May you grow still enough to hear the small noises earth makes in preparation for the long sleep of winter, so that you yourself may grow calm and grounded deep within. ~ David Steindl-Rast
How do you grow into calm?
Preparation
Present to the moment
“It is not what happens to us in any given day that gives content to our lives, but whether or not we let it’s experience sink into us.” ~ Elizabeth O’Connor
What floats up when you let yourself sink?
Traffic jam
The other day, a one hour commute turned into a much longer journey when I ended up sitting on the interstate for two and a half hours due to an accident up ahead. I had been longing for breathing space but not like this.
What makes space spacious?
Ordinary particles
All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners
.
or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—
.
did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust? ~ Jan Richardson
Travel
“The pilgrim in me feels the call of moving outward. My inner pilgrim feels a longing to travel. She wants to walk across new landscapes and find herself a stranger. This helps me release what I know and enter into a deeper truth I can only find when I wander.” ~ Christine Valters Paintner, The Soul of a Pilgrim
What do you discover when you wander?
Going in search of spirit
“…the urgency of seeing, fully aware, experiencing what is here: not what is given by men, by society, but what is given by God and hidden by (even monastic) society,” writes Merton. “… That it is absurd to inquire after my function in the world, or whether I have one, as long as I am not first of all alive and awake.” ~ Sophfronia Scott, The Seeker and the Monk
How do you see and experience what is here?
With the Eyes of the Heart 