The dance

Mystery is so ever-present that no one can know for certain what will happen one hour from now. From mystery’s vantage there is no fixed path. In truth there is no path at all, for that would be to place it into the realm of space and time. To awaken is not to fix or hold but to love whatever is here. Knowing this truth releases our hearts from grasping. The mystery that gave us birth becomes a dance

Jack Kornfield, After the Ecstasy, the Laundry

Observe

The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation

but your thoughts about it

Eckhart Tolle

Free medicine

Finally Spring has arrived after the warm sunshine of last weekend. Fresh growth everywhere.

Lord, the air smells good today, 

straight from the mysteries  within the inner courts of God. 

A grace like new clothes thrown  across the garden,

free medicine for everybody.

 The trees in their prayer, the birds in praise,  the first blue violets kneeling.

Whatever came from Being is caught up in being, drunkenly forgetting the way back.

Rumi, Lord, the Air Smells Good Today

Holding a space

Grace fills empty spaces,

but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it.

We must continually suspend the work of the imagination in its quest of filling the void within ourselves.

Simone Weil, 1909 – 1943, French Philosopher and political activist

Like swans

In this lovely teaching, we are reminded of the need to start over and over again in each moment.

Alert to the needs of the journey

those on the path of awareness

like swans, glide on, 

leaving behind their former resting places

Dhammapada 91

Simple routine

It’s a holiday Monday here…easier to start the week with gentle routines

The search is the meaning, the search for beauty, love, kindness and restoration in this difficult, wired and often alien modern world. The miracle is that we are here, that no matter how undone we’ve been the night before, we wake up every morning and are still here. It is phenomenal just to be. This idea overwhelms some people. I have found that the wonder of life is often most easily recognizable through habits and routines – If you don’t do ritual things in order, the paper doesn’t read as well, and you’ll be thrown off the whole day. But when you can sit for a while at your table, reach for your coffee, look out the window at the sky or some branches, then back down at the paper or a book, everything feels right for the moment, which is maybe all we have.

Anne Lamott