In many ways, constancy is an illusion. After all, our ancestors were immigrants, many of them moving on every few years; today we are migrants in time. Unless teachers can hold up a model of lifelong learning and adaptation, graduates are likely to find themselves trapped into obsolescence as the world changes around them. Of any stopping place in life, it is good to ask whether it will be a good place from which to go on as well as a good place to remain. ~ Mary Catherine Bateson (Composing a Life)
There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action. And because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. ~ Martha Graham (Dance to the Piper)
One day I would have all the books in the world, shelves and shelves of them. I would live my life in a tower of books. I would read all day long and eat peaches. And if any young knights in armor dared to come calling on their white chargers and plead with me to let down my hair, I would pelt them with peach pits until they went home. ~ Jacqueline Kelly (The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate)
Today we went to Holmberg Orchards to pick a few peaches for Tim. There were some nectarines ready to be plucked, too – lucky me!
9.5.11 ~ Gales Ferry, Connecticut
On the way home Tim spotted a gnarly old tree sporting a few mushrooms!
9.5.11 ~ Groton, Connecticut
And after a lot of fuss and bother in the kitchen, a portion of homemade peach cobbler for my honey!
“Roses Fancy Still Life” by Robert Scott Duncanson
These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time in them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. Its nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature, in all moments alike. But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present above time. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (Self-Reliance)
“Young Mother Contemplating Her Sleeping Child in Candlelight” by Albert Anker
All the things you treasure most will be the hardest won I will watch you struggle long before the answers come But I won’t make it harder, I’ll be there to cheer you on I’ll shine the light that guides you down the road you’re walking on ~ Dar Williams ♫ (One Who Knows) ♫
The world, we are told, was made especially for humans – a presumption not supported by all the facts… Why should humanity value itself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation? And what creature of all that the Lord has taken the pains to make is not essential to the completeness of that unit – the cosmos? The universe would be incomplete without humans; but it would also be incomplete without the smallest transmicroscopic creature that dwells beyond our conceitful eyes and knowledge. From the dust of the earth, from the common elementary fund, the Creator has made Homo Sapiens. From the same material God has made every other creature, however noxious and insignificant to us. They are earth-born companions and our fellow mortals. ~ John Muir (Meditations of John Muir: Nature’s Temple)
I went to the hill and I got it. I sat on a knoll and I sought it. And if I would get it I would leave it. Since I did not get it, I took it with me. ~ Scots Gaelic Riddle (The Celtic Spirit)
As I sat down very gingerly on the chair for my breakfast this morning, I opened my Caitlín Matthews book of daily meditations for the turning of the year. As I started to read I began to smile over the synchronicity I found there in her words as she elaborated on the riddle above. A thorn in the foot, an irritation. A thorn in the foot that hurts when one walks on it. Pains in my back and my legs when I sit.
There is no surefire way to avoid irritations, no magic formula that will ease them out of our way. They arrive without warning to plague us, and we have to get on and deal with them. Some of the tiresomeness can be alleviated, however, if we see many of our irritations are reminders of neglected areas of our life. … The universe has its own way of getting our attention and making us attend to what is important. ~ Caitlín Matthews (The Celtic Spirit)
Well, this bout of sciatica has certainly got my attention!!! Yesterday I wound up puttering around the house catching up on little chores and the constant movement kept the pain at bay. But when I sat down for lunch the pain returned and so for the afternoon I reclined and listened to three more Adyashanti CDs, which nourished me spiritually.
No magic formula, but an idea occurred to me while lying there to help me deal with this “irritation.” I dug my old exercise ball out of the closet and Tim pumped it up with air for me. We tested having me sit on it for a few minutes. No pain. He moved my laptop down here to the coffee table and this set up seems like it might just work!
This has been a painful reminder to me to pay more attention to how long I sit in front of the computer screen. I tend to have these marathon days where I visit a lot of blogs and catch up responding to comments on mine. On top of that, as the day wears on, as it did Saturday, my posture gets more and more sloppy and as a result the nerve gets irritated. If I’m honest with myself, most of these flare-ups occur after I’ve sat too long and incorrectly, usually during a long trip in the car…
Do you have a figurative thorn in your foot? What do you do to deal with it?
I’ve looked at life from both sides now From win and lose and still somehow It’s life’s illusions I recall I really don’t know life at all ~ Joni Mitchell ♫ (Both Sides Now) ♫
I apologize to big questions for small answers. O Truth, do not pay me too much heed. O Solemnity, be magnanimous to me. Endure, mystery of existence, that I pluck out the threads of your train. Accuse me not, O soul, of possessing you but seldom. I apologize to everything that I cannot be everywhere. I apologize to everyone that I cannot be every man and woman. I know that as long as I live nothing can justify me, because I myself am an obstacle to myself. Take it not amiss, O speech, that I borrow weighty words, and later try hard to make them seem light. ~ Wisława Szymborska (Under a Certain Little Star)
