Roots

tree roots wood

The rooting (of trees, of our selves) is as important and as necessary as the rising. We have the opportunity to sink roots into soul and rise up with branches in heaven…..Growth is meant to go in both directions, toward the fertile darkness and the glorious light, each of us having the opportunity to bridge earth and heaven — the underworld and the upperworld — through the trunks of our middleworld lives…. There’s no conflict between spirit-centered being and soulful doing, between transcendence and inscendence. Each supports and enhances the other. Like Rilke, we discover we can have both:

You see, I want a lot
Maybe I want it all;
The darkness of each endless fall,
The shimmering light of each ascent.

Bill Plotkin, Soulcraft

Here, now

raking leaves 777

Our conditioned mind tells us that we are missing something grand

Images of delightful experiences dance seductively in our heads

“If only we had the time” we sigh “life would be so good and happy”.

And then our attention returns to the fullness of the moment

and we realize we are here, and there is nothing else to do and nowhere else to be.

All the tastes and textures of life are here to be experienced now.

There is no other time.

There is no other place.

William and Nancy Martin,  The Caregivers Tao Te Ching

Open for surprises today

bagenalstown

Gorgeous, amazing things come into our lives when we are paying attention: mangoes, grandnieces, Bach, ponds. This happens more often when we have as little expectation as possible. If you say, “Well, that’s pretty much what I thought I’d see,” you are in trouble. At that point you have to ask yourself why you are even here. […] Astonishing material and revelation appear in our lives all the time. Let it be. Unto us, so much is given. We just have to be open for business.

Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow: Three Essential Prayers

Early morning on the River Barrow at Bagenalstown, Co. Carlow

Sunday Quote: Where happiness lies

We carry inside us the wonders we seek outside us.

Sir Thomas Browne, 1605 – 1682, Religio Medici 15

photo from judesphotography.wordpress.com

Being nothing for a while

File:PikiWiki Israel 29448 a branch of Carob tree.jpg

The weekend allows us place the emphasis on being rather than doing. The mild autumn weather this year allows us do that in the sunshine and under the trees:

The dream of my life

Is to lie down by a slow river

And stare at the light in the trees –

To learn something by being nothing

A little while but the rich

Lens of attention

Mary Oliver, Entering the Kingdom

photo: Lehava activity 2013 Pikiwiki Israel

Blocking ourselves

Shadow Person

Most of us find it easier to extend compassion towards others than towards ourselves and our own mistakes. We can be our own biggest critics which just intensifies our preoccupation with “ourselves” as something fixed and needing to be improved.

Most of the shadows of this life

are caused by standing in one’s own sunshine

Ralph Waldo Emerson