To Be Patient and Wise

Keep growing quietly

and seriously

throughout your whole development.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Until my physical body no longer exists, I sincerely hope that I will continue to grow both mentally and spiritually, each and every day.  I have always been somewhat of a seeker, but lately, awareness seems to grow more gently within sorting out what I have already gathered.   I no longer wait to set aside time for seeking or learning, as there seems to be a lesson in most anything I see or do.  Life unfolds with its own rhythm in every breath we take.

When we allow life to slow down, we have more patience, and when we have more patience, we have deeper understanding of all that surrounds us.  When life is moving gracefully, we are more apt to catch the beauty seen through other's eyes  and more readily embrace a perception not known to us previously.

The world is rotating, the atmosphere is changing, the seasons are transforming, age is increasing, and perceptions are diversifying.  There is nothing particularly stationary about life and so we learn to navigate through it, best we can.

For some, life feels like a slow boat to China with boredom or isolation, while others experience it as a flash in the pan.  If we strive to stay present, to be aware in each moment there is far greater reward.  All we really have is right now, this instant, to be patient and wise.

Beautiful and Brave

Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only

waiting to see us once beautiful and brave.

Rainer Maria Rilke

This morning I opened my eyes becoming happy with sun

shining through the bedroom window.  I listened to the birds in

the bush chirping away with some deliberate clip, repeating it

over and over.  Did the birds think I would understand what 

they were saying if they repeated it enough?  Trudy, our Tuxedo cat jumped up on my bed, looking at me as though she

were wondering why I was still lounging in my pajamas.  She too was curious with the birds so she sat at the head of the bed, 

nose pressed to the window trying to see them.  She looked at me and began her cat language which I didn't understand either.  She became very insistent in her 'meow' as though surely I was not so stupid as to to not understand.

 I closed my eyes again, and visualized a lovely brook with crystal clear water rippling over marbled pebbles.  I listened to the gurgling water and the sounds communicated a peaceful feeling within.  Freely I breathed in life and easily breathed out what was troubling me.

We are bombarded by messages all day long and actually all night long.  The information comes to us from the media, our jobs, family and friends, plus everything surrounding us.  Our dreams bring us information as well as our thoughts.  In science there is discovery of telepathic communication between animals and we know there is telepathy between humans.  Is much of our thinking just rethinking acquired thought and how much of it is is obtained through the concept of collective thinking?  What percentage is original thought?

The other day a friend was sharing some information she had written in her younger years.  She was laughing as the same material was now published by a different author and identical to her own.  Do we all have access to the same information stored within and we simply don't excavate it? 

Sometimes I visualize Universal Intelligence or Divine shaking a formless head as I once again don't get the message.  I see this All Knowing Spirit communicating to surrounding angels saying, "No, we need to try something else.  She didn't get that either!"  Then they devise a new way of once again presenting the information to me.

How many messages do we miss?  How many opportunities float by us without us giving them the smallest glimpse?  How much inspiration falls by the way side as we fear our dragons rather than embracing the sweet voices of princesses waiting to ignite our passion?  

At what point in life are we willing 

to become beautiful and brave?

Autumn by Rainer Maria Rilke

 

                                                      The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,
                                                as if orchards were dying high in space.                            
                                                Each leaf falls as if it were motioning "no."

                                               And tonight the heavy earth is falling
                                               away from all other stars in the loneliness.

                                               We're all falling. This hand here is falling.
                                              And look at the other one. It's in them all.

                                              And yet there is Someone, whose hands
                                              infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.
                                       
                                        Rainer Maria Rilke 

  Ah, the blissful comfort

                                              of being safely cradled

in Somone's hands.

(This poem was sent to me by a young woman who teaches me through her old soul eyes of innocence, her yearning for answers with a questioning heart, and her euphoric laughter.  Her joyful spirit is sacred company on my too often lonely path.)