You often say “I would give, but only to the deserving” . The trees in the orchard say not so, nor the flocks in the pastures. They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.
Kahlil Gibran
Tag: Nature
Letting go of the things that change
Things change so quickly. On Friday the news was dominated by weddings and dresses, by pomp and circumstance. Yesterday we awoke to news of death and differences, and to the insecurity it provokes. Such changes can make the ground we stand on feel quite uncertain. However, it is not just change on a world level but how we deal with the smaller changes in our lives that determines our ongoing sense of inner peace and calm. We expend quite a lot of energy each day in trying to hold on to what is familiar and in attempting to make the world conform to how we would like it to be. The problem with this – other than the futile waste of energy – is that we limit our ability to experience joy in the present moment as it actually is. If we approach moments with fear, rather than opening to how they are, we cannot see the richness in them.
A contrary strategy works best: Stop trying to grasp, to control the world around you or the day ahead of you. In doing so you loosen the grip of fear and give each experience the possibility to bring its richness. Letting go of control lets go of suffering.
It is not because of impermanence that we suffer
But because of our ideas about permanence.
Thich Nhat Hahn
Today – notice something you never noticed before
….Go into the fields, consider
the orderliness of the world. Notice
something you have never noticed before….
A lifetime isn’t long enough for the beauty of this world
and the responsibilities of your life.
Scatter your flowers over the graves, and walk away.
Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance.
In the glare of your mind, be modest.
And beholden to what is tactile, and thrilling.
Live with the beetle, and the wind.
Mary Oliver, The Leaf and the Cloud: A Poem
Being happy today 2: Finding joy today and everyday
Look at everything
as though you were seeing it
either for the first
or the last time.
Then your time on earth
will be filled with glory
Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
All directions have a meaning
No matter what stories our mind may tell us in times of difficulty, all things are ordered and return to their home. We are calm deep down when we realize that our days have meaning in an overall rhythm and we are not isolated but have a place in the overall “family of things”
The wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Mary Oliver
Another day dawns
The further I wake into this life, the more I realize that Love is everywhere and the extraordinary is waiting quietly beneath the skin of all that is ordinary. Light is in both the broken bottle and the diamond, and music is in both the flowing violin and the water dripping from the drainage pipe. Yes, Love is under the porch as well as on the top of the mountain, and JOY is both in the front row and in the bleachers, if we are willing to be where we are.
Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening
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