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Kate Spring

~ growing a deep-rooted life

Kate Spring

Tag Archives: peace

Beauty Explains Nothing

15 Sunday May 2016

Posted by Kate Spring in Morning Inspiration, Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

beauty, breath, happiness, inspiration, Mary Oliver, meditation, peace, poetry, spirituality, Thich Nhat Hanh

image

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.

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There Is Nothing Wrong With the World

24 Tuesday Apr 2012

Posted by Kate Spring in Wildness, Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

change, environment, local, nature, peace, place, Vermont, wildness

I spent the weekend in Woodbury, Vermont at Wisdom of the Herbs School.  For two days we walked on the land, slowly, meeting early spring wild edibles and flowers.

On Sunday, George, one of our teachers, put this idea out to the class:

There is nothing wrong with the world.

For two days, I have not been able to leave this thought.  Wild leeks, corn lily, blue

cohosh, trillium, spring beauty, marsh marigold, American dwarf ginseng, trout lily, wild lettuce, coltsfoot, and dutchman’s breeches–these plants are evidence.  There is nothing wrong with the world.

And yet, how quickly that notion can become lost in anxiety during conversations of genetically modified food, habitat destruction, and carbon levels.  How strong the pull of sadness can be–so strong that I sometimes find myself grieving for the world.

And yet, yellow-bellied sap-suckers, chickadees, red-winged black birds, robins, goldfinches, white-breasted nuthatches, crows and ravens–these birds are evidence.  There is nothing wrong with the world.

Annie, our herbal teacher, said to us: Humans do belong here.  We have a special place in the world–our feet are rooted in the earth and our heads are in the heavens.

We do have the power of balance.

We can remember this.

There is nothing wrong with the world.

There is nothing wrong with the world, so let us look deeply and ask, what is it that really needs to change?  And then let us remember how to balance.

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Welcome!

Kate Spring

Kate Spring

Welcome to The Good Heart Life: an organic gardening and lifestyle blog where we grow beauty, joy, and nourishment for the body, soul, and earth. I'm Kate Spring: organic farmer, mother, and chief inspiration officer at Good Heart Farmstead and The Good Heart Life. Grow along with us, and together we'll cultivate a more lively, joyful world one {organic} seed at a time.

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