winter

Listen long in the Silence that the Word
may be heard,
that decisions arise from the depths
of your Inner Being where
Wisdom dwells.
For the Spirit of Truth is written upon
gentle and open hearts...

With steadfast love will the Counselor
guide you...

But...winter has an even greater gift to give. It comes when the sky is clear, the sun brilliant, the trees bare, and the first snow yet to come. It is the gift of utter clarity...Winter clears the landscape, however brutally, giving us a chance to see ourselves and each other more clearly, to see the very ground of our being.

My friends, do not lose heart... For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement...One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires...causes proper matters to catch fire.

I long to slip into cracks of silence
where breath is connected to spirit and
spirit to wind and a sense of oneness
resonates in my core.

A field of light, and my need to say
that it exists. Each morning I walk here
almost blinded by water the sun shines on...

Limestone and granite give back radiance, and we
Walkers in this field lift our feet and set out,
moving through our once and only mornings,
afternoons... What if light
did not find itself renewable? As my necessity
for these words, mirrors I carry into the sun
of this blazing day, this dance, this carnival
where I am given access to another world,
to the spirits who walk with me

Solitude is a state of hospitality, a welcoming of all that needs attention. Solitude offers a ground that is embracing and inclusive. Everything can be made welcome in the broad arms of solitude, even fear. For as long as humans have sought counsel with the sacred, much of it has happened in a space set apart from others. Here, in silence and nourishing aloneness, we can become receptive to the influence of soul...

There is something deeper than hope. Between the hours of darkness and dawn, the voices of our ancestors are amplified in the dreamtime—warning us of our awakening wisdom—a blessing to behold and a burden to enact.

We don't know what's around the uncharted bend in this wild river of change... Let us learn from our fellow Earth inhabitants, like mycelium networks who know about sharing resources, recycling toxins into nourishment, communicating underground. Let us find meaning in mystery rather than consumption. Let us turn our ears to the music rising out of the ground.

Days pass when I forget the mystery.
Problems insoluble and problems offering
their own ignored solutions
jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber
along with a host of diversions, my courtiers, wearing
their colored clothes; caps and bells.
And then
once more the quiet mystery
is present to me, the throng's clamor
recedes: the mystery
that there is anything, anything at all,
let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything,
rather than void: and that, O Lord,

All throughout these months
as the shadows
have lengthened,
this blessing has been
gathering itself,
making ready,
preparing for
this night.

It has practiced
walking in the dark,
traveling with
its eyes closed,
feeling its way
by memory
by touch
by the pull of the moon
even as it wanes.

So believe me
when I tell you
this blessing will
reach you
even if you
have not light enough
to read it;
it will find you