Then there was Jim, who said that for many years he took walks that were ‘ranting’ walks. He would walk and contemplate all the things that angered him about the world. One day he decided to begin taking ‘gratitude’ walks. ‘Now while I walk I recount all the things I am grateful for in my life and don’t allow myself to think of negative things at all. I have found this simple practice to be a great gift.’
John Izzo, The Five Secrets you must Discover before Your Die
Could our minds and our hearts be big enough just to hang out in that space where we’re not entirely certain about who’s right and who’s wrong? Could we have no agenda when we walk into a room with another person, not know what to say, not make that person wrong or right? Could we see, hear, feel other people as they really are? It is powerful to practice this way, because we’ll find ourselves continually rushing around to try to feel secure again — to make ourselves or them either right or wrong. But true communication can happen only in that open space.
Pema Chodron
It is one of the perils of our so-called civilized age that we do not yet acknowledge enough, or cherish enough, the connection between soul and landscape — between our own best possibilities, and the view from our own windows. We need the world as much as it needs us, and we need it in privacy, intimacy, and surety. We need the field from which the lark rises — bird that is more than itself, that is the voice of the universe: vigorous, godly joy. Without the physical world such hope is: hacked off. Is: dried up. Without wilderness no fish could leap and flash, no deer could bound soft as eternal waters over the field; no bird could open its wings and become buoyant, adventurous, valorous beyond even the plan of nature. Nor could we.
Mary Oliver, Home
Those who are willing to be vulnerable
move among mysteries
Theodore Roethke, American Poet, Straw for the Fire
Maybe you are searching among the branches
for what only appears in the roots
Rumi
photo evelyn simak
Never be so focused on what you’re looking for
that you overlook the thing you actually find.
Ann Patchett, American author
Mindfulbalance 