Archive for the ‘Three Dwellings of Wisdom’ Category

I hadn’t expected it and maybe it was the change from the slate blue lake to the closeness of the green of the island, but once I set foot upon Innisfallen, I knew it was a special place. I wonder if, as I suspect,  it is inherently spiritual or if the centuries of learning, contemplative practice and service make it a place more spiritual than most.

I wonder if that is possible, that any one place can be more alive than others. I doubt it.

I suspect very strongly that Innisfallen is inherently spiritual, but I also suspect very strongly that the years of work that happened there make that spirituality more available to the dull senses of the all-too-common and limited human.

At any rate, as soon as I set foot upon the island, I knew. It was like seeing a lovers face after a long absence, but it was also the thrill of new love; the excitement of seeing new life and knowing that that life is surfacing from somewhere deep within the cosmos, emerging here for whatever reason. I knew it, and I was thankful for knowing it.

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I stood facing west once and watched a mountain dance, watched it change slowly, from the first timid breaking of light to the final remoteness and inevitable return of darkness – absorption and radiation… green slopes upwards to the grey summit, spotted here and there with green. During the long dance of the mountains day, the clouds came and went, changing the intensity of light, the intensity of green or grey or white.

By midday the colors, vibrant in the absorption of light, delighted in their creativity and re-imagined the mountain into being. All too soon though, the intensity of light waned and the mountain and I passed from vibrancy into hushed waiting. The early mountain evening came and when the shadow of the mountain at last overtook me, I found myself still waiting, longing to recede with the green into the dark where there are no colors, only a darker shade of black to remind me of their presence.

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Sometimes, being human is too big for religion.

Sometimes, all I want to do is listen to Fionn tell me about the sweetest music of the world.

There has been a lot of ruckus going on lately. A lot of growing and outgrowing. All around me I hear people saying the same thing… I’ve outgrown this or that, I’m in limbo, I don’t get it anymore… To some, both those who say it and those who hear it, this is a cause for dismay, to others amusement. Some, like me, silently nod their heads in empathy.

All I can say is that maybe I’ve outgrown the need to know if I have outgrown anything or even if I have grown at all.

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