It is easy to forget how mysterious and mighty stories are. They do their work in silence, invisibly. They work with all the internal materials of the mind and self. They become part of you while changing you.
~ Ben Okri in BIRDS OF HEAVEN
To live a contemplative life is to be open enough to see, free enough to hear, real enough to respond. It is a life, and so has its own rhythms of darkness, dying-rising. Simply enough, it is a life of grateful receptivity, or wordless awe, of silent simplicity.