Perhaps the earth can teach us
As when everything seems dead
And later proves to be alive
Pablo Neruda
Not postponing life to the future
Over a lifetime, the obvious becomes inescapable: we will never achieve any ideal of perfection — either physical, mental, or spiritual — other than the realization of the perfection of who we already are, blemishes and all. And what is true for us is true for anyone, however glowing their life may seem to our eyes. We are, all of us, no more and no less than wonderfully ordinary, imperfect mortals. So why not give ourselves a break? …In Japan there is an entire worldview that appreciates the value of the imperfect, unfinished, and faulty. It’s called wabi sabi. The first term refers to something simple and unpretentious, and the second points to the beauty that comes with age. Wabi sabi is the aesthetic view that underlies Japanese art forms like tea ceremony and ceramics. It’s an aesthetic that sees beauty in the modest and humble, the irregular and earthy… Knowing the extent of our limitation, feeling our soon-not-to-be-hereness in our bones, is the best condition we can have for waking up to the miracle that we are here now. That is the brilliance of the human design plan; the built-in “defect” is the very thing that can spur us to drink down the full draught as it comes to us. Better to taste this gritty, imperfect life we have than to defer it to some more perfect future that will never come.
Being with what is
If you can’t see what you are looking for,
see what’s there.
It’s enough.
Mark Nepo
Photo Aka
Kindness towards others
A man crosses the street in rain,
stepping gently, looking two times north and south,
because his son is asleep on his shoulder.
No car must splash him.
No car drive too near to his shadow.
This man carries the world’s most sensitive cargo
but he’s not marked.
Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,
HANDLE WITH CARE.
His ear fills up with breathing.
He hears the hum of a boy’s dream
deep inside him.
We’re not going to be able
to live in this world
if we’re not willing to do what he’s doing
with one another.
The road will only be wide.
The rain will never stop falling.
Naomi Shihab Nye, Shoulders
Photo: U.S. Navy
Kindness towards ourselves…
May there be kindness in your gaze when you look within.
May you never place walls between the light and yourself.
May your angel free you from the prisons of guilt, fear, disappointment, and despair.
May you allow the wild beauty of the invisible world to gather you, mind you, and embrace you in belonging.
John O’Donohue, Eternal Echoes
Photo: without you
Things happen in their own time
We never know how high we are
till we are called to rise;
and then, if we are true to plan,
our statures touch the skies.
Emily Dickinson. We never know how high we are
Photo Steve F
