YOU ARE WELCOME TO JOIN KATHRYN PILE FOR CENTERING MEDITATION THURSDAY 5PM 5 October 2021
Dear Meditators
Today we will continue to use words from Margaret Silf’s book, Sacred Spaces, Stations on a Celtic Way to guide our meditation. The aim of our session in this series on Sacred Spaces is to understand meditation as a way of creating a sacred space for God’s Presence; to maintain our intention towards God’s Presence through breath, image or word; and through this to experience a response at an individual heart felt level that may include peace, healing, forgiveness, or strengthening. This is the heart of Centering Prayer.
In Celtic spirituality there are seven stations of sacredness. We will pause at 3 or 4 of these over the next few weeks, last week we began with the Infinite Knot, this week – Hilltops, as we make our own connections about what they might mean for us.
The Celts, revered as ‘thin places’, or sacred space…where the visible world was totally interpenetrated by an invisible world, which is somehow in relationship with us. ‘Hilltops – Summits of Vision,’ become a symbol of our human search to connect with the divine…
Margaret says:
- Hilltops…are as close as we get to heaven, perhaps, and a potent reminder of our deep longings to reach out towards what is utterly beyond ourselves. They also provide a view – a fresh perspective of the land from which we have come – and new insights into the journey that still lies ahead. If hilltops represent sacred space, then getting in touch with our personal life hilltops or life-giving moments might be one way to touch the transcendence within us. They become sacred space from then on. Every time we visit them in memory, something of that initial burst of energy [the awe] is experienced again, keeping us going on with whatever it is we have undertaken.
- Let’s look at a Scriptural hilltop story, Moses in Exodus 3, is on Mount Horeb. It’s an ordinary day, minding the sheep, then he notices a glimmer of fire in a bush, a crackle, as of burning twigs, he investigates. The bush was on fire, not getting less…on the contrary, getting more and more vibrantly present. As he drew closer he began to realise this was a special moment in his life…some barrier between the seen and the unseen had been breached, that the energy setting the bush alight was creative, not destructive…bringing forth significant change but as yet he had no idea of what that could be.
Relax now in body and mind, slow your breathing, and enter your meditation, centering your prayer, your will and intention on becoming aware of the nature of the cycles in your own life, picturing each as a hill in your inner landscape…walk the range of hills…what burst of energy have they revealed so far…what visions do they open up for the future… Sealed as with God and Moses, allow God to reveal its purpose…
Love and every blessing
Kathryn
Margaret Silf, Sacred Spaces – Stations on a Celtic Way 62, 63, 68, 74.
Remember to watch an introduction to Centering Prayer Meditation with Kathryn. You can see it here
Let us know how you are finding this time – we always like to hear from you😊
Peace and health at this time.
Irene & Damien