Dear Friends ~ Each year the turning of the season calls us to reexamine our way. Where have we been? Where are we going? Last month's newsletter contained a quote about a "traveling light." In the long, dark months of winter we become more mindful of our dependence on light. Where do we find our traveling light? What will sustain us and lift our spirits through these long nights? Will it be the twinkling lights of stars glittering in the small spaces between tree limbs? The tiny glimmer of light in another's eyes? The steady flame of a candle honoring a friend's passing? Can we be traveling lights for each other? In this new year of as yet unknown paths, may we dance on the edges of the eternal dappled interplay betwixt light and dark, trusting love to be our traveling light. As it says in the song, "Love will guide us."

The past is past, no need to wonder; the present is now, where our love grows daily. What does the future hold? That's up to us. It seems the best thing to do is what we're doing right now, holding on to each other with love in the calm of the eye of the storm, with only one intent: to love one another as we are-completely-as two people raising each other up, as we move through this thing we call life. 

~ from DEAREST WAIKI by Marilyn Markham

Sometimes our light goes out, but is blown again into instant flame by an encounter with another human being.

~ Dr. Albert Schweitzer. Read more: Out of My Life and Thought

Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to "Jump at de sun." We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.

~ Zora Neale Hurston. Read more:  Their Eyes Were Watching God

In the midst of gathering darkness, light becomes more evident.

~ Bonnie Bostrom. Read more: Quicksilver Dreams

Einstein told us that our universe is shaped and defined by light. We live in a visual cage, and what we call time is simply the ever-moving shadow of the bars which confine us....But suppose that...we were able to outrun the waves of light which undulate across the universe. As we leap...across the galaxy we overtake and leave behind the light which left the surface of the earth...the image will travel forever in this everlasting night, seeking its home among the stars, reaching ever outward toward some hypothetical destination at the universe's problematic end. Is light, then, the stuff our souls are made of?

~ Thomas Bontly in   Celestial Chess

Lighthouses don't go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.

~ Anne Lammott. Read more: Almost Everything

Darkness deserves gratitude. It is the alleluia point at which we learn to understand that all growth does not take place in the sunlight.

~ Joan Chittister and Rowan Williams. Read more:  For All That Has Been, Thanks

Through science we have created magnificent spacecrafts and telescopes to explore the night and the light and the half light. We have made visible things that are invisible to the unaided eye. We have brought the dreamy heavens down to Earth, held them in the mind's eye. Our explorations have produced a vast archive of remarkable astronomical images... The riches are too many for choices, the revelations beautiful and dreadful. Who can look at these images and not be transformed? The heavens declare God's glory.

~ Chet Raymo in Skeptics and True Believers

There is a feeling like the clenching of a fist
There is a hunger in the center of the chest
There is a passage through the darkness and the mist
and though the body sleeps, the heart will never rest
Shed a little light oh Lord so that we can see
Just a little light oh Lord... 

~ from James Taylor's song "Shed a Little Light". Hear more in New Moon Shine

The sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

~ Carl Jung, as quoted in  

brainpickings.org

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn. 

~ Henry David Thoreau. Read more: Walden and Civil Disobedience

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. The wilderness setting of Still Point provides the quiet and solitude necessary for an ideal personal retreat experience.

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