Wild Geese

A poem from Mary Oliver:

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile 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.

In It – With It

Presence does not have to look a walking meditation or a lotus position at a mindfulness retreat. Presence is a way of life that captures you many times each day, maybe even many times each hour!

I was eating lunch when the purple cabbage slaw juice met my cantaloupe. That’s all it takes for me! The colors individually and together. The little universe that lives within just that moment on my plate. That’s all it takes.

Beauty

Awareness

Be there, IN it- With it

Breathe

Part of the Dance

“You can do it like it’s a great weight, or you can do it like it’s part of the dance.” — Ram Dass


Creation and growth are not only beautiful and joyful, but uncomfortable, sometimes difficult, and painful. Accepting and working with what is uncomfortable, what is hidden, what feels more natural to the shadow, can bring forth the most beautiful expressions when they’re ready for the light.

Recall

I heard recently that it takes 20 seconds longer to recall a positive memory than a negative memory. I haven’t checked the facts around that, but it was during a training for mindfulness by a reliable source and even without knowing for sure the accuracy – the idea of it is worth considering: for most people it takes longer to access a positive memory.

How much of that can be addressed through habit change and learning to be a positive thinker?

If you take time to dedicate a portion of your morning, just a few minutes everyday to focus on and write down the things in your life you’re thankful for and feel positively about, could you more easily draw on positives throughout the day?

Take a little time to know what brings you joy and experience the feeling of gratitude more often. You may find yourself outside of the norms and numbers on negativity. 💕

Non Striving

Striving in the sense of making a great effort towards something is not a bad or good thing; we often associate it with desirable character traits and outcomes.

Striving in the sense of struggle with the body, mind, or emotions can be a point for release. When striving produces an internal or external conflict, when you become at war with parts of your experience, then non striving and acceptance can be the path to relief. Even if what you face is bodily pain, sitting with the pain and accepting it for what it is may bring you a result you didn’t know was possible. This works in the mind and the emotions as well.

Becoming intimate with instead of avoiding is a practice in non striving. Coming home to your body, shining a light on your mind and emotions without judgement is a way to practice non striving. Allowing information to flow in, sitting with acceptance of whatever that looks like, and holding the space required is practice in non striving.

What in your day can be met with a shift to receive, allow, and let be?

Visitors

Oh if we are not present, if we are not watching, what we can miss! I have been accused of being ‘easily distracted’, mostly by my kids. I am always looking and watching for the next creature or sky to fascinate me. I find very little disappointment in quiet chores or sit spots when every visitor, minuscule or enormous, is so sweet and cup-filling.

No Story

How often do you feel expected to be the same day in and day out?

Perhaps in accordance with what is called for from us by society, we call this too from others.

What if you were to mentally burn away what you think you know about the people and routines you encounter today?

Any storyline you’re carrying could be released if you’re willing to stop telling that particular story. With time you can tell a new story, but you have to let go of the old ones first.

 

 

 

 

Immeasurable

For even the best of us get the words wrong when we want them to express such intangible and almost unsayable things.  But all the same I believe that you need not remain without solution if you hold close to nature, to what is simple in it, to the small things people hardly see and which all of a sudden can become great and immeasurable; if you have this love for what is slight, and quite unassumingly, as a servant, seek to win the confidence of what seems poor— then everything will grow easier, more unified and somehow more conciliatory, not perhaps in the intellect, which , amazed, remains a step behind, but in your deepest consciousness, watchfulness and knowledge.        

— Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

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