Drink your tea slowly and reverently,
as if it is the axis
on which the world earth revolves
- slowly, evenly, without
rushing toward the future;
Live the actual moment.
Only this moment is life.
‘Drink your tea’, Thich Nhat Hahn
Over the past month I have been guided by Canadian photographer Kim Manley Ort on an e-workshop called '30 days of perception’. It was the perfect preparation for Advent, the liturgical season when I try to refocus on my spiritual journey, knowing my destination is never a place, but a new way of looking at, and for, God in this world.
One of the things I learnt on Kim’s course was that one mind has 84 facets. She cited Guru Jagat observing ’84 perspectives can be toggled in any respective moment. That’s very powerful.’ Actually that realisation feels mind-boggling to me. Yet it is a pertinent reminder of how small my seeing is (in all senses), and is a prompt for starting the process of intensive and expansive retuning.
Sitting in silence, I recognise I need to become more attuned to my surroundings, making space to allow the distinctive voices of nature or people or inventions call to me. In silence I need to embark on the journey of Advent which calls me, in a particular way at this particular time, to become more alert; to be wide awake for the possibility of seeing God, in a particular way at this particular time.
May my vision may be expanded this Advent, even up to 84 times.
It has frequently been remarked, about my own writings, that I emphasize the notion of attention. This began simply enough: to see that the way the flicker flies is greatly different from the way the swallow plays in the golden air of summer. It was my pleasure to notice such things, it was a good first step. But later, watching M. when she was taking photographs, and watching her in the darkroom, and no less watching the intensity and openness with which she dealt with friends, and strangers too, taught me what real attention is about. Attention without feeling, I began to learn, is only a report. An openness — an empathy — was necessary if the attention was to matter… I was eager to address the world of words — to address the world with words. Then M. instilled in me this deeper level of looking and working, of seeing through the heavenly visibles to the heavenly invisibles.
from Our World, Mary Oliver
junction. iPhone image.
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