Deep in the wintry parts of our minds, we are hardy stock and know that there is no such thing as a work-free transformation. We know that we will have to burn to the ground in one way or another, and then sit right in the ashes of who we once thought we were and go on from there.
Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves
We have so many allies in this world,
including just the colour blue in the sky.
David Whyte
I have a room all to myself;
it is nature.
Henry David Thoreau
Lovingkindness is a feeling that blesses others and oneself with the simple wish, “Be happy.”
The Japanese poet Issa [1763–1828] expresses this open-hearted feeling so well:
“In the cherry blossoms’ shade, there’s no such thing as a stranger.”
Joseph Goldstein, Triumph of the Heart
The first day of Spring in the Celtic Calendar, the important feast of Imbolc, halfway between solstices, with themes of light and fertility, hidden seeds and new life.
Lord, the air smells good today, straight from the mysteries
within the inner courts of God.
A grace like new clothes thrown across the garden,
free medicine for everybody.
The trees in their prayer, the birds in praise.
Rumi
But now his liberated eyes remained on this side, he saw and acknowledged visibility, he sought his home in this world, did not seek reality, did not aim at any beyond.
Beautiful was the world if you contemplated it like this, with no seeking, so simple, so childlike. Beautiful were the moon and stars, beautiful were brook and bank, forest and rock, goat and rose beetle, flower and butterfly. It was beautiful and delightful to go through the world like this, so childlike, so awake, so open to what was near, so without distrust. The sun burned his head differently, the forest shade cooled him differently, brook and cistern tasted differently, as did pumpkin and banana. Short were the days, short the nights, every hour flew by swiftly like a sail across the sea, under the sail a ship full of treasures, full of joys.
All this had always existed, and he had never seen it, he had never been present. Now he was there, he belonged to it. Light and shadow ran through his eyes, star and moon ran through his heart
Herman Hesse, Siddhartha
Mindfulbalance 