The past tense, the future perfect

In the Monday mailbox, as the Fall Moon wanes . . .

The prerequisite for true transformation is the radical acceptance – with kindness and compassion – of what is right here, right now amid the flow of the Watercourse, in the mansion of the stars. (Tara Brach and Diane Ackerman).

Following that lede: Claude Monet was born on this day, 180 years ago, in Paris (1840). He and Renoir gave birth to what has become called “Impressionism.” Monet's paintings of the gardens at Gevenchy are among his most famous

It is easy to become so consumed by our fears for this world that we lose balance. . . .It seems as if we humans never learn. Instead, we keep perpetuating the same dysfunctional behavior in every generation. Only now, the continuation of life on this planet is at issue. We not only continue to rely on age-old habits of violence, greed, and deception, but we have put these habits on steroids. . .Because these times happen to be our times, for us they seem uniquely difficult. But it is hard to imagine any time that has not seemed troubled to the people who were experiencing it. . . .to the extent that our world is dominated by hatred, greed, and ignorance . . . it is because we have collectively made it so . . .[But] It is liberating to drop the fantasy of there being a more perfect world, somehow, somewhere, and instead accept that we need to engage with the world as it is. It is our world, it is messy, but it is fertile ground for awakening. It is the same world, after all, that gave birth to the Buddha. — Judy Lief

It is not a fantasy that this is the same universe out of which has emerged every enlightened and loving being that ever there has been, probably is now, and may be tomorrow.

One of the traps I saw I was caught in, was the trap of righteousness that I used to justify my anger. But I saw that love freed me back into the ocean, and that anger didn’t, and that I would rather be free than right. – Ram Dass