The mysteries of time and the calendar: a Leap Year “extra” day
As time goes on, you’ll understand. What lasts, lasts; what doesn’t, doesn’t.
Time solves most things. And what time can’t solve, you have to solve yourself.
Haruki Murakami
Time heals
Month: February 2024
Self care
You must decide for yourself to whom and when you give access to your interior life. For years you have permitted others to walk in and out of your life according to their needs and desires. Thus you were no longer master in your own house, and you felt increasingly used. So, too, you quickly became tired, irritated, angry, and resentful.
Think of a medieval castle surrounded by a moat. The drawbridge is the only access to the interior of the castle. The lord of the castle must have the power to decide when to draw the bridge and when to let it down. Without such power, he can become the victim of enemies, strangers, and wanderers. He will never feel at peace in his own castle.
It is important for you to control your own drawbridge. There must be times when you keep your bridge drawn and have the opportunity to be alone or only with those to whom you feel close. Never allow yourself to become public property, where anyone can walk in and out at will. You might think that you are being generous in giving access to anyone who wants to enter or leave, but you will soon find yourself losing your soul.
Henri Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
I don’t want to be here
The ego loves to complain and feel resentful not only about other people but also about situations. What you can do to a person, you can also do to a situation: make it into an enemy.
The implication is always: this should not be happening; I don’t want to be here; I don’t want to be doing this; I’m being treated unfairly. And the ego’s greatest enemy of all is, of course, the present moment, which is to say, life itself.
Eckhart Tolle
How to work with agitation
When we try to settle, what we might notice is unsettledness.
Rather than go into the topic, recognize the energy.
Give attention to places in the body that are non-agitated.
Use the body and breath to change the speed of the mind, to steady it.
Once settled, then dilemmas and unfinished business can be related to, with dispassion, compassion and detachment.
Ajahn Sucitto
Sunday Quote: Just be present
Let the bird sing without deciphering the song.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Expectations
We try to be open to all possibilities, without turning them into expectations
Expectations are the greatest impediment to living
In anticipation of tomorrow, we lose today
Seneca
Mindfulbalance 