~ A Joy Warrior's Journey
What was that? You wanted butterflies?
Let me whisper a secret: So did I.
Those wafers of color darting through
the flowers, turning happy somersaults
in the summer air, basking in the sun.
And let’s wish that each flower
is sweeter for them than the last one
and that each moment of their lives
is filled with overflowing joy.
May the bees be blessed,
for they are under assault
as much as we. May flowers,
rich in sweet nectar and deep
with pollen, invite them,
laughing, and may both
the bees and flowers thrive,
and us, too, in a world where
light dances everywhere
and we dine on rich honey
and drink the gold of the sun.
“Congratulations on another day!” the radio host said. I don’t think I ever heard that before, but it certainly resonated with me. I deserved congratulations for keeping my balance so well despite a spate of disruptive events in my life.
As you may have noticed, I haven’t been online for a bit of a stretch. For years now I’ve been heard to utter, “Technology is so wonderful when it works.” This was one of those times when it didn’t. I was in Internet Connection Hell. But valiant knights swarmed in to rescue me, and they were fine, determined men, knowledgeable and most courteous. Still, it took many days to get to the root of the problem.
And it wasn’t just that. My cook top and washing machine died, too, all in the span of a couple days. Meanwhile, close friends were going through difficult personal struggles, and the horrific tragedy unfolding in Maui was breaking my heart.
In the midst of all this, I began to appreciate how valuable all my joy-warrior training has been. It allowed me to keep a perspective as unexpected circumstances pushed me from my accustomed routines. We do like our habits, especially the ones that let us go through our days with some order, efficiency and grace. It annoys us when they’re disturbed.
Still, I noticed, I was surprisingly unperturbed by fairly major interruptions to the usual patterns of my life. I recognized that they were posing some significant challenges. I would have to deal with the hassle and cost of getting service, repairs and replacements. Until I got back online, much of my usual work would have to wait.
But I simultaneously recognized that being upset would only make dealing with everything more difficult. And I saw that understanding as a great gift, one that I had given myself by “walking the talk,” by finding and exercising the practices that lead to enhanced ease and joy. Instead of letting events devastate me, or hurl me into a pity pool, a heartfelt wave of gratitude washed over me for the peace and confidence I felt as, one step at a time, I navigated the challenges.
In a world where things frequently go differently than we wish them to go, it takes practice to keep a balanced perspective. Maintaining inner peace, which is what joy is all about, is a skill as much as an art, or a personality trait, or a product of a healthy upbringing. You need to practice it, to find ways to nurture and grow it. And that’s what the joy tools I find and enjoy sharing with you are meant to do – to help us learn to operate from a center of peace regardless of what circumstances surround us.
I’m always on the lookout for ways to build my joy skills. So when the guy on the radio said, “Congratulations on another day,” and it made me grin, I wrote the sentence down and taped it to my bathroom mirror as an experiment, to see what effects it would produce. It seemed to me a fine thing to say to myself at the end of the day – or at its start, for that matter. It wasn’t about accomplishing anything, or about being a certain way. It was just about being. Period. You’re here. Conscious. Experiencing. Despite all the odds. Congratulations!
My challenges were what they were, I decided, and the rest of the world remained as my laboratory and playground. Acceptance is always such a fine first step.
Then my curiosity kicked in: What would I do with the time I couldn’t spend as I normally did?
I pulled an old set of instructions from my mind’s files that said, “When you don’t know what to do, clean or create.” I decided to start by creating a list of things I could do with this sudden appearance of free time. After all, free time is a great gift when you think about it.
I’m pleased to say that I accomplished a host of worthwhile projects, and had fun doing it. Despite it all. One night while I was wrapping up a journal entry about my responses that day to my restructured world, I found myself writing, “Life is rich.” And so it is. And we get to live it.
Carry on, my friends, and remember to look for the good, regardless. Oh, and Congratulations on another day!
Warmly,
Susan
Image by QuinceCreative from Pixabay
I do not take this green world for granted.
It is the end of August; soon it will be gone.
But not yet. Now, here I am in the midst
of its healing, feeling it penetrate every cell
of my body, absorbing the tones of its song.
Winter will be long. May this green become
a part of me and feed me through the darkness.
May I remember, forever, the bountiousness
of this green world, this dancing peace.
Whether flowing through patches of sunlight,
or drifting through deep summer shade,
whether gliding over rocks and stones,
or parting for the slick darting fishes
or for the paddling of thick, webbed feet,
whether tumbling from heights,
or lingering on the flatlands,
in rain, in wind, beneath starlight,
in snow, the creek has but one guideline:
How easy can I let this be?
Even though the cloudy sky subdued them,
the colors of the meadow caught my eye.
How subtly, I thought, the seasons change,
the Black-Eyed-Susans giving way to goldenrod,
the daisies bowing to the Queen Anne’s lace.
Already the green of the trees is beginning
to move into shades of olive here and there.
So I let this flower-strew field paint itself
into my heart, a portrait of summer
at its turning point, a reminder to cherish
each moment’s beauty, those past
and those that the moment hints will come,
and most of all, and always, this one,
before my eyes right now.
You never know when you start out
what your journey will bring.
Anything you can imagine
is possible, and then some.
It’s all a gift, you know,
a world for you, to explore
your choices, to decide who
you will be, to discover
what you’re made of.
Hold onto your hope and
keep your faith, remembering
that, regardless, light shines
at the end of the road.
Standing in this spot six months ago
I could hardly remember
that the bleak and frozen landscape
could give rise to this,
to trees luxuriant with leaves
and seeds, to velvety grass,
to a field of tasseled corn,
to moist warm air, filled
with birdsong and the fragrance
of summer. And now,
standing in this spot,
it’s hard to imagine
that in a handful of weeks
it will again return to sleep
beneath heaped blankets
of shimmering snow.
Yet here is the vision of it,
clear in my mind, and of springtime,
and autumn as well, the seasons blending
into the whole of this now,
where crows call and the air
is perfumed with summer.
I dip my finger in the nectar to be sure it had cooled
enough to fill the hummingbirds’ suddenly empty feeder.
It had. They’re going through it quickly these days,
storing up extra energy for their upcoming migration.
I slip on my pink rain jacket, pull up the hood,
and walk, giggling, through the rain, the wet grass
tickling my bare feet. When I return to my kitchen
with the feeder, I see a bee has come along for the ride.
I catch him in a jar and take him outside.
As I carry the filled feeder up the hill to its pole, a memory
rises in my mind of Holly, her big umbrella in hand,
walking through a downpour after tending to her chickens.
I smile that we both feed birds in the rain.
At first I mistook them for fleabane,
both having such tiny white flowers,
But as I neared them, I realized they
were something else, something
I had never seen before, inviting
me to take a closer look. “Oh my!
Petals like an orchid and wearing
such delicate dabs of purple!” I say
to myself as I gaze at the little flowers.
I never fail to be amazed at
the intricacies of the world,
at the touching, exquisite details.
It makes me hold my breath in awe
and to feel honored somehow
just to see them, right here, before me.