There are some incredible images and quotes in this post. The quote about faith and beliefs is an incredible one and reminded me of Emmanuel Levinas’ thinking that faith is quite fragile. Beliefs become very real and concrete in some ways; whereas faith is always tested.
BETWEEN: CHOOSING ONE THING OVER ANOTHER & BUCKMINSTER FULLER
Radishes
As we get older, what seemed mundane and work-like in youth holds different meaning for us. I think of this as maturing. My mother told us to go get radishes out of the garden and a variety of other vegetables such as carrots, peas, beans, etc.
What seemed unimportant and even beneath the ordinary gains fresh meaning. It is not only the vegetables, fruits, and flowers that were fresh. Their meaning becomes fresh. Sometimes, the chores were precursors to something more enjoyable. After shelling peas, we biked to the Peace River and rode down hill at break-neck speed.
Susan Auld’s poem brought up the memories of living at a time where box stores were not just a short ride away in the car. We depended on the produce picked from the garden, fresh eggs from a local farmer, and sometimes fresh poultry raised in a makeshift coop in the backyard. We enjoyed Nature’s abundance and freshness. Today, the memories are fresh as they take on new meaning.
Pull up some radishes for dinner, my mother said.
They grow next to the house under your bedroom window.
Afraid I’d pull up something other than a radish
I enlisted a sister, a brother
and we knelt in the dirt
under the screened window
looking
at what we thought
to be a radish.
Its leaves so new so green
our hands so hesitant so unsure
we reached and pulled—
Earth clung
to our fingers
to the fleshy roots
quivering in the summer sun
we pulled up radish after radish for dinner
handing them, a bouquet, to our mother.
She no longer cares for radishes.
My sister, brother and I tend our own gardens.
But, I wish everyday
to kneel again
under that window
feeling new and green
hesitant and unsure.
Creativity Does Not Require Perfection
Children love to just draw. They are experimenting with colours and their understanding of the world. In a sense, their imperfections are perfection. Somewhere along the way, adults lose this sense of adventure and mystery.
A Soft Place to Fall
Rumi always provides wise words. When we open our self, we become vulnerable and we live with the thorns which come with living.
Amanda Cass
‘I will soothe you and heal you,
I will bring you roses.
I too have been covered with thorns.’ Rumi
Life can be wonderful yet sometimes it can simply be tough. Whether it’s a broken heart, a damaged relationship, work problems, an unexpected illness or a disease that you’ve been battling with for years, there are times when everyone needs a soft place to fall.
As a mother, it’s something that I accept without question for my children. If they hurt themselves, if they fall-out with a friend, if they didn’t do as well as they had hoped in exam – I’m there to hug, hold and soothe. Then later when we have more time I can reassure them they are not alone and encourage them to put the difficulty behind them and move on.
I do it without hesitation and for as long as required, for the knowledge that…
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Words
I read Emmanuel Levinas today. He suggested we experience phenomena in sensual immediacy. There is no recapturing the full essence in words. Humans are blessed with words which transform what we experience into something less or something other than its essence.
I attended a meeting the other night and another person commented when we name something it creates a permanency and assumes characteristics according to categories. In a way, the experience become inert.
Dana Gioia points out words’ shortcomings. This is not positive or negative, but is about awareness. When entering into each moment, it is important to fully experience that very moment which is indescribable. The world is filled with wonder and is thus wonderful. We recall that nature, living and non-living, needs no verbal praise. Our relationships and living in the world we co-inhabit are praise the praise. We need not summon airy words, but can sink into the living world’s sensuality. Sabbath provides opportunities for silence, deeper exploring, and the praise we offer without words.
The world does not need words. It articulates itself
in sunlight, leaves, and shadows. The stones on the path
are no less real for lying uncatalogued and uncounted.
The fluent leaves speak only the dialect of pure being.
The kiss is still fully itself though no words were spoken.
And one word transforms it into something less or other—
illicit, chaste, perfunctory, conjugal, covert.
Even calling it a kiss betrays the fluster of hands
glancing the skin or gripping a shoulder, the slow
arching of neck or knee, the silent touching of tongues.
Yet the stones remain less real to those who cannot
name them, or read the mute syllables graven in silica.
To see a red stone is less than seeing it as jasper—
metamorphic quartz, cousin to the flint the Kiowa
carved as arrowheads. To name is to know and remember.
The sunlight needs no praise piercing the rainclouds,
painting the rocks and leaves with light, then dissolving
each lucent droplet back into the clouds that engendered it.
The daylight needs no praise, and so we praise it always—
greater than ourselves and all the airy words we summon.
Lojong Slogan 28 ~ Abandon any hope of fruition
Meditation and mindfulness are excellent practices allowing us to let go increasing awareness on what is in front of us, being present. We listen more closely to people, to the universe, and our self when we are present. By letting go, there is space for listening which cannot exist when our mind is full and cluttered, mirroring the busyness of the world.
* Inspiration for Today – Choose The Present Moment
Being in the present is challenging, but it is also rewarding. Being present allows awareness that the world and all phenomena are transient. Positive and negative only exist in thinking. Being present allows letting go. Being present is also about being aware of who and what is present to us.
“Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.”
Eckhart Tolle
Lets bring this into our awareness today and embrace everything that we experience in the highs and lows of our lives.
At the end of the day, pause and reflect on what you discovered …
Namaste
Monarch
The universe we live in is magical. As Tere Sievers pointed out, nature arranges itself with slight of hand. A caterpillar slowly becomes a monarch butterfly. The caterpillar transforms from something we usually pay little attention to. In fact, we often see it as something that strips the last green leaf, but somehow nature keeps in balance in the caterpillar`s metamorphosis.
The striped suit fat worm takes a two-week nap and emerges bedecked in the ballroom gown of the monarch butterfly ready to begin its dance. When we take time and are mindful of the relationships that exist in nature, even those we do not sense immediately, there is something sacred in that process. Humans join in those relationships even when we do not see them. There is a co-dependency shared, yet not fully sensed. We live in community and communicate with all nature’s phenomena.
Black antennas twitch
as the caterpillar
strips the last green leaf
from the naked milkweed.
Striped flesh shed,
the green skin below
becomes a jade pendant
rimmed with gold,
hung by a black thread.
Nature, that green magician,
arranges a slight of hand.
The fat worm in a striped suit
slides into its chrysalis
naps for a fortnight
wakes,
draped in orange,
ready to dance.
You Are Not Your Mind
Humans possess the unique skill of being able to think about their thinking. We can meditate and make sense of what we have done, what we are doing, and what we plan to do. It is important in the process that we become aware of the fictional pasts and fantastic futures, but it is a wonderful ability to be able to do those things.
Experience it…
This wonderful quote from Alan Watts summarizes life. It is something we move into. The quote reminded me of the Rilke quote where we live into the questions. It is not about answering questions, but about living life and finding the questions. Better yet, letting the questions find us.
Life is not a problem to be solved, nor a question to be answered. Life is a mystery to be experienced.
~ Alan Watts
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 