Category: Meditations

 “Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous – to poetry. But also, it gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd.”
―Thomas Mann

What does solitude give birth to in you?

Only part of what we see is determined by what is around us – the other part is determined by our own eyes, by the way that we bring the outer world to our inner world.

How do you cultivate “big eyes,” to see the world with wonder?

We are told that the groundhog will determine how long winter will last, depending on whether he is scared by his shadow. Although this is dubious meteorology, many of us have been scared into a state of winter by the sight of our own shadow.

How do you welcome (or run from) your shadow side?

Some moments of connection are marked by relaxing with companions and a glass of wine. But an even more powerful connection can be created in those tense moments when much is at stake, and you can only move forward by seeing eye to eye.

When have you found connection in a challenging situation?

In the beginning was the Word…declares the Gospel of John, but it never says exactly what word that might be. It’s as hard to imagine a single word that would launch creation as it is to picture the Big Bang, in which Nothing exploded into Something. Such is the nature of beginnings.

What single word evokes the sense or experience of a new beginning for you?