Day 260 of Year 2 (Actually Day 265)
I hope you are all safe and well. I'd love if you would comment on this post and let me know how you are doing. Trying to loosen things up a bit tonight and work quickly. It's been a while since I did this and it's so important to do now and then. It gives the body and muscle memory a chance to reintegrate with the mind. Without these exercises, it's easy to get too careful and start thinking rather than listening. There is nothing more important to my process than listening. I've included a picture of the plate with ink just for interest. xoxo
In Silence
By Thomas Merton
Be still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
to speak your
name.
Listen to the living walls.
Who are you?
Who
are you? Whose
silence are you?
Who (be quiet)
are you (as these stones
are quiet). Do not
think of what you are
still less of
what you may one day be.
Rather
be what you are (but who?) be the unthinkable one
you do not know.
O be still, while
you are still alive,
and all things live around you
speaking (I do not hear)
to your own being,
speaking by the unknown
that is in you and in themselves. “I will try, like them
to be my own silence:
and this is difficult. The whole
world is secretly on fire. The stones
burn, even the stones they burn me.
How can a man be still or
listen to all things burning?
How can he dare to sit with them
when all their silence is on fire?” From The Strange Islands https://amzn.to/2UGe99k
Found on Poetry Chaikhana https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/blog/2013/09/27/thomas-merton-in-silence-2/
Poetry Chaikhana is an amazing amazing website for sacred poetry, check it out!