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Hermitage Update, February 2000

We add the letters "M.o.n.o." -- "Monastics of No Other." And we sit with the reflections drawn from it.

We attend a Baptism, the grandchild of my sister. Death and birth flow in and out each other. 

Water Sounds

(for Matthew Gerard, a new sound)

Coming through water
We are born.

With water at baptism
We are reminded

Of God,
For God is Water.

This is how we know
We are in water:

God is Sound dripping wet
The Sacred Silence of Love Itself

Here is how we know
We are children:

We are words God speaks
Seeing & hearing each other with joy.

With water, in water, as water
We are born.

Meister Eckhart said:

What is
The test that you have indeed
Undergone this holy birth?
Listen carefully.
If this birth has truly taken place
Within you, then every single
Creature points you
To God.

Matthew Gerard, I touch water
With you this day, and many days

To follow. I sip water with you.
I listen with you at our mutual birth.

And here, in this sound
I greet you… I greet God!

wfh/22Jan2000
Baptism

 

It is winter. Ice lays itself over the brook. A shining silence flows under everything!

We are ready to begin conversations about the Chapel/Zendo and the Hermitage Cloister Building. First we sit in silence. We pray. We wait upon the generosity of those inspired to share resources needed to begin.

Quietly,

Feast of The Presentation, 2Feb2000

Koto-ba Dies

“Does this dog have Buddha-nature?
“MU!”             (- Zen riddle)

Weh mir, wo nehm’ ich, wenn
Es Winter ist, die Blumen, und wo
Den Sonnenschein
Und Schatten der Erde?
Die Mauern stehn
Sprachlos und kalt, im Winde
Klirren die Fahnen

 Ah, where will I find
 
Flowers, come winter
 
And where the sunshine
 
And shade of the earth?
 
Walls stand cold
 
And speechless, in the wind
 The weathervanes creak.

(from poem Half of Life by Friedrich Holderlin)

Saskia calls crying from car
Her dog has died
Near the border driving
At the edge of Maine 

On back seat together
Koto and Sando hear “Ode to Joy”
Then, a deep sound from her throat…
And Koto dies

Rain splashes everywhere
Sando hunkers down on seat
Koto, placed on back cushion
Still and silent, without breath

Silence and water… Saskia present
Water and silence… God’s presence
Melting icicles sounding splash
Dropping Koto into  I t s e l f

Petal drops from flower,
Word from immensity of thought
this dog, (such a schmoto),
Drops into our love, nowhere else…

Nowhere else, needing nothing more,
Quiet now, just waiting, at every door     

                           wfh/Friday morning,11Feb2000

January 2000 Update
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August Update

 
 

 

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Meetingbrook Hermitage
64 Barnstown Rd.,
Camden, Maine USA 04843
Meetingbrook Bookshop & Bakery
50 Bayview St. (Cape on the harbor)
Camden, Maine USA 04843
207-236-6808
e-mail: mono@meetingbrook.org

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