Dear Friends in Silence,
I hope this post, the first in Silentium's new series called 'Contemplative Conversations', finds you safe and well and with no small measure of peace in your lives.
My main desire in publishing these Contemplative Conversations posts, is first and foremost to humbly share with you some resources that I have been exploring myself and have found engaging and nourishing for my own ongoing contemplative journey. Secondary to that, as the title suggests, I would love these posts to generate contemplative conversation within the community - the free a blessed exchange of what The Spirit has evoked in us as we engage contemplatively with the shared material.
Of course it's important that this is a safe space, a place where people can come and share what's on their heart in trust that they will be held, supported and loved. So I offer a gentle reminder that we behold what is shared with great compassion, kindness and grace and withold a need to respond unless that response is from the heart for the heart of the sharer - Thank You.
For this first C.C. I offer a podcast episode from Emergence Magazine called: Ancient Green: Moss, Climate and Deep Time by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Here is episode description:
Long, long ago—before there were trees, before there were flowers, before life existed outside of the churning oceans—mosses bravely ventured onto dry land. In this special Earth Week episode Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass, takes a long view of life on Earth, exploring how mosses—ancient beings who transformed the world—can teach us strategies for persisting amid a changing climate.
What I loved most about listening to this beautifully read essay was the reminder that we need not learn all lessons from other humans. Hearing how Moss has survived offered me wonderful insights, not just into how I might live more lovingly as one human being walking the Sacred Earth, but how I also might be within the communities of which I am part, including Silentium. Here is a little to tease you:
'The needs of Moss are very simple - not unlike our own; food energy, water, warmth, a place to raise their young, and beauty. But their means of meeting needs are very different. Mosses make minimal demands on their surroundings. All they need is a little....if they are hydrated and illuminated they will exhuberantly photosynthesise and expand the green carpet, but, when times are tough, they will simply stop growing and wait until water returns. They don't die they just crinkle up and pause following the rhythms of the natural world. Growing in times of abundance and waiting through periods of scarcity - a wise strategy for life that is in a time of uncertainty'
I hope enjoy listening and I excitedly look forward to your comments, thoughts and contemplative exchange as you respond to what The Spirit nudges you to hear.
Until I see you next time here, or in The Wisdom Chapel,
Go Well and God Bless
John