Do we need to watch out?
March 19
Sylvia Plath, often a dark poet, gives us these joyful words:
I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, “This is what it is to be happy.”
This seems to describe a moment of insight, of happiness . . . which can often happen in an unexpected moment, like the inhaling of a breath (and air, mountains, trees, and people).
March 20
In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.
MARGARET ATWOOD
Gardening is a wonderful way to be in the moment.
To be grounded.
Of the earth.
Can you imagine a way to get involved with the dirt of the earth?
Imagine it.
March 21
There are about as many molecules in a thimbleful of water as there are thimblefuls of water in all the oceans of the Earth.
CHET RAYMO
Do you—as I—have a difficult time wrapping your mind around that?
Nevertheless it's true.
So much beyond our imagining! So much!
Imagine . . .
March 22
I can calculate the number of thimblefuls of water in the sea, but I have no way of knowing how many galaxies there are in the universe . . . or even how many universes might exist.
CHET RAYMO
Maybe read that again. Then:
. . . from contemplating universes
to placing yourself in this moment right now . . .
In this little dot of a place, here . . .
It can help with perspective.
March 23
Una de las cosas más agradables de la vida: ver cómo se filtra el sol entre las hojas.
One of the most pleasurable things of life: to see how the sun filters through the leaves.
MARIO BENEDETTI
Ah simplicity!
I recall once when sun filtered through leaves gave me peace.
Can you?—or some similar natural event?
Watch for sun through leaves this spring.
March 24
Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
It might help in heeding this Emersonian advice to recall that we are indeed part of nature—so the leap to patience feels a bit closer.
Pace: the rate of speed one goes through life.
Yours?
March 25
This is from Mark Twain:
It's spring fever.
That is what the name of it is.
And when you've got it, you want—oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!
So many comments about spring deal with this theme: the longing of our hearts. For a moment, just be with that feeling . . .
. . . or recall it. After all, it is spring.
“You want it so!”
March 26
It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.
LEO TOLSTOY
Think of instances when the beautiful is not good . . .
. . . and the good is not beautiful.
Then bring to mind a happy moment when they do come together.
March 27
Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.
JOHN RUSKIN
Well, I can think of times when it would be hard not to call the weather bad:
Katrina, Sandy?
This brings to mind an old Swedish saying: There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing.
So what's the weather right now? Good? Bad? Can you dress for it?
March 28
Early youth is a baffling time.
BRUCE CATTON
When you were young, do you remember thinking “How am I going to figure all this out?!”
So, how did you?
Or did you?
Or are you, like me, still figuring it out?
March 29
Sculptors, poets, painters, musicians—they're the traditional purveyors of Beauty. But it can as easily be created by a gardener, a farmer, a plumber, a careworker.
CHARLES DE LINT
Oh yes! Oh yes!
Has Canadian novelist de Lint hit upon an idea for our times?
Where is beauty for you?
Who creates beauty in your life?
In