This experience was full and rich on many levels and I will be thinking and writing about it for some time to come. But for now, I just want to relate, with her permission,  an experience that one of the other participants, Debbie Long,  shared with some of us because  it captures so well one of the potential effects of engaging in practices such as soulcollage, dreamwork, meditation, or contemplative prayer.

Recently she entered her kitchen and glanced over at a vase of flowers containing, she noticed,  one particularly lovely carnation. As she paused and looked at it, really taking in its beauty, she found herself speaking to it, saying, “ I see you. I may be the only one who ever really sees you. You are so lovely.” As the days passed, she watched  as the loveliness of this flower faded and still she said,  “ I see you. I remember how lovely you were. I see your beauty now. I may be the only one to ever see you. I am so grateful we met.”

The same thing repeated later that week when on a walk she heard a cardinal sing. “ I hear you, ” she said.  “ I may be the only one, but I hear you. Your song is lovely,” and she sang back to the cardinal. For a time she and the cardinal sang back and forth to one another, each hearing the beauty of  the other’s song.