You cannot hold gravity

The universe does not
revolve around you.
The stars and planets spinning
through the ballroom of space
dance with one another
quite outside of your small life.
You cannot hold gravity
or seasons; even air and water
inevitably evade your grasp.
Why not, then, let go?

You could move through time
like a shark through water,
neither restless nor ceasing,
absorbed in and absorbing
the native element.
Why pretend you can do otherwise?
The world comes in at every pore,
mixes in your blood before
breath releases you into
the world again. Did you think
the fragile boundary of your skin
could build a wall?

Listen. Every molecule is humming
its particular pitch.

Of course you are a symphony.
Whose tune do you think
the planets are singing
as they dance?

Lynn Ungar, Boundaries

Proceed as the way opens

Parker J Palmer related a story in his wonderful book Let your Life Speak about an elder Quaker woman who explained to him at an important time “An open door and a closed door are the same thing. They both send you in a direction”.

Proceeding as the way opens” means that life has a holy rhythm.

Carrie Newcomer, As Way Opens

How to go deeper

Another month ends. Our rituals and practices, like sitting in meditation, are like a well-worn path which allow us to deepen our capacity to see

To learn something new,

take the path that you took yesterday.

John Burroughs, 1837-1921, American naturalist, quoted in Pico Iyer, Autumn Light: Season of Fire and Farewells

Other peoples ideas

Ester asked why people are sad.

That’s simple,” says the old man. “They are the prisoners of their personal historyEveryone believes that the main aim is to follow a plan. They never ask if that plan is theirs or if it was created by another person. They accumulate experiences, memories, things, other people’s ideas, and it is more than they can possibly cope with. And that is why they forget their dreams.”

Paulo Coehlo, The Zahir

Sunday Quote: heart

Everybody is nothing until you love them

Tennessee Williams, The Rose Tattoo

What is freedom?

When you recognize that there is a voice in your head that pretends to be you and never stops speaking,

you are awakening out of your unconscious identification with the stream of thinking.

When you notice that voice, you realize that who you are is not the voice – the thinker – but the one who is aware of it.

Knowing yourself as the awareness behind the voice is freedom.

Eckhart Tolle, Silence Speaks