Open, attentive listening can be a form of contemplative prayer. It can be that widest, most open form of being present and attentive, in trust that God is present with us, in expectancy that the Spirit will move in the hearts of those present and that we may be changed inwardly for the good or guided to be part of the upwelling of Life in a particular situation.
Conversation was never begun at once, nor in a hurried manner. No one was quick with a question, no matter how important, and no one was pressed for an answer. A pause giving time for thought was the truly courteous way of beginning and conducting a conversation. Silence was meaningful with the Lakota, and their granting a space of silence to the speech-makers and their own moment of silence before talking was done in the practice of true politeness, listening, and regard for the rule, "thought comes before speech."
Every moment is like a gift. And since it is, relax, get into the moment and do all you can to listen to it. I mean, really, really listen. Be present to the moment with everything you. It takes practice. After you've listened for a while, you start responding. You give back because you begin to see how everything is on loan — a gift from God... Try listening, looking. Looking and listening lead into everything else. Real listening means you don't project yourself into the situation. You simply are receptive, seeing things as they are, not as you might wish them to be. Listen!
Faith and hope lead us to want to have what we believe in and hope for. The more we want it, the more we learn to love it and want to concentrate on it. Our turning to God is made easier if we take practical steps, which include turning away from other things which attract and distract us and going apart in solitude, being still so that we can listen to God.
Listening is the gateway to liberation. Learn to listen with your whole being.
For all its silence, the sky has a language. Without any words the stars speak many things right into our hearts. They hand there so silent and radiant — and how one's breast swells at the thought of being able to attain the same purity. At times it seems as if their light is of little benefit. Yet is is by them that we measure hours, days, and years. By them — or at least by the star nearest to us, the sun — we have light and heart, and our existence depends on it.
For humankind, a growing gap between our inner selves and outer selves — an imbalance between how we live our lives and how we would like to live them — leaves the spirit thirsting for renewal. For many, renewal and re-creation come with time spent in the natural world. The human spirit and the open landscape are inextricably connected. In feeling the spirit of place, we reconnect with the spirit of self.
Each creature God made
Must live in its own true nature;
How could I resist my nature,
That lives for oneness with God?
A down feather as soft as an infant's curl floats earthward and brushes the granite rock by my side. It feels like a message from above, and I wonder what it is telling me. I pick up this angel-wisp and hold it to my cheek. I feel it as a caress, a gentle and loving touch, and I realize that this IS the message — one that transcends words, concepts, and thoughts. It touches my heart and a place of inner knowing. In that moment I am complete, thankful, and fully at peace.
In the traditional way of life gardens were a ceremonial event for all, an opportunity to give to the Earth as well as to receive. The seeds of good food are also the seeds of good relationship, so caretaking the garden is symbolic of caretaking all beings ... an offering to all.
Those who have eyes to see will discern the message of eternity in the spring breeze when it becomes visible in the roses and herbs: invisible waves of roses, hidden in the breeze, required the medium of the earth to reveal themselves to the material human eye, just as the human beings innate qualities must be revealed by his or her actions. The spirit needs matter in order to become visible; thus every leaf is a messenger from the realm of nonexistene, and talks with its long hands and fresh green tongue of the creative power of God.
This is my work,
To keep this world green,
Keep it all green.
I began in the East, to help my friends.
I keep this world green,
Keep it beautiful.
I begin to fill the creeks,
To wet everything,
Keep it beautiful and green,
I begin in the East,
Make everything beautiful!
That is my work.
If your heart were pure then all of nature would be a great book of holy wisdom and sacred doctrine.
As I stood with the sun on the summit of the modest mountain peak, the solar orb became a catalyst for my encounter with the Divine. As often appears in myth, the sun became the conveyance for God. It ushered me into the Divine Presence through its powerful symbolic function, its archetypal capacity to represent the one. I was overcome as I stood alone before the Divine. I was seized by the Presence communicated through the sudden appearance of the sun. It carried me into an intense awareness of the Divine's utter reality. I knew then why I had made this journey, and the peace it conveyed remains with me to this day.
Breath and attention to breath are keys to self-emptying. Attending to the breath will carry you beyond the distractions of the mind and return you to the Greater Unity of God from which you arise and in which you dwell. Just as God breathed life into Creation, so God breathes into each one of us at this and every moment. Follow the breath back to God.
I finished my morning quiet time with an exercise of breathing out resentment, breathing in joy; breathing out anxiety, breathing in peace; breathing out hate, breathing in love, breathing out want, breathing in thanksgiving; breathing out fear, breathing in trust. Then I am ready to start my day.
By meditating on the breath and the power within and behind the breath, we realize in the deepest levels of our being that our life is sustained by God. We do not breathe by our own will; God is sustaining our life and everything else in creation... We are born into this world and we will die and live this world. Our first breath and our last breath, the two most important events in our life, are not in our conscious control. Because our breathing is automatic and involuntary, it is easy to forget about the gift of breath — gift of God.
What I wear is pants.
What I do is live.
How I pray is breathe...
Up here in the woods is seen the Word.
That is to say, the wind comes through
the trees and you breathe it.
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.
Breath deeply amidst the beauties of nature;
absorb vibrations unsullied by
pollution and cosmopolitan ways.
Breathing mindfully brings balance into your life;
strength is gained through the Breath of Life!
Remember: breath is your life's companion!
And, as you limit your breath, you limit life itself.
Befriend silence: a balm to your soul.
As you breathe in silence,
your ear attunes to Spirit.
You will understand the eagle.
Breathe deeply! Breathe life!
Those who assent to higher laws enter a new sphere of life marked by utter unpredictability, a way of being in which one becomes, if and when one remains alerts, a living weather vane responding minute-by-minute to the breath of the Spirit. . . As soon as we turn, even for a moment, to a deeper understanding of what life demands, of what is asked of us as beings born of earth and heaven, as long as we move, if only for a moment, from the realms of self-calming, self-feeding, and self-adoring into the realm of sacrifice and work for love of God and neighbor, we immediately enter, in potentia, the field of holy folly. Whether this potential is actualized is a decision not ours to make ("not my will, by Thy will be done"). Our job is to listen to the call: that is enough.
As we breathe out what trees breathe in,
And the trees breathe out what we breathe in,
So we breathe each other into life, We and You.
Dolphins can live in the deepest water without danger because they regularly come to the surface and breathe in air that sustains them. We, too, must rise in prayer into the spiritual realm. To pray is to breathe in God's life-giving spirit that gives life and peace, even in this world.
I experience the Divine Presence in many ways, but the form most often available to me is "spiration," or the act of breathing in which the Spirit often manifests itself and communicates itself. This process has given rise to the experience of inspiration, or in-spiration, in which the Spirit breathes into us. To be aware of God through spiration is to become conscious of God's subtle Presence through our own breathing.
We all share in the eternal spiration of the Spirit. When I am sufficiently absorbed in the experience of divine spiration, I realize inwardly my dependence, and that of all beings, on this subtle action of the Source.
Love is the lodestone of life, the great and supreme reality... the highest gift of heaven, the greatest good on earth, the treasure of all our search. While hate kills, love renews and invigorates. As love is the greatest healing power, no one feels whole without it. Love need not be confined to only a few, but can be extended to many without losing the love of a few. In fact, when love becomes more complete it will take in a large and larger territory and in doing so experience a greater degree of livingness.
The important thing is to allow love into one's life, to turn towards it. Then, if one love dies, another will take its place — whether human or Divine in form. As my friend, Annabella, once said, "I have passed my whole life being in love, in love with nature, in love with animals, in love with life, and I celebrate each springtime as a miracle." When we build a relationship, the ACT of turning the heart towards the beloved, with recognition, waters the root of love. Then one an receive its fruits: peace, joy, silence, contentment.
Heaven will not leave us alone.
Heaven will continue to come to earth
Until heaven and earth are one.
Heaven will not leave us alone until
Love's work is done.
To "look with the eyes of love" seems a vague and sentimental recommendation; yet the whole art of spiritual communion is summed in it, and exact and important results flow from this exercise. The attitude which it involves is an attitude of complete humility and of receptiveness, without criticism, without clever analysis of the thing seen... The doors of perception are cleansed, and everything appears as it is. The disfigurating results of hate, rivalry, prejudice vanish away. Into that silent place to which recollection has brought you — new music, new color, new light are poured from the outward world.
Love all that has been created by God, both the whole and every grain of sand. Love every leaf and every ray of light. Love the beasts and the bids, love the plants, love every separate fragment. If you love each separate fragment, you will understand he mystery of the whole resting in God. When you perceive this, your understanding of this mystery will grow from day to day until you come to love the whole world with a love that includes everything, excluding nothing.
Creation is an act of love ... and, to love is to be vulnerable. The story of creation bears that fact out. The lover seeks the beloved. The lover is not complete without the beloved. Human beings are most fully human when they realize that they are creatures and give joyful response to the Creator. All that we are and all that we have comes from God; we are part of God's dream for a good creation using our freedom to do God's will.
There is no limit to our capacity love. We can never be satisfied by loving just one person here and another there. Our need is to love completely, universally, without reservations — in other words, to become love itself. It can take our breath away to glimpse the vastness of such love.