Most humans are never fully present in the now,
because unconsciously they believe that the next moment must be more important than this one.
But then you miss your whole life, which is never not now
Eckhart Tolle
photo michal osmenda
Month: November 2014
We do not see everything
If we can possibly learn to trust darkness, to understand that life is a pattern of starts and stops, of celebrating the past, of coming to terms with the present and of believing the future to be kind, then we can come to understand that the dark parts are only those closing-down moments, like flowers at night, till the sun shines again……Darkness deserves gratitude. It is the alleluia point at which we learn to understand that not all growth takes place in the sunlight.
Joan Chittister, For all that Has Been, Thanks
photo 4028mdk09
Seasons in a life
The question of the first half of life is “What is the world asking of me?” …. The question for the second half is, however, quite different, “What now does the soul ask of me?” Another way of putting the first question is …. Do you have enough energy, courage, resourcefulness, to enter into this world, take on its demands, and create your own conscious place in it? In the second half of life the question becomes Who, now, apart from the roles you play, are you? Do you have the wherewithal to shift course, deconstruct your painfully achieved identity, risking failure, marginalization and loss of collective approval…. The whole … [of this part] … of life calls us to a spiritual, by which I mean psychological, agenda, while maintaining one’s participation in the social community.
James Hollis, On this Journey we call Our Life: Living the Questions
On the threshold
Even though we are having very mild weather this year, there is still a sense that these early November days hold a sense of change, an understanding that we’re moving from one way of being to another. As Terri Lynn Simpson at the Washington National Cathedral Centre for Prayer and Pilgrimage wrote, they “are like open doorways that invite us to a particular kind of mindfulness where we are aware that we’re moving from one way of being to another. One foot is in the past and one foot is in the future, and in the midst of the two is the present. We can put our weight on one foot or another, superficially living in the past or the future, but true balance comes only when we live deeply in the moment”
In the deep Fall
don’t you imagine the leaves think how
comfortable it will be to touch
the earth instead of the
nothingness of air and the endless
freshets of wind? And don’t you think
the trees themselves, especially those with mossy,
warm caves, begin to think
of the birds that will come — six, a dozen — to sleep
inside their bodies? And don’t you hear
the goldenrod whispering goodbye,
the everlasting being crowned with the first
tuffets of snow? The pond
vanishes, and the white field over which
the fox runs so quickly brings out
its blue shadows. And the wind pumps its
bellows. And at evening especially,
the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way.
Mary Oliver, Song for Autumn
Sunday Quote: The parts of our lives
Without darkness nothing comes to birth,
As without light nothing flowers.
May Sarton
photo olybrius
Trust in darkness
No seed ever sees the flower.
Zen saying
As I said yesterday, November marks the beginning of the “darker half” of the year in the Celtic Calendar, as the balance between light and darkness in the day continues to shift. The earth becomes colder and nature more dormant, with a different rhythm from one of growth and maturity. Parallel process can occur in our lives. For example, difficulties occur which can seem dark or unclear and without hope, or we can have parts of our lives that seem dormant. However, darkness in nature, and in our lives, does not mean that nothing is happening. Things that are now hidden or buried will eventually become seen. That what is now unconscious will become conscious in time. At times, all we can do is wait and trust.
photo by friedrich bohringer
Mindfulbalance 