Silence, Prayer, Worship and Meditation

I made this panel about two years ago. It arose out of a retreat at Charney Manor, when I was thinking about silence, prayer, worship and meditation, and the relationship between them. I started off by trying to draw it as a Venn diagram, showing where the circles intersected and overlapped, but quickly realised that wasn't going to work. Each wanted to be an image in its own right, self-contained. We had been doing a walking meditation in the grounds in the morning, during which I had picked up a few items that caught my eye: an empty eggshell; a leaf of sage; a buttercup; and a petal of nigella, or love-in-a-mist. The last three fitted neatly inside the eggshell and this gave me the insight as to what the colour and image wanted to be for each of these concepts.

After I'd drawn it, I realised I also wanted some words to go with each idea. I found what I needed in Quaker Faith and Practice, except for meditation for which I had to go to John Main's book Monastery Without Walls. I've given that quotation below, as it may be more difficult than the others to track down for those who are interested.

Silence: a white eggshell. QFP 20.11
Prayer: a leaf of sage. QFP 2.21
Worship: a golden buttercup. QFP 2.01
Meditation: a petal of 'love-in-a-mist'. Meditation teaches us, in the only certain way, by experience, that God's presence is not external to us. It is interior because it is the presence that constitutes and holds together the deepest ground of our being.

The panel sits on a shelf in my study along with other objects, like the pebble and the candleholder, which are significant for me - I think of it as a kind of shrine.