Tag: Life

Beautiful

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But now his liberated eyes remained on this side, he saw and acknowledged visibility, he sought his home in this world, did not seek reality, did not aim at any beyond.

Beautiful was the world if you contemplated it like this, with no seeking, so simple, so childlike. Beautiful were the moon and stars, beautiful were brook and bank, forest and rock, goat and rose beetle, flower and butterfly. It was beautiful and delightful to go through the world like this, so childlike, so awake, so open to what was near, so without distrust. The sun burned his head differently, the forest shade cooled him differently, brook and cistern tasted differently, as did pumpkin and banana. Short were the days, short the nights, every hour flew by swiftly like a sail across the sea, under the sail a ship full of treasures, full of joys.

All this had always existed, and he had never seen it, he had never been present. Now he was there, he belonged to it. Light and shadow ran through his eyes, star and moon ran through his heart

Herman Hesse, Siddhartha

Our greatest treasures

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Each line is worth a deep reflection in itself.

Simplicity, patience, compassion: These three are your greatest treasures.

Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.

Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are.

Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching 67, Stephen Mitchell translation

Taking care of yourself

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A welcome new Bank Holiday here in Ireland, to mark the start of Spring and Saint Brigid’s Day

Love is the capacity to take care, to protect, to nourish. If you are not capable of generating that kind of energy toward yourself — if you are not capable of taking care of yourself, of nourishing yourself, of protecting yourself — it is very difficult to take care of another person

In the Buddhist teachings, it’s clear that to love oneself is the foundation of the love of other people. Love is a practice. Love is truly a practice.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Sunday Quote: More

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Who you are ….is more
than you are thinking you are
most of the time.

Ram Dass

When did you stop dancing

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When we go to a medicine person or a healer because we are feeling disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, he or she might ask questions like,

“When did you stop singing?”
“When did you stop dancing?”
“When did you stop being enchanted by stories?“
“When did you begin finding discomfort in the sweet territory of silence?”

Angeles Arrien, 1940 – 2014) Basque-American cultural anthropologist, educator and writer. 

New growth

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In Ireland, the first day of February marks the start of Spring, as an old poem we learnt in school states: Anois teacht an Earraigh beidh an lá dul chun síneadh, – “Now Spring is coming and the days will start getting longer“.   It is the Celtic feast of Imbolc, one of their four great seasonal fire festivals, this one halfway between solstices, with themes of light and fertility, hidden seeds and new life.

In the Irish Christian calendar this became St Brigid’s Day, (Lá Fhéile Bríde), which this year is marked for the first time by a Bank Holiday and has given rise to a lot of interest in Brigid, especially here in County Kildare.. This interest in the feminine principle in nature and spirituality reflects a desire to move away the predominant patriarchal and power-based paradigm found in Western society – and in most religious traditions – and to find new ways of thinking and relating and being.

From a spiritual vantage point our major life task is much larger than making money, finding a mate, having a career, raising children, looking beautiful, achieving psychological health, or defying aging, illness, and death. It is a recognition of the sacred in daily life — a deep gratitude for the wonders of the world and the delicate web of inter-connectedness between people, nature and things — a recognition that true intimacy based on respect and love is the measure of a life well lived. This innate female spirituality underlies an often unspoken commitment to protect our world from the ravages of greed and violence

Joan Borysenko, A Woman’s Book of Life: The Biology, Psychology, and Spirituality of the Feminine Life Cycle