I came to this earth so that I could find my way back to my beloved.
- Rumi
This Golden Eagle may appear to be floating, but it is actually riding on rising columns of warm air known as thermals. Thermals are generated when the sun warms the earth’s surface, indirectly heating the air closest to the ground, causing it to rise. Soaring birds can use this rising air to gain elevation and remain aloft for extended periods without flapping their wings.
http://birdbiology.org
Dear Wise Women,
As our winter session draws to a close, I wish to, once again, express my deep gratitude to each of you for being willing to continue walking this unknown path with me. These past two sessions (the fall and the winter) have been a true journey into the unknown, guided by our willingness to trust the unfoldment - both within in our circles and our personal lives.
And so, this week, I would like to “circle back” to all the themes we explored over the past ten weeks of our gatherings.
As you take in these images and re-visit these words, may you be like the eagle and allow yourself to be lifted by a power greater than you, may you relax your wings, soar freely and take in the bigger picture.
With grace and gratitude,
Patti
The Space Between
When how you appear is who you are, you are truly free.
- Dr. Joe Dispenza, “Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself”
When we can meet others as equal living beings, each with their own center, then we live out the I and Thou relationship, through which the Mystery manifests as a vital life-force between us.
- Mark Nepo
We are Divine Creators
Love is the bridge between you and everything.
- Rumi
Trust what makes you come alive as a valid source of information to guide your choices.
- Charles Eisenstein
We are the Earth
Walk. as if your feet are kissing the earth.
- Thich Naht Hanh
You carry Mother Earth within you.
She is not outside of you.
Mother Earth is not just your environment.
In that insight of inter-being,
it is possible to have real communication
with the Earth,
which is the highest form of prayer.
- Thich Nhat Hanh
The Grace of Space
Remember the entrance door to the sanctuary is inside you.
- Rumi
We are a vessel for spirit to fill. We contain a divine light, a space of sanctuary and stillness, that is available to us at any moment if we choose to go inwards. I believe that this is what the Bible means when it says, “The Kingdom of God is within you.” Over the many months of painting this piece, the mantra came to me and repeated again and again in my mind, “My body is my Temple and my Earth is my Home.”
- Autumn Skye Morrison
The Innocence of (True) Gratitude
Be happy for no reason, like a child. If you are happy for a reason, you're in trouble, because that reason can be taken from you.
― Deepak Chopra
The instinct of most conditioned human beings is to decide what to be grateful for—to look at everything and think: Is this something I should be grateful for?
Gratitude has to be woken up because it's buried underneath conditioning. As children we possess gratitude naturally, but as we grow up it becomes buried under a lot of layers of defensiveness.
So, we need to be returned to—and reacquainted with—the innocence of gratitude.
- Matt Kahn
The Courage to Keep Looking
Don't turn away. Keep your gaze on the bandaged place. That's where the light enters you.
- Rumi
“Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.”
- Leonard Cohen
Soft Eyes
When the eye is not set on one leaf, and you face the tree with nothing at all in mind, any number of leaves are visible to the eye without limit.
– Takuan Soho, Zen Buddhist monk (1573-1645)
To see with “soft eyes” is to take in what is in front of us, rather than to project out. It is a completely different way of seeing. It is both a meditative practice and a way of being in the world that immediately activates presence. Soft eyes are curious, free of judgement, free of limitations and free of preconceptions. When we look with soft eyes we open ourselves to receive all that is visible and invisible in the field between us and what we are looking at.
Soften and Listen with the Ear of the Heart
We listen deeply by listening to the Source through immersion, absorption, and presence. We begin by allowing ourselves to sink into the depth of whatever moment we are in.
We speak deeply by listening with heart to the Source, no matter who or what conveys it, and translating that presence into meaningful speech. We begin by accepting and working with what we hear. Speaking deeply has something to do with letting things pass through our heart as they are.
We question deeply by listening to what is offered and surfacing its meaning and usefulness through further questioning and honest dialogue. What can you ask that will open that door? What can you ask that will let you enter what has been opened?
- Mark Nepo, “Seven Thousand Ways to Listen”
Return
Stay centered, do not overstretch. Extend from your center, return to your center.
- Buddha
The spiritual path is not one of attainment, but of return.
- Alan Cohen
A Single Step
A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
- Lau Tzu
For being human, we remember and forget. We stray and return, fall down and get up, and cling and let go, again and again. But it is this straying and returning that makes life interesting, this clinging and letting go - damned as it is - that exercises the heart.
- Mark Nepo
And now, dear Wise Women, I wish to leave with a Mary Oliver poem that I feel captures the essence of our journey down this winding path:
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place in the family of things.
- Mary Oliver