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  Mystery & Mysticism How can I nurture my connection to the Sacred?
 

Overview | Be a Mystic in creation | Be a Mystic in everyday Life | Be a Mystic with poetry

   


PRACTICE BEING A MYSTIC WITH POETRY

While you may not think of yourself as a mystic poet, this prayer practice will help you enter a deep place within yourself where the mysteries
of God lie hidden
– ready to be explored and written.

  • To begin the practice, set aside about 30 minutes and take a journal with you to a sacred space. You might choose a quiet room in your home, the sanctuary of an ancient church, a quiet park bench.

  • To center yourself, become aware of your breath. Notice the breath
    of life moving steadily in and out of you. Close your eyes and as you breathe in, breathe in the presence of the Holy One. As you breathe out, breathe out any doubt that keeps you from knowing the presence
    of the Holy One in your midst. Breathe in. Breathe out.
    Breathe in. Breathe out.

  • Read the following words of Rabindranath
    Tagore very slowly
    , allowing your soul to linger over the words as you would sip a fine wine.

    The morning light has flooded my eyes –
    this is thy message to my heart.
    Thy face is bent from above,
    thy eyes look down on my eyes,
    and my heart has touched thy feet.

    Rabindranath Tagore, "Gitanjali" (New York: Macmillan & Co., 1913).

  • Take a few moments to write down in your journal any words or images that seemed to rise in you as you read the words from Tagore. Rather than writing these down line by line, put them on the paper in a random pattern.

  • Close your eyes and imagine that you have entered a room filled with light. The light is so powerful that you know that you are in the presence of God. You sit down and are engulfed in the light that is
    total, yet transparent. You feel your body and soul being filled and
    lifted with the light, and you notice that you are becoming one with
    the light. Take a few moments to bask in the wonder and glory of the light.

  • Now, filled with the presence of light, look at the words and images that you have written in your journal. On the opposite page begin to put the words and images into phrases that are line-by-line, relying
    not on rigid rules for poetry writing, but only on the internal and intuitive movement of your spirit in the presence of the Light.

  • Slowly read your poem to the Holy One as your prayer of thanksgiving for the time that you have spent together.oodstock, Vermont: Skylight Paths Publishing, 2004.) 36-37.

 


THE MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE

> What makes
someone a Mystic?

> How do I find the
Mystic Path?

> What can I learn
from Mystic Poets?

> How can I nurture
my connection to the Sacred?


THE MYSTERY
OF GOD

>Overview

>How can I explore
the Mystery?

>What can I know for certain?

>What shows me that
God cares?

>How can Jesus help
me understand?

>Where can I touch
the edge of heaven?

 
 


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