When the Zen poet Thich Nhat Hanh was asked: “What do we most need to do to save our world?” his questioners expected him to identify the best strategies to pursue for social and environmental causes. But Thich Nhat Hanh answered: “What we most need to do is to hear within us the sounds of the Earth crying.”
— Joanna Macy
Monthly Archives: November 2014
“Beginning.”
BEGINNING
well or beginning poorly, what is important is simply to begin, but the ability to make a good beginning is also an art form, beginning well involves a clearing away of the crass, the irrelevant and the complicated to find the beautiful, often hidden lineaments of the essential and the necessary.
Beginning is difficult, and our procrastination is a fine, ever-present measure of our reluctance to take that first close-in, courageous step in reclaiming our happiness. Perhaps, because taking a new step always leads to a kind of radical internal simplification, where, suddenly, very large parts of us, parts of us we have kept gainfully employed for years, parts of us still rehearsing the old complicated story, are suddenly out of a job. There occurs in effect, a form of internal corporate downsizing, where the parts of us too afraid to participate or having nothing now to offer, are let go, with all of the accompanying death-like trauma, and where the very last fight occurs, a rear guard disbelief that this new, less complicated self, and this very simple step, is all that is needed for the new possibilities ahead.
It is always hard to believe that the courageous step is so close to us, that it is closer than we ever could imagine, that in fact, we already know what it is, and that the step is simpler, more radical than we had thought: which is why we so often prefer the story to be more elaborate, our identities clouded by fear, the horizon safely in the distance, the essay longer than it needs to be and the answer safely in the realm of impossibility…
‘BEGINNING’ From the upcoming book of essays CONSOLATIONS: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.
© David Whyte 2014
Available the first week in December 2014
Arrival of the waxwings and the readiness of the trees.
Yesterday morning I was delighted to see the first waxwings of the year alighting in the trees in our yard and in the neighbors’ yards– birches, may tree, crabapple. Their fluttering wings, twittering, and restless energy were invigorating to my soul.
As I reflected on what quality of being I wished to imbibe for the day, however, I found it in the presence of the trees just being themselves. By being there, by being themselves, they were inviting a visit from the waxwings.
Human beings are more malleable than trees. We have a choice about how we open ourselves to experiences. What do I want to invite into my life in each moment, each hour, each day? In order to create an intention about what I will invite, I must enter the inner stillness, the place of silence. For that, I must pause, breathe with awareness, surrender the chattering mind.
Importance of ritual.
While our culture is all gloss and pace on the outside, within it is too often haunted and lost. The commercial edge of so-called ‘progress’ had cut away a huge region of human tissue and webbing that held us in communion with one another. We have fallen out of belonging. Consequently, when we stand before crucial thresholds in our lives, we have no rituals to protect, encourage and guide us as we cross over into the unknown.
John O’Donohue
Coming Home. Offerings to the Living Land. Mindfulness and the Honoring of Place.
Wherever you stand, be the soul of that place.
— Rumi
Staying awake and being an artist.
The dignity of the artist lies in his duty of keeping awake the sense of wonder in the world. In this long vigil he often has to vary his methods of stimulation; but in this long vigil he is also himself striving against a continual tendency to sleep.
–Marc Chagall
Mumming video– Northern Ireland.
The moon is ever full of surprises.
I love the way the moon is always playing hide-and-seek with me. The times and places it rises and sets change. I have to keep track of whether it is waxing or waning. Sometimes I look and look and can’t see it– and then, all of a sudden, there it is.
at night,
deep in the mountains,
I breathe…
everything is still,
all thoughts emptied
into the night.
my robe has become
a garment of frost.
suddenly, above the
highest peak,
the full moon appears.
~ Ryokan
If the full moon loves you, why worry about the stars?
-Tunisian Proverb
Becoming aware of awareness.
You can become aware of awareness as the background to all your sense perceptions, all your thinking. Becoming aware of awareness is the arising of inner stillness.
– Eckhart Tolle
“The Wisdom of Skeleton Woman.”
There are no guarantees that what comes next will be lovely to behold, or easy, or always fun.
There is no simple comfort that this new chapter will be painless and wildly successful.
She does not nod in acquiescence to our desires and longings.
She just gazes back into us,
seeing.
everything.
We may shift uncomfortably. Our soul reaches out, knowing this is where life and growth and awakening happens. The ego is recoiling.
Decide to stay in this moment.
But then, something miraculous begins to happen.
As we gaze at her, and fully face the fearful thing we keep running from, our tears blur and blend the edges of those bones, and something soft and fragrant begins to bloom inside of us.
We can feel the death of some over-read chapter beginning to close at last, yes.
But there is a new page on the other side, with words yet unwritten.
Skeleton Woman and we-
we will take up the pen together.
-Sarah La Rosa, from “The Wisdom of Skeleton Woman”