The real challenge that faces us as we go through this day is staying open: open to the mystery of others and of events we cannot fully understand, open to a deeper meaning in our lives, open to seeing our lives from a different vantage point than that of our fears:
Can you hold the door
of your tent
wide to the firmament?
Lao Tzu
Watch your thoughts, they become words.
Watch your words, they lead to actions.
Watch your actions, they create habits.
Watch your habits, they build your character.
Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.
Upanishads
It is not easy to be open to everything that happens in a day, either outside us or within us, still less to see them all as “blessings”. Here Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, reminds us to do so, maybe from the perspective of her work with people in the last moments of their lives, when they have let go of some of the things which assumed great importance during their lives. Her words remind us today that life has a richness to be experienced and is not just to be managed or gotten through. Every aspect of this day can teach us, if we have eyes to see.
Learn to get in touch with silence within yourself, and know that everything in this life has purpose.
There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from.
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
The incredibly warm weather means that the birds are everywhere and active. The first swallows have returned. Birdsong fills the air at dawn and dusk. And they are busy….finding worms, building nests and testifying to life. We can learn so much about what leads to real happiness from how Nature works. When we are close to nature , in the mountains or in the garden, we touch into a wisdom within our deepest selves, as Mark Nepo did, observing a robin building a nest:
It was a small thing, watching the robin carry a twig too big for its nest. It tried once, then twice to use it, and somehow…it knew it was no good. It simply flew off and picked another.
I went and found the twig. I rolled it in my hand and thought of the times I’ve labored, trying to make things too big fit. So often what we want is like that twig, too big to be of use, and we stay lodged in an unhappiness created by holding on to something that cannot complete our nest.
It was humbling to watch a small bird work, singing as it went, leaving what it couldn’t use as it found it. If we could only treat each other with such simple kindness.
from The Book of Awakening
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.
Live the life you have imagined.
As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.
Thoreau
Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities.
It is always our conscious choice which garden we will tend … when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present — love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure — the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience heaven on earth.
Sarah Ban Breathnach
Mindfulbalance 