Tag Archives: Simple Life

Opportunities for Kindness

This is not a new story having made the rounds on Facebook and other social media, but for reasons that are hard to articulate it has profound impact and it seemed good and right for these words from a New York City cabbie (see the story below) to find a home here too.

Everyone is on a personal journey.  Bryce, Raven 2

 

 

It may not be possible to know at what point in their journey that a fellow traveler will be met.Raven Chat

 

Opportunities for kindness may cross a day that if taken will have an impact that is deep, everlasting and profound.

 

A New York City Taxi driver wrote:

“I arrived at the address and honked the horn. After waiting a few minutes I honked again. Since this was going to be my last ride of my shift I thought about just driving away, but instead I put the car in park and walked up to the door and knocked.. ‘Just a minute’, answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor.

After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 90’s stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940’s movie.

By her side was a small nylon suitcase. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets.

There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard
box filled with photos and glassware.

‘Would you carry my bag out to the car?’ she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman.

She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb.

She kept thanking me for my kindness. ‘It’s nothing’, I told her.. ‘I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother to be treated.’

‘Oh, you’re such a good boy, she said. When we got in the cab, she gave me an address and then asked, ‘Could you drive
through downtown?’

‘It’s not the shortest way,’ I answered quickly..

‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘I’m in no hurry. I’m on my way to a hospice.

I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were glistening. ‘I don’t have any family left,’ she continued in a soft voice..’The doctor says I don’t have very long.’ I quietly reached over and shut off the meter.

‘What route would you like me to take?’ I asked.

For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator.

We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl.

Sometimes she’d ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.

As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, ‘I’m tired. Let’s go now’.
We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico.

Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move.
They must have been expecting her.

I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair.

‘How much do I owe you?’ She asked, reaching into her purse.

‘Nothing,’ I said

‘You have to make a living,’ she answered.

‘There are other passengers,’ I responded.

Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug. She held onto me tightly.

‘You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the dim morning light. Behind me, a door shut. It was the sound of the closing of a life..

I didn’t pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly lost in thought. For the rest of that day, I could hardly talk. What if that woman had gotten an angry driver, or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away?

On a quick review, I don’t think that I have done anything more important in my life.”

Our lives are made of these woven together moments.  Most are not grand.  Only in retrospect may we know just how many were.

May we all know the importance of traveling our journey fully awake, with responsive kindness and with wide open heart.

Raven Child Portrait

The Treasure is Inside You

“The treasure that you are seeking, is inside you.
The beauty of the sound is that it opens doorways for you to go inside…
to make contact with that which you already have”.
~Tom Kenyon

Light Writing - Heart (2)

“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”

-Carl Jung

…”Your still, quiet waters run deep. Go to the water.  Ask. Listen. The advice you seek is in YOU.”

-Kris Carr

 

The inner world is a big, ever and all knowing universe.   As huge as the expanding cosmos, a lifetime of exploration contained there.  The vibration of atoms and quarks and bosons constantly moving and creating.   As the movement of the Milky Way, constellations, star nebulas so the movement and vibrations of particles that make up everything.  We are made of stardust!

Human Body

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“The cosmos is within us.                                                                        We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”

-Carl SaganPrayer Flags

 

Nature’s Art – A Gallery of Photos

“What is art but a way of seeing?”

-Saul Bellow

“What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility.  This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.”

-Albert Einstein

 

 

Seeing the Spring Come In

“One attraction in coming to the woods to live was that I should have leisure and opportunity to see the Spring come in.”

-Henry David Thoreau

Sidewalk Patterns

“Sit quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.”

-Zen Saying

 

“The force of Spring – mysterious, fecund, powerful beyond measure.”

-Michael Garofalo

 

Walking Meditation

Ferns in the LightWalking, rambling, wandering in nature, creates an absorbing meditative state.  Interconnections are felt as a natural presence and awareness is sharp but relaxed and calm.

Cultivating a mindful state too while walking is restful and peaceful.  A day begun in this way sets the energy for all that will follow.

The Willows, Tree Detail

 

In this calm, meditative state there is also stimulating brain benefits.

 

Your brain after a walk!

brain-on-a-walk-e1399039790379

“Wildmind” provides resources for walking meditation.  Learn the “how to do it” and the “whys” of walking meditation’s benefits by checking out the link below:

http://www.wildmind.org/walking/why

Driveway in Fog

“In beauty may I walk.
All day long may I walk.
Through the returning seasons may I walk.

Beautifully will I possess again.
Beautifully birds . . .
Beautifully joyful birds

On the trail marked with pollen may I walk.
With grasshoppers about my feet may I walk.
With dew about my feet may I walk.

With beauty may I walk.
With beauty before me, may I walk.
With beauty behind me, may I walk.
With beauty above me, may I walk.
With beauty below me, may I walk.
With beauty all around me, may I walk.

In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, lively, may I walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, living again, may I walk.

It is finished in beauty.
It is finished in beauty.”

A Navajo Indian Prayer of the                                                       Second Day of the Night Chant (anonymous)

May you walk in beauty and calm attention today, breathing sweetness and wonder with every step.

Enjoy the Passage of Time

Chateau St. Michele, Tree Roots“The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.”

-James Taylor

The hurry sickness has left me.  The ease of the morning to contemplate life, nature, the day, fulfills a longing to sit with the purity of being here now.  Hearing those words, there is a knowing, a real knowledge, that being fully present, attentive, focused, and aware truly does bring peace.  The gift of life is acknowledged in these moments – and these moments expand to hours and inform the days.

The house still needs to be cleaned, bills paid, the plants tended… with the awareness of the morning extended, these small tasks take on a sacred feeling.  Every movement a prayer.  This is not a constant state of course – for me.  The periods of time though are extended more and more….  I need so much less to feel full.  Less activity, less doing, more be-ing is a grace filled way.

Leaf with Two Suns

 

“Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”

-John Lennon

Get Into the Forest Again

The forest is a sanctuary, a temple of contemplation, connection and peace.   Serenity surrounds with a warm cohesiveness – an encasing womb.  Comfort, meditation, life expressing itself, all waiting for our immersion.  Honest and raw.  Inviting and absorbing.  A sweet embrace.

When you can, get into the forest again!

Deer & Woods“When we get out of the glass bottle of our ego and when we escape like the squirrels in the cage of our personality and get into the forest again, we shall shiver with cold and fright. But things happen to us so that we don’t know ourselves. Cool unlying life will rush in.”

D.H. Lawrence

Soft Stream in the Forest

 

“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”

-John Muir

Forest Mystery

“We must not always talk in the market-place                                  of what Little Tree, Bright Greenshappens to us in the forest.”

-Nathaniel Hawthorne

 

 

 

“A forest bird never wants a cage.”

-Henrik Ibsen

Raven

“When the oak is felled the whole forest echoes with its fall, but a hundred acorns are sown in silence by an unnoticed breeze.”

-Thomas Carlyle

Forest Detail

Night Music

There are places where you can love the night.  Under the big sky, when cares are far away, as calm peace absorbs the day.  Stars to get lost in,  time does not work as when sunshine warms. Alone with yourself.  The dog breathing. The stars and night breathing too.  And the trees. The moon hidden.

Night wonders deep and satisfying.

“I want to live my life so that my nights are not full of regrets.”

-D.H. Lawrence

Full Moon over Tall Trees

“What hath night to do with sleep?”

-John Milton – Paradise Lost

“Late, by myself, in the boat of myself,
no light and no land anywhere, cloudcover thick
I try to stay
just above the surface,
yet I’m already under
and living with the ocean”

-Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi
City Beach, Frozen Lake, Mountains with Lights

“Life is grace. Sleep is forgiveness. The night absolves.     Darkness wipes the slate clean, not spotless to be sure,             but clean enough for another day’s chalking.”

-Frederick Buechner, The Alphabet of Grace

“The world rests in the night. Trees, mountains, fields, and faces are released from the prison of shape and the burden of exposure. Each thing creeps back into its own nature within the shelter of the dark. Darkness is the ancient womb. Nighttime is womb-time. Our souls come out to play. The darkness absolves everything; the struggle for identity and impression falls away. We rest in the night.”

-John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

Here’s to the night and the promise of a new day dawning…

(written at 3am!)

Night Sky with Clouds

May Day!

Singing with the flowers, feeling the forest’s music, listening for raven song.  Seeing connections large and small. May is sure to be filled with simple pleasures that are deeply fulfilling.

Unfolding, evolving, expanding, deep breathing earth mirrors our own journey through the season.

A “cross-quarter day” of importance in Celtic festivals this day was also the first day of Summer in early European history.  An important marking of time is this day!

Pike's Market, Flowers

Dances, singing and cake are part of the official celebration of this first day of May, May Day, across our planet – a spring holiday for many, I hope you too will celebrate Spring, flowers, nature, life and connections with cake, singing and dancing!

Red Flowers, Big Sur

 “Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things”

-Robert Brault  Yellow Flowers Luminance

Tulips, Market

“May you live all the days of your life.”

Yellow Flowers in Spring-Jonathan Swift

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Awareness

“Earth’s crammed with heaven…

But only he who sees, takes off his shoes.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh

Leaf with Two Suns

“Truth is not something outside to be discovered,

it is something inside to be realized.”

Osho

Leaf, Close Up, On Water2

“Thought can organize the world so well that you are no

longer able to see it.”

-Anthony de Mello