Tag: heart

Self care

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You must decide for yourself to whom and when you give access to your interior life. For years you have permitted others to walk in and out of your life according to their needs and desires. Thus you were no longer master in your own house, and you felt increasingly used. So, too, you quickly became tired, irritated, angry, and resentful.

Think of a medieval castle surrounded by a moat. The drawbridge is the only access to the interior of the castle. The lord of the castle must have the power to decide when to draw the bridge and when to let it down. Without such power, he can become the victim of enemies, strangers, and wanderers. He will never feel at peace in his own castle.

It is important for you to control your own drawbridge. There must be times when you keep your bridge drawn and have the opportunity to be alone or only with those to whom you feel close. Never allow yourself to become public property, where anyone can walk in and out at will. You might think that you are being generous in giving access to anyone who wants to enter or leave, but you will soon find yourself losing your soul.

Henri Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love

lightly

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For years and years I struggled
just to love my life. And then
the butterfly
rose, weightless, in the wind.
“don’t love your life
too much,” it said,
and vanished into the world.

Mary Oliver, One or Two Things

Celebrate

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Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness

and just be happy

Guillaume Apollinaire, 1880 – 1918, French poet and playwright

Sunday Quote: Choose conscious living

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Sit with those who are awake

or the caravan will leave while you are still asleep.

Rumi

Been seen

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The ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the self nor of the other: the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.

David Whyte

Beannachtaí na Nollaig oraibh go léir

(Christmas blessings from Ireland to all of you who drop by or who read each day)

too much

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As the winter solstice approaches, animals and the rest of nature turn towards slowing down and saving, rather than, spending energy. This was echoed in the understanding of Advent as a time for simplification. This is somewhat removed from the excesses which are promoted as being necessary for happiness in the modern celebration of the Season.

We have known for a long time that poverty can destroy the body and render the soul deaf and insensitive. What has yet to be learned is that overabundance of things and enjoyments also devours the soul. An appropriate relation to things, one that does not overwhelm the senses, cannot grow when things are ever present for our consumption. Overabundance destroys the intensity of people and their capacity to enjoy and to be related.

In cultures where asceticism developed and was practiced, people knew that one can suffocate when every option is a readily available one. Without self-limitation, without fixed boundaries – like those given in creation between day and night, summer and winter, being young and growing old – life loses its humanness. Asceticism means to renounce at least for periods of time the options that present themselves. In bygone cultures of poverty there were times for fasting, waking, withdrawing, and keeping silence. Perhaps people believed that life itself could be saved by giving up parts of it.

Dorothee Soelle,  The Silent Cry : Mysticism and Resistance