...Open my eyes to the moments of resurrection that surround me every day. There is always something rising, opening to new life, budding and blossoming, forgiving and transforming. Teach me to live awake that I may recognize the renaissance being celebrated in my midst at every moment. Make me a disciple of joy. Amen.

~ Macrina Wiederkehr in THE FLOWING GRACE OF NOW

Stump dead with rot, sprouts
~ Mary Ann Welter, "Resurrection"

We carried our grief
to the ocean's edge,
sat quiet in the sand;
the sorrow softened
as the waves washed
over them and the
brilliance of the
morning sun upon
the shimmering waters
filled our hearts
with wonder.

~ Rob Soley, "Held" from MOVING DAY

Women are spinners and weavers; we are the ones who spin the threads and weave them into meaning and pattern. Like silkworms, we create those threads out of our own substance, pulling the strong, fine fibers out of our own hearts and wombs. It's time to make some new threads; time to strengthen the frayed wild edges of our own being and then weave ourselves back into the fabric of our culture. Once we knew the patterns for weaving the world; we can piece them together again...we can remake the world. This is what women do. This is our work.

~ Sharon Blackie in If Women Rose Rooted

A blessing is a form of grace; it is invisible. Grace is the permanent climate of divine kindness. There are no limits to it... For one who believes in it, a blessing can signal the start of a journey of transformation. It belongs to the same realm as the inner life- its effect becomes only indirectly visible in the changed quality of one's experience. Where before gravity and deadness had prevailed, there is now a new sense of animation and lightness. Where there was grief, a new sense of presence comes alive. In the wall of blindness a window of vision opens.

~ by John O'Donohue in To Bless the Space Between Us

So, friends, every day do something that won't compute...Give your approval to all you cannot understand...Ask the questions that have no answers. Put your faith in two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years...Laugh. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts... Practice resurrection.

~ Wendell Berry, excerpt from "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front". Read more in The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry

May we today be touched by grace, fascinated and moved by your creation, energized by the power of new growth at work in your world.

May we move beyond viewing this life only through a frame, but touch it and be touched by it, know it and be known by it, love it and be loved by it.

May our bodies, our minds, our spirits, learn a new rhythm paced by the rhythmic pulse of the whole created order.

May spring come to us, be in us, and recreate life in us...

~ from the "Chinook Psalter" in Earth Prayers

Rise up in the early morning when the sun
shines in the east.
Rise up and see the sun as she shines in the earth,
She sheds her kindness on the earth in such splendor.
...Rise, bless the morning...
Your light shall shine...brighter than the sun...
Keep this light shining in your hearts, spirits of earth.

by Janet Hurlow, "Rise Up in the Morning" from PSALMS FROM THE HILLS OF WEST VIRGINIA

A Voice not daunted by "You Can't do that!"
     And opened the door to winds of change
That ignited the dormant creative possibilities in each
And gave them the vision, power and will to transform

In Memoriam
Fred Taylor
May 23, 1932-November 23, 2019

Fred was the President of the Friends of Silence Board and a founding partner of Still Point Mountain Retreat after his retirement as Executive Director of For Love of Children, a nonprofit organization focused on the needs of at risk children in Washington, D.C.

FLOC's Outdoor program has been an active participant and steward on the Rolling Ridge Conservancy property in West Virginia. Friends of Silence is housed at Still Point and Rolling Ridge. All of us who knew and worked with Fred miss his kindness and his warm way of offering critical insight and practical training in the formation and care of organizations seeking to do good work in the world.

Both For Love of Children and Friends of Silence  are accepting donations in memory of Fred.

Root and Fire: Restorying the Heroine's Journey 2020

This annual retreat includes openings for wandering in solitude, sharing dreams and stories, ceremony, the rhythm of drums, and sacred circle dance.

May 29 - 31, 2020 at Rolling Ridge Study 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. The wilderness setting of Still Point provides the quiet and solitude necessary for an ideal personal retreat experience.

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