The hidden wealth of secret places; the treasures of darkness . . .

PROLOGUE      

ANOTHER KIND OF MINING               

I THINK WE PASS through life mostly half blind; not seeing the loveliness in the things near us we walk empty and what we are looking for remains always future and beyond us.

True, we dig for what we know of inner treasure, but finding so little of it we think not to go further and mine for that which we seek, right where we are. For we walk through life in the deep ruts of a cart track, locked into a treadmill of thoughts which revolve round themselves endlessly and don’t escape to discover new things. Along this rooted path of thinking, we are on the same plane and scale as if we thought that visiting a real gemstone mine would provide us precious jewels handed out on a plate. Forgetting how hard and long and tedious is the work of excavating choice minerals and gems from the dark ore of a gigantic mine.

   We have become conditioned to things being instant and easy; but just as there is work in the retrieving of a miner’s bounty, so there is for us, though it be of an entirely different nature. For mining can be along other lines than in ‘rock,’ and the excavating of satisfying gems, from the rich ore of the things which are within our reach; even the living wisdom . . . the hidden gems . . . locked within the rich layers of the things we see every day, all so familiar to us we don’t even notice them.

   The profits of these two kinds of mining are essentially the same. Except one makes us rich on the outside and the other rich on the inside; and though the digging work in both seems so different, again, they are essentially the same. Except one will make our physical muscles strong and the other our personal ones: our inner spiritual muscles; those which shape us into the person whom we are.

   And as the work in a flash of illumination, making truth clear to you in the instant is more energizing and life-giving to your inner eyes than the flash of a beautiful gemstone to your outer eyes, so is inside mining more truly enriching than the outer kind.

   And the work: The opening up of your heart the deep mine inside you.

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from:  A CIRCLE OF SWIFT SONGS; A Circlet of Inner-Life Stories