From Parabola:
Vilhelm Hammershøi, "Sunshine in the Drawing Room III," 1903
"The world is filled with invisible realities. But, if people do not see or hear, then these realities do not exist."
—William Segal
Vilhelm Hammershoi, "White Doors," 1905. Oil on canvas 52 x 60 cm
“The true contemplative is not one who prepares his mind for a particular message that he wants or expects to hear, but is one who remains empty because he knows that he can never expect to anticipate the words that will transform his darkness into light. He does not even anticipate a special kind of transformation. He does not demand light instead of darkness. He waits on the Word of God in silence, and, when he is “answered,” it is not so much by a word that bursts into his silence. It is by his silence itself, suddenly, inexplicably revealing itself to him as a word of great power, full of the voice of God.”
—Thomas Merton from The Climate of Monastic Prayer
Paul Klee, "Woman Awakening," 1920
“We do have a deadening desire to reduce the mystery, the uncertainty of our lives…. We bind our lives in solid chains of forced connections that block and fixate us. …. Our sense of uncertainty and our need for security nail our world down. …. Each time we go out, the world is open and free; it offers itself so graciously to our hearts, to create something new and wholesome from it each day. It is a travesty of possibility and freedom to think we have no choice, that things are the way they are and that the one street, the one right way is all that is allotted to us. Certainty is a subtle destroyer…”
—John O’Donohue, from Eternal Echoes
Qing Jing Wei Tian Xia Zheng, "Pure Stillness Corrects Everything Under Heaven." An ancient Daoist admonition to Sit Still! Xingshu script on hefty German paper w/ 3 seals 20" x 30"
You Come And Go
You come and go. The doors swing closed
ever more gently, almost without a shudder.
Of all those who move through the quiet houses,
you are the quietest.
We become so accustomed to you,
we no longer look up
when your shadow falls over the book we are reading
and makes it glow. For all things
sing you: at times
we just hear them more clearly.
Often when I imagine you
your wholeness cascades into many shapes.
You run like a herd of luminous deer
and I am dark, I am forest.
You are a wheel at which I stand,
whose dark spokes sometimes catch me up,
revolve me nearer to the center.
Then all the work I put my hand to
widens from turn to turn.
—Rainer Maria Rilke, from Love Poems to God, The Book of Monastic Life. By way of The Beauty We Love.
Vilhelm Hammershøi, "Sunshine in the Drawing Room III," 1903
"The world is filled with invisible realities. But, if people do not see or hear, then these realities do not exist."
—William Segal
Vilhelm Hammershoi, "White Doors," 1905. Oil on canvas 52 x 60 cm
“The true contemplative is not one who prepares his mind for a particular message that he wants or expects to hear, but is one who remains empty because he knows that he can never expect to anticipate the words that will transform his darkness into light. He does not even anticipate a special kind of transformation. He does not demand light instead of darkness. He waits on the Word of God in silence, and, when he is “answered,” it is not so much by a word that bursts into his silence. It is by his silence itself, suddenly, inexplicably revealing itself to him as a word of great power, full of the voice of God.”
—Thomas Merton from The Climate of Monastic Prayer
Paul Klee, "Woman Awakening," 1920
“We do have a deadening desire to reduce the mystery, the uncertainty of our lives…. We bind our lives in solid chains of forced connections that block and fixate us. …. Our sense of uncertainty and our need for security nail our world down. …. Each time we go out, the world is open and free; it offers itself so graciously to our hearts, to create something new and wholesome from it each day. It is a travesty of possibility and freedom to think we have no choice, that things are the way they are and that the one street, the one right way is all that is allotted to us. Certainty is a subtle destroyer…”
—John O’Donohue, from Eternal Echoes
Qing Jing Wei Tian Xia Zheng, "Pure Stillness Corrects Everything Under Heaven." An ancient Daoist admonition to Sit Still! Xingshu script on hefty German paper w/ 3 seals 20" x 30"
You Come And Go
You come and go. The doors swing closed
ever more gently, almost without a shudder.
Of all those who move through the quiet houses,
you are the quietest.
We become so accustomed to you,
we no longer look up
when your shadow falls over the book we are reading
and makes it glow. For all things
sing you: at times
we just hear them more clearly.
Often when I imagine you
your wholeness cascades into many shapes.
You run like a herd of luminous deer
and I am dark, I am forest.
You are a wheel at which I stand,
whose dark spokes sometimes catch me up,
revolve me nearer to the center.
Then all the work I put my hand to
widens from turn to turn.
—Rainer Maria Rilke, from Love Poems to God, The Book of Monastic Life. By way of The Beauty We Love.
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