Toko-pa is a regular here…and here we are grateful for this post on her Facebook page of Henri Amiel’s beautiful words and the gorgeous painting by Katherine Goncharova.
This sense of respecting the mystery at the heart of ourselves, each other and all life feels resonant to us…and lives in the heart of the counselling relationship too. So needful that we are able simply to let ourselves be (in both senses), and not crush what is gentle, vulnerable, still forming with a harsh, distorted yang. And these words too feel deeply relevant to the true meanings and purpose of winter, and our need for it, culturally misunderstood and neglected as that is.
Here are the words for those who have trouble reading FB links:-
“Let mystery have its place in you;
do not be always turning up your whole soil with the ploughshare of self-examination,
but leave a little fallow corner in your heart ready for any seed the winds may bring,
and reserve a nook of shadow for the passing bird;
keep a place in your heart for the unexpected guests, an altar for the unknown God.
Then if a bird sing among your branches, do not be too eager to tame it.
If you are conscious of something new—thought or feeling, wakening in the depths of your being—
do not be in a hurry to let in light upon it, to look at it;
let the springing germ have the protection of being forgotten,
hedge it round with quiet, and do not break in upon its darkness.”
Henri Frederic Amiel
Palace Gate Counselling Service, Exeter
Counselling Exeter since 1994
Palace Gate Counselling Service Blog 