“All people are children when they sleep. there’s no war in them then. They open their hands and breathe in that quiet rhythm heaven has given them. They pucker their lips like small children and open their hands halfway, soldiers and statesmen, servants and masters. The stars stand guard and a haze veils the sky, a few hours when no one will do anybody harm. If only we could speak to one another then when our hearts are half-open flowers. Words like golden bees would drift in. God, teach me the language of sleep.”
“Finding our true song is about relinquishing the burden of ego and the false choruses that it sings. Self-importance causes us to dance to strange tunes that our feet find unnatural. When we act out of self-importance, we trip ourselves up, make Freudian slips, inadvertently revealing to ourselves and others how far we are from our soul’s circuit.
The false songs that we sing are out of tune with our soul; they are merely the responses we have adopted from others, not utterances from our own deep core. Our uncertainty and lack of conviction echo in them. The solution to these false songs is to forget ourselves and concentrate upon what we are doing, refusing to engage with fear and self-disclosure. It is not that we should ignore ourselves, but rather that we should attempt to step out of our own way. The Irish poet W. B. Yeats noticed this for himself: he discovered that whenever he went out of his way to create something beautiful, he sabotaged his poem.
The same is true of our own deep song, which is forever singing its beautiful melody beyond the reach of our ears. When we act sincerely, when we speak from the heart, when our passion is engaged, the true song is heard in all its glory.”
“All things Are too small To hold me I am so vast In the infinite I reach For the uncreated I have touched it It undoes me Wider than wide Everything else Is too narrow You know this well Who also live there.”
Hadewijch of Antwerp (13th century Beguine)
This Chandra image of Sgr A* and the region around it was based on almost two weeks of observing time. A theoretical model based on these deep data has been produced to help explain why this giant black hole seems to consume so little material. Scientists have also used these data to probe supernova remnants and lobes of hot gas extending away from the black hole. The image also contains several mysterious X-ray filaments.
“In my travels I spent time with a great yogi. Once he said to me, ‘Become so still you hear the blood flowing through your veins.’ One night as I sat in quiet, I seemed on the verge of entering a world inside so vast I know it is the source of all of us.”
Mirabai (also known as Meera), Indian Bhakti saint, c. 1498 – 1546
“Beneath the ground, the seeds are slumbering. During these months, seeds are like time bombs, filled with explosive energy that they will only release at the proper moment.
You yourself may be one of these seeds. Perhaps you need a period of rest before you can capitalize on all the power inside you. Or perhaps that dormancy is already ending, and it’s time for you to burst forth. Like any seed, make sure that you get all the light and the nutrients you need. Prepare the ground around you, and take steps to distract any creatures that would feed upon you before you’ve reached your full potential. Then start blossoming.”
“We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil, all committed, for our safety, to its security and peace. Preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work and the love we give our fragile craft.”
Chorlton Unitarians 