A new month…
The angels, the furies
Are never far away
While we dance, we dance,
Trying to keep a balance
To be perfectly human
(Not perfect, never perfect,
Never an end to growth and peril),
Able to bless and forgive
Ourselves.
This is what is asked of us.
May Sarton, The Angels and the Furies
If we are honest, many of us consider ourselves to be rather lazy, still haunted by those school reports that said “must try harder!” So it might surprise you if I suggest that much of what we do comes unstuck not because we don’t try hard enough, but because we try too hard, or at least try too hard in the wrong sort of way. We aim too high, too quickly, being prematurely concerned with correctness and results at the expense of practice and process.
Where does this perfectionist task-master come from? I suspect it is the highly toxic combination of a lack of confidence and a subtle sense of unworthiness. So instead of wholeheartedly embracing things, as is our birthright, we snatch at life in a sort of smash-and-grab raid before those in authority deem us imposters and ask us to leave, preferably by the back door
Manjusvara, 1953 – 2011 English-born Buddhist writer
The only choice we have, as we mature, is how we inhabit our vulnerability, how we become larger and more courageous, and more compassionate through our intimacy with disappearances to inhabit vulnerability as generous citizens of loss, robustly and fully,
or conversely, as misers and complainers, reluctant and fearful, always at the gates of existence, but never bravely and completely attempting to enter, never wanting to risk ourselves, never walking fully through the door.
David Whyte, “Vulnerability” in Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words
If you really want to escape the things that bother you,
what you’re needing is not to be in a different place
but to be a different person.
Seneca
The Buddha taught his students to develop a power of love so strong that their minds become like a pure, flowing river that cannot be burned.
No matter what kind of material is thrown into it, it will not burn.
Many experiences – good, bad, and indifferent – are thrown into the flowing river of our lives, but we are not burned, owing to the power of the love in our hearts.
Sharon Salzberg, Lovingkindness
We have just passed the Spring Solstice. In Ireland this has meant more grey skies and rain than we saw in most of the Winter. Sometimes change happens out of sight and we have to keep going on trust
Our spirit persists like a man struggling
through the frozen valley
who suddenly smells flowers
and realizes the snow is melting
out of sight on top of the mountain,
knows that spring has begun
Jack Gilbert, 1925 – 2012, American poet
Mindfulbalance 