The beauty of the trees, the softness of the air, the fragrance of the grass speak to me. The summit of the mountain the thunder of the sky, the rhythm of the sea speak to me. The faintness of the stars, the freshness of the morning dewdrop on the flower speak to me. The strength of fire...the trail of the sun, and the life that never goes away, they speak to me, and my heart soars....
You can walk the forest and do exactly the same thing. It may seem odd at first, but you get on speaking terms with everything. You do that with animals, and you do that with little bugs, and you do that with everything. It simply means you are aware, you are opening, you are noticing, you are standing with something. It is relationship. Community. (Fritz Hull, founder of the Whidbey Institute, from Issue 35 of Heron Dance)
We'll be starting up a new spiritual awareness group on the second and fourth Mondays of every month from 6:30 to 8 p.m. starting October 22. We'll meet for in the library of St. John's Parish, 16 Church Street, Waterbury, Connecticut. All are welcome, so please feel free to stop by. We'll have tea, and there's plenty of parking in the church lot.
The beauty of the trees, the softness of the air, the fragrance of the grass speak to me. The summit of the mountain the thunder of the sky, the rhythm of the sea speak to me. The faintness of the stars, the freshness of the morning dewdrop on the flower speak to me. The strength of fire...the trail of the sun, and the life that never goes away, they speak to me, and my heart soars....
"Meditation is not about creating any particular feeling. Meditation is about awareness, about waking up to Reality. Some people try to use meditation like a drug, as a way to escape from life or distract themselves from Reality. But anything that draws us away from Reality is deception." (Steve Hagen) 
Generally we waste our lives, distracted from our true selves, in endless activity; meditation, on the other hand, is the way to bring us back to ourselves, where we can really experience and taste our full being, beyond all habitual patterns. Our lives are lived in intense and anxious struggle, in a swirl of speed and aggression, in competing, grasping, possessing, and achieving, forever burdening ourselves with extraneous activities and preoccupations. Meditation is the exact opposite. (Sogyal Rinpoche, Meditation)
