaceful paradise, start practicing TM.”
Editor’s note: We’d love to hear your comments on the benefits you’ve received from the TM practice. And, with your permission, we’ll publish them here for other women to enjoy. Send your comment to info@tm-women.org
