Sitting by the river, watching the flow quietly, I am reminded of how important the Silence, the Stillness is. Grace has so much to offer, is always pregnant with possibility. The Beloved waits for us to prepare to receive. Life will give as much as we are prepared to receive ~ the more spaciousness to receive, the more received. This is the nature of Love. So, a story...

A man was walking through the wilderness and came upon a vicious tiger. He ran, but he soon came to the edge of a high cliff. Desperate to save himself, he climbed down a vine and dangled over the precipice. As he hung there, two mice appeared from a hole in the cliff and began gnawing the vine. The tiger remained looking over the side of the cliff at a potential meal, the man. Then, the man noticed on the vine a plump wild strawberry. He took it and popped it in his mouth. He found it to be wonderfully delicious!

We are all between past and future, birth and death. Can we see, now, the gifts Grace is offering us? Another like tale... from a cartoon...

Two Zen monks in robes and shaved heads, one young, one old, they sit side by side and cross-legged on the floor. The younger is looking somewhat quizzically at the older, who is turned toward him and saying, “Nothing happens next. This is it.”

And, yet, within this nothing-happening is a lot of movement. Even Silence has a lot to say, as Stillness has a lot happening within it.

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Being mindful is being heartful, entails allowing spaciousness for something fresh to arise and give itself. This Presence-being allows appreciating the moment, being gentle with the flow of Life, availing oneself of the opportunities that are often missed by our trying to be somewhere other than where we are ~ which is, after all, futile.

* * *

So, how much have you been where you have been lately? A suggestion, 'Just Sit, feel what arises, even if it is the feeling of nothing arising' - that, too, is something, a gift to you to receive.

The Sacred in Me bows to the Sacred in You

*Lotus of the Heart is an offering of Brian K. Wilcox. Brian authored An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love.

*Move cursor over photos for photographer and photo title.

*Poem from Rumi: Fragments, Ecstacies, translated by Daniel Liebert. Omega Publications 1981.