Tag: Life

Already here

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

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

Karl Duffy1 Comment

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

Personally

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Don’t Take Anything Personally. 

Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream.

When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements. Second Agreement

Hidden in the mists

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

A nice poem for the weather we are having these days on this island on the edge of Europe. Insight deepens when we resist the urge to prematurely close meaning, allowing complexity to speak in its own time.

How would it be to allow for knowing

and not knowing: allowing room

for the mystery of creating

to be able to wonder softly

without needing to understand everything

to trust in the process, to trust in love

to trust in the mystery and wonder

of the universe

that beats softly wildly

true, all round about us,

that is hidden in the mists in the clouds and the rain

in the wind blowing and the rain lashing down on your window,

reminding you poetically, prosaically

that this is where you are,

on the island, at the edge,

in a place of finding and refinding,

and remembering to remember

the feel of the mist, wind and rain.

John O’ Donohue

not clear

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

The Universe conceals its workings, and the underlying meaning of things is not immediately evident;

Nature loves to hide

Φύσις κρύπτεσθαι φιλεῖ

Heraclitus, fragment B123

it too will leave

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Ripeness is
what falls away with ease.
Not only the heavy apple, the pear,
but also the dried brown strands
of autumn iris from their core.

To let your body
love this world
that gave itself to your care
in all of its ripeness, with ease,
and will take itself from you
in equal ripeness and ease,
is also harvest.

And however sharply
you are tested —
this sorrow, that great love —
it too will leave on that clean knife

Jane Hirshfield,