An eye is meant to see things.
The soul is here for its own joy.
A head has one use: To love a genuine love.
The feet: To chase after it.
Love is for vanishing into the sky. The mind,
for learning what men have done and tried to do.
Mysteries are not to be solved: The eye goes blind
when it only wants to see why.
A lover is always accused of something.
But when he finds his love, whatever was lost
in the looking comes back completely changed.
Rumi, Night and Sleep
I had a conversation the other morning with a friend on the need to have a certain lightness in the way we hold life each day, a kind of simplicity. Getting the balance between the demands of love and the pull it places on the heart on one hand and detachment on the other is not easy. However, modern society stimulates attachment, so the letting-go perspective of all the wisdom and religious traditions is a useful reminder. The fact that it is a consistent presence in all cultures would suggest that it is a truth closely related to our deepest happiness:
So you should view this fleeting world
As a star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.
Diamond Sutra
In the hero stories, the call to go on a journey takes the form of a loss, an error, a wound, an unexplainable longing, or a sense of a mission.
When any of these happens to us, we are being summoned to make a transition.
It will always mean leaving something behind,…
The paradox here is that loss is a path to gain.
David Richo, How to be an Adult
And consider, always, every day,
the determination of the grass to grow despite the unending obstacles.
Mary Oliver
photo Takashi Hososhima
We need to give up what no longer works
and find new ways of being
that keep us close to what matters
Mark Nepo
The human heart is never still. … There are always new thoughts and experiences emerging in your life; some moments delight and surprise you, others bring you onto shaky ground. …The mind and heart are wanderers who are always tempted by new horizons. … Your longing frequently takes you on inner voyages that no one would ever guess. …longing keeps the door open and calls towards us the gifts and blessings which our lives dream.
John O’Donohue,
Mindfulbalance 