The mist, the wind and the rain.

File:Mist on Blessington Lake - geograph.org.uk - 1615577.jpg

How would it be to allow for knowing

and not knowing: allowing room

for the mystery of creating

to be able to wonder softly

without needing to understand everything

to trust in the process

to trust in love

to trust in the mystery and wonder

of the universe

that beats softly wildly

true

all round about us,

that is hidden in the mists

in the clouds and the rain

in the wind blowing and the rain lashing down on your window,

reminding you poetically

prosaically

that this is where you are,

on the island, at the edge,

in a place of finding  and refinding,

and remembering

to remember

the feel of the mist, wind and rain.

John O’ Donohue

photo of mist on Blessington Lake, Co Wicklow by irishflyfisher

Four seasons in a day

bad _weather

The weather is very changeable here in Ireland this January. Beautiful bright days are followed by stormy ones, which give way to grey and then another early Spring day appears. It is no wonder the plants are confused.

We all accept that no one controls the weather. Good sailors learn to read it carefully and respect its power. They will avoid storms if possible, but then caught in one, they know when to take down the sails, batten down the hatches, drop anchor and ride things out, controlling what is controllable and letting go of the rest. Training, practice, and a lot of firsthand experience in all sorts of weather are required to develop such skills so that they work for you when you need them. Developing skill in facing and effectively handling the various “weather conditions” in your life is what we mean by the art of conscious living.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

Into stillness

well22

Go deeper
Past thoughts into silence.
Past silence into stillness.
Past stillness into the heart.
Let love consume all that is left of you.

Kabir

Seeing what is hidden

File:Heavy mist over lake Kaviskis (Lithuania).jpg

Meditation, simply defined, is a way of being aware. It is the happy marriage of doing and being. It lifts the fog of our ordinary lives to reveal what is hidden; it loosens the knot of self-centredness and opens the heart; it moves us beyond mere concepts to allow for a direct experience of reality. Meditation embodies the way of awakening: both the path and its fruition. From one point of view it is the means to awakening; from another it is awakening itself.

Lama Surya Das, The Heart of Meditation

Blocked and moving forward

File:Fallen tree over the Beaulieu River, New Forest - geograph.org.uk - 179496.jpg

The river flows rapidly down the mountain, and then all of a sudden it gets blocked with big boulders and a lot of trees. The water can’t go any farther, even though it has tremendous force and forward energy. It just gets blocked there. That’s what happens with us, too; we get blocked like that. Letting go at the end of the out-breath, letting the thoughts go, is like moving one of those boulders away so that the water can keep flowing, so that our energy and our life force can keep evolving and going forward. We don’t, out of fear of the unknown, have to put up these blocks, these dams, that basically say no to life and to feeling life.

Pema Chodron

photo jim champion

….and not being upset

File:DC soup kitchen-Ellison-2007.jpg

Every moment in life is absolute itself. That’s all we have. There is nothing other than this present moment; there is no past, there is no future; there is nothing but this. So when we don’t pay attention to every little this, we miss the whole thing. And the contents of this can be anything. This can be straightening our sitting mats, chopping an onion, talking to one we don’t want to talk to. It doesn’t matter what the contents of the moment are; each moment is absolute. That’s all there is, and all there ever will be. If we could totally pay attention, we would never be upset. If we’re upset, it’s axiomatic that we’re not paying attention. If we fill our days and we miss not just one moment, but one moment after another, we’re in trouble.

Charlotte Joko Beck