A Monday meander: Grace

Grace draped softly in the cherry tree.

All the natural movements of the soul are controlled by laws analogous to those of physical gravity. Grace is the only exception. Grace fills empty spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void. The imagination is continually at work filling up all the fissures through which grace might pass.

~ Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace

.. along with the other animals, the stones, the trees, and the clouds, we ourselves are characters within a huge story that is visibly unfolding all around us, participants within the vast imagination, or Dreaming, of the world.

~ David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous

Fox

Where the red fox wanders.

When I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit
on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds,
until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost
unhearable sound of the roses singing.

~ Mary Oliver

Everything that is in the heavens, on earth, and under the earth is penetrated with connectedness, penetrated with relatedness.

~ Hildegard of Bingen

Another blustery day

Shall we take a walk?

If sequestered pain made a sound, the atmosphere would be humming all the time.

~ Stephen Levine

This is part of being human, this knowing that we are all part of one another, inextricably involved; and at the same time alone, irrevocably alone.

~ Madeleine L’Engle

Blustery Thursday

A walk in the woods.

If turtle has shown up in your life, it is time to get connected to your most primal essence.  Go within your shell and come out when your ideas are ready to be expressed.  It is time to recognize that there is abundance out there for you.  It doesn’t have to be gotten quickly or immediately.  Take your time and let the natural flow work for you.  Too much, too soon, can upset the balance.  Turtle reminds us that all we need for all that we do is available to us, if we approach it in the right manner and time.

Turtles remind us that the way to heaven is through the earth.  In Mother Earth is all that we need.  She will care for us, protect us, and nurture us, as long as we do the same for her.  For that to happen, we must slow down and heighten our sensibilities.  We must see the connection to all things.  Just as the turtle cannot separate itself from its shell, neither can we separate ourselves from what we do to the Earth.

~ Ted Andrews, Animal Speak

Leaving March on a chilly day

At sunrise this morning, before the clouds took over the sky.

… I am afraid that many of us with privilege have been able to become very naïve about pain and suffering in the United States and the Western world. We simply don’t have time for it. However, by trying to handle all suffering through willpower, denial, medication, or even therapy, we have forgotten something that should be obvious: we do not handle suffering; suffering handles us— in deep and mysterious ways that become the very matrix of life and especially new life. Only suffering and certain kinds of awe lead us into genuinely new experiences. All the rest is merely the confirmation of old experience.

… In this time of suffering we have to ask ourselves, what are we going to do with our pain? Are we going to blame others for it? Are we going to try to fix it? No one lives on this earth without it. It is the great teacher, although none of us want to admit it. If we do not transform our pain, we will transmit it in some form. How can we be sure not to transmit our pain onto others? 

~ Richard Rohr

Knowing how to create moments of joy and happiness is crucial for our healing. It’s important to be able to see the wonders of life around us and to recognize all conditions for happiness that already exist.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Triangle

A triangle found on this morning’s walk.

Three. A number favored as much by art as by science: primary colors, points required to locate an object in space, notes to form a musical chord. Three points of a triangle, the first geometrical figure. Incontrovertible fact: two straight lines cannot enclose a space. The points of a triangle may move, shift allegiance, the distance between two disappear as they draw away from the third, but together they always define a triangle. Self-contained, real, complete.

~ Kate Morton, The House at Riverton

Love has you. Love is you. Love alone, and your deep need for love, recognizes love everywhere else. Remember that you already are what you are seeking.

~ from Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation

A good thing

Look what’s popping up!

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation.  The kettle is singing even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots have left their arrogant aloofness and seen the good in your at last… Everything is waiting for you.

~ David Whyte