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
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
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
Meditation is a form of training the mind, so that it does not get hooked by all our inner storms, but rather relates to the world, or other people, in a fresh way, just as they are:
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche used the phrase “first thought, best thought” to refer to that first moment of fresh perception, before the colorful and coloring clouds of judgment and personal interpretation take over. “First thought” is “best thought” because it has not yet got covered over by all our opinions and interpretations, our hopes and fears, our likes and dislikes. It is direct perception of the world as it is.
Dr Jeremy Hayward, First Thought
Some Taoist wisdom for the journey. Real relationship with what is deepest in our hearts is something we know instinctive and survives our poor words and concepts:
I confess that there is nothing to teach:
There is no religion, no science, no writings, which will really show your mind the Way.
Today I speak in this way, tomorrow in another,
but always the Path is beyond words and beyond mind.
Lao Tzu (attributed), The Huahujing
The Buddhists say there are 149 ways to God.
I’m not looking for God, only for myself, and that is far more complicated.
Jeanette Winterson, Sexing the Cherry
