CREATIVITY AND OTHER LIFE QUALITIES: Gifts of Contemplation

Sunday

Gifts of Contemplation

As promised in an earlier post: Here are some of my journal entries, mildly edited, from the recent retreat to the Monterey Coast, along with some journaling/discussion prompts for you:

One gift of contemplation: A deeper and deeper awareness of and openness to the uniqueness, mystery, and depths of the true self within, yielding important insights for the journey that can result in a deeper and deeper “conversion” of the heart. Turning towards this“true self” results in a turning away from the tendencies of our culture towards hyper-activity or multi-tasking even when it isn’t necessary or value-adding, and other distractions that bring about or stem from the competitiveness, frustrations and angst so typical of the false self.

FOR YOUR JOURNAL/DISCUSSION/or to comment here at the blog: What are some gifts of contemplation for you? How have hyper-activity, multi-tasking, or some other modern habits affected your relationship with your true self? With others?

Holidays give us the opportunity to create some space in which to “Be” conscious, more aware, understanding, freely all we are with ourselves, with others.

TO JOURNAL/DISCUSS: How are the holidays “gifting” you…as you gift others with sharing these days?

Considering the story of Mary and Martha from the Gospels…and how it was Mary who had chosen the better portion...

TO JOURNAL/DISCUSS: Who are you these days…more like Mary? More like Martha? How might you choose the better portion today?

In the November 2008 issue of “Shambala Sun Magazine,” Michael Higgins comments on the poem, “O Sweet Irrational Worship,” by Thomas Merton. In his commentary Higgins addresses Merton’s celebration of the liberation found in solitude, via a human spirit connecting with the purity of nature, her patterns and archetypes, separated from egocentrism and reunited with the true self. It is an amazingly sparse poem and typifies Merton’s unique gifts of writing contemplatively while bridging two and more faith traditions, Zen Buddhism and Christianity in this case.

I rarely keep whole issues of magazines, preferring the comparative lightness and simplicity of carrying tear-sheets and articles instead. Here I was, a year after the tearing, finally reading and attending to the insights contained in this important piece. And I couldn’t help thinking, all this time later, a different “me” reading the article than the “me” who had torn it out a year or more ago, how we can’t hold onto a moment or to life itself forever…and that is what makes this life and each moment so precious. What we can do is show up for our lives, even the difficult bits, show up more and increasingly more through a practice of contemplation, showing up for every possible moment and the insights there, allowing the gifts and graces we encounter to permeate and transform us.

So this is what I call "walking up and tasting the 'present,'" intending the pun, tasting the sacred uniqueness that would never be...if not for your unique awareness of and presence with Sacredness here, now, witnessing, choosing the better portion as Mary did. Tasting the present, we witness, honor, or at least acknowledge it, this moment, our uniqueness, or specialness, or insights, that might further the conversation, or healing, or conversion of the heart. How often, stripped of masks and distractions, do we, might we honor, being present to, all this and more in ourselves, in others, day by day?

Diane Solis

The poetry of Diane Solis has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, excerpted in Expressive Writing: Classroom and Community, and has been published or is forthcoming in literary journals and magazines, including, America, Big Muddy, The Healing Muse, Hobo Camp Review, The Lost Country, Psychological Perspectives, Sinister Wisdom, Slink Chunk Press and elsewhere. Her chapbook ART SPIRITS, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. A science writer and technical editor by trade, Solis practices contemplative and Zen forms of meditation and travels to remote places to photograph and write about the "wild" she encounters there. She resides on the Central Pacific Coast with her partner.

www.dmsolis.blogspot.com

The Latest Quotes for Contemplation:

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. --Annie Dillard

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times, in life after life, age after age, forever. ~ Tagore

I look at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world.... ~ Frank O'Hara

Of all fires love is the only inexhaustible one. ~Pablo Neruda

Prophets are so dangerous because they cry in season and out of season, politely and impolitely, loud and long. ~Joan Chittister

When I say be creative, I don't mean you should all go and become great painters and great poets. I simply mean let your life be a painting, let your life be a poem. ~ Osho

There are a hundred paths through the world that are easier than loving. But, who wants easier? ~ Mary Oliver

Without warning, as a whirlwind swoops on an oak, Love shakes my heart. ~ Sappho

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
T.S. Eliot, from "Little Gidding"

Love many things, for therein lies your true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well... ~ Vincent van Gogh

I have found that to love and be loved is the most empowering and exhilarating of all human emotions. ~ Jane Goodall

Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone--we find it with another. ~Thomas Merton

I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities, we, too, will be remembered not for our victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit.
~John F. Kennedy

I cannot write convincingly about anything that I am not passionate about. ~Darrell Bourque, Poet Laureate of Louisiana

In the lover's heart is a lute which plays the melody of longing. ~Rumi

But perhaps the most important thing about my father was that he taught us the simplest things -- Navajo things -- like how to just sit and be quiet, to blend in and watch, or to move so silently we'd become a part of the forest. My father taught us how to live the concepts of our culture, especially the importance of communicating with the natural world. ~Lori Arviso Alvord, M.D.