Darkness deserves gratitude.
It is the alleluia point at which we learn to understand
that all growth does not take place in the sunlight.
Joan Chittister
darkness
Tag: Life
the rhetoric of growth
But beyond self-care and the ability to (really) listen, the practice of doing nothing has something broader to offer us: an antidote to the rhetoric of growth.
In the context of health and ecology, things that grow unchecked are often considered parasitic or cancerous.
Yet we inhabit a culture that privileges novelty and growth over the cyclical and the regenerative.
Jenny Odell, How To Do Nothing
Do not push life
Life has its own rhythm. Our task is not to control it, but to engage fully with what is present.
When effort is needed, effort will appear.
When effortlessness becomes essential, it will assert itself.
You need not push life about.
Just flow with it and give yourself completely to the task of the present moment,
which is the dying now to the now. For living is dying.
Without death life cannot be.
Nisargadatta Maharaj, 20th‑century Indian teacher of nondualism
Sunday Quote: joy
Today is Gaudete Sunday
Joy is not to be found in things;
we find it inside ourselves
When we are free of all created things,
we find the uncreated joy of God.
Meister Eckhart, Sermon 12, “Blessed are the Poor in Spirit”
Already here
We don’t have to like what is happening, or feel at peace with it. But we do have to begin exactly where we are, because there we find the only material available for change. Growth occurs through contact with reality, not through avoidance.
What is true is already so.
Owning up to it doesn’t make it worse.
Not being open about it doesn’t make it go away.
And because it’s true, it is what is there to be interacted with. Anything untrue isn’t there to be lived. People can stand what is true, for they are already enduring it.
Eugene Gendlin, Focusing
a widening of perspective
A zen-like poem. What seems like a loss becomes clarity to see more riches.
Each day, less leaves
in the tree outside my window.
More leave, and every day
more sky. More of the far,
and every night more stars.
Li-Young Lee, Leaving
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