| A page from one of my journals – I am using an old St James Bible
Now is the time to remember that all you do is sacred – Hafiz
All of life is to be held in anointed hands – Joan Chittister
An awareness of the sanctity and sacred nature of our daily lives
and ourselves, lead to an inner blooming and creativity
that flows over into everything we touch and do.
It is important to have a daily practise which brings
you to a place of standstill; a place of contemplation
and silence.
Repeating any practise by rote, or as a habit,
becomes very lifeless and pointless.
One wonderful exercise that I was introduced to many years
ago, is the practise of Lectio Divina.
Lectio Divina is when you take a very short piece of
writing and contemplate on it.
It can be a poem that speaks to you,
or a piece from A Course in Miracles,
or any other book that inspires you.
You can choose a poem for the week and take
a verse per day.
Start the day by reading the verse over and over.
You can then take it into meditation with you.
Or take it with you on your morning walk,
repeating it as you walk.
When one word or phrase jumps out at you
or starts to create a ‘shimmer’, then
repeat only this word or verse.
After your meditation, or your walk,
take a piece of paper and draw something.
Anything.
No judgement.
Just let it flow.
Use colours, or different pieces of paper,
or cut outs from magazines.
Over time you can collect a cache of
images and crayons and pencils
to play with.
Create a journal and work in it daily.
Becoming enlightened, that is, waking up to the
real world behind the veil of your mind,
takes consistent commitment;
it demands discipline,
daily work,
daily focusing on what is spoken within yourself
with such a small little voice that it is drowned
out by your thoughts and by life.
In order to grow this small voice into a thundering
river of inspiration and intense vitality,
you have to nurture it,
play with it,
make art,
and change your routine.
Silence is never merely the cessation of words …..
Rather it is the pause that holds together – indeed,
it makes sense of – all the words, both spoken and unspoken.
Silence is the glue that connects our attitudes and out actions.
Silence is the fullness,
not emptiness;
it is not absence, but the awareness of a presence. – John Chryssavgis
I picked a piece for your Lectio Divina for this week.
Please use it daily. Make a journal.
You can use any exercise book, or an old diary,
or make your own journal.
write free flow thoughts,
a poem,a song.
IN SILENCE
by Thomas Merton Lodewicus Maria
Be still
listen to the stones of the wall.
be silent, they try
to speak your
Name.
Listen
To the living walls.
Who are you?
Who
Are you? Whose
Silence are you?
Who (be quiet)
Are you (as these stones
Are quiet). Do not
Think of what you are
Still less of
What you may one day be.
Rather
be what you are (but who?) be
The unthinkable one
You do not know.
O be still, while
You are still alive,
And all things live around you
Speakng (I do not hear)
to your own being,
Speaking by the Unkown
That is in you and in themselves.
‘I will try, like them
To be my own silence:
And this is difficult. The whole
World is secretly on fire. The stones
Burn, even the stones
They burn me. How can a man be still or
Listen to all things burning? How can he dare
To sit with them when
All their silence
Is on fire?”
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