It's quiet out in the garden at the moment. The dew stays on the grass and the veggie patch lies abandoned save a tiny patch of tenacious lamb's lettuce (pictures above). It's easy to think nothing is happening out there but when you stop for a moment and are quiet yourself you realise it's teeming with life. The birds are busy bustling in the bushes, flowers and fungi are bursting through even at the beginning of December and the trees are still shedding their seeds in the hope they'll take root. It is an inspiration.
And a reminder. A reminder that even in this season of quiet and reflection a lot can be happening. A reminder of the beauty that is all around us if we open our eyes, our ears and our hearts and let the world show it to us. An important thing to do I think at a time when the violence and aggression present in our society and so often highlighted by the media can make us forget that we live on an amazingly beautiful blue planet full of love and life and grace.
Again and again I return to Wild Geese by Mary Oliver to remind myself that as Buddha teaches, we are all suffering, life is suffering but no matter our despair and our pain the world is there and keeps offering itself to us
"Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese,"
Open your eyes today, open your ears and see what the world offers you.
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