No matter how dire the circumstances, we can have confidence in life’s flow and in our own deep seated goodness.
No matter how dark,
the hand always knows the way to the mouth.
Saying of the Idoma ethnic group, Nigeria.
no matter how dark
Tag: heart
Making room to breathe
The first day of Lent and of Ramadan
Our culture accelerates. Deadlines, notifications, reputational anxiety, comparisons – all creating a sense of tightness. What would it mean to live one day this week unhurried?
There is a way to live that is spacious and unhurried,
a way that allows the heart to breathe
Wayne Muller, How, Then, Shall We Live?
A gentle world
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
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
