Tag Archives: happiness

Beauty Explains Nothing

15 Sunday May 2016

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sunset, friday night

“Beauty can both shout and whisper, and still / it explains nothing.”

—Mary Oliver, “Leaves and Blossoms Along the Way” from Felicity

These lines caught me immediately.  I’ve been rolling them around on my tongue for days, though part of me wants to erase the second half and still, it explains nothing.  Until this morning, I couldn’t tell you why, exactly, I wanted these words gone, except I didn’t understand what she meant; I wanted to say back, yes, beauty can explain everything.

And then this morning, I read this from Thich Nhat Hanh’s How to Sit : 

“If you ask a child, ‘Why are you eating chocolate?’ The child would likely answer, ‘Because I like it.’  There’s no purpose in eating the chocolate.  Suppose you climb a hill and stand on top to look around.  You might feel quite happy standing on the hill.  There’s not a reason for doing it.  Sit in order to sit.  Stand in order to stand.  There is no goal or aim in sitting.  Do it because it makes you happy.”

There is no purpose.  There is no goal or aim.  Do it because it makes you happy.  And yet, beneath this is the understanding that the meaning is in the mindfulness.  That beauty or action alone explains nothing.  That they are not, in fact, trying to explain anything anyway.

Amidst the industry and utility of this world, I easily forget the simplicity of being.

I forget that we aren’t meant to explain so much as to experience.

Beauty has its way of catching us and bringing us into presence.  Beauty has its way of bringing us beyond the explanation and into the heart of experience.  And so beauty has no duty to explain.  And neither do I, except to tell you what I’ve learned:

Beneath beauty is breath.

You don’t have to explain anything.  Just breathe.  Do it because it makes you happy.

Creatures of Habit

27 Wednesday May 2015

Posted by in Morning Inspiration

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Morning clouds Monday whispered thoughts of rain all morning and afternoon, with undulating gray clouds stretching across the sky.  I was beneath them broad forking the lower field and feeling anxious about money, as so happens from time to time.  As I worked, I listened to an episode of Redefined Life, a podcast my friend Aaron Mead recently began.

The conversation between Aaron and Jeff Shapiro, a wing-suit BASE jumper, played in my ears as I pushed the tines of the broad fork down into soil and pulled back, loosening the bed.  The rhythm of the work slowly eased its fingers into the jumbled knot in my stomach, and as it loosened, the conversation turned to happiness when Shapiro said that happiness is a choice, and that nothing outside of us can give or take away happiness.

The warm air and cloudy sky afforded the perfect temperature to be working outside; the trees in full green framed the field and rose across the hillside into the mountains; my body was moving, and I felt that choice to be happy.

The antidote to anxiousness is presence.  Out in the field, working with soil and plants, I fall into rhythm and it leads me to presence, which in turn opens my body to choices beyond anxiety.  Like happiness, presence and awareness of the now is a choice, and like anything else, the more you practice making that choice, the more you say “yes” to it, the more natural it becomes.

We are creatures of habit.  I’d like my habit to be happiness.

Aaron also interviewed me for Redefined Life.  We spoke about writing, farming, and creating a business.  I was nervous to hear the episode,not quite remembering all that I said, but it served as a reminder to me why I do all that I do.  To hear it, visit Redefined Life online.

Be Happy for the Rest of Your Life

02 Sunday Nov 2014

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“I’ll do it if you agree to be happy for the rest of your life.  Deal?” Edge said.

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay?”

“Happy for the rest of my life.”

“I hope you understand the commitment you just made.”

And with a nod, he handed me the computer cord and plugged in the other end, as I had asked him.

What if we all held each other to such standards?  What if we all helped our partners commit to happiness above all else?  Not just the pursuit of happiness, but actual heart-pumping, lung-filling happiness.

All you have to do is let go of expectations, attachments, and judgements.  Make a commitment to the present moment, and agree to be happy for the rest of your life.

It’s not always easy, but the reward is surely worth it.

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Happiness is on the Wind

02 Monday Jun 2014

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Family Planting“Ever since happiness learned your name, it has been running through the streets trying to find you.” ~Hafiz

How much happiness will flood your life if you open yourself to it?

There are times I trip over clutter in the yurt, and in a fit of exasperation, demand “I need a house.”  There are times stress rises and I think, “I need more money.”  There are times the to-do list feels impossible and I say, “I need more time.”

The reality is that a house may be cluttered, too.  More money may bring more stuff to clutter that house.  More time may trick me into thinking I can add to the to-do list.

What brings happiness?  It is not getting more of these things.  It is pausing to take a breath and to open to all that is already here.  It is coming home after a long day of work and getting my hands dirty.  It is planting seeds–be it vegetable and flower seeds or the less physical seeds of appreciation and joy (a hug, a smile)–and nurturing those seeds from palm to soil so that they may emerge.

Every day we have this opportunity to create life, to plant, to nurture, and in turn to open ourselves to happiness and wonder.

Happiness is on the wind, always swirling around us, sending a warm breeze through our hair to say hello, or blowing a big gust to wake us from the dreariness of a half-waking life.  It wants to infuse us, to tickle us into laughter.

Take a breath, let it in.

 

A New Legend

18 Monday Jun 2012

Posted by in Wildness, Writing

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Once upon a time there lived four friends, Kate, Margaret, Mary and Rachael.  All of them led very happy wondrous lives, but they didn’t get to be together very much since they lived far away from each other.  One day they decided to take a trip together and so the friends flew to Patagonia, where they rode wild horses through the valleys and hiked through the mountains.  At the top of the highest mountain, they met an old woman who had lived there for thousands of years.  She said to them: Hello my friends, you have finally arrived.  She poured them hot tea made with rose petals and hibiscus, along with lemon-rosemary tea cookies she made herself.  They all sat together on the mountain top, warm and full, and smiled at each other, and then smiled at the valleys below them and the sky above them, and smiled for all the life that thrived in the world.  For a long time it was enough to sit in silence with the old woman, though they felt she was telling them a message in the silence itself.  Then, she spoke again It has been good to sit with you she said, smiling, You are strong women with kind smiles.  Someday you will all return, and I will not be here, and it will be you who sits on the tallest mountain, and it will be you who offers tea to those who search, and it will be you who reminds them what happiness is in this vast and intricate world.  Then the wind blew, the old woman smiled, the clouds swirled between them, and the four friends descended from the mountaintop and walked into the valley, where their horses waited at the convergence of two rivers.  They flew through the night back to their country, and after sharing some tea and homemade cookies, the friends said farewell and parted ways.

Every year the four friends gathered together and climbed to the top of a tall mountain.  They brought rose petal and hibiscus tea and ate lemon-rosemary tea cookies.

As they grew older, their faces wrinkled but their bodies stayed strong and their smiles stayed kind.  Many people learned from them: how to climb a mountain, how to dig a garden, how paddle a river, how bake cookies, but most importantly, how to smile simply for the pleasure of smiling.  And the world became brighter with each person they taught.

Then one day, the four friends gathered for a final time and journeyed to Patagonia, where they rode wild horses in the valleys and hiked to the tallest mountain top.  By this time, a thousand years had passed, though Kate, Margaret, Mary and Rachael knew what happiness was and were still strong women with kind smiles.  They came to the peak and found a silver tea set with rose petals and hibiscus, and a plate with lemon-rosemary tea cookies.  As they sat, they saw in the distance a woman riding a wild horse and then hiking up toward them, and they sat smiling, ready to share the tea and cookies, ready to sit with the traveler and smile out into the vast and intricate world.

A Courageous Act

23 Thursday Feb 2012

Posted by in Wildness, Writing

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February 20

A shooting star dashes beside the big dipper.
A Northern Saw-whet Owl continues its call in the hemlocks: too-too-too-too
Monotone, constant, and clear.
 

February 21

I go to the library to renew a book.
“Do I owe anything?”
“No, it’s only one day late, and we have a day’s grace.”
 
I walk outside with a day’s grace and a small smile.
 

February 22

In my journal I write: “I feel stuck at the start.  I know so much of what I want to write–but how to write it?  Then there is that whole part of writing that is a mystery.  What will come out and take form once I start?”
 
After two pages of written frustration, I come to this end: “Take action!  Happiness is always present.  It is a choice.  You can choose it.”
 

February 23

“Happiness is a courageous act!”
I read on the cover of a journal in the Galaxy Bookstore.
 
I pick up a copy of Seven Days, a free weekly newspaper, and read my horoscope: “Gawker.com notes that American politician John McCain tends to repeat himself — a lot. Researchers discovered that he has told the same joke at least 27 times in five years. (And it’s such a feeble joke, it’s not worth retelling.) In the coming week, Pisces, please please please avoid any behavior that resembles this repetitive, habit-bound laziness. You simply cannot afford to be imitating who you used to be and what you used to do. As much as possible, reinvent yourself from scratch — and have maximum fun doing it.”
 
I realize a truth which I have always known, but just now understand.
Life is ENERGY.
ENERGY.
And I ask myself, where is yours going?  What kind of energy is refueling you?
And I remind myself: the only constant is that energy is always moving.  Allow it to do so.  See the world as energy and watch it play~
 

NOW

A shooting star
A day’s grace
A choice
A courageous action
A reinvention
 
The world is inviting me to it,
inviting me to live freely and wildly.
I accept.
 
You are invited, too.

What the Heart Knows

23 Monday Jan 2012

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“Always trust what the heart knows” ~Hafiz

It is the year of the Black Water Dragon in the Chinese Zodiac.  Yesterday in yoga class, my teacher Margaret Pitkin talked about the power of the Dragon and invoking our hearts to dream and to fulfill those dreams.  She shared a story of going into Staples and seeing everyone walking around looking half dead, as if their energy was being sucked from them.  When she walked out of the store, she imagined a world where everyone you meet is inspired and energized.  She said to us, “imagine a world where you wake up every morning, jump out of bed, and shout YES!”  To this, the class laughed and smiled, and I breathed into the joy of the moment.  We spent the rest of the class opening our hearts through shoulder stretches and back bends, making our chests broader and energizing each part of our bodies, from toes to fingertips.

Since winter began, I have been quieting my mind and meeting a kind of happiness that I cannot express in words.  The best I can do is to say it emanates, and I feel it around me and in me equally.  At the same time, I have been exploring the winter woods, and my search for wildness has brought the question of what it means to live wildly myself—what does it mean to have a wild heart?  When Thoreau spoke of wildness, he spoke of the Greek word for beauty or order, which was their name for the world.  In our language, that word is cosmos, and we have come to define it as harmonious order.  The author Jack Turner writes, “in the broadest sense we can say that Thoreau’s ‘In Wildness is the Preservation of the World’ is about the relation of free, self-willed, and self-determinate ‘things’ with the harmonious order of the cosmos.”  The important thing then, is the relationship.  To live wildly, to have a wild heart, one must first wake up to the heart, and then live as part of the earth, recognizing the relationship: we depend on the world for our sustenance and our lives, and the world depends on us to keep a balance and contribute to the harmony.

The heart, the forest, yoga, dreams, wildness, winter, happiness: these are all connected.  To dream is important.  To open the heart is important.  Dreams are realized with an open heart.  An open heart is a wild heart.  A wild heart honors the cosmic connections that keep us alive with energy.

Now I know I am wild, and what is the next step?  I cannot say, but I will trust what the heart knows.