My New Age version of Humpty Dumpty - misspelled and all...

Humpety Dumpety sat on a wall, Humpety Dumpety started rockin' and thought he might fall. But his joy and enthusiasm came to call and Humpety Dumpety was surrounded by vibrations of golden light that lifted him into the air to float easily over the farmyard until he saw his mother Mama Dumpety. Mama opened her wings for Humpety to get underneath where he was warm and filled with the light. In a few days he broke out of his shell into joyous chickhood.

Sharon talked me into putting this humorous jotting from my notebook in the blog for comic relief.

From my Collected Notes while reading "A New Earth"

One of the things I enjoyed about A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle was the stories he told that illustrated the principles he was discussing. Here's one:

The Story of Tanzan and Ekido. Two Zen monks were walking along a country road that had become muddy after heavy rains. Near a village, they came upon a young woman who was trying to cross the road, but the mud was so deep it would have ruined the silk kimona she was wearing. Tanzan at once picked her up and carried her to the other side.

The monks walked on in silence. Five hours later, as they were approaching the lodging temple, Ekido couldn't restrain himself any longer, "Why did you carry that girl across the road?" he asked. "We monks are not supposed to do things like that."

"I put the girl down hours ago," said Tanzan. "Are you still carrying her?"

******

pg. 141 "We can learn not to keep situations or events alive in our minds, but to return our attention continuously to the pristine, timeless present moment rather than be caught up in a mental movie-making. Our Presence becomes our identity rather than our thoughts and emotions."

The Flower of Self-Blessing

Here is part of a poem by Galway Kinnell

“for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on the brow of the flower and retell it in words and in touch it is lovely until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing…”

We, you and I, are full of life, unfolding into flower. A blessing is an act of reverence, usually freely given from one to another, and traditionally within some religious context, but in this poem Kinnell says that the deepest blessing comes from ourselves. It arises, spontaneously, from the silence in us. Or not.
Blessings give life meaning, make life richer. Like the feeling of emerging from cloud cover into an endless expanse of blue. Like a flood of warmth from the top of your head down to your toes. Or like the sensation of belonging, of realizing that you have your own unique place in the family of things. A blessing is an influx of grace.
To listen quietly and deeply to the stirring of your own life is an act of self-blessing. To be kind to yourself. To have faith that your life has its own intelligent design and is doing exactly what it needs to, even if it doesn’t feel that way; that is a blessing.