Hide and Seek

In Thor's mailbox as the sun rises clear and cold this 9th day of February in 2023...

What we are, what we have...all is gift, all is grace, not to be achieved but to be received as a gift freely given – Desmond Tutu

Even when [we are] engaged in action [we] remain … in the tranquility of the absolute. – The Bhagavad Gita

Consciousness is not something that [we] have or something that can be known—it is what [we are]...In order to realize this, we need to consent to be, free from the compulsion to know. – Charles Genoud

Sincerity begins where we are defenseless...Not to hide simply means to be whole. – Jerzy Grotowski

...meditation is not a conceptual exercise but a somatic one. – Reggie Ray

Rewilding

In the mailbox this still-yet-raining-Okieland-morning named after Odin . . .

Some birthdays of note . . . Yesterday was the 211th anniversary of Charles Dickens' birth, in Portsmouth, England (1812). And today marks the birth of poet Elizabeth Bishop, in Worcester, Massachusetts (1911).

We don't need a grand spiritual awakening in order to return to our Edenic consciousness. We just need to pay close, special attention to the connections that already constitute us. The lush, environmental contexts that shape [everything about us]. – Sophie Strand re: Rewilding the Sacred Masculine. Get her fabulous book here. You can also get it at Amaz-ing.

Trusting Experience

In Tew's Day's mailbox this rainy 7th day in 2023 February . . .

I hope my words [and mine as well, Fr.Richard]—written or spoken—simply invite readers on their own inner journey rather than a replacement for it. . .Information from outer authority is not necessarily transformation, and we need genuinely transformed people today, not just people with answers. . .For two thousand years and increasingly for the last hundred years or so have seen the arrival of all kinds of tools by which to critique our own experience in the service of that transformation. These experiences continue to provide us with the possibility for a more contemplative, non-obsessive mind. – Fr. Richard Rohr (adapted)

Transformation, of course, means change. And we humans are not fond of change. “The world fears a new experience more than it fears anything. Because a new experience displaces so many old experiences.” – D. H. Lawrence

Meditation is one of the main tools we have to develop and practice mindfulness. Meditation practice is not an exotic or out-of-reach approach. Rather it is personal, and it involves an an immediate intimate relationship with the Self. – Chögyam Trungpa (1940–1987)