Nooners reflection for July 25, 2021

This week's reflection is from Marv Hiles published in the Day Book.

    In the midst of summer exuberance there are silences that call us to return to what is forever essential inside us.  We have lived under many disguises across a lifetime.  Summer makes us remember when we were disguised as boys and girls.  
    Do we remember?  The child-mind is native to summer.  Children, according to David Ignatow’s observation, do not try to make things “fit” – that exhausting habit of adulthood.  In the “loosened” days of summer, something calls out our name in the high grass, in the wind at the shore, or in the drone of a long, hot afternoon.  These summer sounds have to do with destiny.  We want to re-cognize, to know again, among the layers of our beings, the “Something More” about us that we tend to forget.  
    Watch for the long, lovely lines of sun falling between trees and buildings late in the day.  There are many ways to “know” what we most desperately need to know.  Sometimes we are only required to watch the passage of the light.  There is wisdom in observing, in listening.  
    The ancient Greeks believed the cosmos was the manifestation of musical harmony.  How deep can we hear?  These days are open gates to becoming aware again of the external rhythms on which we ride out our lives.  What is the sound of a July night in the heavy, becalmed middle of summer?  It is an invitation to reverie and to a healthy laziness that will enable us to find the path ahead.  Such knowing rises from “the one clear place given to us when we are alone,” as the poet Mark Strand wrote.  
    The meditative-breath focus in Isaiah 55:12 “You shall go out in joy and be led back in peace.” For breath meditation use: out in joy / back in peace.

By Marv Hiles