Still the mind and practice freedom

reeds

A new month.

A lot of anxiety and dysfunction all around. The challenge: Not to be a victim of the frantic world in which we live in, or of the way in which our nervous systems respond.

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water,

and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.

I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry

The meaning of our lives lies beneath the surface

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The most important thing, in the show of the temporal and the transient,

is to recognize the substance which is immanent and the eternal which is present.

Hegel, Works, VII, 17.

photo matt jigins

Let’s try quiet eyes today

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The theologian Howard Thurman said, “Look at the world with quiet eyes.” Isn’t that lovely? Just look at the world with quiet eyes. Usually when we are in the midst of life’s circumstances — whatever they are — we can be very reactive and therefore miss the many gifts for which we can have gratitude and also miss opportunities to give, thus making our very presence a blessing. It reminds me of some cartoon characters with eyeballs on springs that pop out when they see something surprising. But looking upon the world with quiet eyes, we can feel a sense of simply coming back into ourselves and into receptive mode. Ready to give and to receive the blessings of our life.

Gina Sharpe

photo Yuya Sekiguchi

Sunday Quote: Listen

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Very mild weather in Ireland these days. Even the daffodils are starting to bloom. Quiet signs of growth and hope everywhere. Better to listen to these than to the angry voices all round.

The silence of creation will speak louder

than the tongues of men or angels.

Thomas Merton

photo paul gilmore

The wonder of this day

square-treees

All that is eternal in me
Welcomes the wonder of this day,
The field of brightness it creates
Offering time for each thing
To arise and illuminate.

May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers,
To break the dead shells of yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.

May I have the courage today
To live the life I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more.

John O’Donohue, Morning Prayer

Small things

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Whenever I stopped long enough to reflect on such questions as “Why am I here?” and “What is my purpose?” the answer seemed pretty clear. I actually found it long ago in some lines by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, words I’ve quoted often because they’ve served me so well as a kind of north star, timeless wisdom by which to navigate:

“Ours is not the task

of fixing the whole world at once

but of stretching out to mend

the part of the world that is within our reach”

Katrina Kenison, Mending the world