Showing posts with label attention to what is. Show all posts
Showing posts with label attention to what is. Show all posts

01 December 2014

Right Now



The mountains are gone this morning, closeted by gray clouds. Everywhere is wet from last night's rain and the start of more today. Night winds blew the tablecloth on the balcony into the arms of a chair as if purposely placed there. I've kept it on late this year with its golden background and whispy gray-green olive leaves in collaboration with the warm, sunny weather of these last three months, autumn stretched into December. 

The vines are bare, pared back after the recent harvest. Pruned olive branches are piled in the groves of our neighbors. Wind blows bits of fog from the hills' crevices and smoke, like a thicker, deliberately-placed fog, dots the fields as discarded branches burn despite the misty rain. The scent is of earth and rain. 

Sun, behind cloud layers, looks more like moon. Andrea Bocelli, on my playlist, fills the room with his glorious voice. As sky lightens and ground fog creeps back, the mountains are suspended in air, blue ghost mountains. There is only this moment of full presence, of clarity and connection.


For Marian's Open Link Monday at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads who talked about the importance of our attention as poets and writing what we experience and who asked us to write about what's going on in our little corner of the world.

14 November 2012

How To Make a Proper Cup of Tea



OUR WHOLE LIFE COULD BE A RITUAL
We could learn to stop when the sun goes down and when the sun comes up. We could learn to listen to the wind; we could learn to notice that it’s raining or snowing or hailing or calm. We could reconnect with the weather that is ourselves, and we could realize that it’s sad. The sadder it is, and the vaster it is, the more our heart opens. We can stop thinking that good practice is when it’s smooth and calm, and bad practice is when it’s rough and dark. If we can hold it all in our hearts, then we can make a proper cup of tea.
- Pema Chodron






My friend, Erin, over at In Search of White Space has been delving deeply and stirring up questions of who I am and why I'm here and what life is really about. When I read the above quote today from Pema Chodron I felt a click inside, a deep 'yes' that attention to what is, and holding it in my heart without judgement of good or bad is my way forward. Then I re-saw the photos of my grandchildren with their knowing of that truth. I made myself a cup of tea.