Dear Friends ~ Spring has arrived in all its glory. As I walk the labyrinth at Still Point, the Friends of Silence retreat house where Nan Merrill's library lives, I'm reminded time and again that "This is Holy Ground," both secretly and brazenly transforming itself in all seasons. Winter was mild in West Virginia with crocuses up early by the front step. March brought hints of the transformation to come. Shadowed by the dark clouds of Corona Virus spreading through the world, daffodils bloomed in profusion down by the pond and at the woods' edge.
The distinctive feel of the turning of the year to warmth, growth, flowering, and light speaks of rebirth, transformation, renewal. May we all turn inward, look outward, and see our own little resurrections guided by spirit. As Teilhard de Chardin puts it, "All around us, to right and left, in front and behind, above and below we have only to go a little beyond the frontier of sensible appearances in order to see the divine welling up and showing through... By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us and moulds us... We imagine it as distant and inaccessible, whereas in fact we live steeped in it." ~ Mary Ann
In a cave, all outer sounds are smothered by rock and earth, but this makes the sounds of one's own heartbeat and breath audible. In the same way, contemplative stillness turns us away from everyday clamor but allows us to hear the subtle in our own lives. When listening not with the ear but with the spirit, one can perceive the subtle sound. By entering into that sound, we enter into supreme purity. That is why so many religious traditions pray, sing, or chant as a prelude to silence. They understand that the repetition and absorption of sound leads to sacredness itself. The deepest sound is silence. This may seem paradoxical only if we regard silence as an absence of life and its opposites. It is both sound and soundlessness, and it is in this confluence that the power of meditation emerges.