Awaken your spirit to adventure

FOR A NEW BEGINNING

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

 

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

 

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

 

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

 

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life's desire.

 

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

 

JOHN O'DONOHUE

From his books 'To Bless the Space Between Us' (US) / Benedictus (Europe)

Into Action

"Peace: to accept what must be.
to know what endures."
Tao Te Ching (Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin), #16

Into Action: What Must Be
There are simple elements that create the core of my world, and working with them, keeping them as my center and my focal point, allows stability to blossom, invites peace into my life from every angle, and ultimately becomes a life that holds me, refreshes and sustains me and those around me. For now, a list will suffice as I become mindful by writing the elements and feeling how they craft a whole, a life greater than the sum of its parts. Once I have written down the path that lies before me, I can graph it into a chart.

What Must Be Daily:

• Quiet waking - 5:30
• Walking in the morning, before the rest of the day has had a chance to write its ways upon my soul.
• Sauna and shower after walking
• Going to work with a calm spirit
• Reading in the tao
• Writing in the journal
• Working mindfully through the day
• Quiet rest in the evenings - dinner & cards
• Quiet rest in the evenings: Reading for class
• Quiet rest for bedtime 

What Must Be Weekly:

• Women's Meeting - Monday
• Acupuncture - Tuesday
• Therapy: Heidi - Tuesday
• Yoga: Tuesday
• Therapy: Family - Thursday
• Yoga - Thursday
• Bake Cookies & Crackers -  Friday,  Saturday
• Library - Saturday
• Friends Meeting - Sunday
• The weekly reset routine - Sunday
• Gym - walk, swim, weights
• Sauna
• Quiet time - silent afternoon
• Fire and television and early bedtime

What Must Be This Month:

• Yoga Therapy - 1/27
• ✓ Register for Classes - 1/9
• Project Development: Food Sales 1/9-1/31
• ✓ Pay Off Credit Cards 1/2
• ✓ Pay Off 2016 Medical 1/3
• ✓ Reduce Legal Debt 1/4
• ✓ Pay Fall Term Balance 1/5
• ✓ Pay Spring Term Deposit 1/6
• ✓ Buy Grain Mill, Pasta Press and Grain Flaker 1/1
• Create brochure
• Flours
• Dry Goods
• Snacks

16: Returning to the root

Returning to the root

Be completely empty.
Be perfectly serene.
The ten thousand things arise together;
in their arising is their return.
Now they flower,
and flowering
sink homeward,
returning to the root.

The return to the root
is peace.
Peace: to accept what must be.
to know what endures.
In that knowledge is wisdom.
Without it, ruin, disorder.

To know what endures
is to be openhearted,
magnanimous,
regal,
blessed,
following the Tao,
the way that endures forever.
The body comes to its ending,
but there is nothing to fear.