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New Creative Horizons

Dearly beloved readers: I have decided to discontinue this weblog, and to move my future online musings to a new location, likewise here on Tumblr. From this point onward, whatever writings, images, and inspirations I share on the web may be found at: brendanelliswilliams.tumblr.com I thank you all heartily for your interest and support these past years, and I hope to see you on the new platform. May your journeys be blessed.

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To all a blessed Lá Fhéile Bríghde: Imbolc, Festival of Lights, Feast of Naomh Bríd (Holy Brigid). Tonight I invite you: "Gabhaibh air bhur glùinean, fosgailibh bhur sùilean, is leigibh a-steach Brìghde Bheannaichte" ("Fall down to your knees, open your eyes, and let Blessed Brigid enter"). This holy Feast, beginning tonight (in Celtic tradition a measurement of time always begins with the night, not the day), is a sacred time set apart for remembering and embracing the radiant light which burns concealed in the dark of winter. Naomh Bríghde is tender of the undying flame of divine inspiration, patroness of poet-seers and healers, and, particularly for those of Gaelic ancestry, keeper of the well of deep, undying ancestral wisdom. For us, she shines as a supernal symbol of our ancient indigenous traditions, stretching unbroken from time immemorial to the present. May you be richly blessed by the light and warmth of her love, by the gracious intercession of her prayers. Brigid of the Mantle, encompass us; Lady of the Lambs, protect us; Keeper of the Hearth, enkindle us. Beneath your mantle gather us, and restore to us the sacred memory.

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The price you pay when you finally find the tool of ultimate transcendence is that you become incomprehensible to your fellow human beings. Because they are not where you are. They are caught up in the idols of the tribe. They live in the anthill. They are worrying about the oil leaks in their Jaguars.

Terence McKenna

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Love silence above everything else, for it brings you near to fruit which the tongue is too feeble to expound.

St. Isaac of Syria

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Christ, Who is the infinite Wisdom of God, has wondrously built for Himself a dwelling, in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, and He comes to be born in a cave, in a manger of beasts, in a manner beyond all understanding.

Your Nativity, O Christ our God, has illumined the world with the ineffable Light of Wisdom. In this glorious Light, those who worshipped the stars were taught by a Star to adore You, the Sun of Righteousness, the unfailing Truth from on High. Glory to You, O Lord, glory to You!

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Christ, Who came on earth to form contemplatives and teach men [and women] the ways of sanctity and prayer, could have easily surrounded Himself with ascetics who starved themselves to death and terrified the people with strange trances. But His Apostles were workmen, fishermen, publicans who made themselves conspicuous only by their disregard for most of the intricate network of devotions and ceremonial practices and moral gymnastics of the professionally holy.

Fr. Thomas Merton, OCSO

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The soul untried by sorrows is good for nothing.

St. Theophan the Recluse

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Our Holy Mother, the Blessed Lady of the Gate of Dawn

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The great thing is prayer. Prayer itself. If you want a life of prayer, the way to get it is by praying. We were indoctrinated so much into means and ends that we don't realize that there is a different dimension in the life of prayer. In technology you have this horizontal progress, where you must start at one point and move to another and then another. But that is not the way to build a life of prayer. In prayer we discover what we already have. You start where you are and you deepen what you already have. And you realize that you are already there.

Fr. Thomas Merton, OCSO

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No soul is at rest until it is emptied of everything that is created.

St. Julian of Norwich

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The things you do not have to say make you rich. Saying the things you do not have to say weakens your talk. Hearing the things you do not need to hear dulls your hearing. And the things you know before you hear them—these are you and the reason you are in the world.

William Stafford

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Close these eyes to open the other. Let the center brighten your sight.

Mevlânâ Jalāluddin Rūmī

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Make stillness your criterion for testing the value of everything, and choose always what contributes to it.

Bl. Evagrius of Pontus

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Acquire freedom by your way of life, so as to be free of all interior turmoil. And do not bind your freedom to that which brings you pleasure, lest you become a slave of slaves.

St. Isaac the Syrian

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If you do not strive, you will not find; and if you do not knock eagerly at the door and keep long vigil before it, you will not receive an answer.

St. Isaac the Syrian

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Acquire a peaceful spirit, and around you thousands will be saved.

St. Seraphim of Sarov

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“A man who is really serious, lives; not the man who is flippant or merely wanting to be entertained—: he doesn't live.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti