November/December 2019 (Vol. XXXII, No. 10)

Dear Friends ~ The expectant hush awaiting a baby's first breath, the temporary cessation of wind in the eye of a hurricane, the awkward pause in a conversational misstep, the profound stillness of woods blanketed in snow— there are so many kinds of silence. Silence can be sad or sublime, scary or sustaining; a fretful silence soaked in fear and anxiety or a silence pregnant with hope, expectancy, longing. Beyond, or perhaps within, these is the Silence of mystery, of luminous moments, and of communion.

Now let your great and wise and powerful
be as the poor and foolish little ones:
unembarrassed to receive the incredible gift,
and not knotted in guilt over your lack of worth,
and not struggling to "earn" what cannot be deserved,
but just simply, joyfully accepting of all
that is given so humbly and gladly in Love.
~ from ENCOUNTER AT BETHLEHEM by Jean Jones Andersen
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The restless hollowness which surfaces into our consciousness when we reflect in silence is already the nearness of God, who is like the pure light which, spread over everything, hides itself by making everything else visible in the silent lowliness of its being. The Incarnation urges us, in the experience of solitude, to trust the nearness— it is not emptiness; to let go and then we will find; to give up and then we will be rich.
~ from THEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS by Karl Rahner
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And in the unknowing
I will be found and find myself.
In the unknowing is
the Love, the Silence,
the acceptance of just
Being in the yearning
and that – that is
Enough.
~from "The Unknowing" by Sam Baker
Sam Baker silence
When I notice the spaces between sounds and the spaces between words and also the spaces between my thoughts and the background silence behind everything, I realize that all these spaces are the same space. This space is the entry point. It is the transformational vortex, the corridor, the window to Spirit.
~ from EVERYDAY IMMORTALITY by Deepak Chopra
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The silence of the present moment was awe-inspiring in its power, oceanic was the word that came to mind, as it carried away everything in its path. The flow of our liturgy had become one with nature's incessant movement from light to dark and back again.
~ from DAKOTA: A SPIRITUAL GEOGRAPHY by Kathleen Norris
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"How silent it is," he whispered. I started to shiver. The smoke from our stovepipe cast crazy shadows on the moonlit snow. "Come, let's go back in," he said softly. "Listen," I requested. The silence beat upon our empty ears. Not a sound. Nothing. My mind stretched into the wilderness night, listening. It was different from the muffled silence of falling snow which sucks up every noise. Neither was it the silence of plugged ears. This was the clear, cold music of thousands of miles of nothing to hear. We lingered, breathing it in. "It's the silence of a million ears," I said at last. "Of life, waiting."
~ from ARCTIC DAUGHTER by Jean Aspen
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No writing on the solitary, meditative dimensions of life can say anything that has not already been said better by the wind in the pine trees...or the silence and peace that is "heard" when the rain wanders freely among the hills and forests. But what can the wind say where there is no hearer?
~Thomas Merton in THOUGHTS ON SOLITUDE
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In silence learn to give of yourself, forgive others, live with gratitude. Then you need not seek inner peace: Peace will find you!
~ from LUMEN CHRISTI…HOLY WISDOM by Nan Merrill
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Silence wells up from an emptiness within us, but it is an emptiness freely and fully accepted...A moment comes when silence alone can express the extraordinary richness in our heart. Such a silence enfolds a person gently and powerfully and always comes from within. It establishes a zone of peace and quiet around the one who is silent, where God can be irresistibly felt as present.
~ André Loup in THE WAY OF SIMPLICITY by Esther deWaal
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I part the out-thrusting branches
and come in beneath
the blessed and the blessing trees.
Though I am silent
there is singing around me.
Though I am dark
there is vision around me.
Though I am heavy
there is flight around me.
~ "Woods" by Wendell Berry
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Even though working actively for justice is essential, one of the greatest gifts we can give to a troubled world is the presence of a peaceful heart...Wrapping ourselves in silence, solitude, and gratitude is a sure way to open our hearts again to perspective and simplicity.

~ from REFLECTIONS by Robert J. Wicks
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If we have courage, we take silence as medicine to cure us from our social ills, the suffering of self-centered alienation. In silence, sacred silence, we stand naked like trees in winter, all our secrets visible under our skin. And like winter's tree, we appear dead but are alive.
~ from THE FRUITFUL DARKNESS by Joan Halifax
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Plunge into the ocean of God through stillness in the spirit and silence within the soul.
~ Nan Merrill
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To learn how to wait, how to be silent, how to befriend the dark...Thus do we prepare to be creative. There is a waiting, a silence and a darkness in all birthing. Heart's winter is already a filling womb.
~ from YEAR OF THE HEART by Daniel J. O'Leary
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October 2019 (Vol. XXXII, No. 9)

Dear Friends ~ In autumn, the golden glow of tawny hues signals the waning of the chlorophyll that has been transforming sunlight into food. Trees let go of their leaves, plants their flowers, and we let go of bird song and water play and butterflies on the wing. Fall is the season of letting go. In the inner landscape of our hearts perhaps it is a time for forgiveness, the letting go of past hurts and misunderstandings, of anger and resentment. Perhaps it is a time for letting go of our expectations — maybe of what we thought we needed or what we thought we ought to have or the way we intended something to be done — so that we can embrace with gratitude what is. We often think of spring as a time for new beginnings, yet beginnings need space and time and endings and clearing away and incubation in order to emerge. So perhaps autumn is actually a fitting moment to embark on our own "beginning anew ceremony" by taking the first step and letting go.

Life is not hurrying on to a receding future, nor hankering after an imagined past. It is the turning aside like Moses to the miracle of the lit bush, to a brightness that seemed as transitory as your youth once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
~ "The Bright Field" by R. S. Thomas
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...it is not the thing itself...that is the problem; but it is our clinging to the thing even when it causes us, ourselves, and others mental or physical pain, which blinds us to a bigger view and snowballs into more suffering. Ultimately, the challenge of letting go becomes a spiritual act in some way: in many spiritual traditions, surrender is the backbone, as Mohammed says in the Qur'an, "True religion is surrender." And so as we grasp at the beautiful red leaf, we just might let it spin again in the autumn wind, delighting in that tiny leaf-filled and empty moment.
~ from HAIKU MIND: 108 POEMS TO CULTIVATE AWARENESS & OPEN YOUR HEART by Patricia Donegan
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I catch
the maple leaf then let
it go
~ John Wills
John Wills letting go
The cosmos is filled with precious gems.
I want to offer a handful of them to you this morning.

Each moment you are alive is a gem,
shining through and containing Earth and sky,
Water and clouds.

It needs you to breathe gently
for the miracles to be displayed.
Suddenly you hear the birds singing,
the pines chanting...

You, the richest person on Earth,
who have been going around begging,
stop being the destitute child.
Come back and claim your heritage.
Enjoy your happiness
and offer it to everyone.
Cherish this very moment.
Let go of the stream of distress
and embrace life fully in your arms.
~ from "Our True Heritage" by Thich Nhat Hanh
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I wonder if gratefulness is the bridge from sorrow to joy, spanning the chasm of our anxious striving. Freed from the burden of unbridled desires, we can enjoy what we have, celebrate what we've attained, and appreciate the familiar. For if we can't be happy now, we'll likely not be happy when.
~ Philip Gulley
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Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin...be not therefore anxious for the morrow for the morrow will be anxious for itself.
~ Matt 6: 28, 34
letting go
When I started the practice of "no preference," a special quality of mind began to grow— a unique understanding and affirmation of the way things are— and I discovered something extraordinary: the heart of stillness sits perfectly balanced in the middle of chaos. This is the true dwelling place of the soul.
~ from ENDURING THE SACRED MOUNTAIN by David A. Cooper
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Forgiveness is a complex experience that changes an offended person's spiritual feelings, emotions, thoughts, actions, and self-confidence level. I believe learning to forgive the hurts and grudges of our life may be an important step for us to feel more hopeful and spiritually connected and less depressed.
~ from FORGIVE FOR GOOD by Fred Luskin
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If the heart has forgiven and excused,
Offenses will not be remembered.
They are remembered only in the attic, the memory,
Without the heart's participation.

~ from CHRIST THE ETERNAL TAO by Damascene
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Each day that passes,
the sage discards another useless weight.
Finally all the accumulated burden
of a life spent seeking something
is gone.
In its place is a lightness of being
and a clarity of seeing
that makes a heaven
of each moment.
~ from "What Will Be Left is Life Itself" in THE SAGE'S TAO TE CHING
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O sacred season of Autumn, be my teacher,
for I wish to learn the virtue of contentment....
I live in a society that is ever-restless,
always eager for more mountains to climb,
seeking happiness through more and more possessions...
Teach me to take stock of what I have given and received,
may I know that it's enough,
that my striving can cease
in the abundance of God's grace...
As you, O Autumn, take pleasure in your great bounty,
let me also take delight
in the abundance of the simple things in life
which are the true source of joy.
With the golden glow of peaceful contentment
may I truly appreciate this autumn day.
~ Edward Hays in EARTH PRAYERS ed. by Elizabeth Roberts & Elias Amidon
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Longing for our idealized images of life separates us from our true selves and from our true callings.
~ Stephen Cope
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One leaf left on a branch
and not a sound of sadness
or despair. One leaf left
on a branch and no unhappiness.
One leaf left all by itself
in the air and it does not speak
of loneliness or death.
One leaf and it spends itself
in swaying mildly in the breeze.

~ David Ignatow
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September 2019 (Vol. XXXII, No. 8)

Dear Friends ~ One of my college class assignments decades ago was to read a book called COME LET US PLAY GOD. Citing a myriad of scientific, technological, and medical breakthroughs of the time, it essentially raised the ethical questions and implications posed by our ever-advancing human capabilities. I remember at the time thinking that the human species has made breathtaking strides in intellectual development without the commensurate emotional or moral development. We make decisions and choose actions all the time because we can without thought for asking whether we should. In the midst of this skewed and ethically underdeveloped brew, our culture seems to have set aside values like honesty, integrity, generosity, kindness and civility. We don't hold public institutions and corporations and leaders to a higher moral standard.

...in our culture, it has been aptly observed, "we are never as kind as we want to be, but nothing outrages us more than people being unkind to us." In his stirring Syracuse commencement address, George Saunders confessed with unsentimental ruefulness: "What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness." I doubt any decent person, upon candid reflection, would rank any other species of regret higher. To be human is to leap toward our highest moral potentialities, only to trip over the foibled actualities of our reflexive patterns. To be a good human is to keep leaping anyway.

~ Maria Popova in the brainpickings.org newsletter, "Leo Tolstoy on Kindness and the Measure of Love"
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One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty counsels. The thing to do is supply light, not heat.
~ Woodrow Wilson
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"Under conditions of terror," Hannah Arendt wrote in her classic treatise on the normalization of evil, "most people will comply but some people will not...No more is required, and no more can reasonably be asked, for this planet to remain a place fit for human habitation." Under such conditions, counting ourselves among the few who refuse to comply has less to do with whether we believe ourselves to be good than it does with the deliberate protections we must place between unrelenting evil and our own sanity and goodness, for among the most insaning aspects of tyrannical regimes is the Stockholm syndrome of the psyche they inflict upon us — upon ordinary people, not-evil people, people who consider themselves decent and good, but who slowly, through a cascade of countless small concessions, lose sight of the North Star of their native moral compass.

~ Maria Popova in the brainpickings.org newsletter, "Against the Slippery Slope of Evil"
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Rather than relying on a thin, idealized hope that we will all one day just get along, we can approach conflict resolution as an art form that we are privileged to develop and hone.
~ Diane Musho Hamilton
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The fundamental problem, I believe, is that at every level we are giving too much attention to the external, material aspects of life while neglecting moral ethics and inner values...I call for each of us to come to our own understanding of the importance of inner values. For it is these inner values which are the source of both an ethically harmonious world and the individual peace of mind, confidence, and happiness we all seek. Of course, all the world's major religions, with their emphasis on love, compassion, patience, tolerance, and forgiveness, can and do promote inner values. But the reality of the world today is that grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate. This is why I believe the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics that is beyond religion.
~ from BEYOND RELIGION: ETHICS FOR A WHOLE WORLD by His Holiness the Dalai Lama
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People get blocked by living: hurrying and consuming things of no value thinking this is life. Real life is from a point within that radiates out to the world, a point within filled with serenity and assurance that we are loved, that we have a role to play in this world...This is the center of the real self, the best place to be. If you can live from this place, you will be Love's messenger.
~ from INDIGO CHILDREN by Peggy Fay and Susan Gale
Peggy Fay and Susan Gale Indigo Children moral compass

Then there is the listening at the gates of the heart which has been closed for so long, and waiting for that mysterious inner voice to speak. When we hear it, we know it is the Truth to which we must now surrender our lives.

~ Beth Ferris
Beth Ferris moral compass
Truthfulness, honor, is not something which springs ablaze of itself, it has to be created between people.
~ Adrienne Rich
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Blessed are those ears
Which hear the secret
Whisperings of Jesus,
And give no heed to the
Deceitful whisperings of this world,
And
Blessed are the good
Plain ears which heed
Not outward speech but
What God speaks and
Teaches inwardly in the soul.

~ Thomas a Kempis, THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
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I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.

~ Albert Schweitzer
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We have a long, long way to go. So let us hasten along the road, the road of human tenderness and generosity. Groping, we may find one another's hands in the dark.

~ Emily Greene Balch
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July-August 2019 (Vol. XXXII, No. 7)

Dear Friends ~ This past weekend we led an intergenerational retreat called "Children of the Earth." One activity was a story or guided meditation about an imaginary hike through the woods to a grove of gnarly oaks, tall poplars, and aromatic pines. At the base of each tree was a backpack with someone's name on it. Wild ones gave earthly gifts to add to the backpacks. Chickadee gave a seed to remind the children of their inner resourcefulness, bear gave mud tracks to remind them of strength and courage to defend those they love, owl a feather to remind them to be attentive to the mysterious wonders of the night. We all need a "backpack" of resources to help us on our path. Contemplation and action, pastoral care and prophetic witness, spirituality and service —we all need both so that the inner wisdom that sustains us and keeps us going ensures that the outer work comes from the heart and is done with love.

The same stream of life that runs through the world runs through my veins night and day and dances in rhythmic measure. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the Earth into the numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of flowers.

~ Rabindranath Tagore
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Compassion for others begins with kindness to ourselves.
~ Pema Chodron
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The dream of my life
Is to lie down by a slow river
And stare at the light in the trees —
To learn something by being nothing
A little while but the rich
Lens of attention.

~ Mary Oliver
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If we fall in love with creation deeper and deeper, we will respond to its endangerment with passion.
~ Hildegard of Bingen
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An ecological spirituality needs to be built on three premises: the transience of selves, the living interdependency of all things, and the value of the personal in communion. Many spiritual traditions have emphasized the need to "let go of ego" but in ways that diminished the value of the person, undercutting particularly those, like women, who scarcely have been allowed individuated personhood at all. We need to "let go of the ego" in a different sense. We are called to affirm the integrity of our personal center of being, in mutuality with the personal centers of all other beings across species and, at the same time, accept the transience of these personal selves.

~from GAIA AND GOD by Rosemary Radford Ruether
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We are overdosed on data and underfed on the mysterious. Our brains inflate while our souls wither. Constant interference by interpreting and explaining can distance us from life itself. God woos us into the wildness of unknowing where we are tempted by deeper senses.

~ from ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE, by Marv and Nancy Hiles
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We live in a time when science is validating what humans have known throughout the ages: that compassion is not a luxury; it is a necessity for our well-being, resilience, and survival.

~ Roshi Joan Halifax as quoted in EVERYDAY GRATITUDE
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I know not how others see me, but to myself I seem a small child playing on a beach, delighted at the discovery of a shiny stone or shell, while an entire ocean of Truth lay undiscovered before my eyes.

~ Isaac Newton
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"First, my child," said Old Turtle, "remember that there are truths all around us, and within us. They twinkle in the night sky and bloom upon the earth. They fall upon us every day, silent as the snow and gentle as the rain. The people, clutching their one truth, forget that it is a part of all the small and lovely truths of life."

~ from OLD TURTLE AND THE BROKEN TRUTH by Douglas Wood
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Faith is strong trust in self and life even in the face of evidence to the contrary. Like belief, it consists more in love than knowledge, or perhaps it is just that love takes precedence. It is intuitive. It is a power of the soul, not of the mind alone and based on the most subtle of perception. It is born and nurtured in the area of the third eye, the open heart, and the sensitivity of an ear tuned to mystery.

~ from THE SOUL'S RELIGION by Thomas Moore
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Call out to the whole divine night for what you love. What you stand for. Earn your name. Be kind, and wild, and disciplined, and absolutely generous.

~ Martin Shaw
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Every enlightened person on the earth,
everyone who's been liberated has had these virtues.
You cannot be freed without them.
The first one is compassion.
The second one is humility.
And the third one is service.

~ from SILENCE OF THE HEART by Robert Adams
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I believe that God is in me as the sun is in the color and fragrance of a flower — the Light in my darkness, the Voice in my silence.

~ Helen Keller
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May your life be like a wildflower, growing freely in the beauty and joy of each day.

~ Native American proverb
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Love is the root of Life that unites all.

~ from LUMEN CHRISTI...HOLY WISDOM by Nan Merrill
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What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
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June 2019 (Vol. XXXII, No. 6)

Dear Friends ~ The world aches with a heart-wrenching longing for hope, for healing, for belonging, for a life-sustaining future. The most pressing moral and spiritual question of the age is—what is our relationship to the earth and how do we set it right again. What is it that needs to be done? If what we have learned from culture and its economic and political systems is a hierarchical worldview that elevates the human species above all others, that markets the insatiable use of natural resources for the sake of a more convenient, easy, comfortable lifestyle (for the privileged few anyway), that values growth and profit above all else; then we shall have to unlearn the arrogance of human preeminence, call for the cherishing of earthly gifts to be shared by all, and choose to value life—all life—over short-sighted 'progress". What will it take to turn the tide of human folly?

Even as seas rise against shores, another great tide is beginning to rise— a tide of outrage against the pillage of the planet, a tide of commitment to justice and human rights, a swelling affirmation of moral responsibility to the future and to Earth's fullness of life.

~ from GREAT TIDE RISING: TOWARDS CLARITY AND MORAL COURAGE IN A TIME OF PLANETARY CHANGE by Kathleen Moore
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What was extraordinary was that I saw clearly, indisputably, finally, that the child, the grass, the trees, the sky above were all woven of the same material, were all part of the same fabric, which was the fabric of which the universe is made, and that this fabric lived. As pointed contrast, the cement sidewalk lay ugly and dead, a scar in the picture; except for it, the whole scene was transcendent with beauty, the colors had an intensity, a purity not present in "real" life, and the vision was imbued with a feeling of the perfect peace and oneness and benevolence of the universe.

~ from THE PERFECTION OF THE MORNING by Sharon Butala
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He who grabs much, grasps little.

~ Mexican proverb from EARTH CARE: WORLD FOLKTALES TO TALK ABOUT by Margaret Read MacDonald
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The word blessing evokes a sense of warmth and protection; it suggests that no life is alone or unreachable. Each life is clothed in raiment of spirit that secretly links it to everything else.

~ from TO BLESS THE SPACE BETWEEN US by John O'Donohue
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To call these things sacred is to say that they have a value beyond their usefulness for human ends, that they themselves become the standard by which our acts, our economics, our laws, and our purposes must be judged. No one has the right to appropriate them or profit from them at the expense of others. Any government that fails to protect them forfeits its legitimacy.

All people, all living things, are part of the earth life, and so are sacred. No one of us stands higher or lower than any other. Only justice can assure balance: only ecological balance can sustain freedom. Only in freedom can that fifth sacred thing we call spirit flourish in its full diversity.

~ from THE FIFTH SACRED THING by Starhawk
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Through greater intimacy with the natural world, we begin to appreciate its complexity and gain a clearer understanding of the relationship between the rains, the soul, and the plants, the animals and the trees, and how the welfare of one living being depends on that of another.

~ from SACRED WATER by Nathaniel Altman
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My father always told me that plants and flowers have souls. How else could wise King Solomon have spoken to them? He wouldn't have had much conversation with them if they hadn't had souls! We have to respect all growing things even if we do not understand their ways.

~ from THE ILLUMINATED SOUL by Aryeh Lev Stollman
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Culture has a way of giving us ladders when we need trees, reason when we need myth, and separateness when we need unity. In the music of the universe, there is harmony. The discord, the non-harmonious, is slowly drifting back in to the misty domains of our lost games. Ritual is being restored to rite. With a higher sense of the rhythms of the planet, we can recognize the emerging vision of grace. A grace to honor, not befowl, our Mother. A grace to honor each other as end products of diverse cultural journeys. A grace to become the kind of human that can embody the spiritual. A grace to blend into all that is, was, and shall be.

~ from MIND OF OUR MOTHER by Bob Samples
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We are all bound by a covenant of reciprocity: plant breath for animal breath, winter and summer, predator and prey, grass and fire, night and day, living and dying. Water knows this, clouds know this. Soil and rocks know they are dancing in a continuous giveaway of making, unmaking, and making again the earth. Our elders say that ceremony is the way we can remember to remember. In the dance of the giveaway, remember that the earth is a gift that we must pass on, just as it came to us. When we forget, the dances we'll need will be for mourning. For the passing of polar bears, the silence of cranes, for the death of rivers and the memory of snow.
~ from BRAIDING SWEETGRASS by Robin Wall Kimmerer
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FOR THE CHILDREN
The rising hills, the slopes,
of statistics
lie before us.
the steep climb
of everything going up,
up, as we all
go down.
In the next century
or the one beyond that,
they say,
are valleys, pastures,
we can meet there in peace
if we make it.
To climb these coming crests
one word to you, to
you and your children:
stay together
learn the flowers
go light
~ by Gary Snyder in TURTLE ISLAND
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The heart can't wait to speak of this ecstasy
The soul is kissing the earth, saying,
Oh God, what a blessing!

~ Rumi
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This is what Nature wants to restore in us: that breathless harmony in which her voice becomes ours and our voice hers, and it seems blessed just to walk in her shadow. . . her light shining-out from our eyes.

~ from HAIKU POND by Vincent Tripi
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May 2019 (Vol. XXXII, No. 5)

Dear Friends ~ To everything there is a season— a time to work and a time to play, a time to strive and a time to rest, a time to set one's "eyes on the prize" and a time to pause and notice the wildflowers and others along the way. In our culture, achievement and productivity are valued as the benchmarks of success. If the answer to the question, "What do you do?" cannot be summed up in a job title or a listing of accomplishments, you are left feeling somehow hollow or having been dismissed as insignificant. Yet one can be just as negligent or distracted or untransformed in the busyness of work as in mundane pursuits or the ordinary activities of daily life. If the magic of music lies partly in the silent spaces between notes, the gift of grace may lie in the Sabbath moments between long hours of work and activity.

To the Native American, song is the breath of the spirit that consecrates each act of life.
~ Natalie Curtis
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We thought of life by analogy with a journey, with a pilgrimage,
which had a serious purpose at that end,
and the thing was to get to that thing at that end.

Success, or whatever it is, or maybe heaven after you're dead.
But we missed the point the whole way along.
It was a musical thing, and you were supposed to sing or to
dance while the music was being played.
~ Alan Watts
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The sacred is not in heaven or far away. It is all around us, and small human rituals can connect us to its presence.
~ Alma Luz Villanueva
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Too easily are we inclined to imagine that God created this world for a purpose. We are so caught up in purpose that we would feel more comfortable if God shared our preoccupation with work. But God plays. The birds in a single tree are sufficient proof that God did not set out with a divine no-nonsense attitude to make a creature that would perfectly achieve the purpose of a bird. What could that purpose be I wonder? There are titmice, juncos, and chickadees; woodpeckers, gold finches, starlings and crows. The only bird God never created is the no-nonsense bird. As we open our eyes and hearts to God's creation, we quickly perceive that God is playful, a God of leisure.
~ from GRATEFULNESS, THE HEART OF PRAYER by Br. David Steindl-Rast
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Each age has its own task...Our hermitage is the act of living with attention in the midst of things: amid the rhythms of work, and love, the bath with the child, the endlessly growing paperwork, the ever-present likelihood of war, the necessity for taking action to help the world. For us, a good spiritual life is permeable and robust. It faces things squarely, knowing the smallest moments are all we have, and that even the smallest moment is full of happiness.
~ from THE LIGHT INSIDE THE DARK by John Tarrant
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In our culture we are trained to be doers and makers, not dreamers and seers. So I make an appeal for "holy leisure," a leisure that makes us more human. Holy leisure involves contemplation...the personal pursuit of meaning. Leisure allows for the contemplation that will bring meaning and energy to our lives and room within ourselves for holy reading, gentle awareness, and deep reflection.
~ Keith Snow
Keith Snow life
Elected silence, sing to me
and beat upon my whorled ear,
pipe me to pastures still and be
the music I care to hear.
~ Gerald Manley Hopkins
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I sense Lizzie's presence beckoning me away from the only socially acceptable addiction of our time: workaholism. She asks me to stop and look at what I am doing, at why I am so busy, at who I am and what it is that keeps me so mindlessly driven and competitive. It is not hard work that she questions, for she knows all too well the value of labor, but she invites me into awareness and honest self-scrutiny. Perhaps it is because I have chosen to live with a divided heart that the idolatry of being busy has claimed me. Perhaps it is Lizzie's faithful attention to what matters most – her focused, un-fussy attentiveness – that makes me think of her as I ponder the meaning of singleness of heart.
~ Elizabeth J. Canham in "Grandmother Wisdom," Weavings, Mar/Apr, 2003
Elizabeth J. Canham Weavings (mar/apr 2003) life

Hard work and drawing up plans are helpful, but not always. We do not build our souls as much as we find them along the way. We discover them by accident as much as by intention. There is a time to take our lives in hand, but there is also a time to take our hands off our lives, and to leave what seems apparent and trust ourselves to the hidden.

~ from ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE by Marv and Nancy Hiles
Marv and Nancy Hiles All The Days Of My Life life
Mystery is what happens to us when we allow life to evolve rather than having to make it happen all the time...There is something holy-making about simply presuming that what happens to us in any given day is sent to awaken our souls to something new: another smell, a different taste, a moment when we allow ourselves to lock eyes with a stranger, to smile a bit, to nod our heads in greeting.
~ from THE GIFT OF YEARS by Joan Chittister
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Journeys bring power and love
back into you. If you can't go somewhere,
move in the passageways of the self.
They are like shafts of light,
always changing and you change
when you explore them.
~ Rumi
Rumi life Buy on Amazon
The interior place where we experience God is the same kind of place, and as real, as the place where we experience music and poetry.
~ Karen Armstrong
Karen Armstrong life Buy on Amazon

Most people mistakenly believe that all you have to do to stop working is not work. The inventors of the Sabbath understood that it was a much more complicated undertaking. You cannot downshift casually and easily. This is why the Puritan and Jewish Sabbaths were so exactingly intentional. The rules did not exist to torture the faithful. They were meant to communicate the insight that interrupting the ceaseless round of striving requires a surprisingly strenuous act of will, one that has to be bolstered by habit as well as by social sanction.

~ Judith Shulevitz
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April 2019 (Vol. XXXII, No. 4)

Dear Friends ~ Spring, with all its re-greening, heralds stirrings of hope. Whether you see the relationship between humanity and the rest of nature as reciprocal or destructive, whether you feel despair at the impending sixth extinction or confidence that we can restore our connection to one of mutual respect and healing; the earth still waits, still sends forth green shoots, still pulses and burbles and sings. Nature can be our teacher, our portal into wonder, a practice of communion rather than dominion, a path of encounter and reckoning with our true self. Above all spring is a season rife with the promise of renewal, a chance at transformation. Step outside, turn your face to the warming sun, listen for the song of the goldfinch—and begin again.

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It sometimes seems to me that holiness, the quintessence of holiness, is as elusive as that strange fragrance in the air which heralds spring. We cannot define precisely where the scent lies, nor analyze exactly the color of the bird, nor yet assign to an invisible musical scale the plaintive bleat of the lamb, nor to a paint box the fleeting blue of the sky: a stirring in the blood, an impulse toward adventure, rough moorland, woodland paths... No, holiness is not to be defined. It is a living, glorious rebirth...an active condition, not a struggle with or against self, but a struggle for self, to bring oneself back, back to that pure and fragrant spring of our creation.
~ from IKONS by John Tavener and Mother Thekla
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Everyone needs beauty as well as bread, places to play and pray, where nature heals and gives strength to body and soul alike.
~ John Muir
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The earth is a living, conscious being. In company with cultures of many different times and places we name these things as sacred: air, fire, water, and earth. Whether we see them as the breath, energy, blood, and the body of the Mother, or as the blessed gifts of a Creator, or as symbols of the interconnected systems that sustain life, we know that nothing can live without them... To honor the sacred is to create conditions in which nourishment, sustenance, habitat, knowledge, freedom, and beauty can thrive. To honor the sacred is to make love possible. To this we dedicate our curiosity, our will, our courage, our silences, and our voices. To this we dedicate our lives.
~ from THE FIFTH SACRED THING by Starhawk
Starhawk The Fifth Sacred Thing nature Buy on Amazon
The exceeding beauty of the earth, in her splendor of life, yields a new thought with every petal.
~ Richard Jefferies
Richard Jefferies nature Buy on Amazon
All of God's creatures have divine knowledge within, even the tiniest ant, and we're all trying to get in step and march to the Divine Music.
~ from TALES OF THE HASIDIM by Martin Buber
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Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.
~ Rachel Carson
Rachel Carson nature Buy on Amazon
Every day is a fresh beginning.
Listen my soul to the glad refrain.
And, in spite of old sorrows
And older sinning,
Troubles forecasted
And possible pain,
Take heart with the day and begin again.
~ Susan Coolidge
Susan Coolidge nature Buy on Amazon
Gardening can provide an opportunity to slow down, be still, breathe, and connect with another form of life. For me, it is an experience of communion; I become one with this precious life in my garden and it heightens my experience of love in the world. And that is what spirituality is all about: growing in love.
~ from GROWING MYSELF by Judith Handelsman
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All around us, life arises and decays in complicated, in-between spaces. The human challenge is to make a similar confident, quiet passage through the paradoxes of life.
~ Rick Bass
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If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has the power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive.

~ Eleanor Duse
Eleanor Duse nature
Human consciousness, then, should not be what utterly separates us from the rest of "nature." Rather, consciousness is where this dance of energy organizes itself in increasingly unified ways, until it reflects back on itself in self-awareness. Consciousness is and must be where we recognize our kinship with all other beings. The dancing void from which the tiniest energy events of atomic structures flicker in and out of existence and self-aware thoughts are kin along a continuum of organized life-energy...
~ from GAIA AND GOD by Rosemary Radford Ruether
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When before the beauty of a sunset or a mountain, you pause and exclaim, "AH," you are participating in divinity.
~ ancient Hindu text as quoted in EVERYDAY GRATITUDE
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To be alive in this beautiful, self-organizing universe—to participate in the dance of life with senses to perceive it, lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it—is a wonder beyond words.
~ Joanna Macy and Molly Brown in COMING BACK TO LIFE: THE UPDATED GUIDE TO THE WORK THAT RECONNECTS
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Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
~ Kahlil Gibran
Kahlil Gibran nature Buy on Amazon
In all things of nature
there is something
of the marvelous.
~ Aristotle
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Throughout my life, by means of my life, the world has little by little caught fire in my sight, until, a flame all around me, it has become almost luminous from within. Such has been my experience in contact with the Earth. The diaphany of the divine at the heart of the universe on fire.
~ from THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Teilhard de Chardin
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March 2019 (Vol. XXXII, No. 3)

Dear Friends ~ Spending five weeks in India has made me acutely aware of how much I take for granted and even expect from life. Being able to drink clean water, a shelter with heat in winter, breathable air, space to walk, trash out of sight, food in my belly... When I was little my mother used to repeat a line I suspect she may have heard from her own mother, "I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet." At five or six years old I didn't get it. Seeing up close abject poverty, unbearable squalor, and folks dragging useless legs on filthy ground with flip flops on their hands—it begins to sink in. I did nothing to deserve being born into this life of mine any more than the forlorn toddler hanging at her imploring mother's side did to be born into a slum beside the railroad tracks. Here's another saying: "There but for the grace of God, go I." Yet why should I have been extended the grace of God and not them?

The word humility, like the human, comes from humus, or earth. We are most human when we do no great things. We are not so important; we are simple dust and spirit—at best, loving midwives, participants in a process much larger than we. If we are quiet and listen and feel how things move, perhaps we will be wise enough to put our hands on what waits to be born, and bless it with kindness and care.
~ from SABBATH by Wayne Muller
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The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.
~ from THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL SON by Henri J. M. Nouwen
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The way of hubris . . . pretends that we can be well by dispersing, by breaking down life's oneness into entirely unrelated compartments. And it pretends that we can be well by depriving, by denying to others and to other species what we ourselves most cherish. "By way of contrast," says Hildegard [of Bingen], "humility does not rob people or take anything from them. Rather, it holds together everything in love." The way of humility . . . remembers the sacred Ground of being within us all. And it knows that we will be truly well to the extent that we love one another.
~ from A NEW HARMONY by John Philip Newell
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Cooperation and humbleness always go together. Humbleness is seeing that everyone's path through earth school is as difficult as yours, and as important. It is not pretending that you are meek, or inferior. It is making the music together that cannot be made alone, and that cannot be made without the music that only you, alone, can make.
~ from SOUL STORIES by Gary Zukav
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We need a coat with two pockets. In one pocket there is dust, and in the other pocket there is gold. We need a coat with two pockets to remind us who we are.
~ a Hasidic tale
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If we will only learn silence, we will learn two things: to pray and to be humble. You cannot love unless you have humility, and you cannot be humble if you do not love. From the silence of the heart God speaks.
~ Mother Teresa
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A humble attitude requires an agile spirit, one that "shakes the dust off" and moves on. The modern world equates humility with submission, which breeds nothing but guilt or self-loathing, that leaves one preoccupied with "worthlessness" and stuck in a narcissistic loop. True humility liberates and produces self-love and love of others, not guilt or resentment... And authentic humility generates power by taking radical responsibility for ourselves, even responsibility (though not blame) for things beyond our control. Humility is a discipline in search of the true spiritual goal—to love.
~ Rose Marie Berger
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In the beginning, there was Love, and Love created and thus became Creator. I give all honor and glory and my humblest gratitude to the Creator for giving me the gift of life in Love held so delicately in each and every breath, and for guiding me to an experience where I could learn the power, magic, and understanding of just how incredible this gift really is. For the rest of my life, I will do everything within my power to honor, cherish, and protect this gift of life that connects us all.
~ from THE LEGACY OF LUNA by Julia B. Hill
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Humbleness: the awareness of our dependence on Spirit and the awareness of our need for and interdependence with other human beings and the world around us on all levels.
~ Edmund Helminski
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I believe that any human activity which stems from basic gentleness and the nonviolent nature of human beings has the guarantee to be of benefit and service.

~ the Dalai Lama
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Look well, O soul, upon thyself, lest spiritual ambition should mislead and blind thee to thy essential task: to wait in quietness, to knock and persevere in humble faith.
~ from THE FACE OF GOD by Gilbert Shaw
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Be humble in your perpetual uncertainty.
~ Paul Pearsall
Paul Pearsall humility Buy on Amazon
Cultivating gratitude opens us to allurement, strengthens our trust, and expands our compassion. Gratitude manifests in the midst of our everyday living when we pause to take account of how much we have been given. We are present to the wonder of the simplest gifts: a glass of water, a spoonful of food, a breath of air. At such times our hearts are full.
~ Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow in "EarthLight," Summer, 2001
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February 2019 (Vol. XXXII, No. 2)

Dear Friends ~ In meditative arts retreats that involve knitting or felting or other hand crafts, we often begin with a reflection on the gift of our hands, followed by a hand washing and massage ritual that each one gives to another. The human hand is a complex and wondrous feat of engineering design, combining the strength and power of a rock climber with the intricate dexterity of a pianist or watchmaker. The densest cluster of nerve endings in the entire body grace our fingertips, allowing us to feel the whisper touch of a butterfly, read Braille, or take the pulse of another's beating heart. Hands work clay, knead dough, transfer healing energy, clench, open, caress, beckon, communicate, wipe away tears, hold and let go. Hands help define us as human. They are the instruments of touch that connect us with one another.

winter rain
the warmth of your hand
in my hand

~ Jeannie Martin
Jeannie Martin hands

In the absence of other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God's existence.

~ Sir Isaac Newton
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All the powers of the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.

~ Swami Vivekenanda
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Of my hands I give to you, O Lord
Of my hands I give to you.
I give to you as you gave to me
Of my hands I give to you.

~ from hymn by Ray Repp
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I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess.
~ Martin Luther
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You can't shake hands with a clenched fist.
~ Gandhi
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Just as a pebble thrown into the water creates ripples, so our thoughts create similar effects in our palms.
~ Michael Scotts
Michael Scotts hands
Good human work honors God's work. Good work uses no thing without respect, both for what it is in itself and for its origin. It uses neither tool nor material that it does not respect and that it does not love. It honors nature as a great mystery and power, as an indispensable teacher, and as the inescapable judge of all work of human hands.
~ Wendell Berry in THE ART OF THE COMMONPLACE
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Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.
~ Carl Jung
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If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see our parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh
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Hold a true friend with both hands.
~ Nigerian proverb
Nigerian proverb hands

The fragrance always remains in the hand that gives the rose.

~ Heda Bejar
Heda Bejar hands
God has given us two hands, one to receive with and the other to give with.
~ Billy Graham
Billy Graham hands Buy on Amazon
Love is like a butterfly. If you chase after it, it will fly away. But if you are patient, and wait long enough, it will land in your hand.
~ Unknown
hands
May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us, establish the work of our hands.
~ Ps. 90:17
hands
What shall I do
with this quiet joy?
It calls forth the expanse
of my soul, calls
it forth to go singing
through the world...
to collect the rain
in my hands
and spill it
like laughter...
to bear into this world
a place where light will glisten
the edge of every wing
and blade of grass,
shine along every hair on every head,
gleam among the turnings of every wave,
glorify
the turning open of each life,
each human hand.
~ from "Magnificat" by Christina Hutchins
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Touch and the world of touch bring us out of the anonymity of distance into the intimacy of belonging. Humans use their hands to touch—to explore, to trace, and to feel the world outside of them. Hands are beautiful. Kant said that the hand is the visible expression of the mind. With your hands, you reach out to touch the world. In human touch, hands find the hands, face, or body of the Other. Touch brings presence home... The energy, warmth, and invitation of touch come ultimately from the divine. The Holy Spirit is the wild and passionate side of God, the tactile spirit whose touch is around you, bringing you close to yourself and to others.
~ from ANAM CARA: A BOOK OF CELTIC WISDOM by John O'Donohue
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January 2019 (Vol. XXXII, No. 1)

Dear Friends ~ Each year the turning of the season calls us to reexamine our way. Where have we been? Where are we going? Last month's newsletter contained a quote about a "traveling light." In the long, dark months of winter we become more mindful of our dependence on light. Where do we find our traveling light? What will sustain us and lift our spirits through these long nights? Will it be the twinkling lights of stars glittering in the small spaces between tree limbs? The tiny glimmer of light in another's eyes? The steady flame of a candle honoring a friend's passing? Can we be traveling lights for each other? In this new year of as yet unknown paths, may we dance on the edges of the eternal dappled interplay betwixt light and dark, trusting love to be our traveling light. As it says in the song, "Love will guide us."

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The past is past, no need to wonder; the present is now, where our love grows daily. What does the future hold? That's up to us. It seems the best thing to do is what we're doing right now, holding on to each other with love in the calm of the eye of the storm, with only one intent: to love one another as we are—completely—as two people raising each other up, as we move through this thing we call life.
~ from DEAREST WAIKI by Marilyn Markham
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I am remembering a lifetime of trying to map
the shape of shadow and light,
To draw the clean edges of change
And what has made me an oddity
Asked me to live far more closely
To the center of all that awe and ache.
~ Carrie Newcomer
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winter garden
deep roots
waiting for spring
~ Evelyn Lang
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Sometimes our light goes out, but is blown again into instant flame by an encounter with another human being.
~ Dr. Albert Schweitzer
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Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to "Jump at de sun." We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.

~ Zora Neale Hurston
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In the midst of gathering darkness, light becomes more evident.
~ Bonnie Bostrom
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Einstein told us that our universe is shaped and defined by light. We live in a visual cage, and what we call time is simply the ever-moving shadow of the bars which confine us....But suppose that...we were able to outrun the waves of light which undulate across the universe. As we leap...across the galaxy we overtake and leave behind the light which left the surface of the earth...the image will travel forever in this everlasting night, seeking its home among the stars, reaching ever outward toward some hypothetical destination at the universe's problematic end. Is light, then, the stuff our souls are made of?

~ from CELESTIAL CHESS by Thomas Bontly
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Lighthouses don't go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.
~ Anne Lamott
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Darkness deserves gratitude. It is the alleluia point at which we learn to understand that all growth does not take place in the sunlight.
~ Joan Chittister and Rowan Williams
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Through science we have created magnificent spacecrafts and telescopes to explore the night and the light and the half light. We have made visible things that are invisible to the unaided eye. We have brought the dreamy heavens down to Earth, held them in the mind's eye. Our explorations have produced a vast archive of remarkable astronomical images...The riches are too many for choices, the revelations beautiful and dreadful. Who can look at these images and not be transformed? The heavens declare God's glory.
~ from SKEPTICS AND TRUE BELIEVERS by Chet Raymo
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There is a feeling like the clenching of a fist
There is a hunger in the center of the chest
There is a passage through the darkness and the mist
and though the body sleeps, the heart will never rest
Shed a little light oh Lord so that we can see
Just a little light oh Lord...

~ from James Taylor's song " Shed a Little Light"
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The sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

~ Carl Jung, as quoted in brainpickings.org
Carl Jung light
We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.
~ Henry David Thoreau
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May the stars
light your way
and may you find
the interior road
Forward!
~ an Irish farewell
light
Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you.
~ Maori proverb
light

Uphold the Light that your inner light
may illumine fear-filled hearts...
Light comes with each new dawn.
yield to the Light within;
become a chalice of light
for the world!

~ from LUMEN CHRISTI...HOLY WISDOM by Nan Merrill
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