"The Tamil language is very precise,"
the Tamil poet said.
"There are seven different words
between the English words, 'bud' and 'flower.'"
One would have to live in attentive quiet,
live with the plant,
marveling at each subtle change
to create such a language.
Love creates such a language.
If you ask for grace to realize who you are, ask also for the courage you will need to do so. To realize who you are, you will have to walk through all the shadows in your inner landscape. It is not easy. You will need to give up all your views about yourself again and again, each time they crystallize into a pattern. You will have to experience and release all the pain in your life. You will have to embrace your death. You will have to bear everything to realize everything. A perfect divine economy.
~ from A FIELD GUIDE TO THE SOUL by James Thornton
We are all native speakers of the language of life. To talk with what lives, we have to listen patiently and quietly for a long time. We have to listen in a place where we can hear, where the sounds of the living world are louder than the sounds of the machine world. If we have the patience and the silence we can begin to hear. If many of us listen, many of us will hear. We will learn the language of the living Earth, and it will become our language again.
~ from A FIELD GUIDE TO THE SOUL by James Thornton
Our culture has lost touch with the soul and with any way to meet it. It becomes more difficult all the time simply to be quiet: mobile phones, faxes, and e-mail make us more accessible to the intrusions of information. Being reflective may soon seem a radical act. Without being reflective, without entering into moments of silence, we cannot let the soul in. The soul's voice is a still, soft one, and we must be quiet if we are to hear it.
~ from A FIELD GUIDE TO THE SOUL by James Thornton
