On the first night God said: 'Let there be darkness.' And God separated light from dark; and in the dark, the land rested, the people slept, and the plants breathed, the world retreated. The first night.
And God said that it was Good.
On the second night God said: 'There will be conversations that happen in the dark that can't happen in the day.' The second night.
And God said that it was Good.
On the third night God said: 'Let there be things that can only be seen by night.' And God created stars and insects and luminescence. The third night.
And God said that it was Good.
On the fourth night God said: 'Some things that happen in the harsh light of day will be troubled. Let there be a time of rest to escape the raw light.' The fourth night.
And God said that it was Good.
On the fifth night, God said: "There will be people who will work by night, whose light will be silver, whose sleep will be by day and whose labour will be late.' And God put a softness at the heart of the darkness. The fifth night.
And God said that it was Good.
And on the sixth night God listened. And there were people working, and people crying, and people seeking shadow, and people telling secrets, and people aching for company. There were people aching for space and people aching for solace. And God hoped that they'd survive. And God made twilight, and shafts of green to hang from the dark skies, small comforts to accompany the lonely, the joyous, the needy and the needed. The sixth night.
And God said that it was Good.
And on the last night, God rested. And the rest was good. The rest was very good.
And God said that it was very Good.
Quotations
DAILY PRAYER WITH THE CORRYMEELA COMMUNITY
Put your thoughts to sleep,
do not let them cast a shadow
over the moon of your heart.
Let go of thinking.
do not let them cast a shadow
over the moon of your heart.
Let go of thinking.
THE LIVING MOUNTAIN
But now and then comes an hour when the silence is all but absolute, and listening to it one slips out of time. Such a silence is not a mere negation of sound. It is like a new element, and the world is suspended there, and I in it...
THE WILD PLACES
Our disenchantment of the night through artificial lighting may appear, if it is noticed at all, as a regrettable but eventually trivial side effect of contemporary life. That winter hour, though, up on the summit ridge with the stars falling plainly far above, it seemed to me that our estrangement from the dark was a great and serious loss. We are, as a species, finding it increasingly hard to imagine that we are part of something which is larger than our own capacity. We have come to accept a heresy of aloofness, a humanist belief in human difference, and we suppress wherever possible the checks and balances on us – the reminders that the world is greater than us or that we are contained within it.
Dwarfed by the sky at night
These fearless mountains are nearly lost from sight
Track the hill with a harvest moon
Moving, shifting on across a winter sky
My thoughts drift away
An Illusion of light
Feel the rain in the air
Where the thin mist is hiding, shrouded
[I'm] there
These fearless mountains are nearly lost from sight
Track the hill with a harvest moon
Moving, shifting on across a winter sky
My thoughts drift away
An Illusion of light
Feel the rain in the air
Where the thin mist is hiding, shrouded
[I'm] there
Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God
You, darkness, of whom I am born–
I love you more that the flame
that limits the world
to the circle it illuminates
and excludes all the rest.
But the dark embraces everything:
shapes and shadows, creatures and me,
people, nations–just as they are.
It lets me imagine
a great presence stirring beside me.
I believe in the night.
MOMENT TO MOMENT
Two hundred years ago Issa heard the morning birds
singing sutras to this suffering world.
I heard them too, this morning, which must mean,
since we will always have a suffering world,
we must also always have a song.
singing sutras to this suffering world.
I heard them too, this morning, which must mean,
since we will always have a suffering world,
we must also always have a song.
UNDERLAND
To understand light you need first to have been buried in the deep-down dark.
Psalms for Praying
If I say, "Let only darkness cover me,
And the light about me be night,"
Even the darkness is not dark to You,
The night dazzles as with the sun;
The darkness is a light to You.
Listen to silence. It has so much to say.
Open your eyes and look at the fields. They are ripe for harvest.
LEAVES OF GRASS
As I watch'd the ploughman ploughing,
Or the sower sowing in the fields, or the harvester harvesting,
I saw there, too, O life and death, your analogies;
(Life, life is the tillage, and Death is the harvest according.)
Or the sower sowing in the fields, or the harvester harvesting,
I saw there, too, O life and death, your analogies;
(Life, life is the tillage, and Death is the harvest according.)
Silence of the Heart
You are the Silence
Beyond birth, beyond death, beyond experiences,
Beyond doubts, beyond opinions.
Beyond whatever it is your body is going through,
Whatever thoughts your mind thinks.
You are beyond that.
TWELVE MOONS
No sky could hold
so much light -
and here comes the brimming,
the flooding and streaming
out of the clouds
and into the leaves,
glazing the creeks,
the smallest ditches!
And so many stars!
The sky seems stretched
like an old black cloth;
behind it, all
the celestial fire
we ever dreamed of!
And the moon steps lower,
quietly changing
her luminous masks, brushing
everything as she passes
with her slow hands
and soft lips -
clusters of dark grapes,
apples swinging like lost planets,
melons cool and heavy as bodies -
and the mockingbird wakes
in his hidden castle;
out of the silver tangle
of thorns and leaves
he flutters and tumbles,
spilling long
ribbons of music
over forest and river,
copse and cloud -
all heaven and all earth.
so much light -
and here comes the brimming,
the flooding and streaming
out of the clouds
and into the leaves,
glazing the creeks,
the smallest ditches!
And so many stars!
The sky seems stretched
like an old black cloth;
behind it, all
the celestial fire
we ever dreamed of!
And the moon steps lower,
quietly changing
her luminous masks, brushing
everything as she passes
with her slow hands
and soft lips -
clusters of dark grapes,
apples swinging like lost planets,
melons cool and heavy as bodies -
and the mockingbird wakes
in his hidden castle;
out of the silver tangle
of thorns and leaves
he flutters and tumbles,
spilling long
ribbons of music
over forest and river,
copse and cloud -
all heaven and all earth.
Meditations on Silence, MEDITATIONS ON NATURE
To live a contemplative life is to be open enough to see, free enough to hear, real enough to respond. It is a life, and so has its own rhythms of darkness, dying-rising. Simply enough, it is a life of grateful receptivity, or wordless awe, of silent simplicity.
GOLDEN: THE POWER OF SILENCE IN A WORLD OF NOISE
Go deep into the silence. Absorb it. Let it scare you. Let it reshape you and expand your awareness.
Psalms for Praying
Gentle us, O Compassionate One, that
We tread the earth lightly
And with grace,
Spreading peace, goodness, and love,
Without harm to any creature.
For in gentle serenity is strength
And assurance;
Confusion and suspicion find
No home here.
In all things may we be be grateful,
Our hearts open to joy.
We tread the earth lightly
And with grace,
Spreading peace, goodness, and love,
Without harm to any creature.
For in gentle serenity is strength
And assurance;
Confusion and suspicion find
No home here.
In all things may we be be grateful,
Our hearts open to joy.
THRIVE
Surviving is for those who have no hope...as God’s child you were meant to thrive... You were meant to dig deep and reach out...Balanced believers dig their roots and reach out for others.
THE STAR IN MY HEART: EXPERIENCING SOPHIA
She will give the bread of understanding to eat,
And the water of wisdom to drink.
Judge each day not by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you sow.
GLIMPSES OF GRACE
We have to say "Thank you” whenever possible even if we are not able to reconcile the human creatures’ free will with the Maker’s working out of a pattern. Thanks and Praise are, I believe, some of the threads with which the pattern is woven.
GOLDEN: THE POWER OF SILENCE IN A WORLD OF NOISE
Silence isn't just the absence of noise. It's a presence that brings us energy, clarity, and deeper connection.
Psalms for Praying
Enter into the Silence,
into the Heart of Truth;
For herein lies the Great Mystery
where life is ever unfolding...
Listen for the Music of the
Spheres in the resounding
Silence of
the universe.
May balance and harmony be your aim as you are
drawn into the
Heart of Love.
into the Heart of Truth;
For herein lies the Great Mystery
where life is ever unfolding...
Listen for the Music of the
Spheres in the resounding
Silence of
the universe.
May balance and harmony be your aim as you are
drawn into the
Heart of Love.
Let us turn to the West:
the place of oncoming darkness,
the place of the departed spirits and of letting go; the
home of Bear and night-time dreams
and the season of Autumn.
We thank you for your gifts of Mystery and Transformation.
the place of oncoming darkness,
the place of the departed spirits and of letting go; the
home of Bear and night-time dreams
and the season of Autumn.
We thank you for your gifts of Mystery and Transformation.
My Grandfather's Blessings
We have not been raised to cultivate a sense of Mystery. We may even see the unknown as an insult to our competence, a
personal failing. Seen this way, the unknown becomes a challenge to action. But Mystery does not require action;
Mystery requires our attention. Mystery requires that we listen and become open. When we meet with the unknown in
this way, we can be touched by a wisdom that can transform our lives.
What if we reframed "living with uncertainty" to "navigating mystery"? There's more energy in that phrase. The hum of imaginative voltage. And is our life not a mystery school, a seat of earthy instruction?
You can relish a rainbow and a cup of tea, sunrise and a flock of birds, a cemetery walk and a friend's newborn, the first
blush of wildflowers in a patch of dirt and the looping rapture of an old favorite song. ... You can't mend a world, but you
can mend the hole in the polka- dot pocket of your favorite coat. They are not the same thing, but they are part of the same
thing, which is all there is — life living itself through us, moment by moment, one broken beautiful thing at a time.
Remembrance of Things Past
The only true voyage, the only bath in the Fountain of Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes,
to see the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to see the hundred universes that each of them sees,
that each of them is.
HOUSE OF LIGHT
...Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled—
to cast aside the weight of facts
and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking
into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing—
that the light is everything—that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.
is to be willing
to be dazzled—
to cast aside the weight of facts
and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking
into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing—
that the light is everything—that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.
HUMAN(KIND)
The most important work can be birthed from the place where uncomfortable silence seeps between us. In those
moments we're faced with the decision of whether to respond immediately with the assuredness of our truth or to let the
silence work in us. To feel the sadness and anger and grief. To be reminded
that there's more at work in the story of the other ...
The Art of Spiritual Guidance
In the immense field of divine compassion, countless small
life fields are interwoven with each other. When human
hearts deepen through some form of contemplation, there
emerges in them an intuition of human oneness prior to all
separation ... a "communion of saints". In each religion's
communal story, there is a way of handing on from
generation to generation this transforming perception of
universal solidarity in the Mystery. We do not learn such
wisdom on our own. We receive this wisdom from
someone else.
SO FAR SO GOOD
Spirit, rehearse the journeys of the body
that are to come, the motions
of the matter that held you.
Rise up in the smoke of palo santo.
Fall to the earth in the falling rain.
Sink in, sink down to the farthest roots.
Mount slowly in the rising sap
to the branches, the crown, the leaf-tips.
Come down to earth as leaves in autumn
to lie in the patient rot of winter.
Rise again in spring's green fountains.
Drift in sunlight with the sacred pollen
to fall in blessing.
All earth's dust
has been life, held soul, is holy.
WHEN THINGS FALL APART
Life is a good teacher and a good friend. Things are always in transition, if we could only realize it. Nothing ever sums itself up in the way that we like to dream about. The off-center, in-between state is an ideal situation, a situation in which we don't get caught and we can open our hearts and minds beyond limit. It's a very tender, non-aggressive, open-ended state of affairs.
To stay with that shakiness — to stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness — that is the path of true awakening. Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic — this is the spiritual path. Getting the knack of catching ourselves, of gently and compassionately catching ourselves, is the path of the warrior.
LOVE POEMS FROM GOD
I felt in need of a great pilgrimage. So I sat still for three days.
THE WISDOM OF INSECURITY
Stop measuring days by degree of productivity and start experiencing them by degree of presence.
DEVOTIONS
The dream of my life
Is to lie down by a slow river
And stare at the light in the trees —
To learn something by being nothing
A little while but the rich
Lens of attention.
Is to lie down by a slow river
And stare at the light in the trees —
To learn something by being nothing
A little while but the rich
Lens of attention.
INTRODUCTION TO THE DEVOUT LIFE
If the heart wanders or is distracted, bring it back to the point quite gently... And even if you did nothing during the whole of your hour but bring your heart back, though it went away every time you brought it back, your hour would be very well employed.
THOMAS MERTON SPIRITUAL MASTER: ESSENTIAL WRITINGS
What is the relation of contemplation to action? Simply this. He who attempts to act and do things for others or for the world without deepening his own self-understanding, freedom, integrity, and capacity to love, will not have anything to give others.
Mother Teresa: Quotable Wisdom
May God break my heart so deeply the whole world falls in.
THE SOUL IS HERE FOR ITS OWN JOY
I love Jesus, who said to us:
heaven and earth will pass away.
When heaven and earth have passed away,
my word will still remain.
What was your word, Jesus?
Love? Forgiveness? Affection?
All your words were
one word: Wakeup.
heaven and earth will pass away.
When heaven and earth have passed away,
my word will still remain.
What was your word, Jesus?
Love? Forgiveness? Affection?
All your words were
one word: Wakeup.
An Altar in the World
The hardest spiritual work in the world is to love the neighbor as the self - to encounter another human being not as someone you can use, change, fix, help, save, enroll, convince or control, but simply as someone who can spring you from the prison of yourself, if you will allow it.
A WILD LOVE FOR THE WORLD
When we hear the sounds of the Earth crying within us, we're unblocking the channels of felt connectedness that join us to the world. These channels act like a system, opening us up to a source of strength and resilience.
PSYCHOLOGICAL COMMENTARIES ON THE WORKS OF GURDJIEFF AND OUSPENSKI
I will also tell you a secret. We have to will one another: this is the beginning of conscious love.
LOVE IS A FIRE
Sadly, because our culture has devalued the feminine, we have repressed so much of her nature, so many of her qualities. Instead we live primarily masculine values; we are goal-oriented, competitive, driven. Masculine values even dominate our spiritual quest; we seek to be better, to improve ourselves, to get somewhere. We have forgotten the feminine qualities of waiting, listening, being empty. We have dismissed the deep need of the soul, our longing, the feminine side of love.
THE JOURNAL OF KATHERINE MANSFIELD
Everything in life that we really accept undergoes a change. So suffering becomes love. That is the mystery.
TEACHINGS FROM SHERBORNE
You come to see that suffering is required; and you no more want to avoid it than you want to avoid putting your next foot on the ground when you are walking. In the spiritual path, joy and suffering follow one another like the two feet and you come to a point of not minding which 'foot' is on the ground. You realize on the contrary that it is extremely uncomfortable hopping all the time on the joy foot.
The Journal of Jules Renard
If I were to begin life again, I should want it as it was. I would only open my eyes a little more...
BIRDS OF HEAVEN
It is easy to forget how mysterious and mighty stories are. They do their work in silence, invisibly. They work with all the internal materials of the mind and self. They become part of you while changing you.