Saturday Meditation: Keeping Quiet

Thank you for joining me on the sixth day of my Eco-Spirituality class project (click link to see more).

The photos that I’ve taken and the readings are meant to help us reconnect with the rhythms of nature in our busy daily lives. I’m taking inspiration from two practices: the Daily Office and Lectio Divina to create a daily meditative practice with poetry.

Keeping Quiet
by Pablo Neruda, translated by Alastair Reid

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.
For once on the face of the earth,
let’s not speak in any language,
let’s stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.
It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness…

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves
with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead in winter
and later proves to be alive.

Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.