Tag: Meditation

A new month: Living fully, without regrets

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

File:Tully Cross thatched cottage.jpg

John O’Donohue told a story once about an occasion when he was still a priest and was sitting at the bedside of a dying man, offering his comfort and his presence. The man turned to him and said, with a great sense of calm, that he had no regrets, because he had taken a great big bite out of life.

It would be a significant thing if we could say that, not just at the end of life, but at the end of each day.

 Most people think they will regret foolish actions more than foolish inactions. But studies show that nine out of ten people are wrong. Indeed, in the long run, people of every walk of life seem to regret not having done things much more than they regret things they did.

Dan Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness

photo Linda Buckley

Not giving up on our dreams

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

We should never give up on our dreams or let them be blocked by the limitations of our own or others fears; but rather believe in that voice within and trust our capacity to achieve it.

Since the powers of nature in this dreamer, in that dreamer, and in the macrocosm of nature itself, are the same, only differently inflected,

the powers personified in a dream are those that move the world.

All the gods are within you

Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God

per Laura V, ritrovata dopo molti anni ma mai veramente andata dal cuore

The difficulty of just being still

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Here in my head, language
keeps making its tiny noises.

How can I hope to be friends
with the hard white stars

whose flaring and hissing are not speech
but a pure radiance?

How can I hope to be friends
with the yawning spaces between them

where nothing, ever, is spoken?

…What can we do
but keep on breathing in and out,

modest and willing, and in our places?

Mary Oliver, Stars

This journey transforms

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Our psychological work is to journey from the chaos of our personal unconscious to a coherent conscious integration. Our spiritual path then takes us to the treasures of the cosmic, collective unconscious and full individuation. Everything in our lives, no matter how terrible, exists in relation to an inner healing force. “The journey with father and mother up and down many ladders represents the making conscious of infantile concerns that have not yet been integrated…The personal unconscious must always be dealt with first…otherwise the gateway to the collective unconscious cannot be opened”, Jung tells us. Our work as adults is thus an heroic journey, since a hero is anyone who has lived through pain and been transformed by it.

David Richo, How to Be an Adult

A Saturday walk

Karl Duffy2 Comments

 

Do not speak to me of angels 
unless you want to lie by 
their side on the surface of emerald lake 
and live forever with your eyes open. 
My own angels take many forms. 
Today they are trees.

Etel Adnan, born Beruit 1925 Lebanese-American poet

When things are not clear, be patient

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

If each day falls

inside each night,

there exists a well

where clarity is imprisoned.

We need to sit on the rim

of the well of darkness

and fish for fallen light

with patience.


Pablo Neruda