a moment of stillness
in between breaths
before the thought arises
a delicate balance
between thought
and no-thought
a brief awakening
on dragonfly wings
Peace
free from time
the dragonfly sways
where the fireflies
dance at night
Pulled from sleep, I leave the warmth of the bed, pad barefoot across the cold hardwood floor. At the window, the golden glow of an almost full moon lights up the sky, and pours over the icy surface of the pond. We greet each other in the stillness of early morning, a luminous embrace.
Winter falls silently across the morning,
a blanket of snow stretches over the dreaming earth.
Unmarked paths of white wait in quietude.
My January 3rd small stone, tossed into the river.
I found this difficult to do today, and had many thoughts about giving up. It is almost impossible, it seems to me, to capture in words or photos the beauty of the first big snowfall, when the world is hushed and the snowflakes waltz down from the sky, romancing the earth before covering her in winter’s white and sparkling jewels and clothing.
As human beings, not only do we seek resolution, but we also feel that we deserve resolution. However, not only do we not deserve resolution, we suffer from resolution. We don’t deserve resolution; we deserve something better than that. We deserve our birthright, which is the middle way, an open state of mind that can relax with paradox and ambiguity.
~ Pema Chödrön
(Sitting on the edge of the world.)
We sit silently and watch the world around us. This has taken a lifetime to learn. It seems only the old are able to sit next to one another and not say anything and still feel content. The young, brash and impatient, must always break the silence. It is a waste, for silence is pure. Silence is holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking. This is the great paradox.
~ Nicholas Sparks
I took this photo when we were at the top of Pike’s Peak in Colorado (altitude of 14,115 feet). We were, in some spots, above the clouds that day. I’m not sure what the couple in the photo could see from there as I didn’t walk down that far (and it was quite a distance from where I stood to take the photo). Perhaps they were just enjoying the bird’s eye view of the clouds and/or each other’s company.
Praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and sorrow come and go like the wind. To be happy, rest like a giant tree, in the midst of them all.
~ The Buddha
I say that the strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.
~ George Eliot
I did a lot of indulging during our holiday in Colorado, eating foods and drinking drinks I don’t normally eat or drink much while at home. (Visit Life in the Bogs if you are interested in my adventures in Colorado.) One of the projects I’ve been working on this year is getting myself down to a healthy weight. I’ve done well but still need to keep making healthy choices to get the numbers down more. Indulging while in Colorado was not a bad thing. We did enough hiking and walking to work it off. I came home weighing less than when I left.
Somtimes I think healthy (or is it healthful?) choices are a little like the bucket of sunflowers I photographed at the farmers market in the Cherry Creek area of Denver. There are so many beautiful things (foods, drinks) to choose from that it can be difficult to make a decision about one or two and resist the temptation to grab them all. Even healthful choices can be bad choices if you overindulge. For me those choices, whether healthful or not, are a matter of quality of life choices. I want to be able to walk, climb, hike, play with my grandchildren. In other words, keep blooming if I can. I know there will be a time to fade but I also know that our choices in life play a big role in our quality of life.
Those of you who have followed me here at Bountiful Healing for a while know that this was the place I came to in order to heal body, mind, and spirit. Not doing well physically led to not doing well mentally and spiritually. I think it was just before my mother was diagnosed with small-cell lung cancer that I decided I didn’t need Bountiful Healing anymore and tried to shut it down. I was feeling good. Mission accomplished. Or so I thought. I reopened BH at the request of those who wanted to visit and revisit old posts.
Then, as you may or may not know, my mother was diagnosed with cancer which eventually led to her death on September 9, 2009. What an odd date. 09-09-09. I thought that at the time but haven’t thought about it again until just now, seeing it in type. Digressions aside for the moment, I felt the need to come back here on a semi-regular basis. As this first year since Mom’s death has passed, I’ve come here less and less even though there were times when I needed it more and more.
Lately I’ve realized that healing is something we do on an almost daily basis and it doesn’t always involve the serious stuff. It might involve something as simple as letting go of or getting over an unkind word from a stranger. What seems like eons ago, I watched an interview with writer and poet Maya Angelou and one of the things I remember her talking about is how the little things, the little hurts, are like being pecked to death by ducks. There are times when life brings you a duck or two trying to take a little piece of you. Even the little hurts and slights need healing.
BH is also the place I express my creativity, more so than at Life in the Bogs. The Bogs blog (as I frequently refer to it) was, at first, a place to record our adventures when M took a sabbatical and we moved to West Chester, Pennsylvania for almost a year. It then became the place to record daily adventures and vacations and NaBloPoMo themes and whatever else came to mind. But it has never been a terribly personal or creative blog to me even though I attempted to merge BH with the Bogs blog and have it all come together in one place. The Bogs blog is a record of my outer life. Bountiful Healing is a record of my inner and creative life.
So. Here I am again. Back at the beginning after quite a few endings. I think it’s interesting as well as pretty awesome that life circles and spirals, back and forth, inside and outside and even upside down (to badly paraphrase Dr. Suess and his “inside, outside, upside down”). It moves back and forth and can get a little bit crazy at times. Having a place to balance and center, to anchor, helps. This is one of those places for me. I am fortunate and grateful that I have other shelters and balancing places, within and without. I hope you have at least one such place too, because it is much easier to fly after a period of grounding, centering, and resting in one’s personal oasis of safety and peace.
Take a rest; a field that has rested gives a beautiful crop.
~ Ovid
(A stream of sunlight. December 2009.)
There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden, or even your bathtub.
~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
