Dear Friends ~ Spring has arrived in all its glory. As I walk the labyrinth at Still Point, the Friends of Silence retreat house where Nan Merrill's library lives, I'm reminded time and again that "This is Holy Ground," both secretly and brazenly transforming itself in all seasons. Winter was mild in West Virginia with crocuses up early by the front step. March brought hints of the transformation to come. Shadowed by the dark clouds of Corona Virus spreading through the world, daffodils bloomed in profusion down by the pond and at the woods' edge.
The distinctive feel of the turning of the year to warmth, growth, flowering, and light speaks of rebirth, transformation, renewal. May we all turn inward, look outward, and see our own little resurrections guided by spirit. As Teilhard de Chardin puts it, "All around us, to right and left, in front and behind, above and below we have only to go a little beyond the frontier of sensible appearances in order to see the divine welling up and showing through... By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us and moulds us... We imagine it as distant and inaccessible, whereas in fact we live steeped in it." ~ Mary Ann
On a sould discovery journey in the desert, our group included Miguel Gruntlein, who had studied the Peruvian flute. Early each morning I would hear Miguel somehwere near the camp playing the most serene song to gree the dawn with the same haunting tune; as we moved camp, the tune changed. When asked, Miguel said he was playing the songs of the canyon. Each place has its own song and reflects a unique facet of his soul that comes alive in the particular wild place he visits, a conversation between Miguel and the wild.