Oh, the coming-out-of-nowhere moment
when, nothing
happens
no what-have-I-to-do-today-list
maybe half a moment
the rush of traffic stops.
The whir of I should be, I should be, I should be
slows to silence,
the white cotton curtains hanging still.
~ Marie Howe, “The Moment” (via Poets.org)
Photo: Eylül Aslan
Notes:
A butterfly,
pinked by the hour, lands on a blade of sweetgrass,
then flits off.
The blade twitches once, then stills.
~ Ocean Vuong, from his new book titled: “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous: A Novel” (Penguin Press, June 4, 2019)
Photo Josephine Cardin with “Butterfly” by (via Newthom)
“To live deliberately on the edges of things, in active resistance to a world that places all its value on speed and productivity…It is a reminder that more than ever we need people willing to pause and listen, to open their hearts to what is uncomfortable, and to hold space and attention until the new thing emerges…Perhaps…if we keep practicing…we will hear whispers of a new beginning.”
~ Christine Valters Paintner, from “Way of the Monk, Path of the Artist”
Quote Source via Make Believe Boutique. Photo by Laura Malucchi titled Pause.
For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is “I didn’t get enough sleep.” The next one is “I don’t have enough time.” Whether true or not, that thought of not enough occurs to us automatically before we even think to question or examine it. We spend most of the hours and the days of our lives hearing, explaining, complaining, or worrying about what we don’t have enough of… Before we even sit up in bed, before our feet touch the floor, we’re already inadequate, already behind, already losing, already lacking something. And by the time we go to bed at night, our minds are racing with a litany of what we didn’t get, or didn’t get done, that day. We go to sleep burdened by those thoughts and wake up to that reverie of lack… This internal condition of scarcity, this mind-set of scarcity, lives at the very heart of our jealousies, our greed, our prejudice, and our arguments with life.
― Lynne Twist, The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life
Notes: Quote Source: In Your Head. Painting by Rafael Sottolichio (Montreal) with Engloutis_19 (via Mennyfox55)
I am going to try to pay attention to the spring.
I am going to look around at all the flowers, and look up at the hectic trees.
I am going to close my eyes and listen.
~ Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
Notes: Quote via risky wiver. Photo: By our very own Kiki! Taken on 10 years ago on this day on May 4th, 2009. What a coincidence!
Notes:
At night, crickets sawed outside the windows of my childhood bedroom, and I read sixteen years of old journals, turning their pages into the early morning hours, as if I did not know what would happen next. There I was, same as ever, a linked paper chain of self-replication, continuously through time, the very same shorthand for a simple, happy life: muffin tins, cross-country skis, a desk by an open window. When had I made everything so complicated?
~ Sarah McColl, “Joy Enough: A Memoir.” (January, 2019)
Photo: Dan Smith
Now, now,
gently, quietly, quietly…
~ Jean Rhys, Good Morning, Midnight (1939)
Notes: Quote via antigonick. Portrait of Jean Rhys from Paris Review
We pulled away from the gate at DFW 30 minutes late, late Friday afternoon. Not bad. Could be worse.
Exit row, reclining seat. God Bless Shara (My Assistant). We’ve been together 6 years now. This seat, this trip, the car pick-up, managing trip expenses – here and there and there, always just right.
Jet engines on this late model Boeing throb, I’m sitting over the wings. We taxi out, make a slow turn, and then…
The engines shut down, and the Pilot comes on the intercom. No. No. No. Yes.
“Folks, I’m sorry. But there is flow control at LaGuardia. We’ve been advised that the wait could be up to 90 minutes. We need to wait on the runway in the event we get cleared sooner.”
Not a free seat open on this plane. A chorus of groans, a shifting in seats. We settle in. My arrival time, now potentially 10pm on Friday night. Shoulders slump, heaviness sets in.
I grab my smartphone and tap in “P-h-o-e-n-i-x:” (in classical mythology) a unique bird that lived for five or six centuries in the Arabian desert, after this time burning itself on a funeral pyre and rising from the ashes with renewed youth to live through another cycle.
Let’s skip the funeral pyre part. But, the rest? Bring it on. To rise from the ashes. Live through another cycle. This trip that just won’t end. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday in Phoenix at a firm wide conference. Thursday and Friday with our team in Dallas.
What did you remember? [Read more…]
When you get into your car, shut the door and be there for just half a minute. Breathe, feel the energy inside your body, look around at the sky, the trees. The mind might tell you, ‘I don’t have time.’ But that’s the mind talking to you. Even the busiest person has time for 30 seconds of space.
– Eckhart Tolle, from Oprah Talks to Eckhart Tolle (Oprah.com)
Notes: Quote – Thank you Beth @ Alive on All Channels. Photo: maggie kirkpatrick
I was racing back home from the computer store, busily doing my errands, trying to get things done. I noticed a restaurant and shopping center to my right, on the freeway. I’d been curious about this place for almost a year. Today, instead of driving by, I turned off the highway and pulled into the parking lot. I spent the next three hours browsing through the stores filled with antiques, trinkets, and gourmet foods. Then I enjoyed a leisurely dinner—a juicy hamburger and a chocolate malt—at the restaurant before returning home. The stores had always been there; I’d always driven past. Today I stopped, satisfied my curiosity, and enjoyed myself.
It’s easy to spend our lives working toward a goal, convinced that if we could only get there, we’d be truly happy then. Today is the only moment we have. If we wait until tomorrow to be happy, we’ll miss out on the beauty of today.
Have your plans. Set goals.
Let yourself be happy now.
~ Melody Beattie, from “Be Happy Now” & More Language of Letting Go
Photo Credit
It’s a blank screen.
At the bottom of the iPhone, there’s a Start arrow symbol: >
Below the arrow, is a timer.
09:00.
My finger hovers over the arrow. Oh, for God sakes DK, it’s only 9 minutes. How difficult can this be?
P: “As we get started, settle yourself in a comfortable position.” Her voice is soothing. Or seductive? Jesus, DK, focus.
The Pacifica app’s headline: “Reduce Stress. Feel Happier.” “Apple’s Best of 2017…psychologist designed tools for mindfulness meditation, relaxation, and mood/health tracking.” Only you DK, only You, can get anxious in front of a Meditation exercise designed to reduce the same.
P: “Sit on a chair or a cushion on the floor…If you feel comfortable doing so, close your eyes…” (Long Silence)
This pilgrimage isn’t to Mecca, not to the Wall in Jerusalem, and not with Him upstairs. But a prayer to the new God. My palms cradle my Smartphone, and the glowing screen feeds me. I was off on the last leg of David Rome‘s journey: As we grow from childhood to adolescence to adulthood, eventually our most fundamental relationship becomes the inner relationship with ourselves. [Read more…]
Yes, and I think we all know that sensation. We have more and more time-saving devices but less and less time, it seems to us. When I was a boy, the sense of luxury had to do with a lot of space, maybe having a big house or a huge car. Now I think luxury has to do with having a lot of time. The ultimate luxury now might be just a blank space in the calendar. And interestingly enough, that’s what we crave, I think, so many of us.
When I moved from New York City to rural Japan — after my year in Kyoto, I essentially moved to a two-room apartment, which is where I still live with my wife and, formerly, our two kids. We don’t have a car or a bicycle or a T.V. I can understand. It’s very simple, but it feels very luxurious. One reason is that when I wake up, it seems as if the whole day stretches in front of me like an enormous meadow, which is never a sensation I had when I was in go-go New York City. I can spend five hours at my desk. And then I can take a walk. And then I can spend one hour reading a book where, as I read, I can feel myself getting deeper and more attentive and more nuanced. It’s like a wonderful conversation.
Then I have a chance to take another walk around the neighborhood and take care of my emails and keep my bosses at bay and then go and play ping pong and then spend the evening with my wife. It seems as if the day has a thousand hours, and that’s exactly what I tend not to experience or feel when I’m — for example, today in Los Angeles — moving from place to place. I suppose it’s a trade-off. I gave up financial security, and I gave up the excitements of the big city. But I thought it was worth it in order to have two things, freedom and time. The biggest luxury I enjoy when I’m in Japan is, as soon as I arrive there, I take off my watch, and I feel I never need to put it on again. I can soon begin to tell the time by how the light is slanting off our walls at sunrise and when the darkness falls — and I suppose back to a more essential human life.
~ Pico Iyer, The Urgency of Slowing Down. An Interview with Krista Tippett (Onbeing, November, 2018)
It’s Wednesday. I take a late morning train to attend a late morning meeting. There are no meetings that follow. There is no Next, and Next and Next.
I sit in the train. The train clears. I’m immersed in the final chapter of the last book in Rachel Cusk‘s trilogy. I take the time to finish up, I grab my bag, and exit the train. There’s no rushing to the exits, the platform is empty. I walk alone in Kaminsky’s quiet: “What is silence? Something of the sky in us.”
Security at Grand Central is tight. Each entrance is heavily armed. Yet, I don’t flinch – the gunmetal black, semi-automatic weapon looks like a prop in a scene in Toy Story – I’m among the extras, commuters rushing to their Next, and tourists snapping photos.
Broadway teems with tourists mingling on sidewalks, trying to decide What’s Next. I smile, step around them, not interrupting their chat as they stand three abreast. Tis’ the season.
Full body sized neon letters hum and flash overhead: Mueller probe. Cohen. Trump. Russia. This nasty, viscous, mucus is non-stick, and glances off. You won’t touch me, not today.
My meeting ends. A luncheon thanking colleagues for exceptional work on a project with a highly successful outcome. I learn at lunch that today is the 86th Rockefeller Center Tree Lighting Ceremony. Aha! This accounts for the heavy security and unusually large crowds. [Read more…]
One of the Japanese words for mind is kokoro. The word koro is the onomatopoeia for “rolling along.” Something that rolls like a ball is koro koro koro. So kokoro is something that is always moving and changing, never stopped. There is no object or form that we can identify as mind. It is always changing. Though we are always looking for something to rely on, we cannot find it in something called mind.
~Shodo Harada, Not One Single Thing: A Commentary on the Platform Sutra
Notes:
Notes: Photo/GIF: Head Like An Orange. Title from Christina Baldwin, The Seven Whispers: “We often speak of ‘doing the work.’ … Do your work. Rest here. Find peace of mind. Ask for guidance. Fill yourself with certainty. then move on. The work does not need to be grand, only fitting. It is guided by asking ourselves over and over: What is the next right thing?” (Thank you Make Believe Boutique)
Here’s Pavarotti copied from an interview somewhere:
“One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.”
~ Patricia Hampl, The Art of the Wasted Day (Published April 17, 2018)
Photo: BonAppétit, Pappardelle with Arugula and Prosciutto
Stand still,
stand still, and
stop the sun.
~ May Sarton, from “Now I Become Myself” in Halfway to Silence: Poems
Photo: Louis Caya with Shiba Inu
Those two or three seconds of silence! Two or three seconds when nothing happened, a moment of suspension. The beauty of that silence! That lull. That pause, when nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. “Zurückbleiben” emanating from a different throat at every station, here a woman’s, there a man’s, with slight variations in stress, sometimes placed on zurück, sometimes on bleiben: the word was magical, narcotic. After Zurückbleiben everything came to a halt, stopped short, the history of the world paused momentarily.
~ Adam Zagajewski, Slight Exaggeration: An Essay
Source: Your Eyes Blaze Out
Live & Learn 
