Sweet Darkness

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing:
the world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

~ David Whyte ~

I'm struggling quite a bit with finding the words to make some changes. I feel like so often the conversations sound like commentary on where the listener is, not where I am, or am seeking to go. I am grateful that the past year has led me to some treasured experiences - I have met some great people and sharing their stories has been helpful to me. But occasionally those stories push me in a new direction of action - and I do not feel free to explore those anymore.

I am trying to communicate that this is my journey, and although I would like the companionship it's not a criticism of anyone else. I'm not sure yet quite how the answer when someone says "we miss you" without acknowledging that my journey is hard or not always welcome. I simply can't worry about other's right now. I'm being called way out of my comfort zone, and remaining isn't an option either. I'm hoping that way opens soon....

The beach

Hampton Beach - John Greenleaf Whittier

The sunlight glitters keen and bright,
Where, miles away,
Lies stretching to my dazzled sight
A luminous belt, a misty light,
Beyond the dark pine bluffs and wastes of sandy gray.

The tremulous shadow of the Sea!
Against its ground
Of silvery light, rock, hill, and tree,
Still as a picture, clear and free,
With varying outline mark the coast for miles around.

On, on, we tread with loose-flung rein
Our seaward way,
Through dark-green fields and blossoming grain,
Where the wild brier-rose skirts the lane,
And bends above our heads the flowering locust spray.

Ha! like a kind hand on my brow
Comes this fresh breeze,
Cooling its dull and feverish glow,
While through my being seems to flow
The breath of a new life, the healing of the seas!

Now rest we, where this grassy mound
His feet hath set
In the great waters, which have bound
His granite ankles greenly round
With long and tangled moss, and weeds with cool spray wet.

Good-by to Pain and Care! I take
Mine ease to-day
Here where these sunny waters break,
And ripples this keen breeze, I shake
All burdens from the heart, all weary thoughts away.

I draw a freer breath, I seem
Like all I see
Waves in the sun, the white-winged gleam,
Of sea-birds in the slanting beam,
And far-off sails which flit before the south-wind free.

So when Time's veil shall fall asunder,
The soul may know
No fearful change, nor sudden wonder,
Nor sink the weight of mystery under,
But with the upward rise, and with the vastness grow.

And all we shrink from now may seem
No new revealing;
Familiar as our childhood's stream,
Or pleasant memory of a dream
The loved and cherished Past upon the new life stealing.

Serene and mild the untried light
May have its dawning;
And, as in summer's northern night
The evening and the dawn unite,
The sunset hues of Time blend with the soul's new morning.

I sit alone; in foam and spray
Wave after wave
Breaks on the rocks which, stern and gray,
Shoulder the broken tide away,
Or murmurs hoarse and strong through mossy cleft and cave.

What heed I of the dusty land
And noisy town?
I see the mighty deep expand
From its white line of glimmering sand
To where the blue of heaven on bluer waves shuts down!

In listless quietude of mind,
I yield to all
The change of cloud and wave and wind
And passive on the flood reclined,
I wander with the waves, and with them rise and fall.

But look, thou dreamer! wave and shore
In shadow lie;
The night-wind warns me back once more
To where, my native hill-tops o'er,
Bends like an arch of fire the glowing sunset sky.

So then, beach, bluff, and wave, farewell!
I bear with me
No token stone nor glittering shell,
But long and oft shall Memory tell
Of this brief thoughtful hour of musing by the Sea.

health

Today is a good reminder about how fragile our health can be. Yesterday I was tired, and once we turned the air conditioner on (just low) I needed a blanket most of the day (and THREE at night). It did not dawn on me until this morning that this could be a thyroid issue - but it probably is. As someone with a chronic health condition, it surprises me sometimes that I forget I am sick. How timely - after spending yesterday trying to figure out how to slow down and rest, my body's doing it for me. Today's practice will be one of gratitude for the health I still have, and (hopefully) for more health that will return. And fruit, lots of fruit!

“Can you see the holiness in those things you take for granted–a paved road or a washing machine? If you concentrate on finding what is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul.” — Rabbi Harold Kushner

returning...

This week's vacation was blessed on many levels - and I am sure to share moments here. A surprisingly difficult task, however, was slipping back into "real life" here at home. While on vacation, I was fortunate to have free fun time with my family, time to walk and rise early and read and learn new things. All which I am also, luckily, able to do for the most part at home. However, I arrived home with reminders of the life I had laid aside for the week. Commitments I had made, scheduling conflicts that I was asked to solve, the usual.

This arrival home left me in tears last evening. I think after a while year, I was finally able to taste a bit of that "jubilee"moment - the time for laying aside of all things, to hear what we are called to do again with fresh ears.

I spent the week in Newtown, home of Edward Hicks, who had some trouble discerning his calling in his early life. Hicks had a talent for painting, but that was considered "unacceptable" in the ornamental style of the day, not a profession for a devout Quaker. And yet, once Hicks was able to hear his call, he was able to use his talents to express his ministry in the way he could be best used.

I'm okay with being a member of committees, doing my part to help the meeting here at home, and all of that. But the spiritual dimension of my current growth, the reason in part I spent time in Newtown and Philadelphia, is getting pushed aside. My tears of frustration upon returning were caused by the notion I might lose what I had just worked so hard to discover.

I feel urged, especially this week through the writings of early Friends, to take time, to sit with concerns as they arise, and to consider and be aware of new openings. When my life is cluttered with too much to do, I can no longer hear any inner promptings. I have been struggling to find a way to define my confusion, but it now seems quite clear to me. Rest and deeper time of listening is what I experienced this week. I feel the need to clearly resolve not to let that process fade away, and to clear my schedule and my heart of all the unimportant clutter.

A number of well-meaning members of my meeting have expressed concern for my level of commitment. They have gently reminded me not to take on too much. I am hoping this indicates that they will be okay with my laying down of many future commitments. My first calling right now seems to be the fellowship and worship in my own meeting, and in certain others. I am going to try to stay true to that call as it (hopefully) appears.

Untying knots by the light of the rising sun

Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie. - Jean Cocteau

This morning's beach walk was clear and breezy. I still feel restless, like there is a problem to be solved, a journey to be embarked upon, and I suspect the lesson of patience is still on my horizon.

As I clicked on the radio and started the car, Henry Purcell's "The Gordian Knot United" was announced. I sat and watched the waves roll in, and listened, and thought about knots.

The Gordian knot, beyond its history, has become a metaphor for a particularly difficult problem, one with no seeming solution that one must be willing to cut away in order to solve. Perhaps that slashing represents the "out of the box" thinking (my own well-used metaphor). Today it seems to me to be an impatient rush to solution, that eliminates the healing and wisdom of the journey and process of finding a new pathway.

A little internet research this morning also reveled the healing power of the Gordian Knot. In fact, many people wear them as spiritual jewelery with healing properties...

"Three are the circles of existence:
The circle of Light where dwells nothing but God and only God can traverse it.
The circle of Chaos, from which all things by nature arise from death.
The Circle of awareness where all things spring from life."
Emerald tablet of Thoth

I'm not really sure I need to start wearing anything, my current practice of Spirit works fine for me. But today I do feel more open to new avenues of learning. I see in today's musings a reminder that some problems contain a gift in the solving, more so than the solution.

Clearness?

"Your job is to find what the world is trying to be." - William Stafford

I'm doing a lot of musing on a F/friend's blog post today about how she feels God speaks to her in a very direct way. Today was a very different Hampton Beach from yesterday. The skies were clear, and I felt as if I could see for miles.

I did not, however, feel on the inside any better than yesterday morning - I still felt lost in a fog, not the fog of unknowing or wonderment or forgetting (gracious we have many kinds of fog!). Just the simple fog of confusion, which muddles my process, leads me away from peace and leadings, and creates fear that is unwarranted and toxic.

This is the part where the bargaining with Spirit always begins for me. "If I could only glimpse one moment, be given one small step with which to proceed on the path...". This is also where the great sages and mystics of the Universe have also gotten stuck. Often. Somedays I am gracefully kicked back to "beginning mind" - or more often, I spend a little time wallowing.

Today I opened Stafford's book (which is always in my glovebox) and his words spoke to me, in a clear directive....

"Your job is to find what the world is trying to be."

The world, for today, is my Quaker Meeting. For there is where I feel so often that we collapse into a lack of Spirit, a lack of intent, an elimination of prayerful space. This week I have been hit with "nudges" - simple but profound signs (and interactions with others) that we are wanting to go deeper, to experience each other and Spirit in community. For me, the community is always involved. That's the hardest part - I'm a really a pretty good solitary spirit - involve others and I get cranky and trapped in assumptions. Repeatedly.

I have no idea what is in store next. Which is most likely exactly where I need to be in order for anything to happen!

Fog.

(I am back to blogging. My hiatus was accompanied by lots of journaling - but I'm finding it too tedious to have to copy into my notebook all the poetry and quotations with arthritic hands. We'll see how this goes.)

This morning I took a long walk on Hampton Beach. I almost didn't head there this morning, as there was thick fog and rain was threatening. I am glad I ended up there - as often happens, the weather, the beach, the sea, all spoke in metaphor to my condition today.

The fog was so thick I could not see more than a few feet into the beach - I could not tell if the tide was high or low, and I could barely hear the waves. I was reluctant to venture out into the mist, but I kicked off my flip-flops and headed into the cool, freshly raked sand.

About ten steps in, and I could not see the sidewalk I had just left. I still couldn't see the ocean, and I felt myself in an uncomfortable place between two worlds. Most likely because of the heavy mist around me, the separation felt tangible. I kept on walking, wondering when I would see the water. The sand became smoother, wetter, and soon I saw the stones and heard the waves.

This morning was a very low tide, and I had to walk out even further to the ocean. I turned around, and could not see any sign of the boardwalk, my car, or much of the sand. What surprised me, and made me smile, is what I did find.

At the ocean's edge, there were people - lots of them! We beach walkers are a strange bunch - rising to greet the dawn when others are still sleeping, and there is an unsaid sort of understanding as we nod in greeting to each other as we pass on the beach. Its own kind of community, people joined in their love of the ocean and cool mornings and peace.

Today's reflective moments for me all centered around community, unknowing, risks, and how we find ourselves. I feel right now like I am on some sort of journey, and the next steps, and the meeting of the community, cannot happen unless I am willing to venture out and lose sight of the shore. And there on this misty morning, the community was waiting for me.


In the Fog

It's strange to wander in the fog!
A lonely bush, a lonely stone,
No tree can see the other one,
And one is all alone.

The world was full of friends back then,
As life was light to me;
But now the fog has come,
And no one can I see.

Truly, no one is wise,
Who does not know the dark
Which inevitably and silently
Does from others him part.

It's strange to wander in the fog!
Life is loneliness
No Man knows the other one,
And one is all alone.

- Hermann Hesse