Almost!
such a difference one word can make:
Almost trampled
in the dusty gutter
a songbird’s wing
Like A Dragon in Water
Practice is not something we do; it is something we are. We are not separate from our practice, and so no matter what, our practice is present. An ocean swimmer is loose and flows with the current and moves through the tide. When tossed upside down in the surf, unable to discern which way is up and which way is down, the natural swimmer just lets go, breathing out, and follows the bubbles to the surface…
– Pat Enkyo O’Hara Roshi, from “Like a Dragon in Water,” Tricycle, Summer 2002
By the light of the boon
The essence of the hero’s journey is that one returns with the boon: one boon, no more no less. The hero’s journey is a vision quest; the boon is the vision. The vision is not an altered-state vision of heaven and its inhabitants, but something much simpler and deeper than that—a clear vision of your own heart.
The paradox is that you were always already carrying the boon. It was always in your heart. But now that you know you have it, the boon must be brought back into your ordinary life. It must be realized. That’s the meaning of bringing it back with you. It becomes your path, your guide, your way forward. At every fork where you must make a choice, the boon shines a light of clarity, and as you choose what it shows, it suffuses your life with meaning.
The hero’s journey is a journey deep into the deepest core of your own heart, at the end of which you come back and live what you found there with all your heart, for the rest of your days.
“
Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.
Eleanor Roosevelt
“
(this post was reblogged from wildcat2030)
We can make our minds
so like clear water
that beings gather around us,
that they might see their own images,
and so live for a moment
with a clearer, perhaps even fiercer life
because of our quiet.
so like clear water
that beings gather around us,
that they might see their own images,
and so live for a moment
with a clearer, perhaps even fiercer life
because of our quiet.
William Butler Yeats (via crashinglybeautiful) (via wildcat2030)
—Jillian Kulesa
