Category: Be fully present

Quiet miracles

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Wild blackberry high resolution.jpg

Two extracts from John O’Donohue for this Saturday in Autumn, when we reflect on the fact that life moves on, and yet we can relate to it fully in any particular moment:

We live between the act of awakening and the act of surrender. Each morning we awaken to the light and the invitation to a new day in the world of time; each night we surrender to the dark to be taken to play in the world of dreams where time is no more. At birth we were awakened and emerged to become visible in the world. At death we will surrender again to the dark and become invisible.  Awakening and surrender: they frame each day and each life; between them the journey where anything can happen, the beauty and the frailty

John O’ Donohue, Beauty

May anxiety never linger about you.  May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of soul. Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention. Be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul.  May you experience each day as a sacred gift,  woven around the heart of wonder.

From For Presence (with thanks to Kathy Lewis for reminding me of these words)

An idea for a new month: Give up defining

Karl Duffy1 Comment

blowing-leaves

Give up defining yourself – to yourself or to others.

You won’t die. You will come to life. And don’t be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it’s their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don’t be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.

Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

Here, now

Karl Duffy1 Comment

raking leaves 777

Our conditioned mind tells us that we are missing something grand

Images of delightful experiences dance seductively in our heads

“If only we had the time” we sigh “life would be so good and happy”.

And then our attention returns to the fullness of the moment

and we realize we are here, and there is nothing else to do and nowhere else to be.

All the tastes and textures of life are here to be experienced now.

There is no other time.

There is no other place.

William and Nancy Martin,  The Caregivers Tao Te Ching

Open for surprises today

Karl Duffy1 Comment

bagenalstown

Gorgeous, amazing things come into our lives when we are paying attention: mangoes, grandnieces, Bach, ponds. This happens more often when we have as little expectation as possible. If you say, “Well, that’s pretty much what I thought I’d see,” you are in trouble. At that point you have to ask yourself why you are even here. […] Astonishing material and revelation appear in our lives all the time. Let it be. Unto us, so much is given. We just have to be open for business.

Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow: Three Essential Prayers

Early morning on the River Barrow at Bagenalstown, Co. Carlow

Being nothing for a while

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:PikiWiki Israel 29448 a branch of Carob tree.jpg

The weekend allows us place the emphasis on being rather than doing. The mild autumn weather this year allows us do that in the sunshine and under the trees:

The dream of my life

Is to lie down by a slow river

And stare at the light in the trees –

To learn something by being nothing

A little while but the rich

Lens of attention

Mary Oliver, Entering the Kingdom

photo: Lehava activity 2013 Pikiwiki Israel

An unhelpful way of using the mind

Karl Duffy3 Comments

IMG_20140918_131122

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow,

it empties today of its strength

Corrie ten Boom, Clippings from my Notebook

with thanks to Laura Syrat for the photo of cat sleeping in Nice, France.