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Making sense by not thinking

Though I am only a few pages into the Spiritual Canticle I am finding myself surprised and encouraged. I shall continue to paraphrase. I am reading what seems to be a whole chapter on the first line of the poem. My memory being what it is, I cannot remember the words of it. Last night  I remember reading a  quote by St. Augustine that gave me joy. I don’t remember the words of it.

My memory is not what it used to be. I accept that and don’t worry about it. It is not the words so much as the concept that matters. And one thing I do recall from my late night reading is the certainty that  it is okay not to worry about it. Not to let spiritual reading become focussed on memorizing, or upon worrying words into “understanding”.

Reading with the brain is important, certainly. If you are following a recipe, for example. Or talking to a carpenter about what you need fixed on your eaves. I am not reading the Spiritual Canticle with my brain. I do not have to make notes, or write an essay about it.

St. John’s poem describes a person looking for God. Where are you, the person is asking. And St. John says, in my words, God in within. Not out there. And God won’t be talking in words. So don’t expect to hear an answer.

And so when I think back about what I read last night, I don’t worry if I can’t remember any of the words. I know that God is here, not out there, and that knowledge fills me with hope, and makes me look forward to the day ahead. My memory isn’t cluttered with words that I am trying to make sense of. Neither am I alarmed that my own words here probably make no sense.

 

springcatw

April Foolishness

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Today I want to start my first indoor seeds. I couldn’t find an underneath tray anywhere in the greenhouse or sheds, but found substitutes. I think I can fit them onto the sewing table and rotate them under the UV light.

Rosalee and I have begun reclaiming the yard. Little by little we were able to pick our way through the ice piles to the back yard. The piles formed when huge chunks of melted-then-frozen rooftop ice came crashing down, tearing eaves and soffits with them.

Every day I chipped a little ice from the sidewalk. Today I expect the last of it will be melted away. I invited a local carpenter to discuss building an overhang for the stairs. I hope we can proceed. Working people get swamped with orders this time of year so I got my request in early.

Rosalee and I now spend a lot of time outdoors. A new puppy next door is very friendly. Rosalee feels threatened when it barks but they will get used to each other.

Birds are singing, and visiting the garden beds, foraging for whatever they can find. One day I noticed Rosalee in stalking mode, belly to the ground, advancing towards potential prey. I shooed her out of the garden and shut the gate. I am not sure if she understood why.

I have not seen any birds in there lately, and have not found any corpses, so I will leave open the gate for her in the daytime, and close it at night. This year I must replace some of the raised bed lumber, and get new stakes to hold them in place.

The mullein patch, a safe place for grooming

Pruning the apple trees and cherry tree is done. I decided to make one last cut on the cherry and went up the ladder with my little pruning saw. I gave up and got the Fiskars pruner. One snip and the job was done.

In my own words…

Spring is here. The birds have told me so. Sparrows in the garden. Robins returned form their winter vacation. Pairs of geese swimming in the bay.

More things to do outside. The yard. The garden. Pruning. Eave repair. Fence fixing. New frames for raised beds.

With my spiritual reading, I have reached The Spiritual Canticle by St. John of the Cross. I baulked fearfully at the start, but managed through the introductions which were not as formidable as I expected. And now I have waded into the actual text.

Rather than make quotes, which require referencing, I shall make comments in my own words. So far, on the second page of actual text, I can state that:

St. John is saying that God cannot be understood or described through words.

 

By faith I shall inch along, bit by bit, every night. I am reading The Spiritual Canticle because I want to. No motive beyond that.

Spring geese

And on…

Slowly plodding along with ” The Dark Night of the Soul”.  Sometime this winter I discovered Chester Cathedral. Perhaps I mentioned that earlier somewhere in a post. If not… let me say that the Chester Cathedral evensong videos propelled me to cheerfulness and confidence.

Winter can be hard to bear. The cold, the dark, the piles of snow and the slippery ice… We all have our crutches to “get us through”. Mine became Chester Cathedral evensong. Online. I watch and listen while I am making dinner so I miss bits. There is a choir. Outstanding music. Amazing music director. Pipe organ. Beautiful setting. The clergy seem to sincerely love being there and are excellent, compelling readers. Another amazing site is Canterbury Cathedral.

I do “attend” the Zoom morning prayer of the nearest Anglican Church (about a 40 minute drive from home). Not quite the same but less “virtual”. The Zoom provides  interaction,  and I know a few of the people a bit. In person services there may start up again there if Covid restrictions relax.

February trees waiting for warmer days

St. John on and on

wood ducks

Why wood ducks? I love ducks. And I am seeing a lot of them down at the lakeshore, particularly since I started giving them some grain on snowy days. I am grabbing any old photo to stick on the post. Rush, rush, rush.

Today, rather than be painstaking and perfectionist and careful, I am just going to race off and put my first St. John of the Cross quote online. Later perhaps a page for them, if I continue. For now, one quote per blog post. I will quote from the online public domain edition. But find the chapter from my hard copy of a different translation, which I purchased sometime back around the year 2000.

Maybe I can find it in the online edition without checking in my own book. Lazy, lazy. Impatient too. No spiritual aspirations for me.

I did go and get my hardcopy version. And I see already that there are differences wording. However, here from the online version is a quote:

“…this Divine fire of contemplative love,…”

from Chapter 10  of Book Two of the Dark Night of the Soul, by St. John of the Cross, translated and edited by E. Allison Peers from the edition of P. Silverio de Santa Teresa, C.D. (Paragraph 3, under Point 2. The electronic edition was scanned and edited by Harry Plantinga).

This quote is a fragment of a very long sentence. I chose it as my “quote of the day” from my reading last night. It was short, and I hoped memorable enough that if I ran into a bout of insomnia I could repeat it to myself, in my mind, to keep stray thoughts from running wild.

St. John is talking about God’s purifying contemplative love, which can act in us without our asking, as God wills and when God wills. In my case I don’t think it has been God’s will to put it to work in me! However, what an uplifting inner vision to ponder upon while tired but sleepless, abandoned even by one’s cat for the moment (warmer for her in the living room by the stove).

 

 

Rediscovering St. John of the Cross

There is a rather battered paperback copy of the writings of St. John of the Cross that I have been reading for over a year. Just a little at night, before I go to bed. Twenty years ago I read the book cover to cover, and did not understand it very well. I forgot, or perhaps never actually remembered, any of it.

Reading it through the second time, I see the little marks where I left off each night. Yes, I was reading it at night then, too. And now and then there is a line or two highlighted in bright green from those days.

This first reading was very difficult for me, and not very interesting. I was reading it to try to learn something, or even worse, to try to become something. I was like a like a bull butting its head against a stone wall. Silly, sad me. St. John’s words were cold and critical to me. Very “dark”.

This time his words affect me differently.They are still dark. I don’t pretend to understand them. However, I don’t feel any pressure to understand them. I read them because I like to read them. His words satisfy me somehow. I read them and don’t think about them. I enjoy his imagery. I now know I am not an aspirant. I am just me. His words seem friendly, not judgemental or critical. It doesn’t hurt to read them this time.

Today I discovered that someone a translation of one of St. John of the Cross’s writings, The Dark Night of the Soul, and it is  online, public domain. I can quote from it. I am really happy about that. Because usually every night I find some little phrase that I really like. And I wanted to make note of them on this site.

Here is the link: The Dark Night of the Soul.

Believe me, there is much much more to come here on the subject of St. John of the Cross.

Feeding

Year of the Tiger Countdown

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creation of ArtfulSkater

Chinese New Year starts February 1, 2022. The Year of the Tiger. What that means I am not sure. Real life tigers are known for being ferocious. Surely we have had enough fierceness in the world lately. Tigers are also strong and elegant. So maybe this will be a year of courage and grace. Courage to be honest and good, and graceful in how we go about displaying our honesty and goodness.

This morning brought snow. Dangerous walking for the snow covers the ice on footpaths and roads. Rosalee has refused to go outside even though I shovelled the porch. It was fun having a little respite from winter, but now we are back at it.

My little tiger is snoozing where she can watch the fire through the glass door of the wood stove. I am now burning birch wood. I have used up all the big pieces of fir. Birch wood leaves hot embers that last a long time. I have to keep my eye on the fire and not let it burn away too quickly. There is more cold weather to come, it appears, and I am now about halfway through my wood supply.

This afternoon I carefully walked down to the lake to feed the wild ducks. They were very happy to see me. About twenty of them today. Hard to count when they are milling around on the shore. They moved very quickly, scrambling after the handfuls of grain I tossed. I tried to make sure none get left out.

I wonder if the Year of the Tiger will be a particularly propitious year for cats. I would like Rosalee to have a happy year.

art by TalkingSwan

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Snowed In

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More fun than walking in the snow

Okay WordPress. We are having a snowstorm. A mild one, but enough of one to justify spending time on a post. I am set to go with a photo which I could not get off my cell phone via bluetooth because my phone was “not connected to the internet”. (It is). I got the photo into iPhotos. And am trying to Insert from URL, following all directions assiduously (is there really such a word) to no avail…

Thanks to blocks, I cannot see what I am doing, Blind faith, however, isn’t working.

Rosalee and I have been having a great day, playing, eating our repective breakfasts, followed by napping (Rosalee) and website posting (me). Rosalee is having a more successful time of it. I see her napping on the couch. I am not doing well and am becoming really frustrated because what used to be so easy to do is now a time-consuming nightmare.

Yes I have restarted both the computer and the phone as well. At least I got the photo into iCloud. There it sits. Let’s see if blocks will let me look at the html. It did the other day. Dead end, I can’t figure out where to put the imaged id amongst all the parentheses…

Well finally I got wise. HEIC files are not supported by WordPress. So we’ll haul out the file convertor… Done in second. Then drag and drop. Done. Rosalee still sleeping. I am going to go out snow wading now if I can find pair of boots with no leaks that don’t hurt my feet. Must remember the ice at the front door. Cleats a must for descending the stair case.

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