Look wide

Misery is a moment of suffering allowed to become everything. So, when feeling miserable, we must look wider than what hurts. When feeling a splinter, we must, while trying to remove it, remember there is a body that is not splinter, and a spirit that is not splinter, and a world that is not splinter.

Mark Nepo,  The Book of Awakening.

Letting go

Human beings are made of water.

we were not designed
to hold ourselves 
together,

rather run freely
like oceans,
like rivers.

Beau Taplin, Run Freely

Seeing with the heart

In Shakespeare’s King Lear Act IV, the King asks Gloucester how he was so good at seeing “how this world goes?” And Gloucester, who was blind, answers:

“I see it feelingly.”

On ne voit bien qu’avec le cœur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.

One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye

Antoine de Saint Exupéry, The Little Prince

Demented gardeners

[Even some] lovely people feel that their real identity is working on themselves, and some work on themselves with such harshness. Like a demented gardener who won’t let the soil settle for anything to grow, they keep raking, tearing away the nurturing clay from their own heart, then they’re surprised that they feel so empty and vacant. Self-compassion is paramount. When you are compassionate with yourself, you trust in your soul, which you let guide your life. Your soul knows the geography of your destiny better than you do.

John O’Donoghue, Anam Chara

Off to work

The place God calls you to

is the place where your deep gladness

and the world’s deep hunger meet

Frederick Buechner, born 1926, American writer, preacher, and theologian

Sunday quote: Perspective

You are floating in empty space in a universe that goes on forever.

If you have to be here, at least be happy and enjoy the experience. 

Michael Singer,  The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself