No matter how small we feel in our daily situation, we are always part of something greater.
Even for the simple flight of a butterfly,
all of the sky is necessary.
Paul Claudel, 1868 – 1955, French poet and dramatist.
Même pour le simple envol d’un papillon, tout le ciel est nécessaire.
We cling to our own point of view, as if everything depended on it.
Yet our views have no permanence;
like autumn and winter, they gradually pass away.
Chuang Tzu, 4th century BC
Today, November 2nd, is traditionally the day that we remember those close to us who have died and gone before us
All men should strive to learn before they die,
what they are running from,
and to, and why.
James Thurber
Just stay at the center of the circle,
and let all things take their course.
Tao Te Ching
Contentment doesn’t mean we are always happy about life events or deny the reality of pain. We cultivate contentment by cultivating the inner witness who is able to respond to life from a place of calmness, peace, and tranquility. So it is the ‘still heart’ — the heart of equanimity — that can welcome everything in. Instead of always living with a sense of dissatisfaction about our lives, or anticipation over what comes next, we live in the knowledge that this moment contains everything we need to be at peace, to experience freedom, to develop compassion for ourselves and others, to find God. When we experience contentment we have softened our bodies, minds, and hearts so that we are able to release the unconscious resistances we hold to our own experience.
Christine Valters Paintner, Lectio Divina
Another Autumn Saturday, two more poets.
Very foggy all day yesterday, a good metaphor for how we live our lives sometimes.
Sometimes the mountain
is hidden from me in veils
of cloud, sometimes
I am hidden from the mountain
in veils of inattention, apathy, fatigue,
when I forget or refuse to go
down to the shore or a few yards
up the road, on a clear day,
to reconfirm
that witnessing presence.
Denise Levertov, Witness.
Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished.
Mary Oliver, Sometimes
Mindfulbalance 