Ruah Bull - Spiritual Director

 The desire of your heart awaits the quiet moment of  creative love. With courage, step into silence.

 We travelers walking Toward the sun can't see Ahead, but looking back the very light That blinded us shows us The way we came. Along which blessings now appear, risen As if from sightlessness to sight, And we, By blessing brightly lit, Keep going toward That blessed light that yet to us is dark.

 Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull  of what you really love. It will not lead you astray

 When I drop my glasses in the airport and they're  crushed in the walkway, I get to meet the three kind souls who help me on my way, The I hear you crying after everyone has left. So I bring you water and hear your story. Ever since the lock on my door broke, I have more visitors. Now the road I always  take is detoured, which  I curse until I see the heron glide across the small pond I didn't know was there.

 Hope has holes in its pockets. It leaves little crumb trails so that we, when anxious, can follow it. Hope's secret: it doesn't know the destination- it knows only  that all roads begin with one foot in front of the other.

 Some of what we love we stumble upon- a purse of gold thrown on the road, a poem, a friend, a great song. And more discloses itself to us- a well among green hazels, a nut thicket- when we are worn out searching for something quite different. And more comes to us, carried as carefully as a bright cup of water, as new bread.

 Did you know that birds do not land because they are tired? They know and have always known that their liberation depends on their ability to recall the ground.

 Faith is the firm foundation of my house, Diligence forms the high walls, Meditation makes the huge bricks, And Wisdom is the great corner-stone, With these four things I build my castle, And it will last as long as truth eternal!

 Everyone assumes That the perfumes of August Are the work of springtime's buds Ageing into blooms. But the fading rose, In her dying, knows, It is the joy of ceasing That distills perfume.

 May anger ground me in the real Real- Earth speaks- I am here May Anger purify my troubled heart- Fire speaks- I wake May Anger clear my confusing mind Air speaks - I perceive May Anger couple with Being Water speaks- I gather May Anger proceed from wisdom Soul speaks- I act May Anger blossom with trust Spirit speaks- I release

 We have what we seek.  It is there all the time. And if we give it time It will make itself known to us.

 I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and, behold, service was joy.

 That each step may be a shedding. That you will  let yourself become lost, That when it looks like you are going backwards, you may be making progress. That progress is not the goal anyway, but presence to the feel of the path on your skin, the way it reshapes you in each place it makes contact, to the way you cannot see it until the moment you have stepped out.

 Let the vision of the vastness you are leave you in glorious ruins. Pilgrims will come to imagine the grand temple that once stood, not realizing the wreck  made this empty plain holy ground.

 A strong wind wrenched the great Madrone from her hold on the hillside, and when she fell her roots, hanging in mid-air, gave us handholds to lean on and safely swing through her body and back onto the trail.

 I took a long time getting here, much of it wasted on wrong turns, back roads riddled by ruts. I had adventures I never would have known if I proceeded as the crow flies. Super highways are so sure  of where they are going: they arrive too soon. A straight line isn't always  the shortest distance  between two people. Sometimes I act as though I'm heading somewhere else while, imperceptibly, I narrow the gate between you and me. I'm not sure I'll ever know the right way, but I don't mind getting lost now and then. Maps don't know everything.

 Though the air is full of singing my head is loud with the labor of words. Though the season is rich with fruit, my tongue hungers for the sweet of speech. Though the beech is golden I cannot stand beside it mute, but must say "It is golden," while the leaves stir and fall with a sound that is not a name. It is in the silence that my help is, my aim. A song whose line I cannot make or sing sounds men's silence like a root. Let me say and not mourn: the world lives in the death of speech and sings there.

What we want and what we're given often serve two different Gods. How we respond to their meeting determines our path.

It is foolish to let a young redwood grow next to a house. Even in this one lifetime you will have to choose. That great calm being this clutter of soaps and books- Already that first branch-- tips brush at the windows- Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life.

  Transcending down into the ground of things is akin to sweeping the leaves that cover a path. There will always be more leaves. And the  heart of the journey, the heart of our own awakening, is to discover for  ourselves that the leaves are not the ground, and that sweeping them aside will reveal a path, and finally, that to fully live, we must take the path and keep sweeping it.