Lightly Child, Lightly

~ Live & Learn

I pause under that summer tree, the one that feels like a friend, as my dog wonders why we’ve stopped. She was trotting in such rhythm. But when this still, I wonder what part of me, way down, remains untouched by dream or memory? What drop of being remains out of reach of the opinions of others? When up close, each thing reveals its shimmer. And it’s the unexpected closeness that holds everything together. The light spreads across my dog’s face, her eyes so devoted to wherever I want to go.

Can I be this devoted to the pull of life?  

~ Mark Nepo, from “Speechless” in Things That Join the Sea and the Sky: Field Notes on Living

Notes:

  • Photo: Bill Leslie with Groovy Times
  • Prior “Lightly child, lightly” Posts? Connect here.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

25 thoughts on “Lightly Child, Lightly”

  5. It won’t come as a surprise, David, that this post touches me in this time of darkness in the U.S. “Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.” Thank you for these remarkable quotes, the dog, and the question.

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  8. We always come back to the dogs, aren’t we just? 😉 Nothing like the devotion of a dog…. Indeed – and how we need any devotion in these troubling and troublesome times.
    Peace and light – taken lightly – enjoyed deeply – and ideally with a dog at our side.

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  9. Bill Leslie’s photo-stream has additional photos of that sweet dog and some other dogs too.
    Looking at his varied photos one his first page and given his last name, I would say he is probably Scottish…Scott’s appreciate the sun Perhaps more than some as the winter’s are long, dark and wet…///Mark Nepo’s words reach us who so love dogs and those of us who love life and light, summer and its brilliant illumination…and his words “each thing reveals its shimmer” it’s the true glowing Light of Life …I think that shimmer must have degrees of glow and as I say to a friend, Keep Shinning Bright -they don’t know what a Gift their Glow is to others… ///
    a few mornings back, out in the garden, the dew gathered in droplets on the big cupping leaves of the Nasturtiums…the dew hung, barley holding on to the edge of the Aspen leaves as the Sun grew higher and the dew had such a reflective, pure and clear Glow of Shimmer…I stood and looked through a hanging droplet at my eye level and I was in Wonder… for me the Light & Life of Shimmer mellows in Autumn, inviting the Glow to Settle, reaching behind the eyes and traveling to the center of Soul where the After Glow, Reveals…

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