One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light,
but by making the darkness conscious
Jung
Today is Lá Féile Bríde, St. Brigid’s Day, celebrated on the ancient Celtic festival of Imbolc, a word meaning perhaps “in the womb”, and linked with the feminine, fertility and the birth of lambs. The Celts were much more in touch with the rhythms of nature and with symbols than we are, and so lit fires in the darkness to mark the fact that they had arrived at the midway point between the winter and the spring solstice. They celebrated the lengthening days and the early signs of Spring, in a declaration of trust that the darkness of winter was not going to last. It was the start of a period of planting and birth: a time for looking forward and beginning again. For us too, some form of death and rebirth is always happening in our inner selves, even if we are unaware of it. We are never really in just one place, but always somewhat in-between, re-working our own myths and adding depth and meaning to our journey.
For last year’s words
belong to last year’s language
and next year’s words
await another voice.
And to make an end
is to make a beginning
T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding
Dear Mother Earth, as a human family, we have allowed greed and consumerism to prevail. We have been running after status, wealth, power and sensual comforts, forgetting that these things can never bring us true happiness and freedom. We have been so busy trying to cover up the feeling of emptiness inside, that we have not taken the time or space to stop and ask ourselves what we are doing, or where we are going. In the process, we have caused great harm to you, dear Mother Earth, destroying your natural richness, beauty and balance.
Aware of this, we are determined to simplify our life, to stop running, and to remember that in the present moment we already have enough conditions to be happy. With the energy of mindfulness and compassion we feel truly fulfilled and content. In the coming year, we are determined to consume less and to live in such a way that is sustainable for ourselves and for you, Mother Earth.
New Year 2016 Prayer, Plum Village Community, France
Arriving someplace more desirable at some future time is an illusion.
This is it.
Jon Kabat Zinn
photo thhe at english wikipedia
We are endlessly offered into life: all time is ours.
And what any one of us might be worth,
death alone knows – and does not tell.
Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, II, 24
How Han-shan Te-Ching (1546 – 1623) came to understand to stay fully present in the moment, not in a perpetual movement of becoming:
When Hanshan got up from his seat and walked around, he did not see things in motion. When he opened the window blind, suddenly a wind blew the trees in the yard, and the leaves flew all over the sky. However, he did not see any signs of motion. He understood what the text spoke of as, “Streams and rivers run into the ocean and yet there is no flowing.”
Mindfulbalance 