What is this dark hum among the roses?
The bees have gone simple, sipping,
that’s all. What did you expect? Sophistication?
They’re small creatures and they are
filling their bodies with sweetness, how could they not
moan in happiness? The little
worker bee lives, I have read, about three weeks.
Is that long? Long enough, I suppose, to understand
that life is a blessing.
Mary Oliver, Hum
Restrictions have eased and some travel can finally resume, even if for work. Outward movement allows us to observe inner, ongoing, movement of the mind which is always wanting, and trying to fix life the way we would like to find it. Familiar places and yet changed. We like to know where we are going, but physical journeys can be planned, the inner journey less so.
Whales follow
the whale-roads.
Geese, roads of magnetized air.
Yet how often
the heart
that set out for Peru
arrives in China,
Steering hard.
consulting the charts
the whole journey.
Jane Hirshfield, China
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things.
Gerard Manley Hopkins, God’s Grandeur
This morning the Summer Solstice occurred at 04:31 in Ireland, beginning the northern hemisphere’s longest day. Different cultures knew the significance of this date and marked it by bonfires – as I will this evening – to recognize the ongoing gift of each day of light and to celebrate the energy of life.
These rituals remind us that we are at a midpoint in the year, which hints at every midpoint in our lives, every letting go and starting over. Life passes and we discover again its “dearest freshness”. We relax into its mystery, without looking for answers, without clinging to security.
Each morning we awaken to the light and the invitation to a new day in the world of time; each night we surrender to the dark to be taken to play in the world of dreams where time is no more. At birth we were awakened and emerged to become visible in the world. At death we will surrender again to the dark to become invisible.
Awakening and surrender: they frame each day and each life; between them the journey where anything can happen, the beauty and the frailty.
John O’Donohue.
Now it is raining, but we don’t know what will happen in the next moment. By the time we go out, it may be a beautiful day or a stormy day. Since we don’t know, let’s appreciate the sound of the rain now
Shunryu Sukuki, Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind: Informal talks on Zen Meditation and Practice.
I love this bit of wisdom from Shunryu Suzuki. It comes back to me often when I hear the rain (or find myself in or anticipating a storm of whatever kind). Suzuki is better known for another saying ……”In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities”…They both point to the same place – our capacity to come fresh to the moment and to not make a buffer between ourselves and the world.
Bonnie Myotai Treace, in the nice introductory book, Wake Up: How to Practice Zen Buddhism
The only way to make sense out of change
is to plunge into it,
move with it,
and join the dance.
Alan Watts
The path is unchartered. It comes into existence moment by moment and at the same time, drops away behind us. It’s like riding in a train sitting backwards. We cant see where we’re headed, only where we’ve been. This is a very encouraging teaching because it says that the source of wisdom is whatever is going to happen to us today. The source of wisdom is whatever is happening to us right at this very instant.
Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart
