June 2011 (Vol. XXIV, No. 6)

Anne Strader

Warm greetings, dear friends of silence!  We are having most unsettled weather here in Missouri in recent weeks, and in some ways it reflects what we must all feel at times in our lives.  You know the feeling: scattered, as though we were being pulled in too many directions at once and feeling too many claims on our time.  At such times, we may feel particularly unsettled and badly in need of healing, being knit back together into a calm serenity.  "Healing" can have many meanings, of course.   We think first of being cured of a disease, but there is a deeper and more holistic meaning of the word, too.  When we sink into the depths of ourselves in sacred silence, we find what we need to be truly healed, in ways our conscious minds may have not yet perceived.  May we experience the healing we need, in whatever form that may take, as we enter the silence together.

To embrace one's brokenness and to embrace one's healing

Robert Benson | June 2011 (Vol. XXIV, No. 6)

To embrace one's brokenness, whatever it looks like, whatever has caused it, carries within it the possibility that one might come to embrace one's healing, and then one might come to the next step: to embrace another and their brokenness and their possibility for being healed.  To avoid one’s brokenness is to turn one’s back on the possibility that the Healer might be at work here, perhaps for you, perhaps for another.

~ from LIVING PRAYER by Robert Benson

There is healing in the universe

Clair McDermott | June 2011 (Vol. XXIV, No. 6)

There is healing in the universe.
There is a fabric that holds things together.
When it is ready . . . in its own good time,
shall it not bind together . . . all of us?

~ from THE WAVE by Clair McDermott

Responding to suffering in ways as unique as their fingerprints

Rachel Naomi Remen | June 2011 (Vol. XXIV, No. 6)

At first I was surprised that people with the same disease had such very different stories.  Later I became deeply moved by these stories, by the people and the meaning they found in their problems, by the unsuspected strengths, the depths of love and devotion, the rich and human tapestry initiated by the pathology I was studying and treating. . .  These stories engaged me at another, more hidden point.  I too suffer from an illness . . .   I listened to human beings who were suffering, and responding to their suffering in ways as unique as their fingerprints.  Their stories were inspiring moving, important.  In time, the truth in them began to heal me.

~ from KITCHEN TABLE WISDOM by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.

The more I can love everything, the more health I am going to experience

Carl Simonton | June 2011 (Vol. XXIV, No. 6)

The more I can love everything -- the trees, the land, the water, my fellow men, women and children, and myself -- the more health I am going to experience and the more of myself I am going to be . . .

~ by Carl Simonton

Healing is the intuitive art of wooing nature

W. H. Auden | June 2011 (Vol. XXIV, No. 6)

"Healing," Papa would tell me, "is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature."

~ by W. H. Auden

The best chance to be whole is to love whatever gets in the way

Mark Nepo | June 2011 (Vol. XXIV, No. 6)

Underneath all we are taught, there is a voice that calls to us beyond what is reasonable, and in listening to that flicker of spirit, we often find deep healing.  This is the voice of embodiment calling us to live our lives like sheet music played, and it often speaks to us briefly in moments of deep crisis.  Sometimes it is so faint we mistake its whisper for wind through leaves.  But taking it into the heart of our pain, it can often open the paralysis of our lives. . . . the best chance to be whole is to love whatever gets in the way, until it ceases to be an obstacle.

~ rom THE BOOK OF AWAKENING by Mark Nepo

Healing is a journey deep within oneself

Diane Mariechild | June 2011 (Vol. XXIV, No. 6)

Healing is a journey deep within oneself -- a search for soul, the essence of the self.  It seeks to balance the inner and outer worlds to connect and to integrate.  Healing is the reuniting of the body, mind and spirit.

~ from MOTHER WIT by Diane Mariechild

Healing is embracing what is most feared

Jean Achterberg | June 2011 (Vol. XXIV, No. 6)

Healing is embracing what is most feared;
healing is opening what has been closed,
softening what has hardened into obstruction,
healing is learning to trust life.

~ by Jean Achterberg

The pure raw heart has the power to heal the world

Jack Kornfield and C. Trungpa | June 2011 (Vol. XXIV, No. 6)

When you awaken your heart, you find to your surprise that your heart is empty.  If you search for the awakened heart, there is nothing but tenderness.  You feel sore and soft, and if you open your eyes to the rest of the world, you feel tremendous sadness.  It occurs because your heart is completely open, exposed.  It is the pure raw heart that has the power to heal the world.

~ by C. Trungpa in A PATH WITH HEART by Jack Kornfeld

He lives long who enjoys life and bears no jealousy of others

Shirali Mislimov | June 2011 (Vol. XXIV, No. 6)

I was never in a hurry in my life.  He lives long who enjoys life and bears no jealousy of others, whose heart harbors no malice or anger, who sings a lot and cries a little, who rises and retires with the sun, who likes to work, and who knows how to rest.

~ by Shirali Mislimov (166-year-old man)

Healing does not necessarily mean to become physically well

Richard Carlson and Elizabeth Kubler-Ross | June 2011 (Vol. XXIV, No. 6)

Healing does not necessarily mean to become physically well or to be able to get up and walk around again.  Rather, it means achieving a balance between the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions. . . .  At the end of their lives [five-year-old children with leukemia] they have little or no pain.  They are emotionally sound, and on an intellectual level they can share things it is almost impossible to believe could come from a child.  To me this is a healing, although they are not well from our earthly point of view.

~ from Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in HEALERS ON HEALING by Richard Carlson

Healing is bringing oneself into harmony with the universe

Odaugh Shanley Toffolo | June 2011 (Vol. XXIV, No. 6)

Healing is bringing oneself into harmony with the universe and the Divine creative force.  It makes us whole and happy, content . . . and happiness is heaven.

~ by Odaugh Shanley Toffolo

Healing is not forcing the sun to shine

Stephen and Ondrea Levine | June 2011 (Vol. XXIV, No. 6)

Healing is not forcing the sun to shine, but letting go of that which blocks the light.

~ by Stephen and Ondrea Levine

Healing is more than eliminating disease symptoms

Nathaniel Altman | June 2011 (Vol. XXIV, No. 6)

Healing is more than eliminating disease symptoms; it is a process of achieving wholeness, alignment, and integration that encompasses every level of our being.  Healing encourages self-awareness and enables us to express our unique potential more fully in our work, study, and relationships with ourselves and others.  The healing journey not only helps us connect to our own inner rhythms, but also brings us closer to our spiritual nature and the world around us.

~ from SACRED WATER by Nathaniel Altman