Tag: Nature

Learning from the out-breath

Karl Duffy2 Comments

When we sit in meditation, we feel our breath as it goes out, and we have some sense of willingness just to be open to the present moment. Then our mind wanders off into all kinds of stories and fabrications and manufactured realities, and we say to ourselves, ‘It’s thinking.’ We say that with a lot of gentleness and a lot of precision. Every time we are willing to let go at the end of the out-breath, that’s fundamentally renunciation: learning how to let go of holding on and holding back.

Pema Chodron, The Wisdom of No Escape

Autumn and maturity

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It’s no coincidence that autumn and authenticity are linguistic cousins. Both share the Latin root aut-, meaning [to increase or grow.] Autumn brings the harvest bounty: the earth’s increase. Authenticity brings the reward of increased self-knowledge and awareness, of a life augmented (another word cousin!) through integrity. As autumn represents the ripening of the crops, so authenticity represents the coming into maturity of our characters. The link is gratitude, which allows us to ground ourselves in humility and recognize our authentic nature. When we live gratefully, we become more truly ourselves.

Alan Jones et al., Seasons of Grace: The Life-Giving Practice of Gratitude.

Autumn Dawns

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The ancient rhythms of the earth have insinuated themselves into the rhythms of the human heart. The earth is not outside us; it is within: the clay from where the tree of the body grows. When we emerge from our offices, rooms and houses, we enter our natural element. We are children of the earth: people to whom the outdoors is home. Nothing can separate us from the vigor and vibrancy of this inheritance. In contract to our frenetic, saturated lives, the earth offers a calming stillness. Movement and growth in nature takes its time. The patience of nature enjoys the ease of trust and hope. There is something in our clay nature that needs to continually experience this ancient, outer ease of the world. It helps us remember who we are and why we are here.

John O’Donohue

Noticing the sun shine today

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Creatures of a day,  what is anyone? What are they not?

We are just a dream of a shadow.

But when there comes,  as a gift from heaven,  a gleam of sunshine

Then rests on the heart a light of glory,

And blessed are the days.

Pindar (518-438 BCE)

…and not in the present

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Origins of Plum Trees thumbnailMy work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.

Mary Oliver, Messenger

On seeing some beautiful flowers

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We are dust and to dust return.
In the end we’re
neither air, nor fire, nor water,
just
dirt,
neither more nor less, just dirt,
and maybe
some yellow flowers.

Pablo Neruda, Ode to Some Yellow Flowers