I never tire of birdsong and sky and weather.
Stanley Kunitz 1905 – 2006, American Poet
See with every turning day,
how each season makes a child
of you again, wants you to become
a seeker after rainfall and birdsong,
David Whyte, Coleman’s Bed
The Spring Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. What we need is already here, inside or all around us
If your spiritual guides say to you,
‘Look, the divine Realm is
in the sky’……. well then the birds
will get there ahead of you.
If they say, ‘It is in the sea’….. then the fish will precede you.
No, divine Reality exists inside and all around you.
When you come to know your true Self, you will be fully known —
realizing at last that you are a child of the Living One.
If, however, you never come to know
who you truly are,
you are a poverty-stricken being,
and it is your ‘self’ which will be impoverished.
The Gospel of Thomas, c 120 AD.
AS humans we instinctively turn away from what we find difficult, or are impatient for difficult moments to pass:
In a dream, I was working hard to finish a bridge to cross some river whose current was strong. Just as I finished the arc of the bridge, an elephant appeared in the water. It was stepping down the middle of the stream. When it was squarely beneath my unfinished bridge, it stopped to douse itself with water…All at once, the sheen of water on its back made me question why I was building a bridge in the first place. It made me question if what I was crossing really needed to be entered. It made me wonder: If I were to enter the stream rather than cross it, would I have a different sense of where I was going?
In the days since the dream, the image of the elephant under the unfinished bridge has made me consider obstacles differently. Now when I stumble before things I don’t understand, I try to remember the elephant dousing itself in the middle of what I thought I had to cross and ask myself: Is the thing in the way something I need to cross or enter? If it’s a difficulty involving love or fear, where will I be led by crossing it? Where will I be led by entering it? At each turn, I find myself needing to know: What must I face and what must I bridge?
Mark Nepo
Recall the way you are all possibilities
you can see and how you live best
as an appreciator of horizons
whether you reach them or not.
David Whyte, Mameen
Beannachtai na Féile Padraig oraibh go léir: The blessings of Saint Patrick’s Day to you all.
There is some kind of sense of beauty that knows the horizon that we are really called to in some way. I love Pascal’s phrase, that you should always keep something beautiful in your mind. And I have often — like in times when it’s been really difficult for me, if you can keep some kind of little contour that you can glimpse sideways at, now and again, you can endure great bleakness.
John O’ Donohue, The Inner Landscape of Beauty
Your true home is something you have to create for yourself. When we know how to make peace with our body, take care of and release tension in our body, then our body becomes a comfortable peaceful home for us to come back to in the present moment. When we know how to take care of our feelings, how to generate joy and happiness and handle a painful feeling, we can cultivate and restore a happy home in the present moment. And when we know how to generate energies of understanding and compassion our home will become very cosy and a pleasant place to come back to. Home is not something to hope for but something to cultivate.
Thich Nhat Hahn
Mindfulbalance 