“Do nothing in a depressed mood, nor as one afflicted, nor as thinking that you are in misery, for no one compels you to that.”

Discourses 1.25.17 [Long Trans.]

Beannacht

BEANNACHT
(Celtic blessing)

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.

And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colors,
indigo, red, green
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight

When the canvas frays
in the boat of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

"Heartbreak is expressed as the distance between X, what is, and Y, the way I want things to be."

Michele Tepper

"Maturity is the ability to do something even though your parents recommended it."

Paul Watzlawick

“If the things independent of our choice are neither good nor evil, and all things that do depend on our choice are in our own power, and can neither be taken away from us nor given to us unless we please, what room is there left for anxiety.”

Discourses 2.13.10 [Higginson Trans.]

[If it was only this easy.]

The Loss of Wonder

One of the most terrible losses man suffers in his lifetime is not even noticed by most people, much less mourned. Which is astonishing because what we lose is in many ways one of the essential qualities that sets us apart from other creatures.
I'm talking about the loss of the sense of wonder that is such an integral part of our world when we are children. However as we grow older, that sense of wonder shrinks from cosmic to microscopic by the time we are adults. Kids say "Wow!" all the time. Opening their mouths fully, their eyes light up with genuine awe and glee. The word emanates not so much from a voice box as from an astonished soul that has once again been shown that their world is fully of amazing unexpected things.

When was the last time you let fly a loud, truly heartfelt "WOW"?
Not recently, I bet. Because generally speaking wonder belongs to kids, with the rare exception of falling madly in love with another person, which invariably leads to a rebirth of wonder. As adults, we are not supposed to say or feel Wow, or wonder, or even true surprise because those things make us sound goofy, ingenuous, and childlike. How can you run the world if you are in constant awe of it?

Of course there are exceptions. One need only look at the astounding success of Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and the novels of Stephen King (the list is much longer than that, thank god), to see that people really are hungry for wonder. Still, most adults wouldn't fess up to that hunger because they don't want to admit how gorgeous it feels to sit transfixed in a movie theater or reading chair, thoroughly absorbed in a world ten times more interesting and vibrant than their own. The human heart has a long memory though and remembers what it was like to live through days when it was constantly surprised and enthralled by the world around it. Unfortunately we have been taught control, control, control all our lives by parents, society, and by our education. If you can't control something, then get rid of it or get out of it or get away from it.

Yet we know that both the heart and the imagination really are most alive when they are *not* in control of things, flying through the air without a safety net below to catch them. To live immersed in wonder means both the unknown and the thrilling surround you, as in a great love affair.

Excerpt from an introduction to the story collection, THE EMPIRE OF ICE CREAM by Jeffrey Ford

There are three things in human life that are important: The first is to be kind, the second is to be kind, and the third is to be kind.
Henry James