Tag: effort

Sunday Morning

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During communion a man played a long and beautiful piece on the piano. I asked him later what it was: Beethoven. He played correctly, and with feeling, but he is not ‘a good pianist’ and that’s why I enjoyed it so much, because it was hard come by and humbly offered.

— Helen Garner, One Day I’ll Remember This: Diaries 1987–1995

Notes:

  • Photo: Hans Lindgren
  • Book Review of Helen Garner’s “One Day I”ll Remember This” by Charlotte in Book Bird. “…There are some books you slip through like water. They have a weightlessness to them, an otherworldly lack of friction…This was my experience of reading Helen Garner’s diaries. I was surprised by how immersive it was, that experience, how easy to lose my sense of time…Garner is a very sensual, instinctive writer. She feels her way through moments, days, and years, and documents those feelings as they roll and toss…”

Lightly Child, Lightly.

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The heavy is the root of the light.
The unmoved is the source of all movement.

Thus the Master travels all day
without leaving home.
However splendid the views,
she stays serenely in herself.

Why should the lord of the country
flit about like a fool?
If you let yourself be blown to and fro,
you lose touch with your root.
If you let restlessness move you,
you lose touch with who you are.

– Lao-Tzu, from “Tao Te Ching” translation by S. Mitchell

Notes:

  • Poem:  via Thetaoteching (Thank you Beth @ Alive on All Channels). Photo: Eric Rose (via see more)
  • 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.”

 

Lightly Child, Lightly.

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You thought the happiness
would appear simply, without effort
or any kind of work,

like a bird call
or a pathside flower
or a school of silvery fish

– Margaret Atwood, from “Your Children Cut Their Hands…” in “The Door”

Notes:

  • Poem: via Adrasteiax; Photo: Noell Oszvald with The illumination (via see more)
  • 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.”

 

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call: A Passion for Work

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mary-oliver-cdt-rachel-giese-brown

In books: truth, and daring, passion of all sorts. Clear and sweet and savory emotion did not run in a rippling stream in my personal world— more pity to it! But in stories and poems I found passion unfettered, and healthy. Not that such feelings were always or even commonly found in their clearest, most delectable states in all the books I read. Not at all! I saw what skill was needed, and persistence— how one must bend one’s spine, like a hoop, over the page— the long labor. I saw the difference between doing nothing, or doing a little, and the redemptive act of true effort. Reading, then writing, then desiring to write well, shaped in me that most joyful of circumstances— a passion for work.

~ Mary Oliver, from “Staying Alive” in Upstream, Selected Essays

Notes:

Stuck. In search of Wu-Wei.

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stuck-mud-digging

“The paradox of Wu-Wei arises…”

The phone rings. I glance at my watch. 5:20 p.m.

We have a problem. We need your help.

Just one time, one time, it would be nice to get a different script at the end of the day. Dreamworks ~ The phone rings: “Hey DK, great news….”

My periscope is up and scanning the horizon. (Is the house burning or is it a pan on the stove that’s on fire? Fur is up.)

The interrogation commences.

Start from the beginning.
What options have you explored?
Did you check this? What about that?
Did you ask this? Did you ask that?

The team has done a thorough job in assessing the situation. (House is not burning. But it’s a large pan on the stove that’s smoldering.)

The anxiety is climbing. (Is that fear I’m smelling?)

The team, sensing a dead-end, is feeling out my receptivity for an exception approval. Meanwhile, I’m winding up the next series of questions and readying the cannon to fire:

Continue reading “Stuck. In search of Wu-Wei.” →