Tag: heart

The sea

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Went for a beautiful walk yesterday along the long golden strand at Portmarnock. Looking out at the sea to the islands and the horizon in the afternoon sun. The movement of the waves bathed in sunshine, their energy, and the force of the wind, was not as impressive as the unbounded vastness of the sea. It is greater than me and my story. We are held and contained by our experience. Life teaches us. We do not need to be afraid. We just need to let go.

There are no footprints on the sea
and no road-signs, not a single
guard-stone or post, and no
bends, only paths of light and dark
from which to choose, the choice is always
a difficult navigation
and the storm’s wingspan immeasurable
as the depths and the horizon, but
the sea holds you in its mighty hand
your life is a sea-blue tale
of love and death.

Åse-Marie Nesse

Sunday Quote: Thirst

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Another morning and I wake with thirst
for the goodness I do not have.

Mary Oliver

Healing

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Everyone alive has suffered. It is the wisdom gained from our wounds and from our own experiences of suffering that makes us able to heal. Becoming expert has turned out to be less important than remembering and trusting the wholeness in myself and everyone else. Expertise cures, but wounded people can best be healed by other wounded people. Only other wounded people can understand what is needed, for the healing of suffering is compassion, not expertise.

Rachel Naomi Remen

Choose either love or fear

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Happiness, anxiety, joy, resentment — we have many words for the many emotions we experience in our lifetimes. But deep down, there are only two emotions: love and fear. All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions from fear. From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy. From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety and guilt.

We have to make a decision to be in one place or the other. If you don’t actively choose love, you will find yourself in a place of either fear or one of its component feelings. Every moment offers the choice to choose one or the other. And we must continually make these choices, especially in difficult circumstances when our commitment to love, instead of fear, is challenged.

Elizabeth Kubler Ross

How life is full of mysteries

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Went walking this morning early in the forest around the Sources of the Allendon. It was particularly beautiful in the early morning light. The freshness of nature, the trees covered in moss, the noise of the river and the familiarity of the place relaxed and softened my heart. Nature is often like that: It creates those  moments when we connect and feel spacious. It is not so easy in our everyday life with people: we have learnt to contract and pull away. The beauty of the walk brought to mind this poem by Mary Oliver:

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity, while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds
will never be broken.

How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage, to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.

Mary Oliver, Mysteries, Yes

Growth

Karl Duffy1 Comment

There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud

was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Anais Nin