Dear Friends ~ It always seems to me that September invites us to things new. My grandchildren have been back at school for two weeks now, but when I was their age, September, just after Labor Day weekend in the U.S, announced the "New Year": new books, new teachers, a world of new ideas. All leading hopefully to learning, understanding, and perhaps gaining some clarity. I'm still drawn to that search for clarity — not in math or science — but in life amidst this cosmos.
After all, even the angle of the September sun speaks of clarity. Quakers call the discernment process "Seeking Clearness." In a context of transparency, bringing the Light to shine on an issue or decision can bring clarity. With September's sun translucent at my window, I invite you, dear readers, to consider this realm of clarity with me in the hope we may all, if we are lucky, see waiting wonders in snippets and voices, illuminating our homes, our hearts, and our needy world. Take heart, as true clarity may prove itself a life work as fleeting as September's butterflies, ready to gracefully swoop in again and again calling us to see things in a different light. ~ Mary Ann
To meditate is often to move through a land without paths. In the room where the philosopher is meditating there is less light, so you have to open your eyes wider. The same is true inside ourselves—There is less that is obvious or reassuring, so we must open our mind's eye much wider... Mindfulness ...means stopping to make contact with the ever-shifting experience that we are having at the time, and to observe the nature of our relationship to that experience, the nature of our presence at that moment.