Quiet Mystery

It has been a wild few months...endless unpacking, lengthy lists of minutiae, too many new experiences to count.  Truthfully, there have been times when I wasn't sure I'd make it to the next day.  But here we are, happily, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Although I have tried to continue my contemplative practice each morning, I confess to taking shortcuts at times.  That hasn't done me any good.  My spinning mind just whirls ever faster and the day gets off to a frantic start.

The photo above is from a nearby walking trail near our house.  It's a perk we didn't know about when we bought this place.  Since I've yet to get a piano studio together I try to take this walk several afternoons a week.  It has become a touchstone for me and I call it my River Monastery.

Days pass when I forget the mystery.
Problems insoluble and problems offering
their own ignored solutions
jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber
along with a host of diversions, my courtiers, wearing
their colored clothes; caps and bells.

                   And then
once more the quiet mystery
is present to me, the throng's clamor
recedes: the mystery
that there is anything, anything at all,
let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything,
rather than void: and that, O Lord,
Creator, Hallowed One, You still,
hour by hour sustain it.

"Primary Wonder" by Denise Levertov