Contemplative Practices - Jen Helmuth

Self-Observation Without Judgement by Danna Faulds

Release the harsh and pointed inner voice.
It's just a throwback to the past, and holds no truth about this moment.

Let go of self-judgement, the old, learned ways of beating yourself up for each imagined inadequacy.

Allow the dialogue within the mind to grow friendlier, and quiet.
Shift out of inner criticism and life suddenly looks very different.

I can say this only because I make the choice a hundred times a day to release the voice that refuses to acknowledge the real me.

What's needed here isn't more prodding toward perfection, but intimacy - seeing clearly, and embracing what I see.

Love, not judgement, sows the seeds of tranquility and change.

This Richard Wagamese reading set the beat of our silent breathing and being together this morning.

When the drum beats, it resonates beyond your body. It becomes the heartbeat of Creation as it was meant to be. To sing with it is to offer a blessing to all that is and to receive blessings back. That's why drums echo. Put your hand on your chest. close your eyes. Feel the drum in your chest. Sing with it and blessings become your breath, indrawn and expelled, emptying and filling, all the world at once...

Thanks to everyone who came to the Contemplative Practice this morning! Here is the poem that I read:

The Clear Days by Wendell Berry

The dogs of indecision
Cross and cross the field of vision.
A cloud, a buzzing fly
Distract the lover's eye.
Until the heart has found
Its native piece of ground
The day withholds its light,
The eye must stray unlit.
The ground's the body's bride,
Who will not be denied.
Not until all is given
Comes the thought of heaven.
When the mind's an empty room
The clear days come.