Something Terrific

I have become my own version of an optimist.
If I can't make it through one door,
I'll go through another door - or I'll make a door.
Something terrific will come
no matter how dark the present.

~ Rabindranath Tagore

These last several months have been intense. During other times of my life, I might have called them hard or even painful, but I have become my own unique version of an optimist. One thing that Yoga has taught me is that nothing remains the same in this world; life is constantly changing. If there is sadness or pain, it will arise and dissolve. If there is awe, wonder, happiness, and joy, it will come and it will go. 

If I can remember this, detachment is easier and I am more likely to find another door or if I'm feeling a wave of creativity, I might make a unique pathway through whatever is happening. Of course, it is never as easy as the words sound. The pain and the darkness are very real, even when they are hauntings from the past.

This is when the breath takes front and center stage. Yoga is all about the breath. Returning again and again to each inhale, each exhale, each pause, brings me gently to my center. Resting back into the breath, my core being connects me to all of life, to oneness.  

It is then I know beyond any shadow of doubt, something terrific will come...

Enter the fire...

The sun
blazes
for everyone just
so joyfully
as it rises

under the lashes
of my own eyes, and I thought
I am so many!
What is my name?

What is the name
of the deep breath I would take
over and over
for all of us? Call it

whatever you want, it is
happiness, it is another one
of the ways to enter
fire.
                  ~ Mary Oliver

Watching the sun rise somehow lights the cells of my body and recharges my being in a way nothing else can do. I agree with Mary Oliver that the sun blazes joyfully for us all.

Entering the fire has many meanings from warmth, to intense challenge, but today the fire ignites my joy and opens me to the oneness that I am.

Everything is Simply Happy!

Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars...
and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful. 

Everything is simply happy.
Trees are happy for no reason; they are not going to become prime ministers or presidents and they are not going to become rich and they will never have any bank balance.
Look at the flowers - for no reason.

It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are.

                                                                                                ~Osho

The moon peeks through the trees reminding me that joy is always present. Without any reason the whole of existence is simply happy. Somehow that makes life easy. Recognizing that I don't need to do anything, I don't have to strive to reach some goal or behave in a way that may bring happiness to others.  Just BE... The blessings are endless and grace softly kisses my cheek.

Your True Nature ~ Infinite Spirit

We try to grasp something strange and mysterious because we believe happiness lies elsewhere. This is the mistake. The Self is all-pervading. Our real nature is liberation, but we imagine that we are bound, we make strenuous efforts to become free, although all the while we are free.


Birth and death pertain only to the body, they are superimposed upon the Self, giving rise to the delusion that birth and death relate to the Self. The universe exists within the Self. Discover the undying Self and be immortal and happy. Be yourself and nothing more. Thoughts change but not you. 


There is neither past nor future; there is only the present. Yesterday was the present when you experienced it; tomorrow will also be the present when you experience it, therefore, experience takes place only in the present, and even the present is mere imagination, for the sense of time is purely mental.

All that is required to realize the Self is to be still. What can be easier than that? Your true nature is that of infinite spirit.                 ~ Ramana Maharshi

My Daughter Asleep

My Daughter Asleep

And so to these


unspoken shadows


and this broad night


I make


a quiet


request


to the


great parental


darkness


to hold her


when I cannot,


to comfort her


when I am gone,


to help her learn


to love


the unknown


for itself,


to take it


gladly


like


a lantern


for the way


before her,


to help her see


where ordinary


light will not help her,


where happiness has fled,


where faith


will not reach.

3rd stanza from My Daughter Asleep by David Whyte

River Flow, New & Selected Poems, 1984-2007

David Whyte is one of my very favorite poets. He wrote a particularly poignant piece that resonates so deeply with me, even after my own daughter is grown and in a home of her own. I think the chord it strikes concerns the duality of our deep desire and/or fear for our child's well being.

Well being is so much more than simply physical health and safety...

Beautiful Heron

Heron Rises from the Dark, Summer Pond

So heavy
is the long-necked, long-bodied heron,
always it is a surprise
when her smoke-colored wings
open
and she turns
from the thick water,
from the black sticks
 of the summer pond,
and slowly
rises into the air
and is gone.

Then, not for the first or the last time,
I take the deep breath
of happiness, and I think
how unlikely it is
that death is a hole in the ground,
how improbable
that ascension is not possible,
though everything seems so inert, so nailed
back into itself --
the muskrat and his lumpy lodge,
the turtle,
the fallen gate.

And especially it is wonderful
that the summers are long
and the ponds so dark and so many,
and therefore it isn't a miracle
but the common thing,
this decision,
this trailing of the long legs in the water,
this opening up of the heavy body
into a new life: see how the sudden
gray-blue sheets of her wings
strive toward the wind; see how the clasp of nothing
takes her in.

~ Mary Oliver ~

from "What Do We Know:Poems and Prose Poems"


While in Florida this month I spent time with the herons. It's difficult to truly capture their beauty, but just watching and snapping a few photos filled me with wonder and astonishment.  This is a young bird and she wouldn't let me come as near as I would have liked.  But when she gracefully lifted into the air, I could see the utter effortlessness of her flight.     


As Mary Oliver so eloquently writes, death is not a hole in the ground! Ascension is possible! And the path seems to be through not grasping.