“Eating Light”

“People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.”

Iris Murdoch

My son-in-law’s flower garden is literally abuzz with honey bees and the frenzied comings and goings of a ruby-throated hummingbird. My five-year-old grandson, whom I’m taking care of this afternoon, is busy rustling up a mud and bark sandwich for me in his backyard “dirty diner.”

But I’m in no hurry. I am content to sit in late Spring sunlight, awestruck and inspired by the intricacies of irises and columbine.

“I would not call this meditation, sitting in the back garden. Maybe I would call it eating light. Mystical traditions recognize two kinds of practice: _apophatic mysticism_, which is the dark surrender of Zen…and _kataphatic mysticism_, less well defined: an openhearted surrender to the beauty of creation.”

Mary Rose O’Reilley, The Barn at the End of the World: The Apprenticeship of a Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd