“Our true home is not in the past. Our true home is not in the future. Our true home is in the here and the now. Life is available only in the here and the now, and it is our true home.
Mindfulness is the energy that helps us recognize the conditions of happiness that are already present in our lives. You don’t have to wait ten years to experience this happiness. It is present in every moment of your daily life. There are those of us who are alive but don’t know it. But when you breathe in, and you are aware of your in-breath, you touch the miracle of being alive. That is why mindfulness is a source of happiness and joy.” — Thich Nhat Hahn
After tonight, we’ve no below freezing (32 degree) temps here in Maine. Last year’s pansies are performing an encore. The robin family has returned, I cut the red chard and enjoyed it for lunch yesterday. I planted seeds — tomato, beet, chard, spinach, kale, broccoli rabe — for transplant last weekend. And I have three yards of loam, peat moss, and worm castings to mix, so that I can empty the beds and planters and fill them with quality growing soil,
Spring. The work, the joy, the rebirth.
The awakening,
Here is Kitschy, the peace sign bear, who found me at a yard sale. He’s gently reminding us that peace is within, to give ourselves only to that which serves the soul, and to breathe.
Thank you for being part of the journey.
Until Saturday.
Kindness
Naomi Shihab Nye
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.