Dear Mayfield,

One of my favorite things about the physical setting of Mayfield is that the wise seasonal rhythm of the year is always there to be seen and experienced as a mentor in our lives. When mindful of that rhythm, we might see potential grace in these difficult days. Many of us are more still than we usually are with April underway. In that spirit, I share these words from John Philip Newell in The Rebirthing of God, 2014:

One of the things that we remember on pilgrimage as we approach the hermit’s Cell in silence together is that reclaiming the relationship between stillness and action, or between solitude and relationship, is part of the desire to come back into relationship with the wisdom of nature’s rhythms. The earth knows its patterns of night followed by day, of winter barrenness succeeded by spring energy and summer fruiting, of long periods of infolding and dormancy followed by seasons of unfolding and the expression of seed-force. We know that if we do not give ourselves over to the darkness and dreaming of nighttime, entering into its intimate invitation to sleep and rest, we will only be half-awake to the demands and creativity of the day.  Yet at other levels we forget the natural patterns that we are part of. Or we pretend that we can be deeply engaged and productive while pushing ourselves and others in ways that are antithetical to the essential rhythms of earth’s cycles and seasons.

The enforced stillness of pandemic was not chosen by us. Yet when we are curious about it from the perspective of nature’s way, there is spiritual food for hearts and minds.
Peace, Martha