This is a letter from a reader regarding my article on personal and global transformation written for Kosmos Journal (see this website’s sidebar):
Dear Anne, I read the Spring/Summer ’09 issue of Kosmos Journal yesterday, and I was very much ‘heartened’ by your saying: “…when we soften our focus, remain alert, and drop deep into the silence of a self we know well enough to be able to let go of the slightest aggression in mind, heart and body.” Heartening, because I still find myself racing up into my head, from my resting place in my torso, to defend against extraneous mind darts or projections meant to provoke or ensnare.
Thank you,
Patricia
Dear Patricia! Thank you for your thoughtful note. As you can imagine, when you write to a computer screen, you wonder who will read it and if it will even speak to them! So I am very grateful to you for letting me know how you felt about the article in Kosmos Journal and that it was heartening for you. Actually, when I read your honest statement, it was so real, all I could say was, Don’t we all, Patricia! Don’t we all! Would that we could sustain our orientation to the peaceful center, and not be pressed by the deeper roots in ourselves that are purely concerned with our own safety and survival. I write about that and how to deal with it in Awakening the Energies of Love: Discovering Fire for the Second Time. But it is a process, Patricia, and so, like you, I try, and sometimes the gift of inner peace comes, and sometimes it doesn’t. I feel immense gratitude for that kind of peace, always, whether or not I succeed in reaching it. And I do believe that it is of profound importance to the planet that we continue to practice peace in our hearts as best we can every day. But it cannot be done without honestly facing the deep and very real conflicts in ourselves.
With blessing, Patricia, and great Love,
Anne
Filed under Inner peace by Anne Hillman 
Yesterday, I went out into a summer field and was stunned once more by the immense creativity that surrounds us. What an amazing variety of trees, grasses, scents, and birdsong! The wildflowers a riot of color! It is easy to forget this glory as we reel from the many disasters in our world. Rather than awe, we may feel helpless, frustrated, or afraid. Surely, we need to make room for these feelings. But the sheer wonder of existence is that each of us also shares in the vast creativity of the universe. It is our inheritance, and the kind of creativity that is most needed in our time. Every one of us has an inborn gift to bring to the world. It may not be ‘fancy.’ But it is uniquely ours. We may be completely unaware of what our gift is; it can be different from anything we’ve ever done. Still, we’re more likely to learn about it when we’re far from the culture’s noisy demands for attention and undistracted by a mind full of thoughts: when we’re in a field, in a forest, or on the beach, simply there: no book, no computer, no iPhone. In moments like these, nothing separates us from ourselves or from the upwelling life around us:
In the wilderness
my mind spreads out like water
pools
shines
reflects green boughs
and blue sky . . .
I listen to the trees whispering
and think no thoughts
(From Awakening the Energies of Love, p. 78)
When we sit quietly and listen, not to our thoughts, but to the silence that surrounds them, we occasionally tap a vein of intelligence that clearly doesn’t belong to us as individuals. Like a hint that bubbles up from energies moving through the cosmos, it comes out of the blue like a whisper or image arising from a deeper place than imagination. The kind of prompt our inner antenna detects rarely seems like anything important. It feels more like an inclination to do something very small. But when I actually take a step in response to that inclination, I find it becomes a way of participating in the world more fully than just by following my own ideas. I call it ‘following my thread.’ I like to think of it as one of the many threads the creative energies of the cosmos are weaving into a tapestry larger than I will ever understand.
Few of us find our creative gift all at once; we come to it by degrees when we listen to the silence, prepared to say ‘Yes!’ to what emerges. Then we follow our thread. The keys to following are these: We need to know we are enough. That what we have to give is welcome. And that the more we immerse ourselves in the natural world and listen, the more we’ll find of our real selves. Then we can give to others what we alone have to give.
In celebration of the wild creativity of the universe, and with Love,
Anne
Filed under attention, Change, Consciousness, Cosmic Creativity, Creativity, Intuition, overcoming fear, Vision by Anne Hillman
