TRUE SILENCE When creativity comes out of your silence, then it is authentic. If it comes only as an occupation because you are feeling lost and there is nothing to do - then start doing something for that is not coming out of your silences, it is coming out of your crazy mind!

AFTER A WEEK OF RAIN yesterday was a treat mowing the paddocks. All creation, including me, felt fully alive and was singing God's praise. Happy memories of Sophie 'flying' alongside the tractor... My peace be with you all. Pax Bod.

COME TO THE QUIET www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aoW... Lord my heart is not proud Nor are my eyes fixed on things beyond me In the quiet I have stilled my soul Like a child at rest on its mother's knee I have stilled my soul within me.

HERMIT RULE 23: God alone suffices. Be open to the Mystery. Authentic silence draws you to rest, like a child, in the Lord Himself. Peace Prayer

MORNING PRAYER: O God, turn your spirit loose here and us with it that we may go where the silence is, to face with you the utter mystery of questions without answers, pain without balm, sorrow without comfort and fears without relief which hound our days and haunt our sleep.

TRUE SILENCE: There is a silence into which the world cannot intrude. There is an ancient peace you carry in your heart and have not lost. (From a course in miracles)

TO BE FAITHFUL & CONSTANT means to consistently show loyalty, steadfastness, and unwavering commitment to God, or a person, promise, or cause, even in difficult circumstances. It involves a conscious decision to be dependable and true to your word.

HERMIT RULE 22: Be faithful and constant. Remember that a certain amount of effort is healthy, yet also be gentle with yourself. The quiet power of being gentle with yourself...

NIGHT PRAYER: If tonight the soul finds her peace in sleep and sinks into oblivion, and in the morning we wake like a newly opened flower, then we will have been dipped again in God so as to reveal a new bloom in us.

ARE YOU DRIFTING? Tides watch my life, Bringing it breath in monastic waters. Life lived, not at high promenade, all spray, noise and catch the dry-boned passer by; But out on gulls ebb cry where my uncertain figure Guards strange Truth; Hardly noticed in sea's kindly mist.

CONTEMPLATIVES: The contemplative path is not glamorous or conspicuous. It is always as Therese of Lisieux wrote, 'A little way.' like those in the Egyptian Desert, or the French Protestant hermits today, We too are just a bunch of old codgers saying our prayers!

GOD IS ALWAYS WAITING FOR US IN EACH MEETING PLACE: Even now he waits on you to recognise him He waits for the darkness to clear He bids us come Be refreshed Renewed Restored Lord, open my eyes that I may see - your presence now and eternally

MORNING PRAYER What makes the sun to rise? - The Power of God What makes the seed to grow? - The Love of God What makes the wind to blow? - The Spirit of God Power of God protect us Love of God lead us Spirit of God strengthen us In all life and all creation Sunup Bodmin Moor

PONDER: Life is eating us up. We shall be fables presently. Keep cool: It will be all one a hundred years hence Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803 - 1882 Aesop's Fables

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.

NIGHT PRAYER: In peace we will lie down and sleep; For you alone, Lord make us dwell in safety, Abide with us, Lord Jesus, For the night is at hand and the day is now past. Come with the dawning of the day, And make yourself known in the breaking of bread.

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.

May we arise each day with a voice of blessing whispering in our heart, May we find a harmony between our soul & our life. May kindness be in our gaze when we look within. May we allow the wild beauty of the invisible world to gather us, mind us, and embrace us in longing.

DROPPED A STICH? DON'T WORRY... Continue working on your "quilt" it will tell you something about the life you've lived and the things you've come to value.

DON'T FRET Y'ALL PERFECT IN GOD'S EYES There is an old me, a new me, an imperfect me and the beginning of a new acceptance of all the me's!

HUNGRY? Perhaps all of us are for different reasons... then again I think that deep down we all know what we need to fill that void, as we trust the search and follow the voice. Even when it doesn't seem to make much sense, it's still worthy of pursuit...

HERMIT RULE 19 Live in the Presence of God at all times and in all places. So make everything a kind of ritual, doing dishes, mowing the lawn, hanging out the washing, weeding the veg patch - make no distinction between the sacred and the everyday. Keep sane in an insane world.

HERMIT RULE 18. Withdrawal is essential to this Rule, understanding that being, "separated from all is to be united to all”. (Evagrius) Whilst solitude can never be the sole purpose of any vocation, it does offer a more favourable environment in which to grow spiritually.

ARRANGING a bowl of flowers in the morning can bring us a sense of quiet in an otherwise crowded day... like writing a poem or saying a prayer. Peace my brothers and sisters. Pax et Bonum. Bod.

DAY AFTER DAY nature is painting for us pictures of infinite beauty, if only we have eyes to see them...! EMPTY CANVAS waiting for The Painter... www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3K4...

CONTENTMENT, comes as the infallible result of great acceptances, of not trying to make ourselves this or that but of surrendering to the fullness of life... of letting life flow in us and through us. “The quality of the imagination is to flow and not to freeze.” Waldo Emerson.

GENTLENESS is everywhere in daily life, in the ordinary things, cooking, small talk, and story telling... all the places where the gravy soaks in and grace shines through. In special times one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people.

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.

PRAYER: Lord, give us the gift of looking towards you at every moment. So often we forget that you live in us, That you are praying with us, That you are loving thro' us. Your miracle in us is your trust & your forgiveness offered in that unique communion to which we are called.

THERE IS A FIELD... www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF8i... Morning meditation:

MORNING PRAYER on Non-duality: “In the morning as I meet the dawn, I remember that my heart contains the God, the Beloved, who has not yet been defined and described. I remember that it is He who vibrates within my heart, enables me to breathe, to talk, to listen, to move.”

HERMIT RULE 16 Cultivate non-dual consciousness. Remain open and vulnerable. Instead of spiritualities give way to the Spirit. NB Nondualism includes a number of philosophical and spiritual traditions that emphasize the absence of fundamental duality or separation in existence.

BEHOLD NOW THE KINGDOM: See with new eyes: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq6F...

SOMETIMES THERE MUST BE SILENCE: because sometimes life is so unutterably bleak the darkness so heavy, the pain so pointless, that we reach a place beyond words. words have no currency here, So we enter silence. The big ache The desolation. Wilderness Silence God...

DISCERNING SILENCE" refers to the spiritual and personal practice of creating quiet and stillness to gain clarity, insight, and wisdom, allowing one to hear the guidance of God or their own inner voice and make well-reasoned decisions. Proverbs 17:28

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.

ALL ABOARD! The man boarded the Royal Yacht, his invitation to the banquet in his pocket, in his hand a sandwich box. No need for them sir, the steward said, today all is a gift. The man refused, 'no taker he!' But the proper response to love is acceptance. Come now, Put down your box!

EDIT YOUR LIFE Imagine you are a newspaper editor, which story will you lead with? Journalists drown us with info. So, there are many stories in your reality at this present moment, but which bit of reality will you choose to live from? It's a question mystics will be aware of.

"HOLD ALL THINGS LIGHTLY as if for a season" is a principle emphasizing a mindset of non-attachment to people, things, and circumstances, recognizing that life is characterized by change and transition rooted in the Biblical concept of seasons from Ecclesiastes 3:1

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.

QUESTION PRAYER; What if the pain we flee is the very path to faith? What if the wounds we hide are the very offerings that heaven desires most. No suffering is wasted when it is laid at the feet of Christ. Christina the Astonishing teach us endurance in affliction & joy in redemptive suffering.

THEY ARE HAPPIEST be they King or Peasant, who finds peace in their home.

NOTHING WILL CONTENT THOSE WHO ARE NOT CONTENT WITH A LITTLE: (Greek Proverb) 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 and van-delivered bouquets?

QUIET ALONE: All our miseries derive from not being able to sit quiet in a room alone. (Blaise Pascal)

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. Taize Chant: Sing along: Watch and Pray: www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBh-...

NIGHT PRAYER: Jesus, The Christ, We search for you, sometimes with uncertain steps. But you have already come to us, In the beauty of creation, In the silence of our days, And in the peace of our nights.

THE SOLACE of the SOLITARY: Those who know the value and the exquisite tase of solitary freedom - for one is only free when one is alone. (Isabelle Eberhardt)

DEEP IN THE SOUL below all distraction is a silence an infinite ocean of calm, which nothing can disturb, a peace that passes understanding That which we seek with passionate longing, upward & outward we find at last within ourselves, A CAVE of THE HEART. www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3RI...

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.

BLACKBIRD I do not want to change. I want the same old & loved things, the same trees & soft ash green, the turtle doves and blackbirds singing so long as there is light to caste a shadow for such is the measure of his song & I want them in the same place www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDxf...