Maggie and I are doing our best. Our parents did their best. Everyone is doing their best.
What if we assumed that about each other?
What a gentle world it would be.
Elizabeth Lesser, Marrow: A Love Story
A gentle world
Tag: heart
The inner arrival of Spring
There is a latent potential hidden in the dark days of winter and of our lives – “new beginnings” awaiting, much like snowdrops pushing up through frozen ground.
May the dew of dreams
Fresh on the fields of night
Revive your courage
To take the first steps
Towards what you love.
May your mind stay clear
To sense the secret bounty
Waiting in the bleak
And brilliant moments of your life.
May your spirit risk
The slow excitement
Of a new beginning
That will take you home
To a place you have never known.
John O’Donohue, For the New Year
Living inside the mystery
To be human is to be a conversation between what we think we know and the great mystery that surrounds us.
We are not here to conquer that mystery, but to live inside it, to let it shape us, to let it ask its impossible questions of us.
David Whyte, Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity
Extend warmth
My rule is this: Love your own tender self. Forgive yourself for being a flawed, imperfect, bumbling human. Shower yourself with warmth. And then extend that tenderness, and forgiveness, and warmth toward every flawed, imperfect, bumbling human who crosses your path today. Every day, increase the warmth toward self and others. See past your annoyance and your pride and your fear into the warm heart of the other. Warmth to warmth. And then watch what unfolds. It will blow your mind with its simplicity and its power.
Elizabeth Lesser
The Power of One Small Moment
On those Mondays, when the day or the week ahead feels challenging, I like the Japanese phrase “Ikki no mei” (喜の明) — roughly translated as “one small reason to keep going.” It helps me focus on a single, simple moment or action: a cup of coffee, or offering a smile or kind greeting to a colleague — these “micro-meanings” become small anchors that guide me through the day.
Donne-nous aujourd’hui notre pain de ce jour
[French translation of the Our Father: Give us this day our bread for this day]
Knowing this, a wise person lives
the present moment, unshaken, unmoved.
Bhaddekaratta Sutta (MN 131)
The World is always partly Veiled
Komorebi (木漏れ日) is a beautiful Japanese word for the light filtering through trees – everchanging – reminding us of the fleeting uniqueness of each moment.
Understanding this leads to a contentment with the Universe and with oneself.
Not a bad philosophy for a New Year…
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”
Mary Oliver, When I am Among the Trees
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