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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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