Daily Signet

There’s no need to remove yourself from the noise of the daily and ordinary scurry of action.  Rather, there is the need to silence yourself in the focus of a great vision, to be ever mindful of that great question, “Who is that being that fills me with wonder?”  For it is in the most usual creases of a day, that light slips through, openings appear, the most amazing understandings fill you, the most incredible breakthroughs take you to where you never thought you would arrive.  It is the wonder of being and that being is the wonder that fills you.

Like the prophet Elijah, standing at the opening of the cave, you discover, that the One who creates is not always in the wind, the earthquake, the fire—not necessarily in the greatest works of generative power, words of passion and hope, nor even the finest iconoclastic thoughts of the mind. The Creator is in the still small voice. So like Elijah, let you stand at the opening of the cave and square the “who you thought you had become” with the voice of Who has always been. It is in this sense of wonderment that you are intersected with the now-moment, where you may hear the still, small, directive voice of holiness.  It is in this sense of wonderment that you take a transcendent self and allow it to become immanent in your own self, and say with the sages, “I am One.”   

Benjamin Martin

On This Day…

Caesar Vallejo born 1892 in Peru, died 1938: poet, writer, playwright
Works: Trilce, Los Heraldos Negros, Poema Humanos
Quotes: “Intellectuals are rebels, not revolutionaries.” “The arts, painting, poetry, etc., are not just these. Eating, drinking, walking are also arts; every act is an art.”

Daily Signet

I returned to the hospital room to find Mom seated in a chair, stroking Dad’s head and hands. She told me that when she returned to the room after dinner, she found him with both arms extended out to either side of the bed. We both wondered aloud who he was reaching out to, who had come for him. We sat on either side holding a hand and stroking his head. Mom expressed her gratefulness for his being a good husband and a good father; I thanked him for giving me life, and for all he had done and meant to me and my family over the years.…Mom and I sat there with my father. He was cool to touch but not cold. His face was beautifully at peace. You would never know he had been through so much pain. I cannot tell you how long we stayed there looking at him and telling him “thank you.” Time was irrelevant. 

After a while, Mom looked at me and said, “It’s okay. I can go now.” She gave Dad very long tender kisses to his mouth and to his forehead. I followed with a long kiss to his forehead and stroked his hair for the last time. We sought out the nurses and aides to thank them for everything they did for Dad and for us, and as we walked out of the hospital, we commented to each other that we hoped it would be a very long time before we had to cross this threshold again—we can only pray this is so.                 

Earl J. Behnke

Daily Signet

We do not reveal ourselves in comfort and ease, in safety or security, nor in affluence, nor in our bliss, but in our crises. Toynbee said it was challenge—appropriate response to challenge—that raises civilizations, but never comfort or affluence….It is only by our deaths—or the threat of death—that we overcome our ego-self. And it is only when we overcome that ego-self that we discover that we are alive.
William M. Boast

On This Day…

Jack Kerouac born 1922 in Lowell, Mass., died 1969: writer and one of the original beat poets
Works: OnThe Road, The Dharma Bums, Big Sur
Quotes: “I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.” “Walking on water wasn’t built in a day.”

Daily Signet

Oh Hephaestus,

Teach me of binding, of loosing.

Instruct me how to choose bonds
Proper to the need:
Silken filament
Supple cord
Sinewed shackle
Iron manacle

Impart to me the knowledge of right-binding
For
nurturing
protecting
strengthening

Help me to know
When to release
And how….
Gradually, thread by thread
Or instantly, utterly.

Let me see the multitude of mindless ways
I bind myself, my fellows,
And the needing times I fail to do so.

For life is created
By bind/release
The alternation-play between
Spins out our world,

One giving birth to the other,
Only to be born from that one again.

Donna Piper Leichtling

On This Day…

Maha Shivaratri: Hindu remembrance in honor of Lord Shiva’s marriage to Goddess Parvati

Daily Signet

In our Northern band of mother earth, mid-winter can be bleak—snow on snow, frost on frost. And I feel the sap in my limbs withdraw to some place hidden deep underground. And I often hunker down and simply endure ‘til spring and the rising of the sap once more. But even if my limbs are numb and creation seems but a distant memory or a far-off dream, still in that deep underground there is a secret seed and a secret spring. Every day, I look at the still-alive mullein that split a concrete crack inches outside our garage door last summer—still green now, still fuzzy, still creating deep underground what it needs to burst forth and tall next summer. When I stop and listen deep, I can hear the seed of me splitting, germinating, pushing up as well against the frozen earth of me.     

Ben Leichtling 

On This Day…

Birthday of Lao Tzu, 6C