If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you have a problem.
Everything else is an inconvenience.
Life is an inconvenience.
Learn to separate the inconveniences from the real problems.
You will live longer.
Robert Fulghum, American author and Unitarian Minister,
Uh-Oh: Some Observations from Both Sides of the Refrigerator Door
One of the biggest challenges in life is how we deal with disappointment:
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.
Samuel Beckett, Worstword Ho, 1983
So what I’m saying is: fail. Then fail again, and then maybe you start to work with some of the things I’m saying. And when it happens again, when things don’t work out, you fail better. In other words, you are able to work with the feeling of failure instead of shoving it under the rug, blaming it on somebody else, coming up with a negative self-image — all of those futile strategies.
“Fail better” means you begin to have the ability to hold what I call “the rawness of vulnerability” in your heart, and see it as your connection with other human beings and as a part of your humanness. Failing better means when these things happen in your life, they become a source of growth, a source of forward, a source of, “out of that place of rawness you can really communicate genuinely with other people.” Your best qualities come out of that place because it’s unguarded and you’re not shielding yourself.
Pema Chodron
photo jorg hempel
What will it be for you today?
It could be a meeting, a walk in nature, even just a cup of coffee…
To pay attention and be fully present is the key
Every day has something in
it whose name is forever.
Mary Oliver, Everything That Was Broken
There was a very clear super moon last night.
In Chinese philosophy, the “10, 000 things” is a shorthand way of talking about all the experiences – good and bad – which arise and pass away in our day.
This poem reminds us not to give too much substance to all the things which arise today:
Sitting alone in peace before these cliffs
the full moon is heaven’s beacon
the ten thousand things are all reflections
the moon originally has no light
Han-shan, 9th Century legendary Chinese figure.
When things in work start to overwhelm me and cause a struggle, or when someone does something that causes fear, I notice that two things tend to happen – I get a type of tightening or contraction in the body and a feeling of speeding up in the mind. So this poet’s petition is a nice one to echo on this Saturday morning: Let the day begin gently, and let space enter in, expand and slow me down. Let the leaves fall one by one, and may their letting go permeate into my bones.
We do not have to learn how to contract; we find it easy to turn away, to freeze and to blame…
We do have to practice letting go and holding the heart open, to learn how to soften:
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
Robert Frost, from October.
photo david mastin
I spent the weekend in Glendalough and was able to walk in nature early in the morning among the trees and rivers. Some say even the rocks there vibrate with life. It was easy to feel grace and see wonder, just as we did as children. So what we strive for in our working days – in the “chambers of commerce” – is to remember that beauty and grace are never far from us. They are in the leaf, the stone, the heart. If we listen, there is wonder all around, and it sings. Can we hear it today?
What can I say that I have not said before? So I’ll say it again.
The leaf has a song in it.
Stone is the face of patience.
Inside the river there is an unfinishable story
and you are somewhere in it
and it will never end until all ends.
Take your busy heart to the art museum and the chamber of commerce
but take it also to the forest.
The song you heard singing in the leaf when you
were a child is singing still.
I am of years lived, so far, seventy-four,
and the leaf is singing still
Mary Oliver, What can I say?
