Nourishing the Tree

The tree that is beside the  running water is fresher and gives more fruit.
-Saint Teresa of Avila (https://www.brainyquote.com/quote_of_the_day)

I love these words coming from a 16th century Carmelite nun who believed in the power to transcend thought and worldly demands for the rapture of understanding God. She believed this happened in four stages. 

1. In the first stage "Devotion of the Heart", one begins to take their attention away from the outside world and immerses themselves in prayer and meditation.
2. In the second stage, "Devotion of Peace", where one surrenders "will" to God...exchanging "my will" for "Thy will be done."  At this point the memory, reason and imaginative  mind is still easily distracted by the demands of the external world but one is committed to the spiritual pursuit.
3. In the third stage, "Devotion of Union", one becomes "absorbed " in God...meaning that all reason, all "little me" defense is given up even if memory and imagination are free to ramble away from the union experience.
4. In the final stage, "Devotion of Ecstasy", all awareness of being in the body disappears...one transcends bodily sensations for the rapture of union. Levitation may occur at this point.  (Of course, it was later argued that Saint Teresa may have actually just been experiencing Grand Mal seizures at this point).

-Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teresa_of_%C3%81vila)

 

Anyway...what I see the lovely words above to mean...is the more we are connected to that which nourishes Life...creates Life...the more alive we will be and the more we will have to give.

If we want to serve...we must tap in there first...even if we do not do it in the above way.

All is well in my world