"Peacemakers who sow in peace
raise a harvest of righteousness" (James 3:18)
We lay down our seeds in the dark.
Spring has been exceptionally cold
this year. Reluctant daffodils
have done little to convince me.
But we do the work of the faithful
farmer, rising in the pre-dawn hours.
It is a chosen hiddenness, a subtle
stretching over time, ear bent to listen
to the ground, ready for instruction.
Slow rhythmic movements are best.
Sometimes we simply show up,
holding borrowed pain, applying tears
or not. With a gentle
but demanding attention
to detail, we prepare the soil.
We plant. We wait.
~ Nancy Thomas from "Secret Sowers" in CLOSE TO THE GROUND
According to Celtic spiritual tradition, the soul shines all around the boy like a luminous cloud. When you are very open – appreciative and trusting – with another person, your two souls flow together. This deeply felt bond with another person means you have found an ANAM CARA or "soul friend." Your ANAM CARA always beholds your light and beauty, and accepts you for who you truly are.
We allow loss of soul awareness at our own peril and that of humanity and planet Earth! We can only become authentic individuals by attending to our souls throughout our lives.
If we want to support each other's inner lies, we must remember a simple truth. The human soul does not want to be fixed, it wants simply to be seen and heard. If we want to see and hear a person's soul, there is another truth we must remember. The soul is like a wild animal – tough, resilient, and yet shy. When we go crashing through the woods shouting for it to come out so we can help it, the soul will stay in hiding. But if we are willing to sit quietly and wait for a while, the soul may show itself.
WELCOME to the myriad songs of summer, dear friends! May you awaken to the place of peace where you begin to hear Love's song -- the still, sacred space of Silence within your own welcomin gheart. Listen to your soul-song uniting in harmony with creation's song: the Universal Symphony!
Birds inspire and uplift us with their carols... In the muslc of both birds and humans, beauty is "the wine which overflows." When the last lark has fallen silent, something holy will have vanished from the world. The chorus of life will be muted. The cathedral of the earth will have lost its choir.
Music is a DISCIPLINED feeling, sound given form and pattern through number and rhythm – the single sound of the universe bringing consciousness through incarnation in music to the inner ear of the soul . As a woman, it is the masculine creative spirit within, who brings me the sound of the music of God – unlike man, who hears it through the numinous feminine within. God's music unites all.
~ from SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS ARE MADE ON by Helen Luke
Once a visiting musician said to me in an empty auditorium, "Play, and listen to the silence between the notes. The silence between the notes is as important as the music itself." Enhanced by the emptiness, the sound of my flute soared over the space and sang back from the far wall. But the sílences where I paused to breathe were even more lovely and articulate, creating a wholeness I had not perceived before. The silence shaped itself to the voice of the flute. The loveliness of the music depended upon my saying "yes" to the silence between my notes.
To listen to music or to sing a chant is to do something that has no practical purpose; it is just celebration and praise; it is just tasting the joy and beauty of life, the glory of God. Listening to it, even in the midst of a very purposeful day, reminds us to add the other dimension to our experience, the dimension of meaning, that makes it all worthwhile.
The formless, what is that? As a pianist, I can best begin to understand through the study of piano music: notes on a page, each one to be taken hold of by the fingers and made to sing. One learns to listen, to seek the composer's intention, to try to recapture the tempo; to give attention to every note, however small, and to love each silence... Music is a transmission from one person to another, a deepening of understanding, and an awakening to the sense of beauty and order which lives deep inside us.
When I used to compose music, I'd sit for ages squeezing it out of myself; I made a huge effort, drove myself. But there was nothing like that this time. It was like music pouring out by itself. It was like the desire to sing – and I sang, the desire to pray – and I prayed. Do you remember?
The abbot said: "Let it come through you like something that doesn't belong to you."
The rock vibrates, the air is riven Like ripe fruit splayed on a summer's day The bird's song is used to call a mate, Warn of danger, find a nest... If you listen you will hear our Universal music on the street, in the air. It is not the splitting of reeds, The thrumming of strings, The thrusting of air, or tambour of skins. It is the passion and yearning to fully become that which we already are. To reach out and express... to become connected and more whole. Erase the din of noise and hear the music. It is all around.
One of the things he liked most about the hermitage was the silence. "Silence is my music now." He could pick up the small sounds of insects and animals. Sometimes when the wind was strong, it blew the sound of the traffic to him. He liked to think of all the people going on with their lives and to think of himself as in a sense staying where he was for their sakes, "like a lighthouse keeper."
~ from "The Music of Silence" by Phyllis Rose in Atlantic Monthly" - Oct. 1997
Nadia Boulanger once described a Menuhin recital: He gave a number of encores, and the last was the slow movement of Brahm's Sonata in D minor. What happened then was part of an indescribable completeness. The whole house found itself in the grip of the same mute emotion, which created silence of an extraordinary quality. Everyone understood, felt, participated in what he himself must have been feeling." Menuhin has always possessed this quality. Even as a child, his playing had an innate innocence (which is still intact) that made Einstein declare that, hearing him play, he knew there was a God.
I think, to a poet, the human community is like the
community of birds to a bird, singing to each other.
Love is one of the reasons we are singing to one another,
love of language itself, love of sound, love of singing
itself, and love of the other birds.
My spiritual heritage included the weekly hymn by P. P. Bliss which continues to come to mind:
Sing them over again to me, Wonderful words of Life. Let me more of their beauty see, Wonderful words of Life. Words of Life and Beauty Teach me faith and duty: Beautiful words, wonderful words, Wonderful words of Life.
The mystery of the voice and its potent transformative sounds may be experienced int he wonderful words of life, the tuning and vibration of the sacred breath, and the roaring silence of internal thought.
SPRING BLESSINGS! dear friends. A brief meditation, if you wish:
In the silence, repeat your name to yourself a few times ... reall the different feelings of being alled by name over the years: by family members ... teachers ... friends ... nicknames ... titles ... changes of name. Listen. Imagine God, the Beloved of your heart (whateer name you all the Unnameable Mystery) calling you by name ... Silently bask in this naming as a way of honoring your name and the Name.
We are uniquely loved more than we can imagine; each one of us is known and called by name. How we respond is up to us.
Know who you are. Do not debase the name. Carry it in your heart, a root flame of love. Walk through the world in silence. The moment will come. The sign will be a soft, stirring of wings, a gold shimmer of air.
A name ís an important word with meaning and energy that identifies someone or something. Our names bring certain patterns to our lives and have the capacity to forge our destinies. A name is also used as a way of entering into a person's world, wisdom, or life ... a code ingrained is us that allows us, when it is called, to remember, recognize and respond to our purpose.
There are many truths that do not have a name. Truths do not need names. But we do. We notice truths with names much more easily than truths we have not yet named, and naming is a way of realizing a truth that we had not noticed before