Tag: Nature

Notice

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Consciously inhabiting our senses is a pathway to the present moment, to feeling truly alive. Tuning in to our senses in nature invites presence and joy, whether we’re smelling the first full bouquets of apple and cherry blossoms in spring, seeing a crystalline carpet of dew on the lawn in the early morning, feeling the warm moisture of a tropical breeze as it softens our bodies and melts our hard edges, or hearing the dawn chorus of birdsong. Living with such a full awareness, we can be present to life’s gifts when they present themselves.

Mark Coleman, Awake in the Wild: Mindfulness in Nature as a Path to Self Discovery

Flow

Karl Duffy6 Comments

Pain is physical, but suffering is mental.

Outside of the mind there is no suffering.

Pain is essential for the survival of the body, but none compels you to suffer.

Suffering is entirely due to clinging or resisting;

it is a sign of our unwillingness to move on, to flow with life.

Nisargadatta Maharaj, 1897 – 1981, Indian teacher of nondualism

Lessons from foxes…

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What is this message that wild animals bring, the message that seems to say everything and nothing? What is this message that is wordless, that is nothing more or less than the animals themselves- that the world is wild, that life is unpredictable in its goodness and its danger, that the world is larger than your imagination.

Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting lost

Why I am happy

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Make yourself a refuge…

There is a lake somewhere
so blue and far nobody owns it.
A wind comes by, and a willow listens
gracefully.

I hear all this, every summer…
That lake stays blue and free; it goes
on and on.

And I know where it is.

William Stafford, Why I am Happy

Sunday Quote: Empty

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Everything that seems empty

is full of the angels of God.

Hilary of Poitiers, 310 – 368 AD

Not resisting change

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Strong winds are predicted for this weekend, the tail-end of an Atlantic storm…

Time and again I was seeing that if I could handle the winds of the current storm, they would end up blowing in some great gift… Challenging situations create the force needed to bring about change. The problem is that we generally use all the stirred up energy intended to bring about change, to resist change. I was learning to sit quietly in the midst of the howling winds and wait to see what constructing action was being asked of me.

Michael SInger, The Surrender Project