When we care for someone or something it is intimate, and it is also particular. We may not realize that those moments of care go beyond the circumstances in which they happen and pool into an ocean of shared care. Now more than ever it’s important to understand this and to hold the world in our embrace one little care at a time. Each one matters more than we know.
Phrases posted on Facebook April 2025
As fledgling contemplatives we spend time noticing, noticing, noticing. It seems forever before noticing becomes something else. What is that?
In sunlight with a magnifying glass focused just so, there will soon be smoke and then fire. Imagine what a loving, human gaze can do. What is that?
When we forget to say thank you, we are taking without receiving. Imagine a little true moment of acknowledged exchange, . . .the smile, the recognition, the warmth. How can we live without that?
Noticing what is too much, we can release it. How liberating to turn towards what is simple and enough, that quiet and enduring feast! What could be more sustainable or better?
Let’s sit where we are and look with wonder at our hands. How many millions of years did it take for hands to emerge for us to have them? And now it is possible to touch everything. Can we do it with love? How wonder-full to sense that in touching we are also touched.
Two days ago, in the middle of April we had hail and 28 degrees in the night. Today it’s cold and sunny. The combo of opposites makes a whole. It’s a truth we can’t ignore. When we notice that we can’t have one without its opposite other, we’ll be more able to take up the slow work of acceptance and awareness.
Could we notice and trust that deep in each of us is an organic movement towards wholeness? It will probably take our entire lifetimes to ripen into it, and it is not something that can be commanded or hurried. Why would we want to miss the juiciness of our journey?
The word kin is in the word kind. If we notice that we are inextricably kin to everyone, isn’t it easier to be kind?
When we over build, the natural habitat for wildlife disappears. We destroy the freedom of countless beings. When we over work, over plan and compensate by over consuming to balance that imbalance, we are destroying the habitat of the wildlife inside us. Can we notice this in time? Teasing myself I might ask, Gunilla where is the sanctuary for your inner moose? Having lived for a little time in the wilds of northern Sweden as a kid, seeing a moose was something powerful and heart opening. We need what is free and wild to remember who we really are.
When so much of what has been is being dismantled and not replaced with anything good, we are in freefall. What can we do that could matter? Of course, call our representatives, but there are little things also that could make a difference like honoring something with our total attention. Drink a glass of water, for instance, with complete presence. Soon water is going to be “owned” by some billionaire and won’t be free. Why not honor an animal, a person, a plant . . . the infinite is right there and in each of us if we could only pause to realize that bigger perspective? Good or bad what we pay attention to will increase.
How often do we start our mornings with questions like these . . . What’s important? What’s mine to do? The answers will be myriad, but underneath them is there not a constant directive? LOVE MORE.
I feel that growing old is a privilege. Not everyone gets to live a long time. Every day is a gift to unwrap and understanding that will keep our complaints at a minimum.
In these difficult times we all need encouragement. The French word for heart is coeur. To give heart (the only one we can give is our own) we lift each other and more heartfulness is present. It’s a universal solvent that is sorely needed.
Have you noticed that under the flow of obligations and preoccupations, there is always a theme in most people’s lives, something held as true and therefore lived? It can be a good thing or a bad one. For example, “life is good, and I am thankful.” Or ‘nothing good ever happens to me.” To be conscious of what we silently whisper to our souls is of utmost importance.
This we know that no matter how much suffering has happened in our lives there have also been glimmers of glory. If we keep harping on what went wrong or wasn’t fair or is regretted, we discard the glimmers, those moments of love that made all the difference, moments in which we realized that having a life at all is a wonderous gift.
We can notice that a rose has a natural scent, and a lemon is wonderfully tart. Likewise, there is in us “that something” which is natural to us, something we are gifted with and embody. Ask a good friend what they notice as natural to you. It takes courage to be what we really are. Why would we want to avoid being that?
