NIGHT PRAYER: Jesus, the Christ, to you we come, the true goal of our desire, beyond all earthly beauty. Gentle protector, strong guardian and guide, in the night you are our confidence: From first light be our joy. Amen.

THE STONE THE BUILDERS REJECTED: He called those who had no calling, He named those who had no name. What you didn't manage with fish you'll do with people - catch them! They call you Simple Simon I name you Peter the Rock and on the likes of you I'll build my church. Matt 16:18

TO MEDITATE AND CONTEMPLATE well you need to find the quietest place you can... and wait... Let the gift be given by God. The simple rule is to breath... without worrying about when to breath, in or out, just breath, do both! Your sacred word will take root in your heart, flourish, and flower.

HERMIT RULE 22: Be faithful and constant. Remember that a certain amount of effort is healthy, yet also be gentle with yourself. Don't lose hope - The One who loves you is faithful...

NIGHT PRAYER: Jesus, the Christ, however little we know your Gospel it is light in our midst and your presence among us. Welcoming this light is knowing that you will be with us in every situation, always. Temporary darkness.... Eternal Light.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJTY... I was in my overalls, didn't shave much consorted only with my dogs living the happy life of childhood again I was nutty as a fruitcake & happier Sunday afternoon Id go to my woods with the dogs & sit put out my hands palms up accepting handfuls of sun.

MORE PEACE: "Peace is inevitable to those who offer peace." From: 'A course in miracles'

PEACE: WHO IS ETTY HILLESUM? www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cOt... Ultimately we have just one moral duty to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves more and more peace and to reflect it to others and the more peace there is in us the more peace there will be in our troubled world.

HERMIT RULE 21: Transcend the times when you find yourself in an adverse environment or discover that the nearest things are the most distant, and transform into love the impositions of any place.

HERMIT RULE 20: Contemplation consists in attending to and adhering to the Presence of God in the depth, root, and centre of our being. Keeping in mind that this is a grace, live it and pray for it constantly.

MIDDAY MEDITATION Wanderer, your footsteps are the road & nothing more; wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking. By walking one makes the road & upon glancing back one sees the path that will never be trod again. Wanderer, there is no road Only wakes in the sea.

SOMETHING DIFFERENT - FATHER THUNDER: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nyo...

MEDITATION www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BcT... Think of the Cupboard in the corner of your house. You have not opened it for a long time... old books with curious titles, Disappointments, Letdowns. There's a knock at the door. A stranger, come to take your boxes away. At last you're free:

HERMIT RULE 19: Live in the Presence of God at all times and in all places.

MORNING PRAYER: Spirit of Truth, Inner Light, you come to us always, welcoming us each morning in the silence of this place. Lord, this day, open my eyes, my heart, my soul and my mind to a deeper awareness of you in the beauty of creation and to the blowing of your Spirit.

BITTER SWEET: Sweet mystery who loves my jagged edges Sweet mystery who hugs my broken glass Sweet hope holds my painful places Sweet mystery beyond my human grasp Sweet mystery now I am waiting to be found. He is in relentless pursuit of you...

HERMIT RULE 18. Withdrawal is essential to this Rule, understand that being “separated from all is to be united to all”. Solitude can never be the sole purpose of any vocation, but it does offer a more favourable environment in which to grow spiritually.

GIVE & TAKE You buy a nice bottle of wine for a party and are upset when the host takes it and throws it in the skip then has the nerve to say 'Welcome!' Oops! don't bring your strengths to the task of becoming a mystic, they'll probably get smashed. Just bring your longings.

PONDER: There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fountain of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out of me from unseen roots of all created being. Thomas Merton

TRUE JOY IS SERENE: Above all let us never forget that an act of goodness is in itself an act of happiness. It is the flower of a long inner life of joy and contentment; it tells of peaceful hours and days on the sunniest heights of our soul. Inner Peace

EVENING PRAYER: Jesus the Christ, So often we forget that you already live in us. Give us the gift of looking towards you at each moment as you pray within us, love through us, and lighten the path before us.

YOU: Can you say at close of day Before you meet the night Of all the troubles in the world You helped to put one right? That just one heart was happier Because your smile was true One wrinkle in the folds of life Was smoothed... because of you Well Catherine's smile does it for me!

HERMIT RULE 17: Have your heart fixed on God and when you endure hardship or suffer loss, whatever it may be, don't feel sorry for yourself nor reflect on it. Transcend the pain of this world, respecting and accepting the level of each thing. Transcend and include.

NOTHING WILL CONTENT THOSE WHO ARE NOT CONTENT WITH LITTLE A bag of apples, a pot of homemade jam a scribbled note, a bunch of flowers a coloured pebble, a box of seedlings an empty scent bottle for the children Who needs diamonds & van delivered flowers? www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BcT...

STATION 13 God our Father your gift to us of life is both for a time and for eternity The end of life on earth we know by experience The endlessness of life hereafter in your presence we know only by faith May we live this life with firm faith in the next.

The word ‘non-duality’ comes from the Sanskrit word Advaita which means ‘not two.’ Therefore, put simply, non-duality points to the basic Unity of everything – that ultimately, there is no division or separation between you or anything else in your experience.

HERMIT RULE 16: Cultivate non-dual consciousness. Remain open and vulnerable. Instead of spiritualities give way to the Spirit.

Luckily, “ECSTACY” has the same meaning today that it has always had, a going-out-of-oneself. Moreover, for both contemporaries and medievals, ecstasy is intimately connected with love, and an “attraction to the good.” (God)

SILENT COMMUNION: We need time to dream, Time to remember, and time to reach the infinite. Time to be. Listen; www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oSR...

EASY ECSTACY When we experience ecstasy it comes not by accident, but as a taste of what life is meant to be. Those times when we're grounded in our body, pure in heart, clear in mind and rooted in our soul, are our birthright, and our wonder of being. Kids do it all the time!

HERMIT RULE 15: Convert yourself into a disciple who knows how to listen and discern. On many occasions sounds manifest silence. Indeed, the important thing is not what arrives but how we receive it.

NIGHT PRAYER: Lord, may your gentle whisper be the word we follow, your hand the hand we hold and your footsteps be the marks in which we place our feet. As we seek you tonight; in the silence of the stars in the calming of our minds in the peace of this place Speak to us Lord.

LIFE IS AN ECHO: God yodels to us... like calling in sheep: What you send out - comes back. What you sow - you reap. What you give - you get. What you see in others - exists in you. Do not judge - so you will not be judged. Radiate and give Love and Love comes back to you.

THE DIDACHE an early Christian treatise. Full title, "The Teaching of the Lord through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations" was a church manual written in Koine Greek. The Cloud says Maranatha is the perfect prayer for meditation, leave the meaning & listen to the sound... Ah!

CARAVAN: Sometimes attributed to Rumi: Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving, it doesn't matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair! Come, even if you've broken your vows a thousand times. Come. Come yet again. Come. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf4H...

HERMIT RULE 14: Remember you are a pilgrim in the evolving desert of this world, therefore hold all things lightly, as if for a season. So too, welcome fellow pilgrims with monastic hospitality as you would welcome Christ into your home. www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-FG...

NIGHT PRAYER: We weave a silence upon our lips, into our minds and deep within our hearts. Calm us O Lord as you stilled the storm, Still us O Lord and keep us from harm. Let all tumult within us cease. Enfold us Lord in your love and your peace. Some call it a loom

ILLUSION & REALITY It's easy to read about wakefulness, to have elaborate ideas about enlightenment, and yet be fast asleep! The call to modern man and to all of us is to become spiritual, to ditch the Pharisee that lurks within us, and to become truly human, real and humble.

HERMIT RULE 13: Value solitude - the hermitage serves the world in its prayerful separation. Learn to watch and pray until your life itself becomes a prayer to God. I know the feeling!

ONE PRAYER The central message of the NT is that there is only one prayer, that of Christ and it continues in our hearts day and night. It is the stream of love that flows constantly between Jesus, his Father and the Holy Spirit and it is for us to join in this Cosmic Dance.

As society becomes increasingly less religious its need for the authentically spiritual intensifies. Religion is the sacred expression of the spiritual but if the spiritual experience is lacking then the religious form becomes hollow, superficial and self important 1 Tim 6:6

HERMIT RULE 12: Learn how to prolong the privileged moments when time is traversed vertically; it is so at The Lord’s Table, yet there are still distances in time and space. Unite yourself to the life unseen which requires your prayer and your vigil.

BEFRIEND DEATH: If we are to become wise we must learn that we have no abiding city (Heb: 13-14) To have life in focus we must have death within our field of vision. Within this vision we see life as a preparation for death and death as preparation for life.

BEAVERS and TREES Time and the flowing streams of life Make changes on the earth around Villages emerge as towns That were by old-world customs bound. Trees spread or fall and rivers widen Brooks run dry and forests grow We always find some changes In the views we used to know.

THE QUIETER YOU BECOME, THE MORE YOU CAN HEAR: Here we will sit and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears: Soft stillness and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony.

AUTUMN: The most prominent spiritual lesson of autumn is the necessity of releasing what no longer serves us as trees shed their leaves to prepare for winter. This can mean releasing old habits, emotional burdens, or past hurts to create space for future growth and healing.

HERMIT RULE 11: Live one day at a time. Take advantage of the moments and the dawns. Discover in each moment, in landscapes, in music and in all manifestations of beauty, the depth of your true interior solitude.

HERMIT RULE 10: Don’t settle down in or get tied to a rigid timetable. Stay within a harmonious order that you can easily change. Try to integrate surprise and the unexpected. Live in the silence of your own interior and cultivate peace. The Power of Silence:

SPINOZA & BIBLE This quote went semi-viral, though, as usual, without a source cited, so likely not actually anything Spinoza said, but in essence, is true to Spinozism. "I am that I am" is found in Exodus 3:14, where God speaks to Moses & identifies Himself using this phrase.

HERMIT RULE 9: Know that although you feel yourself in the mystery of exile, the Kingdom of Heaven is already within you and all is One sacred universe beloved of God. These are the first words in the Bible: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1)