Something New and Promising…
“You must have a place to which you can go in your heart, your mind, or your house, almost every day, where you do not owe anyone and where no one owes you—a place that simply allows for the blossoming of something new and promising.” —Joseph Campbell
Seeking out “a place that simply allows for the blossoming of something new and promising,” as Joseph Campbell describes, feels like an act of defiance, of radical hope, amidst election anxiety and devastation around the world.
Yet, it also feels vitally important to find that place again and again to support us in staying attentive to what’s possible.
Where is your place to tend the garden of tender shoots and blooms of hope, possibilities, and dreams? Is it a literal room or corner of a room? Is it an imagined (yet very real) place in your heart or mind?
No matter that it’s fall and a time for letting go. Spring-like seeds of potential can inspire and sustain us anytime and anywhere. How can you nourish and give loving attention to what’s blossoming within you?
Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will sense them.
The least we can do is try to be there; so that creation need not play to an empty house.”
—Annie Dillard
Annie Dillard reminds us of what is waiting for us when we keep our eyes, minds, and hearts open. Attending to that space within that supports us in doing this isn’t a luxury. It expands and strengthens our capacity for blooming no matter what’s unfolding around us.
May you find your place within your heart, mind, or home. And may something beautiful blossom, awakening hope and possibilities within you.
To Choose
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
— Viktor Frankl
Mistakes Lead To…
“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.”
—Albert Einstein
Buttering Toast, Mid-Morning Naps Required
I do not look in the mirror anymore, Win. It is not relevant,
my teacher said. an old lady now. easily worn down.
Her cabin and cushion on the mountain, gone. Her monastery
a care facility somewhere in california where white grapes form.
She lives in simple. all the stuff, all the boxes marked save to-sort
later, gone. No use for calendars, clothes, or new close friends.
How long has it been, Win? I don’t remember.
I say not long. I don’t have the heart to say yesterday.
We laugh out loud together, a pair of old slippers finding their lost
other half under the couch. We slide in together. time dissolves.
memory restored. Not even a blip, she is back, my teacher,
her voice a transmission. She lives on moments,
sun dazzling on the edge of ocean time. on the cusp of awake
alive. rising. falling. rising. falling, I could be
dead-in-the-next-moment time. We laugh some more.
recite memorized poems, and weep.
Without missing a beat she says, Win, how long has it been?
I say not long.
—Winifred Nimrod.
One of the Five Winning Poems of the Thriving Today Poetry Contest.
How are you thriving right now?
