There is a quiet light that shines in every heart. It draws no
attention to itself, though it is always secretly there.
It is what illuminates our minds to see beauty, our desire
to seek possibility, and our hearts to love life. Without this
subtle quickening our days would be empty and wearisome, and no horizon would ever awaken our longing. Our passion for life is quietly sustained from somewhere in us that is welded to the energy and excitement of life. This shy inner light is what enables us to recognize and receive our very presence here as blessing.

~ John O’Donohue

• “When you cease to fear your solitude, a new creativity awakens in you. Your forgotten or neglected wealth begins to reveal itself. You come home to yourself and learn to rest within. Thoughts are our inner senses. Infused with silence and solitude, they bring out the mystery of inner landscape.”

~ John O’Donohue- Anam Cara, p. 17

Embrace the shadow and become the light. (came to me yesterday morning)

Only one who knows what it’s like
to lift up the lyre in the shadows
is prepared to voice infinite praise.

Only one who has eaten the poppy with the dead,
their flower, will never lose
that most delicate of tonalities.

Although the reflection in the pond
is often blurry to us:

Whenever doubt arises, see it simply as an obstacle, recognize it as an understanding that is calling out to be clarified or unblocked, and know that it is not a fundamental problem but simply a stage in the process of purification and learning. Allow the process to continue and complete itself, and never lose your trust or resolve. This is the way followed by all the great practitioners of the past, who used to say: “There is no armor like perseverance.”

— Sogyal Rinpoche

To know fully even one field or one land is a lifetime’s experience. In the world of poetic experience it is depth that counts, not width. A gap in a hedge, a smooth rock surfacing a narrow lane, a view of a woody meadow, the stream at the junction of four small fields – these are as much as a man can fully experience.

~Patrick Kavanagh

The soul must learn to travel through the earthly world with the senses awake but under its sovereign rule.

— Rudolf Meyer, The Wisdom of Fairy Tales,  p. 25

The story used to illustrate this– Maid Maleen (Grimms)

“The expansion of one’s sakti, in contrast to its contraction, is both a practice and a state of being. Here, the yogi, directs the prana-sakti outward, through the openings of the senses. That might sound surprising. You might ask, “Isn’t that what people do all the time? Is sensory perception truly a practice that brings us to inner bliss?” It is, but only if this ‘expansion’ of the sakti happens in the right way. That is, only if the yogi perceiving exterior objects is able, at the same time, to anchor his attention on his inner center, the Self. From that perspective, the energy moving outward is seen as identical to the energy vibrating within– even though the yogi may be experiencing an invasion of sounds, smells, and other sensations.

As I’ve discovered on the occasions when this state has opened up within me, my awareness of the hustle and bustle continues; it is, however, now contained within a vast and silent cavern. This is the ‘cave of the heart’ that Gurumayi describes, a space that encompasses both inner and outer or, as she puts it, both heaven and Earth. This extremely esoteric practice, known in Saivism as bhairavi-mudra, is described in a scriptural passage quoted by Kshemaraja in his commentary:

If you project the vision and all the other powers {of the senses) simultaneously everywhere onto their respective objects  by the power of awareness, while remaining firmly established in the center like a pillar of gold, you (will) shine as the One, the foundation of the universe.”

— The Splendor of Recognition: An Exploration of the Pratyabijna-hryadayam, a Text on the Ancient Science of the Soul, Swami Shantananda

William Blake – Auguries of Innocence

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

Remain infinitely aware, while caressing the divine details.

“As high over the mountains the eagle spreads its wings, may your perspective be larger than the view from the foothills. When the way is flat and dull in times of gray endurance, may your imagination continue to evoke horizons.”
~ John O‘Donohue

I think the missing key here is that there are always divine details even in times of endurance.

Just these two words He spoke changed my life,
“Enjoy Me.”

What a burden I thought I was to carry -a crucifix, as did He.

This is my living faith, an active faith, a faith of verbs: to question, explore, experiment, experience, walk, run, dance, play, eat, love, learn, dare, taste, touch, smell, listen, speak, write, read, draw, provoke, emote, scream, sin, repent, cry, kneel, pray, bow, rise, stand, look, laugh, cajole, create, confront, confound, walk back, walk forward, circle, hide, and seek.

—Terry Tempest Williams, Leap