Blessing by John O Donohue

"May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life."
- Blessing by John O'Donohue

photo source - unknown

"Oh, for a closer walk with Thee..." 

posted by the owner of ZafuChi - a maker of zafu meditation cushions

the little things...

Yesterday evening I heard a banging noise that I thought it was coming from inside the house. More banging. So, I decided to see if someone was at the front door, and sure enough. It was G--, one of my elderly neighbors. (There IS a doorbell, and it works!) His wife works, and he is often lonely. And is, or pretends to be, hard of hearing - I can't tell which. Consequently, he likes to get in my face, and I do my best to avoid it as inconspicuously as possible. So, yesterday I just lowered the window on the screen door and spoke to him through the screen. He got angry with me and ordered me, in his heavy German accent, to open the door...barking out "I have a cheesecake pie, and I made it to give to you. Eat it, and tell me what you think of it." Seriously, not the most courteous of people. I let him save face by asking "Are you OK? You seem a little upset." Then he became shame-faced, lowered his voice, and said “no, he wasn't feeling all that well. The heat was getting to him.” 

It's July in Florida. Tempers can flare more easily.

~ ) 0 ( ~ 

...a cat named Pretty Boy - who once upon a time lived in my house...

What good is longevity if it is not enjoyable...

"Follow your bliss."

~ Joseph Campbell

Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles detail the ten rules to help find personal ikigai.

 Ikigai The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life

1. Stay active and don’t retire

2. Leave urgency behind and 

adopt a slower pace of life

3. Only eat until you are 80 per cent full

4. Surround yourself with good friends

5. Get in shape through daily, gentle exercise

6. Smile and acknowledge people around you

7. Reconnect with nature

8. Give thanks to anything that brightens our day 

and makes us feel alive.

9. Live in the moment

10. Follow your ikigai 

What keeps us from feeling joy at being in this life experience? Without understanding that longevity may not be as fulfilling as it could, or can, be.

JOY

STEADY CALM

ZafuChi - online purveyor of zafu meditation cushions

to see God in everything

To see God in everything we must (obviously, right?!) abandon all other ideas we hold consciously or subconsciously about everything.

‘The unavoidable choice to face everything that is not yet awake, both within you and in the world, is the movement of awakeness. Along the way, you may meet a huge amount of suffering or you may meet very little; it doesn’t matter either way. What matters is your unwavering willingness to meet this suffering all the way. This is not feeding the suffering but, instead, allowing consciousness to move through you according to divine will. It’s what the Indian mystic and poet Rabindranath Tagore meant when he said, “To find God, you must welcome everything.” In this willingness to unconditionally welcome every single thing in the field of your experience, you become a bodhisattva, dedicated to the illumination of all beings, one drop at a time. It’s a choiceless choice.’
-Amoda Maa

...photo source unknown...