Dear Friends ~ Purportedly the beginning of something new, a whole breathless yet-to-be-lived year, January is moored in bleak mid-winter. The wonder of Solstice, of Christmas, have faded in the rearview; the promise of Equinox and Easter are far off. January is stuck trying to be something spirited in the gray-sky, sodden-snow middle, the dark borderland between one thing and another.
But hold on. Mystics and poets say that the darker, in-between places are where transformative, sometimes surprising, things happen: thresholds are liminal, vital spaces. In her poem, "Marginal", Maggie Anderson writes, "This is where I live, at the edge of this ploughed field...I prefer it here...This life is not easy, but wings mix up with leaves here...and I can poise myself and hold for a long time, profoundly..." The old god Janus, the month's namesake, was the custodian of transitions and passages, his two faces on an edge, looking to the ancient ways and future possibilities.
Silence is the air of such a place; it's how we breathe in liminal spaces. Jesuit theologian Walter Burghardt described contemplation as a "long, loving look at the real". Inhaling, exhaling in Silence, we know ourselves loved, belonging, wild as all Earth's inhabitants are wild, and holy. Grief mixes up with joy here. Like Janus, we can look around fearlessly; indeed, in all the sacred directions, and know ourselves held, profoundly.
I bring you poets, storytellers, soul criers singing about the "wildness of reaching an edge", as I once heard David Whyte describe it; about how we pray, love, live, and thrive in such a place, in this time. May you take the adventure, plunge into the alchemy, breathe, and be profoundly held in Silence, Love, and Spirit. ~ Lindsay
The accumulated wisdom of centuries teaches us that God speaks to the human heart most intimately only in silence. Silence and an inner emptiness or receptivity are the strange conditions for all our relationships. Without the ability to be silent, to wait, to be receptive, all our attempts at communion become manipulative and possessive. We become frustrated because we want instant gratification. We want all of who we are to be revealed. We want to know the end of the story. We find it difficult to wait. Waiting in the stillness, is, perhaps, the hardest of all human activities. It is not only hard; it is dangerous. The act of self-emptying leaves us open to attack from other quarters ... Yet it is only in silence that who we really are begins to appear. In the end, we need not fear, for it is our own best self struggling within, longing to be free.