Trust your heart
if the seas catch fire
(and live by love
though the stars walk backward)
e.e.cummings
Sunday Quote: live by love
Tag: heart
Happy
Yesterday, Irish people wished everyone a “Happy Saint Patrick’s Day” or if in the Irish language, “the blessings of Saint Patrick’s Day”. But what do these related terms “Happy” and “Blessed” mean?
By happiness I mean a deep sense of flourishing which comes from an exceptionally heathy mind
This is not a mere pleasurable feeling, a fleeting emotion or a mood, but an optimal state of being
Happiness is also a way of interpreting the world, since while it may be difficult to change the world, it is always possible to change the way we look at it.
Matthieu Ricard, Happiness
Sunday Quote: the holy tree
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart,
The holy tree is growing there
W.B. Yeats, Irish Poet, The Two Trees
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day
Sanctuary
In the Middle Ages, anyone could gain protection from other people – even the legal authorities – by simply running into a sacred building and saying the word “Sanctuary!” This ritual triggered a system of safety respected by everyone in the society.
Simple rituals like saying “Sanctuary!” signal to our bodies and minds that we’ve entered a sacred recovery space. By creating your own small rituals, you can teach your mind and body to drop into this healing state.
Once you have a place, a time, and a ritual, you can touch in with the peaceful energy of sanctuary any time you feel especially vulnerable. We can all recover a bit of peace, confidence, and hope whenever we need it. The door inside us – the state of mind that leads to peace – is real. It opens to an infinite sacred space in our own hearts, minds, and souls. And that is real as well. If we go there and ask for sanctuary, we can always find it. Little by little, breath by breath, our spirits can recover from anything.
Martha Beck Blog, How to seek sanctuary in a Time of Chaos
Simply sit
Some people think that it always takes time
for the mind to arrive in the space of silence.
How about simply dropping this idea,
simply feeling how you are sitting right now,
in contact with the ground and thus with the earth
in this earth contact that knows neither here nor there.
Simply letting yourself feel how you are sitting right now
in contact with the space above your head and thus with the sky
in this sky contact which knows neither yesterday not today.
Silvia Ostertag, It Takes No Time [extract]
Into the unknown
A new month begins….
We are daily forced to choose between depression and anxiety. Depression results from the wounding of the individuation imperative; anxiety results from moving forward into the unknown.
That path of anxiety is necessary because therein lies the hope of the person to more nearly become an individual. My analyst once said to me, “You must make your fears your agenda.” When we do take on that agenda, for all the anxiety engendered, we feel better because we know we are living in ‘bonne foi’ [good faith] with ourselves.
Courage is not the absence of fear. It is the perception that some things are more important to us than what we fear.
James Hollis, Jungian Analyst, Swamplands of the Soul: New Life in Dismal Places
Mindfulbalance 