Doing Being
In the mailbox this bitterly cold January 29, 2023, Sunday morning in Okieland . . .
"Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar."– attributed to Edward R. Murrow
Our journey on this planet has two significant parts, a first and second half of life, so it is said. The first half is about developing our identity and building some more or less secure foundation for the second half. We cannot do a nonstop flight to the second half of life by reading lots of books about it. . . No pope, Bible quote, psychological technique, religious formula, book, or guru can do this journey we are on for us. Creation has no grandchildren, only children. . . Richard Rohr (adapted)
“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.” — Joseph Campbell
. . . it’s important to stay open and flexible to all the possibilities around us. Of course, we want to have goals and dreams, but it also serves us deeply to stay aware of the unexpected gifts and adventures that life presents us. And no matter how much we hold on to who we have been up to this point, every day is an opportunity to evolve and redefine our identity. – Mark Hyman, M.D. https://drhyman.com/about/
Traveling anywhere, you trust the people who made your trip possible without knowing most all of them. Why, then, would you not trust the unnamable creation with the next moment?
. . . what are we really doing when we are doing what we are doing … ?
Dawdling
In the mailbox this January 27th, 2023,
An explanation: Why spend time with the eddies of The Watercourse:
You miss things when you’re in a hurry. Everything happens so fast in our world that to slow down is to offer the reminder, to yourself and to those who walk with you, that each step is a precious step. It turns out that going slow gets you from one moment to the next just as effectively as going fast, as long as you don’t dawdle. – Susan Moon
Everything is changing constantly, while the awareness, the fact of being aware of sensations and change, does not change.
Speaking of dawdle. Below are two who's dawdling gave us extraordinary gifts . . .
Today is the 267th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The child prodigy was born in Salzburg, Austria (1756). He died on December 5th, 1791 at the age of 35.
Lewis Carroll was also born on this day, but in Daresbury, England and in 1832. Born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, the English logician, mathematician, photographer, and novelist, is especially remembered for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass which contains the poem “Jabberwocky.” He used the pseudonym for all his published non-academic writing
When you give up striving for happiness, guess what happens: . . . happiness.