Some words for these, the darkest days of the year: Silence, praise and inner life.
Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come out of the silence,
like prayers prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb the silence
from which it came.
Wendell Berry, How to Be a Poet
There are things you can’t reach. But
But you can reach out to them, and all day long.
The wind, the bird flying away. The idea of God.
And it can keep you as busy as anything else, and happier.
The snakes slides away, the fish jumps, like a little lily,
out of the water and back in; the goldfinches sing
from the unreachable top of the tree.
I look; morning to night I am never done with looking.
Looking I mean not just standing around, but standing around
as though with your arms open.
And thinking: maybe something will come, some
shining coil of wind,
or a few leaves from any old tree —
they are all in this too.
And now I will tell you the truth.
Everything in the world
comes.
At least, closer.
And, cordially.
Like the nibbling, tinsel-eyed fish; the unlooping snake.
Like goldfinches, little dolls of gold
fluttering around the corner of the sky
of God, the blue air.
Mary Oliver, Where Does the Temple Begin, Where Does It End?
Over and over again, people come to me, and they tell me, You just don’t know how strong I am. They say “strength” and I want to hear “balance.” The strength idea has effort in it; this is not what I’m looking for.
Strength that has effort in it is not what you need; you need the strength that is the result of ease.
Ida Rolf , 1896 – 1979, biochemist, creator of “Rolfing” manual therapy
One positive aspect of the lockdown, and what is allowed, is the extra time spent walking in nature. (I am not sure that his interpretation is, strictly speaking, etymologically correct, but it predates him by some centuries and is a nice idea)
Do you know the origin of that word ‘saunter?’ It’s a beautiful word. Away back in the Middle Ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going, they would reply, “A la sainte terre,’ ‘To the Holy Land.’ And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently.
John Muir, 1838 – 1914
To wander in the fields of flowers,
pull the thorns from your heart.
Rumi
Just for a little while, stop thinking about all the problems, crises, tasks. everything that’s pulling and pushing on us.
Be in that quiet space.
After all these years, some of us still need permission to let go.
Melody Beatty
Mindfulbalance 