winter, elder

For a full day and two nights I have been alone. I lay on the beach under the stars at night alone....Beauty of earth and sear and air meant more to me. I was in harmony it, melted into the universe, lost in it, as one is lost in a canticle of praise, swelling from an unknown crowd in a cathedral. I felt closer to humankind, too, even in my solitude. For it is not physical solitude that separate us from others, not physical isolation, but spiritual isolation.

I grew up in this forest and I knew
These giant trees when they were nothing more than
Than slender saplings swaying in the wind;
Sought solitude, delighted in the lore
Of nature, who became my teacher first;
Walked down trails where sun and shadow meet,
Through silence softly tucked about the days;
Traced the twists and turns of every creek.
Stepping lightly through the after-glow,
Amid the falling flakes of silver white,
Belonging to the moment and the mood,
Another little creature of the night,
With quickened breath, ears attuned, who stood
... Sensing God within this winter wood!
 

Only solitude can provide the depth for universal friendship. Those who can be solitary have withdrawn their projections and are innately nonviolent. They have broken with the crowd, and their communities do not become rival crowds in their turn. Solitude gives us the transformational insight that all things are held together in the boundless, open community of God. To be friends with one another is only seeing what we are in God together. This insight is the criterion of all genuine holiness.

Holiness demands courage. The courage born of holiness.

Wisdom is radiant and unfading, and she is easily discerned by those who love her, and is found by those who seek her.She hastens to make herself known to those who desire her.One who rises early to seek her will have no difficulty, for she will be found sitting at the gate.She goes about seeking those worthy of her, and she graciously appears to them in their paths, and meets them in every thought.

Pleasure is one thing; wisdom is another.The first leads to sorrow, though pleasant at the time.The latter, though at first unpleasant, leads to lasting joy.

Wisdomhas no limitations and embraces the profound as well as the simple.She can be found in the huts of the poor and in the palaces, in workshops and in lecture halls.She deals with the most profound speculations on the creation of the world and the very nature of God and even with the inability of men and women to come up with adequate answers to these great mysteries.Wisdom tells us to be attentive to her and to incline our ears to her understanding.

Ignorance of spiritual laws is bondage; knowledge of spiritual laws is freedom; application of spiritual laws is wisdom.

There is a Wisdom that arises--sometimes gracefully, sometimes gently, sometimes awkwardly, sometimes fiercely, but it will arise to save us if we let it, and it rises from WITHIN us, like the force that drives green shoots to break the winter ground, it will arise and drive us into a great blossoming like a pear tree, into flowering, into fragrance, fruit and song ... in that part of ourselves that can never be defiled, defeated or destroyed, but that comes back to life, time and time again, that lives--always--that does not die.

Wisdom is the art of balancing the known with the unknown, the suffering with the joy; it is a way of linking the whole of life together in a new and deeper unity ... Wisdom is the art of living in rhythm with your soul, your life, and the divine.

There came upon me an overshadowing bright cloud, and in the midst of it a Figure of a Woman, most richly adorned with transparent gold, her hairhanging down, and her face as terrible as crystal for brightness, but her countenance was sweet and mild.At this sight I was somewhat amazed, but immediately a Voice came saying, "Behold, I am God's eternal Virgin, Wisdom, whom thou hast been enquiring after.I am to unseal the Treasures of God's deep wisdom unto thee."