Meaning does not come to us in finished form, ready-made; it must be found, created, received, constructed. We grow our way toward it. And sometimes the precious bit of true self, the unlived bit of soul, hides in psychological complexes, in illness, even in tragedy, even in sin…Some mysterious power uses what we see as horrific as as the defeat of all our hopes to bring about our salvation.
Ann Bedford Ulanov, The Wizards Gate
photo jose antonio bielsa arbiol
It is the stubbornness with which we refuse to let what’s growing underneath come through that pains us. It is the fear that nothing is growing underneath that feeds our despair. It is the moment that we cease growing in any direction that is truly deadly.…Imagine if trees never shed their leaves, or if waves never turned over, or if clouds dumped their rain and disappeared. I say this to remind myself as much as you: Little deaths prevent big deaths. What matters most is waiting its turn, underneath all that is expending itself to prepare the way.
Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening
To reach the sea and be happy with a jug of water is a waste
The sea that has pearls…
And a hundred thousand other precious things.
Rumi
photo opheliarosetti
People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.
Joseph Campbell
photo neil ward
Beautiful warm and Summer weather here in Ireland, the UK and in Europe at the moment. I know that I have posted this before, but a walk along country roads and in the woods brought it to mind:
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Mary Oliver, The Summer Day
photo of Mullaghreelan Woods Co. Kildare
When the eyes and the ears are open,
even the leaves on the trees
teach like pages from the scriptures.
Kabir
photo borealis55
Photo borealis55
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