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Silence For The Soul
By Sarah Horton
Silence for the Soul is our tradition, created to welcome us into the deeper doorways to the heart. It is timed around the changing of the seasons. We gather in silence for a variety of meditation practices as individual as the people who come: sitting, walking the labyrinth, indoors, outdoors, eyes open, eyes shut, journaling, more sitting. We start with intention and breathing together. We end by coming together in a circle for the breaking of bread, homemade soup, and soft sharing.
I have been doing this on a regular basis with two other friends of the heart since the “2012 ending-of-the-world” or simply an ending. This was our new-beginning-offering and continues as one. There will be anywhere from the three-of-us regulars to fifteen other souls to hold the circle of magic and light for transformation and healing. Gentle in our ways of remembering the solstice seasons as they may change; or a lunar or solar eclipse that may occur; or other celestial event calling to us. Diligent in holding the simple structure of silence and care of the spirits that show up at the metaphorical doorways of change, we are all in our own ways sweet and welcoming, sincere and loving, renewed and refreshed at the closing bell.
We don’t talk about IT much, we just seem to come together at the right times of the year bringing snippets of knowledge and current feelings for what is needed. Our box of candles and signs sits on a shelf in the dark closet awaiting the top to be opened to the light, the candles set around and lit, and the signs strategically placed to welcome all to enter and remain in silence for their time with us in the stillness.
Then the soup is served and the breaking of the bread is done quietly; we slowly eat together returning to peaceful sharing with others. There is no rush to put our box back into the closet or bring our newly polished hearts of gold out into the world. And so it is.
Sarah Horton is an artist living in “the Lost Sierras” with Chris, her beloved, and Lulu, the master Bichon Frise. Sarah is an adventurer into the wilderness of the heart as well as the natural world. She dabbles with paints on large canvases and memoir writings that the nature spirits nearby seem to appear in. Published in several books, paintings shown in galleries, and when called, travels to mystical places in this beautiful world.
I’m working on a series of short memoir stories to put in a Box of Memories for my daughter, her friends, our family, and future friends yet to be met. Similar to finding a box of old photographs with scribbled handwritten notes on the back; our memoir stories of people, places, events of celebration and transformations that are written in the personal may impart timely universal wisdom. Stories that may make a difference, lend support, or sooth a difficult or healing situation in our human family. —Sarah Horton
