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. To love oneself is the foundation of the love of other people. Love is a practice. Love is truly a practice.
The incredibly warm weather means that the birds are everywhere and active. The first swallows have returned. Birdsong fills the air at dawn and dusk. And they are busy….finding worms, building nests and testifying to life. We can learn so much about what leads to real happiness from how Nature works. When we are close to nature , in the mountains or in the garden, we touch into a wisdom within our deepest selves, as Mark Nepo did, observing a robin building a nest:
It was a small thing, watching the robin carry a twig too big for its nest. It tried once, then twice to use it, and somehow…it knew it was no good. It simply flew off and picked another.
I went and found the twig. I rolled it in my hand and thought of the times I’ve labored, trying to make things too big fit. So often what we want is like that twig, too big to be of use, and we stay lodged in an unhappiness created by holding on to something that cannot complete our nest.
It was humbling to watch a small bird work, singing as it went, leaving what it couldn’t use as it found it. If we could only treat each other with such simple kindness.
from The Book of Awakening
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.
Live the life you have imagined.
As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.
Thoreau
Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities.
It is always our conscious choice which garden we will tend … when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present — love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure — the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience heaven on earth.
Sarah Ban Breathnach
It is absolutely fundamental that we learn, that when difficult situations and feelings arise, they are not obstacles to be avoided, but rather these very difficulties are, in fact, the path itself
Ezra Bayda
Hundreds of open flowers
all come from the one branch.
Look, all their colours appear in my garden.
I open the door, and in the wind
I see the spring sunlight.
Already it has reached
worlds without number.
Sekiso, Worlds without number
