Elijah and The Still, Small Voice – Kol D’Mama Daka

I was thinking about what I could come up with that would be appropriate for these increasingly disturbing and turbulent times. I opened to Guidance and immediately discovered this. Elijah is particularly revered, but he had his issues, which sometimes get overlooked.

Elijah and The Still, Small Voice – Kol D’Mama Daka

"In the Quaker tradition, the intuitive voice is called “the still, small voice within.” The sensing and thinking mind is always blaring, and it has something to say about everything. To hear that little voice requires a delicate tuning, and that’s what meditation is about, learning how to track that place inside. You listen the best you can, and then you act from the deepest place you can hear."

--Ram Dass

Note: The origin for this tradition is found in I Kings 19:11,12. In an extraordinary setting, this message was conveyed to the prophet Elijah on the same mountain where Moses had earlier been provided Guidance and The Teaching/Torah. Although not recognized for its meditation message in traditional Jewish teachings, meditators from all spiritual traditions cite and are inspired by this passage. In the verses immediately following, it becomes clear that Elijah did not hear the message, as he was possessed by an imbalanced sense of zeal, and he was relieved from his post. In their own way, Quakers are great lovers and practitioners of Silence.

The Value of a Sense of Humor

The Value of a Sense of Humor

There’s no better survival instinct. You’re so lucky if you’re raised with it. It’s one of God’s greatest gifts, because life is full of the dark and the light. You gotta look for the light. My parents were both really funny, and a sense of humor was always appreciated. Laughing and being funny was highly encouraged at our table.

--the late Catherine O’Hara

The Thing Is by Ellen Bass

The Thing Is

to love life, to love it even

when you have no stomach for it

and everything you’ve held dear

crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,

your throat filled with the silt of it.

When grief sits with you, its tropical heat

thickening the air, heavy as water

more fit for gills than lungs;

when grief weighs you down like your own flesh

only more of it, an obesity of grief,

you think, How can a body withstand this?

Then you hold life like a face

between your palms, a plain face,

no charming smile, no violet eyes,

and you say, yes, I will take you