Here in my head, language
keeps making its tiny noises.
How can I hope to be friends
with the hard white stars
whose flaring and hissing are not speech
but a pure radiance?
How can I hope to be friends
with the yawning spaces between them
where nothing, ever, is spoken?
…What can we do
but keep on breathing in and out,
modest and willing, and in our places?
Mary Oliver, Stars
Our psychological work is to journey from the chaos of our personal unconscious to a coherent conscious integration. Our spiritual path then takes us to the treasures of the cosmic, collective unconscious and full individuation. Everything in our lives, no matter how terrible, exists in relation to an inner healing force. “The journey with father and mother up and down many ladders represents the making conscious of infantile concerns that have not yet been integrated…The personal unconscious must always be dealt with first…otherwise the gateway to the collective unconscious cannot be opened”, Jung tells us. Our work as adults is thus an heroic journey, since a hero is anyone who has lived through pain and been transformed by it.
David Richo, How to Be an Adult
Will visit the small 12th Century church in the countryside this morning, where one can see this statue of Saint Francis meditating. He had an inner freedom, similar to this quote. Things arise and pass away. We are the ones who make a big fuss over them. There is no need to shut down or contract in fear.
When you realize emptiness,
there is no fear.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Do not speak to me of angels
unless you want to lie by
their side on the surface of emerald lake
and live forever with your eyes open.
My own angels take many forms.
Today they are trees.
Etel Adnan, born Beruit 1925 Lebanese-American poet
I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.
The suns I see and the suns I cannot see are in their place.
The palpable is in its place and the impalpable is in its place.
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.
Walt Whitman, Song of Myself
If each day falls
inside each night,
there exists a well
where clarity is imprisoned.
We need to sit on the rim
of the well of darkness
and fish for fallen light
with patience.
Pablo Neruda
