Dear friends ~ Spring is the time for throwing open the windows, shaking out the rugs, clearing out the dust and grime of a long winter spent largely indoors. Many of us strive to organize, de-clutter, and downsize in an attempt to simplify our lives and perhaps to stem the pervasive onslaught of consumerism and acquisition. It is in the bitterest cold of winter, when the forecasters predict single-digit temperatures, that my husband chooses to sleep outside with naught but a sleeping bag between him and the elements. Why? To see the stars, to feel alive, to remember who he is and listen to the heartbeat of the world. After all these years I can still remember a dream I had in my youth-in cream-colored rooms of smoothly curving walls a zephyr wind blew away bags full of stuff like tumbleweeds, leaving behind blessed space pregnant with luminous blue, the lightness of being, utter stillness, and a deeply profound sense of wonder. When does too much comfort lull us into forgetting what our true needs are? What is the interplay between slowing down, living more simply, and care of the soul?

It came to me while reflecting on that woodland encounter with the night that there are two very valuable spiritual gifts that simplicity gives to us. It seems the more we can strip our lives down to essentials, the more deliberately and awake we can live; with few wants and more time for silence and contemplation, the more we have access to our inner resources. The more lightly we walk on this earth, the more she gives to us. I call these spiritual gifts inner smiling and outgoingness of the heart.

~ from Adventures in Simple Living by Rich Heffern

Still - in a way - nobody sees a flower, really. It is so small - we haven't time - and to see takes time. Like to have a friend takes time.

~ over "Red Poppy" by Georgia O'Keeffe. Read more: Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Collection

Voluntary simplicity involves both inner and outer condition. It means singleness of purpose, sincerity and honesty within, as well as avoidance of exterior clutter, of many possessions irrelevant to the purpose of life. It means an ordering and guiding of our energy and our desires, a partial restraint in some directions in order to secure greater abundance of life in other directions. It involves a deliberate organization of life for a purpose.

~ Richard Gregg in Voluntary Simplicity by Duane Elgin

I am simpler and more human in a setting where simplicity and the sacred human gesture are norms rather than exceptions.

~ Dennis Leder in "Presence," Vol. 1, No. 2, May, 1995

NOMADS

nomads, natives, wanderers
carriers of life's precious elements
they know what holds value
the earth, the sky, people, fish, animals, plants, insects
all that God created is good but man is not complete
we accumulate things, build things, save things
what a load to carry on your life's journey
we are bent and slowed by the weight
let go of the things
learn from the wanderers
the diamonds and pearls will now be there for you to see

~ Bernie Siegel, MD. Read more: Love, Medicine and Miracles: Lessons Learned about Self-Healing from a Surgeon's Experience with Exceptional Patients

Each age has its own tasks. For most of us now, our monasteries have no walls except the silence our meditation gathers to the center of our lives, and this is enough-it is more than enough. Our hermitage is the act of living with attention in the midst of things; amid the rhythms of work and love, the bath with the child, the endlessly growing paperwork, the ever-present likelihood of war, the necessity for taking action to help the world. For us, a good spiritual life is permeable and robust. It faces things squarely knowing the smallest moments are all we have, and that even the smallest moment is full of happiness.

~ from the The Light Inside the Dark as reprinted in An Almanac for the Soul by Marv and Nancy Hiles

I thought about the perfection of the morning, tried to name what it is about the morning that is different from the rest of the day. Is it the stillness? And, I thought, often on Sundays there is an all-day silence, or on rainy days or during off seasons; whatever this perfection might be, it's more than the absence of noises made by humans and their machines... In the purity of the morning, I understand how much more there is to the world than meets the eye...

~ from The Perfection of the Morning: An Apprenticeship in Nature by Sharon Butala

Opening the heart, clearing the mind:
the experience of sacred emptiness.

~ Common Boundary

The spirit, by its very nature, is Slow. No matter how hard you try, you cannot accelerate enlightenment. Every religion teaches the need to slow down in order to connect with the self, with others and with a higher force. In Psalm 46, the Bible says: "Be still then, and know that I am God."

~ Carl Honore in In Praise of Slowness

Let the soul banish all that disturbs; and let the body that envelops it be still, and all the fretting of the body, and all that surrounds it; let earth and sea and air be still; and heaven itself. And then feel the Spirit streaming, pouring, rushing into you from all sides, while you are quiet in this Peace.

~ Plotinus, AD 205. Read more: Plotinus or the Simplicity of Vision by Pierre Hadot

The spiritual function of fierce terrain...is to bring us to the end of ourselves, to the abandonment of language and the relinquishment of ego. A vast expanse of jagged stone, desert sand, and towering thunderheads has a way of challenging all the mental constructs in which we are tempted to take comfort and pride, thinking we have captured the divine. The things that ignore us save us in the end.

~ Belden Lane in The Solace of Fierce Landscapes

As I grew older the things I cared
about grew fewer, but were more
important. So one day I undid the lock
and called the trash man. He took everything.
I felt like the little donkey when
his burden is finally lifted. Things!
Burn them, burn them! Make a beautiful
fire! More room in your heart for love,
for the trees! For the birds who own
nothing-the reason they can fly.

~ excerpt from the poem "Storage" by Mary Oliver. Read more: New and Selected Poems by Mary Oliver

Three Centered Knowing: A Sacred Movement Wisdom School with Cynthia Bourgeault and Deborah Rose Longo on April 18-23, 2016 (Monday dinner - Saturday lunch) at Claymont Society for Continuous Education in Charles Town, WV.

Restorying the Heroine's Journey 2016: Sacred Circles and Wild Wanders With Lisa Bardack, Julie Gabrielli, Katy Gaughan, and Lindsay McLaughlin on April 29 - May 1, 2016 (Friday dinner 6:00 pm - Sunday lunch) at Rolling Ridge Study Retreat and Still Point Mountain Retreat.

Children of the Earth: Rolling Ridge annual retreat for children ages 4-8 and their families on May 6-7, 2016 at Rolling Ridge Study Retreat near Harpers Ferry, WV.

Arts to the Ridge 2016: A creative spirit retreat for girls ages 10-16 on July 26-July 1, 2016 at Still Point Mountain Retreat near Harpers Ferry, WV.

Reentering the World of the Dream: Encounters with the Sacred in Nature and the Human Soul on September 16-18, 2016 at Rolling Ridge Study Retreat near Harpers Ferry, WV.

Thriving on the Threshold: Becoming a Community of the New Story on October 21-23, 2016 at the Still Point Mountain Retreat near Harpers Ferry, WV.

Or schedule your own Personal Retreat. Friends of Silence is devoted to nurturing those who reverence silence, prayer, contemplation, the Divine Guest, and the Oneness of all creation. Personal retreat can be a wonderful discipline for those seeking the life-giving empowerment that derives from the Silence. We have partnered with Still Point Mountain Retreat to be able to offer space for personal retreat for our members, whether you come as an individual, couple, family, or small group. We also manage and offer River House. The wilderness setting of both these retreat spaces provides the quiet and solitude necessary for the ideal personal retreat experience.

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