No creature is so tiny that

it lacks isness.

If a caterpillar falls off a tree,

It climbs up a wall in order to preserve its isness.

So noble is isness!

– Meister Eckhart

Yesterday I gave myself a meditative walk down Tennessee Valley to the beach. Today we have rain. I’m with the words of Emily Dickinson:

I dwell in possibility.

We live, immersed, held.  I’m listening to meditations with Sam Harris.  He suggests we have no free will.  There is trust in entering the ocean of waves knowing suspension and whirling as air flows in and out.

This morning the sky was a mix of clarity, fog, and a vibrant pink streak. Now all is blue with some white streaks of clouds. Touch possibility and guidance in change.

Rumi:

Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralyzed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds’ wings.

I’m glad I understand that while language is a gift, listening is a responsibility.

Nikki Giovanni

Might we pause and listen to ourselves?  What is there to receive?

As we prepare for bed at night, we could activate the advice of the philosopher Spinoza and ask ourselves three questions.

What inspired me today?

Where did I experience peace, balance, comfort, or satisfaction?

What made me happy today, what, not who?

When Kobun Chino Otagawam, a Zen priest, shot an arrow over the target into the ocean at Esalen he shouted, Bullseye.   When he did it three times, he was asked “Where’s the target?”  He answered “Everywhere!”

Albert Einstein:

Never lose a holy curiosity.

Diane Ackerman:

Wonder is the heaviest element on the periodic table. Even a tiny fleck of it stops time.

A father and son were fishing today at the beach. The young boy, perhaps five years old, opened a bag to show me the fish they’d caught. They were small and not so many so he said next time he would give me some. Generosity on an exquisite winter day as the Holidays are on gentle and seasonal approach, reflecting the tides.

I offer words of Howard Thurman:

Christmas Returns

Christmas returns, as it always does, with its assurance that life is good. It is a time of lift to the spirit,

When the mind feels its way into the commonplace,

And senses the wonder of simple things: an evergreen tree, Familiar carols, merry laughter.

It is the time of illumination,

When candles burn, and old dreams Find their youth again.

It is the time of pause,

When forgotten joys come back to mind, and past dedications renew their claim.

It is the time of harvest for the heart,

When faith reaches out to mantle all high endeavor,

And love whispers its magic word to everything that breathes.

Christmas returns, as it always does, with its assurance that life is good.

Accompanied by two quotes, I head out the door for a walk in my neighborhood.

Stanley Kunitz: “It is out of the dailiness of life that one is driven into the deepest recesses of the self.”

Kabir: I felt in need of a great pilgrimage, so I sat still for three days.