In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade-
Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.
~Theodore Roethke
how do we learn how to behave? how to receive this life as a gift? how to own our deep joys and sorrows? what do we want?
Longing has its own secret, future destination, and its own seasonal emergence from within, a ripening from the core, a seed growing in our own bodies; it is as if we are put into relationship with an enormous distance inside us leading back to some unknown origin with its own secret timing indifferent to our wills, and gifted at the same time with an intimate sense of proximity, to a lover, to a future, to a transformation, to a life we want for ourselves, and to the beauty of the sky and the ground that surrounds us. Reality met on its own terms demands absolute presence, and absolute giving away, an ability to live on equal terms with the fleeting and the eternal, the hardly touchable and the fully possible, a full bodily appearance and disappearance, a rested giving in and giving up; another identity braver, more generous and more here than the one looking hungrily for the easy, unearned answer. ~David Whyte
Many of us deny ourselves the opportunity of knowing and drawing out something more from within. Out of fear, lethargy(usually resistance n disguise) or indecision, we believe that such inner work is foolish, that people don’t change, that change is impossible or dangerous, as least for us. Wholeness, on the other hand, demands we energize ourselves, if only in imagination, strengthen ourselves from within in some ways we have avoided. Effectual meditation appears to regenerate and reconstruct the psyche. In some ways it is similar to the psychotherapeutic process: it introduces meditators to a deeper self that they may have been avoiding. In its ultimate form, a mediation program may enable us to reap the fruits of our fullest humanity, whether we call this enlightenment, actualization, Being, or Selfhood. Those who pray, meditate, study sacred literature and engage in competently run counseling seem to have an ideal mix for spiritual growth. When, through an effective meditation procedure, we free our hidden, creative self, we meet our authentic, intuitive nature. ~Marsha Sinetar
