The light of awareness enters niches and crevices
long since abandoned to shadow.
We find ourselves once again
at the entrance to the world
and once again bow to life.
….Stephen Levine
descending these strange and beautiful inhabitations make us cry with wind and rain….it is here that light settles and seeps into our hearts….radical awareness moves stones with mist……hold the mountains lightly and drink every drop the river offers…..
To take refuge in the Earth is to come back to our true home. All of us are looking for our true home, the place where we feel safe and sheltered. If we practice mindful breathing and with each breath we get in touch with the Earth, then we will know we”re already home. When we come back to ourselves like this and take refuge in our inner island, we become a home for ourselves and we become a refuge for others at the same time. The deepest teaching I can offer is this: ‘I have arrived. I am home.’ You don’t have to run after anything else anymore. Nothing is missing. I have arrived. I am home….Thich Nhat Hanh
The deeper we go, the more feelings merge. And since joy is the culminating feeling of wholeness, it contains all our emotions and can show its face through anyone. This is why it is difficult sometimes to distinguish a feeling of depth from sadness. Is it sadness we’re feeling or the pure ache of being alive that the pain of some loss has opened? is it sadness we’re feeling or the ache of feeling nothing in the way, an ache that includes our sadness? In a moment of love for another, is it our love for that person alone that overwhelms us or has that love opened a deeper love for the very air that cushions our sorry weight to the ground? Often, it is both. For it seems that, as we grow in the life of Spirit, we are asked to apprentice at living with this heightened sensibility of heart and mind, where we encounter poignancies that are greater and deeper than any one feeling. They are the awakened feelings of the raindrop entering the river and of the cup resting in its given sphere. In living it, this feeling-things-so-deeply-that-they-carry-more-than-one-face can be confusing, but when we can stay with it, we are privileged to find that this is where things are joined. And whenever we begin to sense where things are joined, there the cloak is parted- there we begin to sense Heaven on Earth……..Mark Nepo
Make Believe Boutique 
If it weren’t for sadness many of us would not feel alive. Many find that even though they only feel sad,at least they feel … This is the paradox of post modern life, owning our feelings even though they hurt us. It is a paradox of our times, sold the idea that having any feeling is better than none. The reality is as Hanh suggests, the mere act of breathing allows us to feel deeply, we just don’t label it … Should we avoid labels? We should certainly be mindful of our life … May each breath remind you of the gifts we are given moment to moment …
love this cogent real-world reminder of this raucous, fast world of ‘experience’ much more than being…..well stated……this is where we can see lack or opportunity….emotional intelligence or stagnation…….the quieter I become, the more I realize that the subtletites of beauty are my real treasures….in quietude g.f.s….
O world, I cannot hold thee close enough……
enter quietly
trailing whispers caught in stone
no gift so precious