If your spirit is not fit to see the Beloved, neither will your heart be a bright mirror, fit to reflect love. It is true that no eye is able to contemplate and marvel at Love's beauty, nor is it capable of understanding; one can no feel toward the Beloved as one feels toward the beauty of this world. But by abounding Grace, we have been given a mirror to reflect the Beloved, and this mirror is the heart. Look into your heart and there you will see Love's image.
~ from THE CONFERENCE OF THE BIRDS by Farid ud-Din Attar and Afkham Darbandi
Hear me, You who have power to make grow! Guide the people that they may be as blossoms on your holy tree. Make it flourish deep in Mother Earth and make it full of leaves and singing birds.
We are, each of us, passive participants in an explosion still in progress. The sparks continue to fly, and in its rhythm, the universe is still expanding from that ancient blast. We are, as they say, star dust, by-products of the Big Bang. In this light, everything is connected, all creation evolving from the same Source, in a process which continues. We are kin to the stars, part of a universal family.
Those who have eyes to see will discern the message of eternity in the spring breeze when it becomes visible in the roses and herbs: invisible waves of roses, hidden in the breeze, required the medium of the earth to reveal themselves to the material human eye, just as the human beings innate qualities must be revealed by his or her actions. The spirit needs matter in order to become visible; thus every leaf is a messenger from the realm of nonexistene, and talks with its long hands and fresh green tongue of the creative power of God.
This is my work, To keep this world green, Keep it all green. I began in the East, to help my friends. I keep this world green, Keep it beautiful. I begin to fill the creeks, To wet everything, Keep it beautiful and green, I begin in the East, Make everything beautiful! That is my work.
As I stood with the sun on the summit of the modest mountain peak, the solar orb became a catalyst for my encounter with the Divine. As often appears in myth, the sun became the conveyance for God. It ushered me into the Divine Presence through its powerful symbolic function, its archetypal capacity to represent the one. I was overcome as I stood alone before the Divine. I was seized by the Presence communicated through the sudden appearance of the sun. It carried me into an intense awareness of the Divine's utter reality. I knew then why I had made this journey, and the peace it conveyed remains with me to this day.
EVERY BLESSING, dear friends! Breath is out of the Spirit ... breath is lie. May we all pause in the Silence during the day, if awake at night, to breathe in PEACE ... to breahte out PEACE to every nation on earth.
Breath and attention to breath are keys to self-emptying. Attending to the breath will carry you beyond the distractions of the mind and return you to the Greater Unity of God from which you arise and in which you dwell. Just as God breathed life into Creation, so God breathes into each one of us at this and every moment. Follow the breath back to God.
