The seasons keep turning no matter how much I cling to the wish for summer to last longer. Today I realized that I’ve been feeling sad and that my sad feelings are based in my imagining and dreading what the coming winter will be like.
Instead of appreciating the present moment I am getting lost in picturing the long cold winter ahead.
There is
No Escape
from seasons turning or from this body of mine aging. That is a simple truth. But I can learn to be kind and gentle with my foibles, accepting my feelings and thoughts and making choices to be present to whatever comes my way.
The whole journey of renunciation, or starting to say yes to life, is first of all realizing that you’ve come up against your edge, that everything in you is saying no, and then at that point, softening. This is yet another opportunity to develop loving-kindness of yourself, which results in playfulness―learning to play like a raven in the wind.
― The Wisdom of No Escape: How to Love Yourself and Your World
Loving this life and this world means greeting the feelings, wishes, losses and regrets of my days along with the possibilities, beauty, wonder, and delights. It means opening myself to curiosity about what is going on inside me as well as what is going on in the world around me.
Life’s work is to wake up, to let the things that enter into the circle wake you up rather than put you to sleep. The only way to do this is to open, be curious, and develop some sense of sympathy for everything that comes along, to get to know its nature and let it teach you what it will. It’s going to stick around until you learn your lesson, at any rate.
― The Wisdom of No Escape: How to Love Yourself and Your World
Being Here Now
Earlier this week I noticed that rafts of migrating coots were once again gathering on Medicine Lake. And while I love to watch them, the sadness that I felt realizing that fall was really underway now almost made me cry. Once the coots arrive other migrating birds are sure to follow and cold weather will also arrive sooner than I am ready.
I took a walk at French Regional Park yesterday morning. During the walk I was filled with a bit of sadness about the season changing and also with curiosity about what I might see along my path. At first it was hard to let go of the regret I felt for summer’s end. But slowly I began to see the perfection and wonder of this moment in time. And as I walked along I found myself thinking, “Photograph what you feel, not what you see.” So that is what I did. And the photos turned out to be a blend of poignant reminders of beauty and loss.
Do you mourn the season’s turn towards winter too? At the same time can you appreciate the beauty and wonder of this season?
Loving-kindness—maitri—toward ourselves doesn’t mean getting rid of anything. Maitri means that we can still be crazy after all these years. We can still be angry after all these years. We can still be timid or jealous or full of feelings of unworthiness. The point is not to try to change ourselves. Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It’s about befriending who we are already. The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are right now, just as we are. That’s the ground, that’s what we study, that’s what we come to know with tremendous curiosity and interest.
― The Wisdom of No Escape: And the Path of Loving-Kindness
May you walk in beauty.
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