“…From the middle of the rain forest to the edge of time….” These words reverberated in my ears early Christmas morning as, sitting in my small candlelit room, my eyes beheld a Arlane 5 rocket soaring into the heavens. The James Webb Space Telescope was on its way to its “homeport,” one million miles away from Earth. It’s mission: to find the first galaxies that formed in the early Universe and peer through dusty clouds to see stars forming planetary systems sometime between 100-250 million years after the big bang. The boundlessness of it all pervaded my being leaving me in a deep silence of mind and heart.  Bathed in the wonder of it all any thoughts that arose did not need to be dismissed rather they seemed to dissolve in the face of Timeless Mystery.

What at times can feel like the daily grind of contemplative practice is about as far from this experience as one can imagine. Yet as a matter of fact it is fidelity to that daily grind which prepares the deepest ground of our consciousness to be receptive to such experiences. As has been repeated so often we do not sit in order to have such experiences and they certainly are not available on demand; however, they happen—at the water’s edge during sunset; in the silence of the forest as morning light breaks through the trees; while holding a newborn child.

While we usually reserve a specific time of day or night for our practice it keeps breaking boundaries, pushing out into the far corners of our lives just as the James Webb Space Telescope is pushing outward toward the edge of time. We are being invited on multiple levels to participate in what author Kathleen Dowling Singh called, “ a conscious communion in the sacred nature of reality.”  What a wonderful invitation to receive at the beginning of a new year. Keep sitting!

Blessings in 2022

Margaret and Nancy