Another sunny morning in Geneva

Another beautiful day of sunshine dawns. We have been so blessed these past weeks.  LIfe starts over again with new possibilities, new experiences, and is lavish in its possibilities. This day is exactly as it should be; are we open to receive it, or too preoccupied with other concerns?
Have you ever seen
anything in your life more wonderful
than the way the sun, every evening,
relaxed and easy, floats toward the horizon  and into the clouds or the hills, or the rumpled sea, and is gone—
and how it slides again
out of the blackness,
every morning, on the other side of the world,
like a red flower streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance—
and have you ever felt for anything such wild love—
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough for the pleasure
that fills you,  as the sun reaches out,
as it warms you as you stand there,
empty-handed—
or have you too turned from this world—
or have you too gone crazy  for power,  for things?

Mary Oliver, The Sun

Reach out today

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

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 OliverThe 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