Recovery. Sobriety. Living Wise.
May I strike my heart’s keys clearly, and may none fail because of slack, uncertain, or fraying strings. May the tears that stream down my face make me more radiant: may my hidden weeping bloom. How we waste our afflictions!… They’re really our wintering foliage, our dark greens of meaning, one of the seasons of the clandestine year; not only a season: they’re site, settlement, shelter, soil, abode. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke Poetry … Continue reading Finding A Safe Place
Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are.When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you. ∼ Lao Tzu Contentment? What is contentment? As a younger man I would have choked on the admonition to rejoice in the way things are. It took a long time for a butterfly to find my shoulder. No illustration better describes … Continue reading Finding Contentment
“Life is only as serious or as humorous as YOU make it. Lighten up. Go play softball. Fly a kite. Dance with your dog. Smile… it makes people wonder what you’re up to.” ~ Charlie Brown I don’t want to draw too fine a point on this admission, but I learned a whole lot from reading the Peanuts comic strip growing up. I discovered early … Continue reading Life According To Charlie Brown
When the despair of the world grows in me, and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s life may be, I go lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come … Continue reading On Being Alive
Let me pose this question: Where do you look for your heroes? Are they the brilliant scientists searching out a vaccine for COVID-19? Are they the brave men and women on the front lines fighting fires? Are they the leaders of the protest movements that now encircle the globe? Our heroes tell us a lot about who we are and what we value. Let me … Continue reading What Is A Hero?