summer

GRATITUDE is a memory of the heart. Whatever goodness the heart receives, the heart never forgets.

Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty ...

The essence of prayer is thanksgiving.

All we have
All we are
From All That Is,
A gift.

One without wonder
Will not see It
While the eyes of the grateful
Will reflect It.

God takes such delight in the human person that
Divinity sings this song to our soul:

O lovely rose on the thorn!
O hovering bee in the honey!
O pure dove in your being!
O glorious sun in your setting!
O full moon in your course!

From you,
I you God
will never
turn away.

If we surrender who and what we think we are, we may come to such a perfect pitch of attunement that each note struck within us is an everlasting example of the first note, the first sound, from which all music extends ... J.S. Bach once said, "When the right notes are struck at the right time, the instrument plays itself." We are the instruments of God. We must never forget this if we are to truly be of service ... We are asked to be open, to be aware, to be in love with the Beloved with a passion that defies all reason. The expression of love that shatters the discursive mind is the music of life, if we will only listen, if we will only be receptive and awake.

Music attracts the angels in the universe.

In a cave, all outer sounds are smothered by rock and earth, but this makes the sounds of one's own heartbeat and breath audible. In the same way, contemplative stillness turns us away from everyday clamor but allows us to hear the subtle in our own lives. When listening not with the ear but with the spirit, one can perceive the subtle sound. By entering into that sound, we enter into supreme purity. That is why so many religious traditions pray, sing, or chant as a prelude to silence. They understand that the repetition and absorption of sound leads to sacredness itself. The deepest sound is silence. This may seem paradoxical only if we regard silence as an absence of life and its opposites. It is both sound and soundlessness, and it is in this confluence that the power of meditation emerges.

The people sing individually, in groups and often in harmony. I realized some of the songs were as old as time. These people repeat chants created here in the desert before the invention of the calendar. But I also experienced new compositions, music being composed just because I was there. I was told, "Just as a musician seeks musical expression, so the music in the Universe seeks to be expressed." ... A musician carries the music within.

Peter Matthiessen in "Earth and Spirit" speaks of reclaiming our harmony with the universe:

As a first step we might consider this Great Mystery that is all about us ... It is the music of the stars, the color of the winds, the dead stillness between tides ... It is no less and no more strange than our life itself.