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Posts tagged ‘Contemplation’

Jun 4

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The Second Arrows

“Press on, regardless.”― Mary Stewart

“The Buddha speaks about the ‘second arrow.’ When an arrow strikes you, you feel pain. If a second arrow comes and strikes you in the same spot, the pain will be ten times worse. The Buddha advised that when you have some pain in your body or your mind, breathe in and out and recognize the significance of that pain, but don’t exaggerate its importance. If you stop to worry, to be fearful, to protest, to be angry about the pain, then you magnify the pain ten times or more. Your worry is the second arrow. You should protect yourself and not allow the second arrow to come, because the second arrow comes from you.”― Thich Nhat Hanh, Your True Home: The Everyday Wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh

First arrows come.
Second arrows are our own.
Our response.
Worry. Fear. Overdoing. Fixing. Complicating.
The past. The future. Missing the present.
Struggles a given.
Our response, our own.
Pause. Do less. Deep breath.
Give some space between stimulus and response.
Shoot a few less second arrows today.
Choose well.
New day, new eyes.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” – Viktor E. Frankl

May 26

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Warrior’s World

“When we’re mainly filtering our experience through the ego, constantly trying to improve or maintain our high self-esteem, we’re denying ourselves the thing we actually want most. To be accepted as we are, an integral part of something much greater than our small selves. Unbounded. Immeasurable. Free.”― Kristin Neff, Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself

“Every person needs to take one day away. A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future. Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence. Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for. Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.” – Maya Angelou, Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey

A day off.
Even God did that.
Surely, we can.
May you Sabbath well.
To pause, rest, renew.
Rejoicing in ordinary things.
Wide open spaces.
Unbound. Immeasurable. Free.

“Rejoicing in ordinary things is not sentimental or trite. It actually takes guts. Each time we drop our complaints and allow everyday good fortune to inspire us, we enter the warrior’s world.”― Pema Chödrön, The Places That Scare You

May 19

Number 23

“Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself…do not be disheartened by your imperfections, but always rise up with fresh courage.”― St. Frances de Sales

Psalm 23 – The LORD Is My Shepherd

“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.”

When the grinding, speed, doing, overdoing, list checking come up short, empty, flat.
Again and again.
Rest, long pause, quiet.
A soft whisper.
An invitation.
A command.
A welcoming.
Green pastures.
Still waters.
Soul restored.
Cup overflowing.
Again and again.
You cannot outrun yourself.
Home calls.
Answer the call.
Still small voice. Listen.
Restored and renewed.
Made new.
Again and again.

“People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”― Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy

Apr 16

A Sacred Thing

“A journey can become a sacred thing.
Make sure, before you go,
To bless your going forth,
To free your heart of ballast
So that the compass of your soul
Might direct you towards
The territories of spirit
Where you will discover
More of your hidden life;
And the urgencies
That deserve to claim you.” – John O’Donohue

The Hero Path by Joseph Campbell

“We have not even to risk the adventure alone
for the heroes of all time have gone before us.
The labyrinth is thoroughly known …
we have only to follow the thread of the hero path.
And where we had thought to find an abomination
we shall find a God.
And where we had thought to slay another
we shall slay ourselves.
Where we had thought to travel outwards
we shall come to the center of our own existence.
And where we had thought to be alone
we shall be with all the world.”

May awe, wonder, ease claim you today.
In the temporal and transcendent.
Thin spaces, wide open fields.
Big and small.
Far and wide.
Near and far.
Moving, unfolding, and following that still small voice.
Trusting intuition, swimming upstream, going off trail.
Inquiry, open, awake.

“One of the most exciting and energizing forms of thought is the question. I always think that the question is like a lantern. It illuminates new landscapes and new areas as it moves. Therefore, the question always assumes that there are many different dimensions to a thought that you are either blind to or that are not available to you. One of the reasons that we wonder is because we are limited, and that limitation is one of the great gateways of wonder.”― John O’Donohue, Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World

Apr 11

Venite, Adoremus

“The world, this palpable world, which we were wont to treat with the boredom and disrespect with which we habitually regard places with no sacred association for us, is in truth a holy place, and we did not know it. Venite, adoremus.”― Teilhard de Chardin

“The whole life lies in the verb seeing.”― Teilhard de Chardin

Venite, adoremus – come, let us adore.
May awe, wonder and adoration cross your path today.
To awake, shake, jolt you out of complacency, auto-pilot and complaint.
A higher plane to see beauty, experience joy, pause in reverence.
The action of seeing.
The gift of gratitude.

“The universe as we know it is a joint product of the observer and the observed.”― Teilhard de Chardin

Feb 25

Sacred Shaping

“The soul speaks its truth only under quiet, inviting and trustworthy conditions…If we are willing to walk quietly into the woods and sit silently for an hour or two at the base of a tree, the creature we’re waiting for may well emerge.” – Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak

“The miracle, upside-down work of God is that our failure isn’t an obstacle, it’s an opportunity to remember to sink into God. Not having what it takes is not a liability, it’s a prerequisite. Maybe there is hope for us after all.”― Emily P. Freeman, A Million Little Ways: Uncover the Art You Were Made to Live

In the putting down.
In rest and reflection.
In slowing.
Clenched fists opening.
Seeds falling.
Seeds taking root.
To receive something not of our doing, efficiency and striving.
Borne of our not doing, of our very being.
Wintering to prepare for the brilliance of spring.
In the putting down, in the pause, in the stillness.
We discern what to pick up again.
What to leave behind.
Reshaped, renewed, refreshed.
Sacred shaping at work.

“Be faithful to plant. Release the growing to God. Open up clenched fists and let the seeds drop into the ground, let them burrow down deep and do their secret work in the dark. Sacred shaping happens in the waiting.”― Emily P. Freeman, A Million Little Ways: Uncover the Art You Were Made to Live

Feb 15

Calm and Grace

“Words are small shapes in the gorgeous chaos of the world.”― Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses

Although life is hard in pace
Lose not thy calm and grace.
If thee are not tender
Vow not to surrender
Eternity lies right before thy face.”
― Ana Claudia Antunes, ACross Tic

 Words soft, kind.
Ears open, attune.
Slowing to notice, awake.
Create calm in chaos.
Grace in this place.
Observe. Listen. Wonder.
Awe in thin places, still points.

“Listening is such a simple act. It requires us to be present, and that takes practice, but we don’t have to do anything else. We don’t have to advise, or coach, or sound wise. We just have to be willing to sit there and listen.”― Margaret J. Wheatley

Jan 24

Marvelous Promise

“When I looked, I knew I might never again see so much of the earth so beautiful, the beautiful being something you know added to something you see, in a whole that is different from the sum of its parts. What I saw might have been just another winter scene, although an impressive one. But what I knew was that the earth underneath was alive and that by tomorrow, certainly by the day after, it would be all green again. So what I saw because of what I knew was a kind of death with the marvelous promise of less than a three-day resurrection.”― Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories

“We find that, all along, we had what we needed from the beginning and that in the end we have returned to its essence, an essence we could not understand until we had experienced the actual heartbreak of the journey.”― David Whyte, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words

Pausing
Slowing
Looking
Listening
Quiet
Reflection
Time unfolding
Threads weaving together to tapestry
Discovery
Renewal
Pieces to pattern
Wholeness
Thresholds to cross
Transformation
Thin spaces of discernment and clarity
Grace unfolding and holding
Trust, unwavering
Rising up again and again
Knowing wherever, whatever, all is well
May lucidity, understanding, and peace come to you on your journey
To lighten the load, widen your view, and welcome you home.

“For it is not knowing much, but realising and relishing things interiorly, that contents and satisfies the soul.”― Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises

Jan 8

To Wonder, To Wander

“You have the power to live in the now despite that inner nudge pushing you out of the moment toward perfection and productivity.” – Rachel Macy Stafford, Hands Free Life

“…which causes me to wonder, my own purpose on so many days as humble as the spider’s, what is beautiful that I make? What is elegant? What feeds the world?”― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum

What causes you to wonder?
Go there each day for a visit.
As close as a walk, the sky, a glance.
Creating rather than production.
Imperfect effort over perfect stasis.
Wander, pause, allow.
Be filled with awe.
Completely awake and thrown out of the nest of complacency and busyness.
Feed yourself, feed the world.
Wonder, awe, delight to you this day.
Found in the wandering and the wondering.

“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land.”― Dani Shapiro, Inheritance

Nov 4

The Numinous

“Great is the man who has not lost his childlike heart.”― Mencius

“In fact I think I prefer a strange tangle of both, an idea with porous boundaries that keeps me guessing. We are not offered any definite conclusions, only the continuing quest. Certainties harden us, and eventually we come to defend them as if the world can’t contain a multiplicity of views. We are better off staying soft. It gives us room to grow and absorb, to make space for all the other glorious notions that will keep coming at us across a lifetime.”― Katherine May, Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age

Comma,
Period.
Pause…
Still point
Deliberate
Rapt
Attention
Of our own conjuring
Wander here often.
Weave awe into each day.

“I think I’m beginning to understand that the quest is the point. Our sense of enchantment is not triggered only by grand things; the sublime is note hiding in distant landscapes. The awe-inspiring, the numinous, is all around us, all the time. It is transformed by our deliberate attention. It becomes valuable when we value it. It becomes meaningful when we invest in meaning. The magic is of our own conjuring. ”― Katherine May, Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age

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