A thought
fleeting
profound content
gratefulEverything perfect
sweet
Just-as
it-isPassing
it’s passing
eternally
tangibleA thought
fleeting
grasping
longing
How human are we to want good things to last. Somewhere I remember reading that attachment and detachment flow together throughout our entire lives. I’m fine with that. Remembering Nankipoo a Shasta Abbey cat, 19 years old, who died yesterday. RIP.
This image mapping the fells was added after the original post. For those who like to know what they are looking at.
Ah!
Yesterday. Rounding the top, looking over the edge of Scouts Scar. Magic! A magic moment bringing awe and joy. Nearby a woman walking her dog said softly, It’s like velvet! The grass and everything combined to bring me, and her, up short. We paused and took the whole thing in. A shared moment and then we continued on our way.
Stopping to let oneself absorb what’s coming into the senses allowing ‘oneself’, the sense of being a separate entity, fade into the background of consciousness, can bring about those Ah! times. Lasting a moment or moment after moment. Nothing to seek for of course. Simply to be where one is and to notice. Simply notice. To remain awake.
Quiet: an absence or near absence of agitation, or activity. But does quiet mean the absence of activity? Is there quiet in the midst of activity? I’d say so.
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
T.S.Eliot, From The Four Quartets
It seems like yesterday, but it wasn’t, when I strained to hold up a flight of stairs while my dad fixed them in place at the top. They were heavy and I was seriously challenged; my relationship with this man, my relationship with myself. Why am I doing this, doesn’t he appreciate how ridiculously heavy these stairs are! For goodness sake, I could hurt myself. But that all flashed by so quickly and the thought imprinted indelibly on my mind was, I love this person, not in spite of his idiosyncrasies but BECAUSE of them,
How true it is of people, places, animal friends. Everything and everybody I’d say. The now-and-then craziness of our friends and acquaintances are still bonkers at times – love doesn’t render us blind. Each of us has habits and…quirkinesses others find difficult! But love transcends and acknowledges what is, seemlessly (and for sure sometimes love tells us to hot-foot it out and away, and fast.)
I love the car I drive, the place I’m staying, the pots and pans I use. I thank them as I leave and return, when I turn the key in the locks and when I burn a pan (as this morning) and it comes up shiny and new again. Love just comes and that’s the way of gratitude and of love, not a feeling, more simply of the heart. Just arises without counting the costs, the hurts and disappointments the slights and the worries. Oh, and of course the inter-personals!
I guess there isn’t a thing, not anything, that’s outside or inside for that matter. All the same it’s when we are estranged, leaving, leaving behind, waving good by, that what’s ever-present makes manifest.
These flowers above are in memory of my father who died on the 29th January 2000 and for a chap who is getting ready to exit this world. My kind thoughts to all who suffer with loss and with lost love.
It never is.
But that we could behold our fellow human thus. To appreciate. To admire. Whatever the shape or condition. To not intrude. Obviously. But to allow the depths of us to meet. And to meet and to meet. With no gaps.