Sometimes we orient to the world through ideas and get fixed on our notion of how things should be. We can run from how a thing actually is. What we need at times is the courage to embrace life as it is actually unfolding, and not avoid it or hide in some concept which we think it should be.
The idea of love is not love
The idea of the ocean is neither salt nor sand;
The face of the seal cannot rise from the idea
to stare at you,
to astound your heart
Mary Oliver
There will be no comets now,
no pointing star to lead you where you know you must go.
Look for smaller signs instead, the fine
disturbances of ordered things when suddenly
the rhythms of your expectation break
and in a moment’s pause another world
reveals itself behind the ordinary.
Diana Gioia, from The Stars now Rearrange Themselves
I am like the air on a calm day
as it holds itself still, letting nothing escape.
Colm Toibin, The Testament of Mary
photo of early morning fog University College Dublin by Crys83
If I keep a green bough in my heart,
the singing bird will come.
Chinese Proverb
Research shows that we spend 46.9% of our waking hours thinking about something other than what we are actually doing, and that this typically leads to greater unhappiness. If we could remember to be with what is important, step by step, like walking on a beach, trusting in the present moment
Don’t worry about what you have not yet seen.
Don’t be concerned about the length of the road or about the destination.
Stick to the present
Ajahn Chah
photo: lies through a lens
When your life looks back—
as it will, at itself, at you — what will it say?
Your life will carry you as it did always,
with ten fingers and both palms,
with horizontal ribs and upright spine,
with its filling and emptying heart,
that wanted only your own heart, emptying, filled, in return.
You gave it. What else could you do?
Jane Hirshfield, When Your life looks back
