Mystics and contemplatives offer a perspective on resurrection that seems to mirror their own experiences of illumination and unity. They tell us that perhaps regeneration is effected through a profound state of self-reflection, possible only to those who have become transparent to transcendence and are coded by that experience with a quality of eternity that does not, cannot, die with death. This implies that a new order has been created within spirit, within nature, within the soul, within the meaning and matter of history. Here we move out beyond miracle into the heart of mystery, and consciousness grows into the capacity for co-creation with God. The world turns a corner, and true partnership between divine and human realms becomes possible.
The power of silence should not be underestimated. Nor should the power of words. Language shapes silence; it give silence rhythm, pitch and texture. When words become embodied in beings, they become the ornaments and reminders of silence. Silence is the ground. Language and words bring "things" into "being" out of the emptiness. What carries the Word is breath. Words are Spirit transmuted into substance... Without holy speech, the boundaries of the world shrink, and humans are left in a wasteland outside the web of great nature. Without silence, we cannot hear the voices of all beings.
Many are avidly seeking but they alone find who remain in continual silence... Those who delight in a multitude of words, even though they say admirable things, are empty within. If you love truth, be a lover of silence. Silence like the sunlight will illuminate you in God and will deliver you from the phantoms of ignorance. Silence will unite you to God... More than all things, love silence; it brings you a fruit that tongue cannot describe. In the beginning we have to force ourselves to be silent. But then there is born something that draws us to silence... If you only practice this, untold light will dawn on you in consequence. After a while a certain sweetness is born in the heart of this exercise and the body is drawn almost by force to remain in silence.
Genuine silence may proclaim that truth is not in the last analysis an idea or a proposition but a reality greater than any argument or matter of speech.
It was said that Abba Agathon lived for three years carrying a stone in his mouth until he had learned to keep silence.
Listen to the silence, for the silence is alive. It speaks through the darkness with a whisper.
Close your eyes and you will see clearly
Cease to listen and you will hear truth
Be silent and your heart will sing
Seek no contact and you will find union
Be still and you will move forward
on the tide of spirit.
Be gentle and you will need no strength
Be patient and you will achieve all things
Be humble and you will remain entire.
~ from THE BOOK OF RUNES with thanks to Anne Strader
GREETINGS, dear friends, and BLESSINGS be yours. A CALL to silence, a meditation network for peace and healing of our world, invites people of all traditions, cultures and religions to participate in a week of reverencing the Silence -- May 7-11th. For, at the heart of silence there is peace, there is our essential being, there is the Holy One. This silence of love, trust, friendship and mutual respect bonds us together. Friends, in the Silence, may we offer ourselves as bearers of peace.
Grandfather continued, "Beyond the island of ego, the prison, lies the world of the spirit-that-moves-in-all-things, the force that is found in all things. It is a world that communicates to all entities of Creation and touches the Creator ... a world that expands our universe and helps us fuse ourselves to the earth... There is a bridge, which I call the 'Sacred Silence', that not only brings one to the ultimate purity of the spiritual mind and opens a clear communication, but also transports one to those worlds beyond the island of flesh... The pure mind is a common truth to all philosophies and religions, so the Sacred Silence, is found in all philosophies, though it is called by another name. That name is meditation.
What struck me most was the silence. It was a great silence, unlike any I have ever encountered on Earth, so vast and deep that I began to hear my own body... There were more stars in the sky than I expected. The sky was deep black, yet at the same time bright with sunlight. The Earth was small, light blue, and so touchingly alone, our home that must be defended like a holy relic.
It is time to touch the Silence, to become one with nature and other people. When we go into the Silence, we learn to hear the rhythm of the great Mystery, the heartbeat of Earth. Going into the Silence, we learn to be alone with our thoughts:
To hear the Silence
To listen and to see the Silence
To listen and to taste the Silence
And, with closed eyes, to feel the Silence.
It is in quiet moments that we find our heartbeats. When we let go and search the dark warmth of our silence, we feel the rhythmic beat of the Earth vibrating, flowing toward us.
~ from THE MOON IN HAND: A MYSTICAL PASSAGE by Eclipse
My heart leaps out of my mouth at the sound of the winds in the woods. I, whose life was but yesterday so desultory and shallow, suddenly recover my spirits, my spirituality, through my hearing... Ah! if I could so live that there would be no desultory moments ... I would walk, I would sit and sleep, with natural piety. What if I could pray aloud, or to myself, as I went along by the brookside, a cheerful prayer, like the birds! And then, to think of those I love, who will know that I love them, though I tell them not ... I thank you, God. I do not deserve anything ... and yet the world is gilded for my delight ... my path is strewn with flowers... O keep my senses pure!
~ Thoreau, in THE SPIRITUAL ATHLETE edited by Ray Berry
softly in the whispering of the wind ...
sweetly in the melodies of the songbird ...
peacefully in the rustling of the leaves ... and,
lovingly in ways that touch your heart.
In the country it seems as if every tree said to me "Holy! Holy!"
Who can give complete expression to the ecstasy of the woods!
O, the sweet stillness of the woods!
A chief must never forget the Creator, never forget to ask for help. The Creator will guide our thoughts and strengthen us as we work to be faithful to our sacred trust and restore harmony among all peoples, all living creatures, and Mother Earth. We were instructed to carry a love for one another and to show great respect for all the beings of this earth. In our ways, spiritual consciousness is the highest form of politics. When people cease to respect and express gratitude for these many things, then all life will be destroyed... These are our times and our responsibilities. Every human being has a sacred duty to protect the welfare of our Mother Earth, from whom all life comes. In order to do this, we must recognize the enemy -- the one within us. We must begin with ourselves.
~ Leon Shenandoah, in WISDOM KEEPERS by Steve Wall and Harvey Arden
I walked out onto a dock in the Gulf of Mexico. I ceased to exist. I experienced being a part of the sea breeze, the movement of the water and the fish, the light rays cast by the sun, the colors of the palms and tropical flowers. I had no sense of past or future. It was not a particularly blissful experience; it was terrifying. It was the kind of ecstatic experience I'd invested a lot of energy in avoiding. I did not experience myself as the SAME as the water, the wind, and the light, but as participating with them in the SAME SYSTEM of movement. We were all dancing together.
I part the out thrusting branches
and come in beneath
the blessed and the blessing trees.
Though I am silent
there is singing around me.
Though I am dark
there is vision around me.
Though I am heavy
there is flight around me.
In the point of rest at the center of our being, we encounter a world where all things are at rest in the same way. Then a tree becomes a mystery, a cloud a revelation, each person a cosmos of whose riches we can only catch glimpses. The life of simplicity is simple, but it opens to us a book in which we never get beyond the first syllable.
BLESSINGS, friends, in this new season! Spring invites us to renewal, to be born anew into the wholeness of our potential. Spring calls us to touch the Earth ... to awaken to Nature's budding grandeur ... to become silent enough to hear seeds bursting, bird symphony and our own inner aspirations.
The movement of God's Spirit is very gentle, very soft -- and hidden. It does not seek attention. But that movement is also very persistent, strong and deep. It changes our hearts radically. The faithful discipline of prayers reveals to you that you are the blessed one and gives you the power to bless others.
~ from THE ESSENTIAL HENRI NOUWEN by Henri Nouwen and Robert A. Jonas
I believe that Spirit is one and is everywhere present. That it never leaves me. That in my ignorance I may withdraw from it, but I can realize its presence the instant I return to my senses... My faith is tested many times a day, and more times than I'd like to confess, I'm unable to keep the banner for faith aloft... I begin to doubt God and God's love. I fall so miserably into the chasm of disbelief that I cry out in despair. Then the Spirit lifts me up again, and once more I am secured in faith. I don't know how it happens, save when I cry out earnestly I am answered immediately and am returned to faithfulness. I am once again filled with Spirit and firmly planted on solid ground.
~ from WOULDN'T TAKE NOTHING FOR MY JOURNEY NOW by Maya Angelou
Stand firm in what you yourself believe. Hold to your own conviction of the Truth above any other source... The truth that is YOUR truth is written on the scrolls of your heart, for there too abides the Living God. Seek only to LIVE that truth, to hold your own light high so that those who grope in darkness may see, and to tread the path that you believe your life has set before you. If you remain true to yourself, if you believe in the right, and if you place your hand into the hand of God, then no evil, no lasting sorrow, and no permanent pain will ever befall you.
To be in harmony does not mean that upheaval and upset don't occur, but that their very occurrence is used, fully used, as a gift of purification that leaves one in a deeper harmony with the dictates of one's core of being. Implicit in this is trust, open-eyed trust... True trust obeys no moral code, however archaistic. It is but the unexploitable, awakened faith of one who has left the promises of the mind for the already-present glory of their heartland. It is a joy, a fertile brilliance, a holy renewal, a yes that has room for every no, a yes both paradoxical and devastatingly simple, a yes wherein the elements dance and die, a yes aflame with the transcendence of blame, a yes already alive in you.
~ from THE WAY OF THE LOVER by Robert Augustus Masters
Only the Spirit of the Holy One can impart to the human spirit the knowledge of the holy. Yet as electric power flows only through a conductor, so the Spirit flows through Truth and must find some measure of Truth in the mind before It can illuminate the heart. Faith wakes at the voice of truth but responds to no other sound... Still, there must be humble penitence in the heart before Truth can produce faith.
