Today

Today

Today I’m flying low and I’m
not saying a word.
I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep.

The world goes on as it must,
the bees in the garden rumbling a little,
the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten.
And so forth.

But I’m taking the day off.
Quiet as a feather.
I hardly move though really I’m traveling
a terrific distance.

Stillness. One of the doors
into the temple.

-Mary Oliver, from A Thousand Mornings

Dark Times

"Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.
In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.
And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am."
Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29

Rilke

Garden and Life

A Standing Ground by Wendell Berry

From his book New Collected Poems, 2012, p.133

However just and anxious I have been
I will stop and step back
from the crowd of those who may agree
with what I say, and be apart.
There is no earthly promise of life or peace
but where the roots branch and weave
their patient silent passages in the dark;
uprooted, I have been furious without an aim.
I am not bound for any public place,
but for ground of my own
where I have planted vines and orchard trees,
and in the heat of the day climbed up
into the healing shadow of the woods.
Better than any argument is to rise at dawn
and pick dew-wet berries in a cup.

Silence

"Silence is something that comes from our own hearts, and not from someone outside. If we are truly silent, then no matter what situation we find ourselves in, we can enjoy the silence. Silence does not only mean not talking and not doing loud things. Silence means that we're not disturbed inside, there's no talking inside."   - Thich Nhat Hanh

Light

The lamps are different,
But the light is the same.
So many garish lamps in the dying brain's lamp-shop,
Forget about them.
Concentrate on essence, concentrate on Light
In lucid bliss, calmly smoking off its own holy fire,
The Light streams towards you from all things,
All people, all possible permutation of good, evil, thought, passion.
The lamps are different,
But the Light is the same.
One matter, one energy, one Light, one Light-mind,
Endlessly emanating all things
One turning and burning diamond.
One, one, one.
Ground yourself, strip yourself down,
To blind loving silence.
Stay there, until you see
You are gazing at the Light
With its own ageless eyes.

- Rumi

Solitude

"You need not leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen, simply wait, just learn to become quiet, and still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet."

- Franz Kafka - from Senses

Silence and Darkness

"Silence introduced in a society that worships noise is like the moon exposing the night. Behind darkness is our fear. Within silence our voice dwells. What is required from both is that we be still." -Terry Tempest Williams, from When Women Were Birds.

Silence

"If you could only keep quiet, clear of memories and expectations, you would be able to discern the beautiful pattern of events. Its your restlessness that causes chaos."   Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Listening

"For every action we take, God leaves little messages about its wisdom and folly.   All we have to do is quiet down and listen closely.  Usually we are too opinionated, or defensive, or frightened to hear the message. We judge our experiences right away as situations we like or don't like, or people as being for or against  us, or ideas as being ones we can embrace or fear."  Elizabeth Lesser

A Stong Heart

"A strong heart is not a heart that has a strong armor and a sword.  A strong heart is a happy heart.  A strong heart is a joyous heart.  It is heart that can dance when you are completely free.  Only when you have that openness can you see that darkness and not be absorbed by it, but you can absorb it.  Only when you have that joy and happiness can you go to the heart of darkness.  Sometimes the heart of darkness is Congo and sometimes the heart of darkness is inside you and you can accept it and it's with joy and happiness that you can actually dance with it and absorb it into you.

Get off the warrior's horse, take the armor off.  That's not how we're gonna win the fight.  We're gonna win the fight with our own joy and our own happiness and our own beauty.  To do that you need to walk the warrior's path of breaking your own silence and you'll have to have the courage and the resilience to do it. 

It's not about saving the world.  It's about saving us." Zalnab Salbi

Leadership

"I learned that leadership was not about the warrior journey only, but about showing vulnerability as well.  Only when I stepped forward and showed my vulnerability, I cannot tell you how many women came and told me their own story and broke their silence.  It's ok to show vulnerability because we are not perfect and actually our imperfection is the beautiful thing about us; our struggle; it's not necessarily an easy dance.  It's a wobbly dance sometimes

It's like a black stone (she points to her chest) that dissolved from me and became a crystal.  That's the physical feeling that I literally feel.  I can tell you all of this and not cry.  It is out of my system.  My demon is out of me, but it took me years.  It was quite a painful journey and it took quite another kind of courage.  The courage to speak our inner truth, the courage to break our inner silence, the courage to show our vulnerability, the courage to say something as simple as 'I'm not happy' .  Courage is not planned.  Sometimes you have to jump off the cliff and just do it."  Zalnab Salbi

Breaking the Silence

"I couldn't have the courage to say that I had been raped.  I'm the feminist, right?  I'm the strong woman, talking about other rapes but I was too scare and ashamed and embarrassed to say that I had been one too.  And that inner journey was so painful.  It is about another aspect of breaking the silence.  It is about breaking our own silence and I'm convinced each woman has her story.   I know you have grown up in the privileges of America but I am convinced that each woman has to do it." Zalnab Salbi

Knowing

"Stop thinking and talking about it and there is nothing you will not be able to know."  Zen Paradigm

Silence

"He who speaks doesn't know; he who knows doesn't speak."  Tao Te Ching

Perspective

 "The future becomes the present when you imagine that you are already what you will be when your assumption is fulfilled. Be still (least action) and know that you are that which you desire to be. The end of longing should be Being."                Neville Lancelot Goddard, who wrote The Power of Awareness in 1952: (p. 47)

Being Deworlded

"Richard Kearney sums up catharsis as a matter of 'acknowledging painful truths'.   He says it 'stops us in our tracks, throws us off kilter, deworlds us'.  To a person intent on getting somewhere, these are not appealing developments, but to the human soul it is important to get out of the busy life, to be dissuaded from familiar activities, and to step outside the paradigm that has become habitual and taken for granted.   To be 'deworlded' mean you have a rare opportunity to consider a different way of life.   You can't renew life without stepping out of the pattern that is in place."   Thomas Moore

Keep your Mouth Shut

“Sometimes one creates a dynamic impression by saying something, and sometimes one creates as significant an impression by remaining silent.” Dalai Lama

Silence

"Silence is important because it provides direction.   What waits for you in silence is the insight and direction you need to determine the next step in your quest."  Christina Baldwin

Silence

"Daily silence experienced in humility and fervour as an indispensable exercise in spiritual nourishment gradually creates with us a permanent state of silence.   The soul discovers in such a silence unsuspected possibilities.   It realizes that life can be lived out at different levels."   Pierre LaCout

Junk Food for the Mind

"The sound of one another's voices is so often background noise, as though life were a never-ending cell phone call.  Mirroring a junk food diet for the body, we have developed a junk-talk diet for the mind.   The cure for junk food is not to stop eating but to eat consciously.   The cure for junk talk is not to stop talking, but to speak and listen and write and read consciously, carefully determining our communication."   Christina Baldwin