Collaging Words for Heart-Seeing
A simple practice for gathering shimmering words into a prism for deeper heart-seeing.
Some Days It’s Hard to Find the Thread
Some days it’s hard to find the thread. In seasons of obscurity, I turn to creativity to find my way home to the center.
This practice is a kind of quote collage. Like my visual collages, it gathers fragments that shimmer and lets them become a prism for deeper heart-seeing.
Before you begin, take one quiet moment to notice what you are holding. Is there a particular question, ache, longing, or curiosity present in you?
Name a simple wish. Orient toward the possibility of seeing, and toward help that may arrive from the inside or the outside.
For more on this posture of expectancy without expectations, you might read Something Else.
You are welcome to try this practice with the quotes I gathered below, or you can gather your own shimmering words from the books around you.
I don’t use this practice to force an answer or predict the future. I use it to open. The gathered words become a prism, and I notice what they illuminate within me.
Here’s the Practice
Gather a few books that draw you.
Open each one intuitively, without trying too hard to choose the “right” page.
Let your eyes soften and notice which words or passages shimmer.
Copy the words that call to you into one place.
Step away for a while. Move, walk, sing, make tea, or simply rest.
Return to the collection and listen for what begins to cohere.
Notice what the words illuminate in your body, your heart, your imagination, or your actual life.
Words That Shimmer
Here is one collection I gathered:
“When you build a wall in a field, you are introducing a new presence into the landscape.”
—John O’Donohue in Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
“Do you understand what you are reading?”
—Eugene Peterson in Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity
“Above all matter is not just the weight that drags us down, the mire that sucks us in, the bramble that bars our way. In itself, and before we choose, it is simply the slope on which we can go up or just as well go down, the medium that can uphold or give away, the wind that can overthrow or lift up.”
—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in The Divine Milieu
“I don’t read the paper & I don’t watch TV & people ask me how I stay up with what’s going on & I tell them breathing seems to help & since I haven’t done serious damage to anyone yet, they usually leave me alone.”
—Brian Andreas in Hearing Voices: Collected Stories & Drawings
“It’s a struggle all the way.”
—Raphael Robin, as quoted by Cynthia Bourgeault in Love is Stronger Than Death
“We now turn to the question of obedience. To our modern ears, the term seems to suggest knuckling under to an external authority, but the Latin word - ob audire - actually means ‘to listen deeply’ or ‘to listen from the depths’ ‘with the ear of the heart’ as St. Benedict puts it. And yes, that listening is, in itself, also a doing, a submission to what the heart has heard.”
—Cynthia Bourgeault in Eye of the Heart: A Spiritual Journey Into the Imaginal Realm
Notice What Coheres
After gathering the quotes, take a break. Step away from the collection for a little while. Move your body, sing, walk, make tea, or simply rest.
When you return, read through the words slowly. Listen for what begins to cohere between them.
What questions does this collection stir in you?
What do you notice in your body as you read these words together?
Is there a felt sense of the whole?
Does anything shimmer, resist, repeat, or surprise you?
Is there a synchronicity that sheds light on something you’ve been living or wondering about?
Let the meaning arrive slowly. It will rarely come as a clear answer. It may arrive as sensation, an image, a phrase, a recollection, or a sense of where to step next.
You’re welcome to begin with the quotes above, or to gather shimmering words from your own books. Let the collection become a prism. Notice what it illuminates. Make the practice your own.
With love, warmth, and stubborn hope,
Kirsten
If this practice helps you notice what shimmers, let’s stay connected. I send occasional Soulspace notes with contemplative questions, spiritual practices, and resources for becoming. You can subscribe below.
If you want some company as you follow this thread, I’d be honored to accompany you.
A Quick Word From Kirsten…
I am so glad you’re here. These reflections and practices are written by a human artist and spiritual director. They are joyfully and freely given.
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