Tag Archives: Seven Thousand Ways to Listen

Entering the Stream

“Now , I want only to give away all that I’m blessed to know and disappear in the stream.”

-Mark Nepo

Quarantine self care is a thing I’m allowing myself, gifting myself with, so before a long hot mid-afternoon bath, I picked up my novel, lit a candle, put in some “Tired Old Ass” bath salts – thanks Craig 🙂 – and lowered into my soak.

Except, I didn’t pick up my novel… By mistake, instead, I opened the book I had picked up, Mark Nepo’s Seven Thousand Ways to Listen, to the above passage.

One of those life moments of perfection happened… the words, the timing, the quiet to absorb them.

What is enough to leave as a legacy? What will say that I’ve been here, that my life mattered, that will endure?

Oh yes, to share everything that your heart and soul has been blessed to learn and simply enter the stream…

And to Love! To leave that imprint of how much, how deeply, I loved… how passionately, how fiercely, I loved the wild ones, the forest, the trees, all of nature’s majesty and mystery, the wonder of the moment, my family, my husband, my dog, and all those four legged that shared my life  through the years, my forever friends, my nieces and nephews.  SO much Love.

Is it possible that I allow that to be enough?

The One Breath

The definition of prayer by Hildegard of Bingen,

“Breathing in and breathing out the one breath of the Universe.”

-Hildegard of Bingen

Prayer indeed.  While saying thank you, the most essential prayer.

Mark Nepo in his chapter “A Reality That Keeps Unfolding,” in Seven Thousand Ways to Listen, says of the breath of prayer:

“This is listening with our entire being. It speaks to an immersion of attention that all the traditions aspire to; each claiming in its own way that peace resides in this completeness which arises when our individual sense of being merges with the ongoing stream of being that is the heartbeat of the Universe. Whether these moments arise from great stillness or great suffering or great love, they all seem unexpected and seem to depend on our ability to hold nothing back.”

Timely words in these days of stillness, suffering and great love that we all are experiencing around our planet. Today, may you find this peace residing in completeness with the heartbeat of the Universe as you navigate your new normal.

Hold nothing back.