As this serene and majestic winter day winds into the night, I am absorbed with the simple luxury of watching the sun’s colors paint the evening sky. What better to be doing than this?
Still I will have time for more books, snow walks in the twilight, contemplation, before rest. I will wish for more before sleep…
The world is so grand in its offerings!
“I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read and all the friends I want to see.”
Is it enough to be you, as you are right now? Is it enough to be present and not consumed by doing? Is it enough not to need anything?
This video by “The Mrs” examines self image, and the book I just finished, “The Map of Enough” ponders what it may look like to be satisfied with now – with where you live, what you have and who you are…
As the New Year of 2015 moves closer, I am examining this concept of enough.
Thankful for all that is and being present to this gratitude is enough more and more of the time.
The fullness comes from the inner gifts, never from outer appearances. From the wildness and completeness of nature, and not from those things that are contrived. From present moments and not busyness. From awareness. From taking a long sweet breath of life, as it is, now.
“Were I called upon to define, very briefly, the term art, I should call it the reproduction of what the senses perceive in nature through the veil of the mist.”
-Edgar Allan Poe
“The joy of looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift.”
“Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”
-Leonardo da Vinci
“The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.”
“I stand before you tonight to represent the people who do not count: The poor, the poets, and monks. As long as there are people who are trying to realize the divine in themselves, there shall be hope in the world.”
—Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton distills the experience of being human in this life. He was a Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky.
As a writer, poet, activist and continual student of comparative religion, he wrote timeless words that continue to resonate and teach. The quote above is from the closing he gave to an interfaith conference in Calcutta in 1968. Thomas Merton transitioned from this life a few days after he spoke these words.
“With freedom, books, flowers and the moon, who could not be happy”
-Gertrude Stein
Indeed. Small and large wonders around us when noticed and absorbed in their fullness can create happiness. There are thousands of other wonders but freedom, books, flowers and the moon are a really good start…..
“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are October’s”
-L. M. Montgomery
“Autumn carries more gold in its pocket than all the other seasons.”
~Jim Bishop
“The time of the falling leaves has come again. Once more in our morning walk we tread upon carpets of gold and crimson, of brown and bronze, woven by the winds or the rains out of these delicate textures while we slept.
How beautifully the leaves grow old! How full of light and color are their last days! There are exceptions, of course. The leaves of most of the fruit-trees fade and wither and fall ingloriously. They bequeath their heritage of color to their fruit. Upon it they lavish the hues which other trees lavish upon their leaves….
But in October what a feast to the eye our woods and groves present! The whole body of the air seems enriched by their calm, slow radiance. They are giving back the light they have been absorbing from the sun all summer.”
~John Burroughs, “The Falling Leaves,” Under the Maples
