This a wonderful combination of quotes, prose, poetry, and image.
The Other Kingdoms
It is Sabbath and winter arrived over night. It snowed and is colder. Mary Oliver`s poem speaks about the way the Inuit use many expressions describing snow. In doing so, they are mindful and aware of the world they live in. It speaks to them and shares its experiences in ways words used are meaningful. But, it happens only when we are present and attentive of extraordinary events co-mingling with the ordinary world we think we experience. We rush past the world and lose the words it speaks quickly. We lose the kingdom we live in unless we slow down and drink from its cup fully.
When we slow down, we grow wild and are in the wild world around us and in us. The wildness animates us and we live more fully. Snow today means slippery roads, drivers who have forgotten what it means to drive in the snow, and a blanket beginning to cover the ground as it slumbers. Snow means more than just one word to me. It is how I experience the snow that speaks of snow. There is nobility in the titles the world carries that we have not given names for and can not find the words for those titles.
Consider the other kingdoms. The
trees, for example, with their mellow-sounding
titles: oak, aspen, willow.
Or the snow, for which the peoples of the north
have dozens of words to describe its
different arrivals. Or the creatures, with their
thick fur, their shy and wordless gaze. Their
infallible sense of what their lives
are meant to be. Thus the world
grows rich, grows wild, and you too,
grow rich, grow sweetly wild, as you too
were born to be.
I think ; therefore I am & Je pense, donc je suis & Penso dunque sono & Ich denke, also bin ich & Pienso, luego existo & Düşünüyorum, öyleyse varım !!
The link included quotes from Rumi and Tolstoy. We begin changing the world as an internal project, one that changes who we are first. The ripple effect is only possible, not certain. I say possible, because there is no certainty in life’s project. They take time, patience, and compassion to encounter who we are in an honest way. Living is hard work and it is not easily completed.
The change in self is possibly easier when we are older and take time living. It is also harder. Are we able to move the same way we did as a younger person? We can be more mindful and attentive perhaps. We can only hope the ripple reaches those close and they are able to use those ripples in meaningful ways.
Whatever we do, we should only expect the change to be our change. We can only till the soil closest and most meaningful to us.
Home
Bruce Weigl wrote this lovely poem. When we practice, the Sabbath we find our way home. We re-discover roots we often leave behind in the busyness of our day-to-day lives.
There is a paradox in this leaving of roots. They remain attached as we can detach from them. We can ignore the roots, but the are always there. We cannot shake loose from them. They follow us and eventually we stop the shaking. We let the roots feed and nurture us the way they can.
In Sabbath practice, we listen to the music that translates the world into dirt fields that always call us. We rejoice in the dirt fields of our youth and find our spirit in those dirt fields. The roots helped make us who we are. We can never escape from those roots or plow them under.
I didn’t know I was grateful
for such late-autumn
bent-up cornfields
yellow in the after-harvest
sun before the
cold plow turns it all over
into never.
I didn’t know
I would enter this music
that translates the world
back into dirt fields
that have always called to me
as if I were a thing
come from the dirt,
like a tuber,
or like a needful boy. End
Lonely days, I believe. End the exiled
and unraveling strangeness.
Wisdom
Rumi‘s poetry is profound. It resonates down through the centuries carrying deep messages that still offer insight and wisdom.
When we need wisdom, we only have to stop, wait for silence, and allow silence to speak its words. Turning inwards, being mindful of what the silence speaks provides the wisdom when needed.
Quotes on Humility
Humility, human, and humble all share the same root word, humus. When we are humble and human we lower ourselves in those moments accepting the humility and humiliation that comes with being human.
The quotes come from a variety of sources, but one that caught my attention was from Abraham Lincoln. We have to lower ourselves sometimes to find our way through living’s dense thicket and underbrush. It is here we find our wisdom and can discern the next possible step.
Humility is accepting that nothing comes with certainty. Discerning at this level allows us to look upwards and find the stars again as they help us on the journey called living. In these spaces, we seek the questions which open space rather than the answers so often fixed firmly in our beliefs.
The Light of Old October
I have not written a poem for some time, but as I wrote this appeared. The catalyst was the wonderful imagery from the pictures and quotes at the link. Nature has a way of showing us the way. It takes a Sabbath in our climate called winter.
October fades,
The artist’s palette splashes colours about.
Autumn gives way to the winter.
It slips into rest;
Life’s weariness lifted,
Spirits uplifted.
A white blanket appears;
Covering all that sleeps in its wake.
Nature comes full circle,
It rests in its Sabbath.
Sometimes
It is the end of a busy week. It might be the busiest since I came home from Spokane. I don’t coach ice hockey any more, but I help in several ways. For example, I am helping a young man who coached with me several years ago get a hockey related business off the ground. I also facilitate coaching clinics which help coaches with their work. In Canada, this is a time of the year when hockey is busy. It is important to take a break, a Sabbath from the busyness and business.
I came across this poem by Hermann Hesse who is better known as an author of fiction such as Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and The Journey to the East. He was a wonderful writer of prose writing in a poetic and mystic voice.
The poem reminds me to stop and pause, to listen attentively to the world and my self. It is in the mindfulness that I hear the questions being asked by the world and me. It is in those silences that the world and I create together speaking to each other in richness in our silences.
Sometimes, when a bird cries out,
Or the wind sweeps through a tree,
Or a dog howls in a far off farm,
I hold still and listen a long time.
My soul turns and goes back to the place
Where, a thousand forgotten years ago,
The bird and the blowing wind
Were like me, and were my brothers.
My soul turns into a tree,
And an animal, and a cloud bank.
Then changed and odd it comes home
And asks me questions. What should I reply?
The Illusion of Control
The link contains a wonderful quote from Maya Angelou and an article explaining the importance of letting go to bring peace to one’s self.
A lack of control over the world and our self feels good. We become explorers rather than chasers who hunt and gather. The hunting and gathering become part of the exploring. When we pause and are present in living, the world embraces us. We create in the embrace that follows as part of a larger community. There is not a forcing, but an ease with which we live life.
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 