Lightly child, lightly

~ Live & Learn

Human beings are creatures made for joy. Against all evidence, we tell ourselves that grief and loneliness and despair are tragedies, unwelcome variations from the pleasure and calm and safety that in the right way of the world would form the firm ground of our being. In the fairy tale we tell ourselves, darkness holds nothing resembling a gift. What we feel always contains its own truth, but it is not the only truth, and darkness almost always harbors some bit of goodness tucked out of sight, waiting for an unexpected light to shine, to reveal it in its deepest hiding place.

~ Margaret Renkl, “Be A Weed” in Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss 

Notes:

  • Photo: via Mennyfox55.
  • 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.”

42 thoughts on “Lightly child, lightly”

  1. Oh to be another weed – this is heaven, both photo and quote. Thank You.
    Need light and light….
    But how come that the E language, so rich in fabulous words, uses the same word for very different things, Licht & Gewicht in German, lumière & léger in French, I feel I cannot really express my sentiments.

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  3. It’s early…I need to consider whether we view darkness as an aberration to our entitlement to unending joy. It is its corollary, isn’t it – ideally not experienced in equal measure, but adding a poignancy to our days? Again, I need more coffee…

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    1. Every day the world is teaching me what I need to know to be in the world.

      In the stir of too much motion:

      Hold still.
      Be quiet.
      Listen.

      ~ Margaret Renkl, “Still” in Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss

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      1. “to love life, to love it even
        when you have no stomach for it
        and everything you’ve held dear
        crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
        your throat filled with the silt of it.
        When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
        thickening the air, heavy as water
        more fit for gills than lungs;
        when grief weights you down like your own flesh
        only more of it, an obesity of grief,
        you think, How can a body withstand this?
        Then you hold life like a face
        between your palms, a plain face,
        no charming smile, no violet eyes,
        and you say, yes, I will take you
        I will love you, again.”

        ~ Ellen bass

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    2. The fog comes on little cat feet, as everyone knows, but the fog does not sit on silent haunches except in poems. In the world, the fog is busy. It hides stalking cat and scratching sparrow alike. It blunts sharp branches, unbends crooked twigs, makes of every tree a gentler shape in a felted shade of green. Deep in the forest, it wakes the hidden webs into a landscape of dreams, laying jewels, one by one, along every tress and filament. The morning sun burns in the sky as it must, but the world belongs to the fog for now, and the fog is busy masking and unmasking, shrouding what we know and offering to our eyes what we have failed to see.

      ~ Margaret Renkl, from “Revelation” in Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss (Milkweed Editions (July 9, 2019)

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        2. What if you knew you’d be the last
          to touch someone?
          If you were taking tickets, for example,
          at the theater, tearing them,
          giving back the ragged stubs,
          you might take care to touch that palm,
          brush your fingertips
          along the life line’s crease.

          When a man pulls his wheeled suitcase
          too slowly through the airport, when
          the car in front of me doesn’t signal,
          when the clerk at the pharmacy
          won’t say Thank you, I don’t remember
          they’re going to die.

          A friend told me she’d been with her aunt.
          They’d just had lunch and the waiter,
          a young gay man with plum black eyes,
          joked as he served the coffee, kissed
          her aunt’s powdered cheek when they left.
          Then they walked half a block and her aunt
          dropped dead on the sidewalk.

          How close does the dragon’s spume
          have to come? How wide does the crack
          in heaven have to split?
          What would people look like
          if we could see them as they are,
          soaked in honey, stung and swollen,
          reckless, pinned against time?

          ~ Ellen Bass, “If You Knew” from The Human Line (Copper Canyon Press, 2007)

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  6. On Tuesday, as my husband and I waited, halted, outside Golden, BC for the hwy to reopen due to an accident further ahead that had blocked both lanes of the hwy, I suggested we stop the night in Golden, once we got through. The road out of Golden, up and over Kicking Horse Pass is two lanes (one in each direction) of winding, steep mountain driving. Not good for night driving, in my view.

    My husband’s response was that the darkness made it easier to see the sides of the road. The light hitting the whiteness of the snow in the dark gave better definition to what lay before us and on either side of us.

    On that night, the added bonus was after about an hour of waiting, a young man walked down the lane of stopped traffic telling people about a detour around the closure, one the semis couldn’t take. Which meant, once we were back on the highway, the only semis on the road were the ones coming in the opposite direction and because of the conditions, they were all driving slowly. Those travelling east were all on the other side of the road closure until the hwy reopened many hours later.

    Our 3-hour drive was ‘relatively’ easy — I put relatively in quotation marks because nighttime driving in snow on mountain roads is not high on my list of things I like to do. But, for my husband, the darkness made it easier to see what our headlights were illuminating giving him a more confident route through the darkness.

    Not very poetic. But life-illuminating.

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      1. That’s so cool David — I’m glad my story brought back memories of your youth — such a beautiful area to grow up in — and wow – that’s a long way from the BC Interior to NYC! I’ve spent many happy trips skiing and hiking in the Columbia mountain range. Beautiful country!

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  8. So many shares to appreciate here! Thank you. [frustrated that I can’t make clicking on a star work!]
    …where is that forever light? always deep within each of us, there for the asking, for the listening…always loving and peaceful.

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  9. I am in awe of you and your followers, David. The pinging back and forth of poetry is something I wish I had in me. So I shall just sit back, and read and let it all soak in.
    My two cents’ worth is this: We assume we are made for joy only because to think otherwise is anathema to what we want to be. Without darkness we cannot see light. The darkness brings with it a hidden gift that is usually not seen until after we’re back within the light and acknowledge that gift.

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  10. Ah, there is always a bit of light in the darkness at some point on Earth as Earth is rotating…waking up or settling down to gather, commune,<<< heart light of companionship, then time for needed sleep…The Earth is also blessed with an atmosphere of sky…Heavenly Bodies, a Moon that Shines, the Dark Sky that Shines So Bright, Awash with Millions of Stars that have been used by Navigators, Aid farmers in decision making on when to plant for future harvest…. Admired by Many, and Looked upon – fostering Curiosity… and I do remember this Bible Verse: "so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky" Philippians 2:15 NIV and I hope that some think I Shine Bright…I know those that Do Shine Bright…Light always overcomes the Dark… https://youtu.be/_QZjJU-mtFU

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  11. Hope you enjoy…don’t think it displayed correctly above

    England Dan & John Ford Coley
    “Light of the world, shine on me
    Love is the answer”

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      1. Thank you for reintroducing me to this song, Christie. “Shine on the world, set us free, love is the answer”. Yes. And, yet, how is it possible to love everyone when there are people I dislike (some very strongly)? Sigh.

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