And how does one go chasing after a glimpse of the uncreated Light? The Hesychasts, high on Mount Athos, bowed their heads upon their breasts, took a deep breath, and plunged in. What they plunged into was prayer. It began with a tack with which to fix the attention. It became breath itself, an inlet for the universe to invade one's body until the entire cosmos, drawn in, heaved out, was transformed into prayer. The body's posture was important. The breathing was to be carefully controlled so as to keep time with the words. Eventually the prayer, breathed in, united with their very blood and heartbeat; breathed out, it blessed the world. And some monks claimed after a while to have indeed seen the Light of the Transfiguration, uncreated energy beheld by bodily eyes.
~ from AND THE TREES CLAP THEIR HANDS by Virginia Stem Owens
Dear Friends ~ Last year I reconnected with Rick Ruggles, a former neighbor and a photographer of what he calls "found hearts". Some years back, he teamed up with Steve Godwin, a poet-friend who often visited Still Point (the home of Friends of Silence in the woods of West Virginia). Together they connected their photographic and poetic heart-work, creating a tiny book called FINDING HEART. I'm grateful both agreed to allow me to share a snippet of their work here to warm our hearts this month.
In the crystal cold of February, the commemoration of St. Valentine, and the cacophony of shifting scenes and specters of our world, what does it mean to "take heart" for each of us, dear readers, especially as our earth heats up, and the pandemic continues around us?
It could take a tribe
to find the way back
to what you love.
A day's wandering
could become a season,
then another. At times
it may all signal chaos.
But take heart.
Sometimes
there is intelligence
even in the crumbling
of things.
Human spirit is the ability to face the uncertainty of the future with curiosity and optimism. It is the belief that problems can be solved, differences resolved. It is a type of confidence, and it is fragile.
The creek is wearing its usual disguise,
braiding and unbraiding itself
through narrows and pools as it pleases,
proving its force by taking the path
of least resistance, taking apart the stone
one grain at a time.
If you were water, what part of your will
would you be willing to dissolve?
Which of your ways would you have to learn
not to want to have?
And how, if you always ran downstream,
would your desire know how to live?
~ Steve Godwin from "If You Were Water" in FINDING HEART
We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated. It may even be necessary to encounter the defeat, so that we can know who we are. So that we can see, oh, that happened, and I rose. I did get knocked down flat in front of the whole world, and I rose.
~ Maya Angelou from an interview in Psychology Today, February 2009
What if dying weren't a bad thing? Caroline's death had left me with a great and terrible gift: how to live in a world where loss, some of it unbearable, is as common as dust or moonlight. And then, finally, unwittingly, acceptance wraps itself around your heart.
Will you be my refuge,
My haven in the storm,
Will you keep the embers warm,
When my fire's all but gone?
Will you remember, And bring me sprigs of rosemary,
Be my sanctuary,
'Til I can carry on, Carry on.
There is life without love. It is not worth a bent penny, or a scuffed shoe...When you hear, a mile away and still out of sight, the churn of the water as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the sharp rocks—when you hear that unmistakable pounding—when you feel the mist on your mouth and sense ahead the embattlement, the long fall plunging and steaming—then row, row for your life toward it.
~ Mary Oliver from "West Wind" in NEW AND SELECTED POEMS, VOL. 2
