As the wind loves to call things to dance
May your gravity be lightened by grace
John O Donohue, To Bless the Space between Us
photo ceridwen
Tag: growth
The stories we tell, the metaphors we use
Most of us have a metaphor, conscious or not, that names our experience of life. Animated by the imagination, one of the most vital powers we possess, our metaphors are more than mirrors to reality — they often become reality, transmuting themselves from language into the living of our lives. We do well to choose our metaphors wisely.
“Seasons” is a wise metaphor for the movement of life, I think. It suggests that life is neither a battlefield nor a game of chance but something infinitely richer, more promising, more real. The notion that our lives are like the eternal cycle of the seasons does not deny the struggle or the joy, the loss or the gain, the darkness or the light, but encourages us to embrace it all — and to find in all of it opportunities for growth.
Parker Palmer, From Language to Life
photo SK
Following the way of nature
Returning to the source is stillness,
which is the way of nature.
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
photo watchduck
Sunday Quote: Our guide
On this path
let the heart be your guide
for the body is hesitant and full of fear
Rumi
Relating to ourselves and others
Although Rogers is talking about external relationships, this is the essence of mindfulness practice – simply relating to each moment, including difficult ones, without trying to change them or fix them:
In my early years I was asking the question: How can I treat, or cure, or change this person? Now I would phrase the question in this way: How can I provide a relationship which this person may use for his own personal growth?
Carl Rogers
Getting a glimpse in a moment
When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children, when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet, Basho, we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash – at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the “newness,” the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, all these provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
A famous Zen poem reads: “The old Pond. A frog jumps in. Plop” This is a wonderful description of bare attention. The poet, Basho, goes directly to the essence of his experience: the pond, frog, plop. We can say that in meditation we are developing “plop mind”. We are stripping away everything that is extraneous to our immediate experience and simply being present with what is happening. This is bare attention: direct, essential, non-interfering.
Joseph Goldstein, Bare Attention
photo Louis
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