The Sublime Passage

“Wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving.”~Kahlil Gibran

This morning I am filled with gratitude for what is.

I open my eyes to a benediction of  sunshine after several days of rain here on the East Coast.

The sun reaches its way into my apartment and I am reminded again of how grateful I am for my perch atop this lovely old house for there is no place where the light does not reach. Read more

Like millions of  people across the globe I sat with eyes fixated on the TV screen  as it started to become apparent that Barack Obama would be the next President of the United States.

I woke the next morning feeling a sense of something having shifted. In me. In the world.

Anything and everything seems possible.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
Marianne Williamson – A Return to Love

Several years ago I attended a seminar, the closing event of which is something I will never forget. Read more

I started out my long memorial day weekend on thursday evening excited about the four days which lay before me. Days I was sure I would fill with working on projects at home and enjoying the beautiful weather that was being predicted. Especially given that it would be the first weekend since I moved into The House On The Hill that I could really enjoy being outside. However I did have a list of things I intended to accomplish.

I think my list was a little optimistic. Read more

The Suitor

We lie back to back. Curtains
lift and fall,
like the chest of someone sleeping.
Wind moves the leaves of the box elder;
they show their light undersides,
turning all at once
like a school of fish.
Suddenly I understand that I am happy.
For months this feeling
has been coming closer, stopping
for short visits, like a timid suitor.

Jane Kenyon

A colleague shared this beautiful Jane Kenyon poem with me. It got me thinking about the nature of happiness and what often seems like our never ending quest for it.

I remember for years, wondering when I would be happy. I was waiting for happiness to arrive, and it always seemed to be contingent on something else – the right relationship, finishing my masters degree, earning a certain amount of money, losing 10/20/30 pounds.

When any of the things I thought would yield happiness came, there would be a brief sense of accomplishment and excitement, quickly followed by a feeling of disappointment as I realized that I still wasn’t happy. I always attributed it to the fact that I’d been mistaken. I guess the degree wasn’t the thing that would bring me happiness, it must the relationship. And so I would recommence my wait for happiness to arrive on my doorstep.

After a while I started to feel as if it was never coming and in fact, I started to worry that I wouldn’t even know how to recognize if and when it did come.

Recently, its dawned on me that I was over complicating the issue. Read more