Tag: Ireland

Seeing possibilities and not waiting

Karl Duffy2 Comments

File:Spring Perspective.png

In my own life, as winters turn into spring, I find it not only hard to cope with mud but also hard to credit the small harbingers of larger life to come, hard to hope until the outcome is secure. Spring teaches me to look more carefully for the green stems of possibility; for the intuitive hunch that may turn into a larger insight, for the glance or touch that may thaw a frozen relationship, for the stranger’s act of kindness that makes the world seem hospitable again.

Parker Palmer, Let your Life Speak

photo fluous

 

Begin afresh

Karl Duffy1 Comment

buds

I was reminded of Larkin’s beautiful poem by the buds opening on the trees in the garden and on the hedgerows around here in County Kildare.  This time of year  moves him from a reflection on loss and grief, to thoughts on being born again,  to finally being convinced to begin over again.  The message is like something “almost being said”, so we need to create time to see this: we learn from nature and from this season if we are still enough to listen.

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Philip Larkin, The Trees

The Cherry blossoms

Karl Duffy3 Comments

File:Cherry Blossom.jpg

You ask why I make my home in the mountain forest

and I smile and am silent and even my soul remains quiet;

It lives in the world that no one owns.

Trees blossom.

Water flows.

Li Po, 701 – 762

Sheltered

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Lamb sheltering in field in Penmachno - geograph.org.uk - 1433152.jpg

Wherever we are, whatever we do, all we need to do is recognize our thoughts, feelings, perceptions as something natural. Neither rejecting or accepting, we simply acknowledge the experience and let it pass. If we keep this up, we’ll eventually find ourselves becoming able to manage situations we once found painful, scary or sad. We’ll discover a sense of confidence that isn’t rooted in arrogance or pride. We’ll realize that we are always sheltered, always safe and always home.

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, The Joy of Living

photo richard hoare

Work with whatever arises

Karl Duffy2 Comments

File:OUT OF SERVICE (4014622426).jpg

As many teachers have pointed out, “the path is the goal”. That means that what we experience as “obstacles” along the way is usually just a sense of our own expectations falling apart. These same obstacles can be viewed differently, as the basis for reengaging our attention and working through whatever arises, whether it is a sense of purpose and satisfaction, or boredom and resistance, or a sense of futility. Work with whatever arises

Cyndi Lee, Yoga Body, Buddha Mind

photo prayitno

In the bits and pieces

Karl Duffy1 Comment

File:Dublin in 2006.jpg

God is not all in one place complete,

God is in the bits and pieces of everyday,

a kiss here, a smile there,

and sometimes tears.

Patrick Kavanagh

photo Grafton st Dublin by executioner