Retreat Report – Silent Illumination July 2022

heatwave
only the butterflies
still busy

I am a chatterer, verbalising everything in my head all the time, keeping a running commentary going and explaining events to some imaginary listener. It took me a while to realise on retreat that the ‘Silent’ in ‘Silent Illumination’ was not the silence of nature but had to be the silence of me.

I was strict with myself and cut down the flow of the wordy stream. Eventually I broke through into silence of self, and at that point, quite quickly, a wonderful world was revealed. Nature, empty of me and my language, but observed by me, is modestly performing many complex miracles continuously. There are mysterious creative forces at work, and all mutually exchange with the forces that hold the earth in orbit and the life-giving sun in its place. The air is sweet to breathe. The sky is beautiful. The plants are good to eat. This earth is a paradise, and an extraordinary gift. The more you consider the complexity of how the particle physics interacts so snugly with the chemistry and the biologies and botanies and astronomy of how things are, the more ridiculously improbable a miracle it all appears to be. You feel the wonder, as you breathe. The air around you is quietly animated. Stripped of my noisy forms, the emptiness is radiant, and flowers in ways far beyond my comprehension. How on earth did we find ourselves here? How many millions of universes would have had to struggle through evolutionary cycles for us to find ourselves on a planet that is so finely tuned? It’s staggering. And it’s right there, whenever you shut up.

Towards the end of the retreat I felt great affection and sympathy for someone who is currently furious with me.

I found myself doing prostrations, asking forgiveness from those I have bruised by not being sufficiently mindful.

all morning
without a word
the warmth

summer morning –
I’m in an invisible sea
my gills flared

dear slug,
dear daisy, here in the grass, with thin rain
is it all just right?

skeleton tree
image of life’s ambitions
zany zigzag choices