Relating to challenges

Unless we live all our lives in the torment of the contradictions, as C.G. Jung insists, then we’re not human. We can’t become whole. If you’re stuck, and you don’t know what to do, stuck between two opposites, and you allow them each to live within you, then a small transformation of the ego takes place. It becomes related to the Self instead of identifying with it. 

Helen Luke, 1904 – 1995, Jungian Analyst and writer

Autumn: new beginnings

A short note on the passing of time: I started this blog ten years ago this week, and, once I got going, have posted every day since then. Some of you have been with me since those early days, and I thank you for your support and encouragement. I am very grateful to everyone who stops by, even if just once.

I post to remind myself to begin anew every day and hope that the thoughts selected help you see the world in new  and fresh ways too.

That old September feeling, left over from school days, of summer passing, vacation nearly done, obligations gathering, books and football in the air… Another Fall, another turned page: there was something of jubilee in that annual autumnal beginning, as if last year’s mistakes had been wiped clean by summer.

Wallace Stegner, American Novelist and Pulitzer Prize winner, Angle of Repose

Abba Poemen said about Abba Pior that every single day he made a fresh beginning.

Abba Poemen, Egyptian monk, (c. 340–450)

Set-backs

Sometimes we must undergo hardships, breakups, and narcissistic wounds, which shatter the flattering image that we had of ourselves, in order to discover two truths: that we are not who we thought we were; and that the loss of a cherished pleasure is not necessarily the loss of true happiness and well-being.

Jean-Yves Leloup, Compassion and Meditation

Where you actually are

When you find your place where you actually are, practice occurs....

When you find your way at this moment, practice occurs…

Here is the place; Here the way unfolds

Dogen, 1200 – 1253, Genjōkōan: Actualizaing the Fundamental Point

What is the sacred?

Wisdom consists in doing the next thing that you have to do,

doing it with your whole heart,

and finding delight in doing it.

And the delight is the sense of the sacred.

Helen Luke, 1904 – 1995, Jungian Analyst and writer

Sunday Quote: waiting

It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life

waiting to start living.

Eckhart Tolle