Let us stay in our chairs as long as we dare, breathing gently until another rhythm takes over. Let us risk inaction, become receptive, give our thoughts to the blank wall, let our layers be peeled back, accept our dreams as true even if we must wait and wait, trusting that all human life is part of an intricate unfolding of the One Reality.
~ from All the Days of My Life by Marv and Nancy Hiles
Listen to old stones for information about survival. What a seashell has to say will surprise you. So, too, will words written on the wind. Listening to silence is hardest of all. You want to fill it up with conversation ... distractions ... noise. Resist the impulse. In silence, you can dream great dreams. You can discover your own music. Listening means hearing the voice within you. It never fails to tell you the truth, even if you don't want to hear it.
May you
Learn to be at home with yourself without a hand to hold.
Learn to endure isolation with only starts for friends.
For,
Happiness comes from understanding unity.
Love arrives on the footprints of your fear.
Beauty arrives from ashes of despair.
Solitude brings the clarity of still waters.
Wisdom completes the circle of your dreams.
The rock strengthens me.
The river rushing through me
Cleanses
Insists
That I keep moving toward
A distant light
A quiet place
Where I can be
Continuous
And in rhythm with
The song of summer
That you have given me.
~ from MANY WINTERS by Nancy Wood and Frank Howell with thanks to Paula Davis
