“Comfort comes into your house first as guest, then as a host, then finally as the master…

If you feel safe in the area you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting. “

David Bowie (1947 – 2016), born on this day

“God is voluptuous and delicious.”

Meister Eckhart, German theologian, philosopher and mystic (c. 1260 – c. 1328)

“Each of us builds our own prison or our own palace. Every conscious thought, every utterance of our lips, every interaction of ours with the world leaves its imprint upon an aura that surrounds each of us and stays with us wherever we go. All life, all blessing, all that is transmitted from Above must pass through that aura. Even if it be the greatest of blessings, the aura may distort it into ugly noise. Or it may resonate and amplify it even more. An aura of beauty attracts beauty. An aura of love attracts love. An aura of life and joy attracts unbounded light. Only you are the master of that aura. Only you have the permission and the power at any moment to transform your thoughts from the ugly to the beautiful, your words from bitter to sweet, your deeds from death to life. And so too, your entire world.”

Rabbi Tzvi Freeman, based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe

“Learning the scriptures is easy;
but living them, that’s hard.
Far easier to read words on a page
than to seek the living heart of things.
Fumbling through the fog of study,
stumbling, I lost my last words.
And my vision cleared.
Oh the sight that met me then!

When my mind was cleansed of impurities,
like a mirror of its dust and dirt,
I recognized the Self in me:
Wherever I looked and whatever I beheld,
I saw my own Self, I saw God.
O Lalli! This is the true seeing.”

Lalleshwari, also known as Lal Ded, Kashmiri poet-saint (1320 – 1392)

“The ancient bards of Britain maintained “perpetual choirs of song” that kept the land harmoniously connected and whole. As long as there was one voice, the land and its inhabitants remained within the enchantment. We now think of enchantment as a malign magical spell, but the original meaning of “to enchant” was “to infuse with song,” which is what the ancient choirs of song once did, maintaining the interconnection between this world and the otherworld. When awareness of this sacred link is severed, we lose the enchantment and fall into a sorry condition of disconnection.

Disenchantment happens to us all, taking the familiar forms of depressive illness, addictive behaviour, and malaise from which there seems no escape. It is important to act quickly when these states begin to set in, to realize that our soul’s story is out of phase with its sacred connection.

How can the soul or the world be re-enchanted once it has lost the enchantment? Only by returning to the story of the soul and retelling it up to the point of fracture; only by placing our own story within the context of the greater song. When Myrddin (Merlin) is exposed to the carnage of battle, he runs mad through the forest. Many try to calm him and bring him back to society, but only when the poet Taliesin comes and sits with him does Myrddin respond, asking the odd question, “Why do we have weather?” This seemingly trivial query is all that Taliesin needs to help his friend. He begins to recite the creation of the world. At the end of Taliesin’s recital, Myrddin is restored as the sacred context of his story is given back to him.”

From The Celtic Spirit: Daily Meditations for the Turning Year by Caitlin Matthews

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”

From The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien (1892 – 1973), born on this day

“It is dusk. The birds sweep low to the lake and then dive
up. The wind picks a few leaves off the ground
and turns them into wheels that roll
a little way and then collapse. There’s nothing like branches
planted against the sky to remind you
of the feel of your feet on the earth, the way your hands
sometimes touch each other. All those memories,
you wouldn’t want them over again, there’s no point.
What’s next, you ask yourself.
You ask it ten thousand times.”

Ten Thousand by Roo Borson

“These are the egg-shaped gourds
from the old homes
of our people a thousand years ago
and they are in my hand.
First, I introduce myself, the child
of the child of the old ones.
I listen to where they wish to live,
ask them about the birds they need,
the butterflies, insects when they blossom,
and sing them songs
people say are forgotten,
the words for placing them in the earth.
I promise to protect them
and paint the house as the old ones did
with the flowers, plants, even lizards,
birds and vines,
and I know, yes, there is renewal,
because this is what the seeds ask of us
with their own songs
when we listen to their small bundle of creation,
of a future rising from the ground,
climbing the fence.”

Ceremony for the Seeds from A History of Kindness by Linda Hogan

“My last word has to be gratitude, gratitude for being.. It is a harsh world, indescribably cruel. It is a gentle word, unbelievably beautiful. It is a world that can make us bitter, hateful, rapid destroyers of joy. It is a world that can draw forth tenderness from us, as we lean towards one another over broken gates. It is a world of monsters and saints, a mutilated world, but it is the only one we have been given. We should let it shock us not into hate or anxiety, but into unconditional love.”

Richard Holloway, former Bishop of Edinburgh, quoted in Fragments of Holiness for Daily Reflection

“But I’ll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you’ll come to understand that you’re connected with everything.”

Alan Watts (1915 – 1973), writer and philosopher