When I live in the present moment, that is when I can find peace. #mindfulness #LaoTzu
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Lao Tzu
Change
Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself. ― Rumi
Source: Change
I enjoy Rumi. He wrote poetry that yielded lasting messages.
We live in a world where people want to change the world, rather than themselves. However, the world changes when we change ourselves. I transform and move beyond who I was, even the second before. As I change, my view of the world shifts and the world appears new to me.
It reminds me of Marcel Proust‘s quote: “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
Leaders who believe they can change the world for others are mere managers. Leaders change the world for themselves and invite others to join them in sharing their view of the world. There are not two identical views.
Sonnet XIV from The Sonnets To Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke
Reblogged on WordPress.com
Source: Sonnet XIV from The Sonnets To Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke
The last two stanzas challenge us to think about whether our roles are submissive and passive affairs or ones where we have some mastery and active choice. My mother used to tell us that we had free choice and had to accept responsibility for the consequences of those choices. She told us we are not empty vessels created by God, whatever that belief is, but responsible people with free choice.
The liberty of others and their choices constrains our personal liberty. Without differences, life would be a boring space without room for creativity and growth, a moving to the surface that is fraught with potential challenges.
Similar to the plants in Rilke‘s poem, we face obstacles and constraints. We exist and flourish within those constraints when we find the proper paths to live lives fully. It is no easy task, but one that can bring great fulfillment. When care for and tend to those paths, our lives become filled with vigour, often flourishing because of the lessons learned from finding those paths.
The Frog
The frog does not drink up the pond in which he lives. source: Teton Sioux Proverb image: Eddie Two Hawks, Image Collection, The Frog
The local is important in how we live life and experience our environments. Sometimes, we look at the world and it seems larger than the world we experience, as it most immediately. We can never fully know the world, but we can know most the world we live in most immediately. It is imperative to not spoil that world. When each community fulfills its ethical and practical role, this overlaps others’ roles, feeding the whole.
Source: The Frog
Compassionate Vulnerability
I enjoy David Whyte’s poetry and have attended workshops involving it. Living vulnerably is the only way to live. Living does not come with risk-free instructions. It can only happen with love that emerges as we each live our life fully.
What does it mean to be more compassionate through our intimacy with disappearance? To me it means that we become braver as we surf the ever-flowing tide of loss and renewal in our lives. We are able to choose whether we will shut our heart off to love and compassion, opting instead to live a fear-based life. Or we can choose to live with openhearted vulnerability. Being vulnerable can be frightening! We inherently know that when we make ourselves vulnerable we also open ourselves up to hurt, loss, and sorrow. When we choose vulnerability we are in a way honoring our soul by allowing for growth to be a bigger, more courageous, and compassionate human being. Without knowing the darkness we can never fully live in our light.
It happens to all of us when we step off into this thing called living. Some people choose to shut down when…
View original post 216 more words
Life’s most persistent and urgent question
LIfe lived through questions is important. It opens up new paths forward, rather than closing down the routes forward.
An Appalachian Wedding
This is my first post since getting back at it. It has been a great few months. I did not go far from my computer, but my efforts focused on dissertation writing. That is off the table for about a month as the committee members read and offer feedback. When that is done, I hope to be into research.
Thomas Berry was a Catholic priest and environmentalist who wrote the book The Dream of the Earth. He approached his environmentalism in a very holistic manner, incorporating a variety of traditions: Judeo-Christian, Eastern philosophies, and Indigenous people.
I feel that many people have moved away from the holistic relationship they subjectively and objectively engage in the world/ universe. We are not separate but part of a complex dynamic that is always incomplete and unpredictable.
Look up at the sky
the heavens so blue
the sun so radiant
the clouds so playful
the soaring raptors
woodland creatures
meadows in bloom
rivers singing their
way to the sea
wolfsong on the land
whalesong in the sea
celebration everywhere
wild, riotous
immense as a monsoon
lifting an ocean of joy
then spilling it down over
the Appalachian landscape
drenching us all
in a deluge of delight
as we open our arms and
rush toward each other
all of us moved by that vast
compassionate curve
that brings all things together
in intimate celebration
celebration that is
the universe itself.
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 