Bibliomancy as Spiritual Practice

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.

Today I tried something new - my version of “bibliomancy.”

Instead of asking specific questions, I sat in front of my books with curiosity and a strong felt sense of stuck-ness.

I pulled books out books that drew me and opened to a random page in each one. I relaxed my eyes and scanned the pages to see which words called to me; they constellated like a collage - a word cloud for me to listen through. I’m pasting the words that shimmered for me below.

I’m still contemplating what cohered, but since I’m typing this out for myself, why not share?

Maybe something here will shimmer for you, too.

Maybe you will be inspired to experiment with this practice your way with your books, tuning into what shimmers for you.

• “When you build a wall in a field, you are introducing a new presence into the landscape.”

  • John O’Donohue in Anam Cara

• “Do you understand what you are reading?”

  • Eugene Peterson in Working the Angles

• “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

How are you “listening from the depths” these days?

With love, warmth, and stubborn hope,
Kirsten