Silence and Snails

"I need to be silent for a while,

worlds are forming in my heart."

~ Meister Eckhart

"Let mystery have its place in you;

do not be always turning up your whole soil

wit the plowshare of self-examination,

but leave a little fallow corner in your heart

ready for any seed the winds may bring,

and reserve a nook of shadow for the passing bird;

keep a place in your heart for the unexpected guests,

an altar for unknown God."

~ Henri-Frederic Amiel

One of the suggested practices that I came across recently for the new year, is to listen for a word that may manifest in your heart as a guiding theme or principle for the year.

As I listened on my walk today, the word that came was silence...

Actually, everything I've read or come across in the last couple of weeks has served as an invitation to cultivating greater silence...

Martin Scorcese's latest movie, now in theaters, is titled "Silence..."

The song that shows up on my favorite XM Sirius channel, as I am driving around doing errands is titled "Beautiful Silence..."

Last night I dreamt of a small snail figuring prominently in my dream - he would not be ignored - and so I looked up its metaphysical meaning, and these are some of things that I came across:

"You are headed in the right direction, and if you are willing to keep heading that way, you will make progress. Stick with it!

"Snail is letting you know that any pace is a good pace...

"What seems to be a slow process is actually moving quickly...

It is also a sign that angelic beings are working with you...

Be patient...

The snail is a symbol of growth, adaptability, and protection..."

I find myself resonating with all of these characteristics and realize that it is also in the cultivation of greater silence that these characteristics will be brought into greater fruition...

In Silence

Be still.

Listen to the stones of the wall.

Be silent, they try

To speak your

Name.

Listen

To the living walls.

Who are you?

Who

Are you? Whose

Silence are you?

Who (be quiet)

Are you (as these stones

Are quiet). Do not

Think of what you are

Still less of

What you may one day be.

Rather

Be what you are (but who?) be

The unthinkable one

You do not know.

O be still, while

You are still alive,

And all things live around you

Speaking (I do not hear)

To your own being,

Speaking by the Unknown

That is in you and in themselves.

“I will try, like them

To be my own silence:

And this is difficult. The whole

World is secretly on fire. The stones

Burn, even the stones

They burn me. How can a man be still or

Listen to all things burning? How can he dare

To sit with them

When all their silence

Is on fire?”

~ Thomas Merton