Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our Life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home...
Your Light alone -- like mists o'er mountains driven,
Or music by the night-wind sent
Through strings of some still instrument,
Or moonlight on a midnight stream,
Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream.
Carl Hammerschlag relates a healing interaction he had with a very ill old Pueblo priest and clan chief, whom he was treating in the hospital:
Suddenly, there was this beautiful smile, and he asked me, "Where did you learn to heal?"
Although I assumed my academic credentials would mean little to the old man, I responded almost by rote, rattling off my medical education, internship and certification.
Again the beatific smile and another question: "Do you know how to dance?"
... I answered that, sure, I liked to dance; and I shuffled a little at his bedside. Santiago chuckled, got out of bed, and short of breath, began to show me his dance.
"You must be able to dance if you are to heal people," he said.
"And will you teach me your steps?" I asked, indulging the aging priest.
Santiago nodded. "Yes, I can teach you my steps, but you will have to hear your own music.”
~ from THE DANCING HEALERS by Carl A. Hammerschlag with thanks to Elaine Simard
May I become hollow like the reed, so You may play your melody through me.
For I long to be attuned to the great Song of the Cosmos,
to know the song of inner praise!
O, that I might hear the divine melody within my soul
and give birth to a dancing star!
... we overlook so many joys, so many hidden treasures, when we hurry from place to place, person to person, experience to experience, with little attention anywhere. All that matters passes before us now, at this moment. It has been said the greatest gift we can give one another is rapt attention; additionally, living life fully attentive to the breezes, the colors, the sorrows and joys as well, is the most prayerful response any of us can make in this life.
~ from Each Day a New Beginning: Daily Meditations for Women by Karen Casey
Sometimes little forgotten souls may need to pour out their hearts from sheer empty loneliness. Blessed is the one who is called to listen to their tales with an understanding heart, for love and light. Often just the call to sit quietly and listen may be the power of bestowing the most divine benediction of all. The gift of listening with an understanding heart is a divine gift to be developed by all. For, it is the listening heart that is prepared for the full outpouring of the gift of light. It is the listening heart alone that can hear the voice of God.
If the heart wanders or is distracted, bring it back to the point quite gently -- and even if you do nothing during the whole of your prayer but bring your heart back, though it went away every time you brought it back, your time would be very well employed.
"Ah!" He seemed to be pleased. "Is it the Great Silence you want?"
"Yes, the Great Silence."
"Well, where do you think it's to be found?" he asked.
"Deep within me, I suppose. If only I could go deep within, I'm sure I'd escape the noise at last. But it's hard. Will you help me?" I knew he would. I could feel his concern, and his spirit was so silent.
"Well, I've been there," he answered. "I spent years going in. I did taste the silence there. But one day, Jesus came -- maybe it was my imagination -- and said to me simply, 'Come, follow me.' I went out, and I've never gone back."
I was stunned. "But the silence ..."
"I've found the Great Silence, and I've come to see that the noise was all inside.
~ from TALES OF A MAGIC MONASTERY by Theophane the Monk
Listen, if you can stand to.
Union with the Friend means not being who you've been,
Being instead silence: A place: A view
Where language is inside seeing.
Who are You, sweet Light, who inundate me and enlighten me and enlighten the night of my heart? You guide me just like a mother's hand; but if You leave me, I cannot advance a single step. You are space that surrounds my being and in which it is concealed. If you abandon me, I fall into the abyss of nothingness, from where You called me into being. You are nearer to me than myself, more intimate than my inmost being. And yet, no one touches You or understands You and You break the bonds of every name: Holy Spirit - Eternal Love!
Prayer is based on attention to the presence of the sacred in life, and to the thoughts that express our longing for relationship with that presence. And the disciplines of inner guidance are based on attention to the wisdom of the "Still, small voice within." Attention may seem at first like a very ordinary thing. But it is the cornerstone of the spiritual life. In fact, we could say that paying attention is the essence of true spirituality. When we pay attention, whatever we are doing is transformed and becomes a part of our spiritual path.
I have reached the inner vision
And through your Spirit in me
I have heard your wondrous secret.
Through your mystic insight
You have caused a spring of knowledge
To well up within me,
A fountain of power
Pouring forth living waters,
A flood of love
And of all-embracing wisdom
Like the splendor of eternal Light.
There is a channel between voice and presence,
A way where information flows.
In disciplined silence, the channel opens;
With wandering talk, it closes.
GREETINGS and BLESSINGS be with you, friends! Is your soul awakening to new life as you listen and attend the greening, budding and birthing of a new season? O, that we might slow down for moments each day to attune ourselves and listen! For,
In the silence of the cloister garden a human being is more than human, taking on the subtle wings of light. Nature is more than nature, flowing with the essence of life. People and plants take on the quality of illumination, as they really are. Inside the sweet harmony of the cloister garden live all beings, those who have lived before and all beings unborn. Inside the holy stillness is the collective being: the wisdom, joy and love freed and saved from the hearts of all. And all this is just a small part of the immense being of God in the cloister garden. Every prayer, every meditation that participates in the cloister garden participates in all such gardens through history and the desire for a life that is wholly sacred and blessed. Each morning in the cloister garden is a new day begun in the bright light of the silence. And each evening among the still flowers is to end another day in the arms of silence.
Teilhard de Chardin practiced the art of self-forgetfulness; the self being forgotten in a sympathetic union with all people and with every man and woman individually. The deep roots of his simultaneous love of God and the world is seen most clearly in THE DIVINE MILIEU:
I walk in stillness. Where my rest is set
Is Heaven. And the silence of the stars
Sings in a soundless circle. For the song
Of Heaven is past hearing, and ascends
Beyond the tiny range the ear can catch.
And soars into a spaceless magnitude
Where sound and silence meet in unity,
Holy am I, who bring your Name
With me and who abide in You, although
I seem to walk alone. Look carefully,
And you may glimpse the One who stands
Beside me. And I lean on You in sure
Unswerving confidence. It was not thus
Before, for I was bitterly afraid
To take the Help of Heaven for my own.
Yet Heaven never failed, and only I
Stayed comfortless, while all of Heaven's gifts
Poured out before me. Now the arms of love
Are all I have all my treasure is.
Now I have ceased to question. Now I come
From chaos to the stillness of my home.
~ "The Soundless Song" from THE GIFTS OF LOVE by Helen Schucman
Sweet song of silence, forever singing in my heart!
Words cannot express, the tongue cannot tell;
Only the heart knows the songs which were never sung,
The music which was never written.
I have heard that great harmony and feast that great presence,
I have listened to the Silence; and in the deep
Places of life, I have stood naked and
Receptive to Your songs and they have entered my soul.
I am lost in the mighty depths of Your inner calm and peace.
~ from THE SCIENCE OF MIND by Ernest Holmes with thanks to Alice Somers 1585428426
Dear Companion of my day, You are the Holy Mystery I surrender to when I close my eyes. I give You myself, my flaws, the mistakes, the petty self-congratulations. I give You my dear ones: my fondest hopes for them, my worries, and my dark thoughts regarding them. Take my well-constructed separation from me. Hold me in Your truth.
This day is already past. I surrender it. When I think about tomorrow, I surrender it too. Keep me this night. With You and in You I can trust not knowing anything. I can trust incompleteness as a way. Dark with the darkness, silent with the silence, help me dare to be that empty one -- futureless, desireless -- who breathes Your name even in sleep.
~ from Gunilla Norris in CHANGING LIGHT by J. Ruth Gendler thanks to Gay Grissom
The Beloved's home is our hearts, as we discover in the Silence.
Bless the Beloved, O you angels,
You faith-filled ones who hear the Word, following the Voice of Love!
Bless the Beloved, all you people,
Those who abandon themselves into Love's hands!
Bless the Beloved, bless all of Creation!
Bless the Beloved, O my soul!
I plant the Tree of the Great peace. I name the tree the Tree of the Great Long Leaves. If anyone of any nation shall show a desire to obey the laws of the Great Peace, they shall trace the roots to their source, and they shall be welcomed to take shelter beneath the Tree of the Long Leaves. When more people come, the branches of the tree simply grow longer. An eagle lives at the top of the tree and warns the people whenever the peace is threatened.
~ Dekanawidah, founder of the Iroquois Confederation
