Along the Dodder

Tuesday 20th November 2012

Oh the joy of being alive on these beautiful mornings. I’m lucky to live close by the River Dodder and there are some beautiful walks along its banks. My reflections today come in the form of haiku.

autumn morning

the sun follows me
along the path

More Questions

Monday November 19th:

I had taken a few steps outside my door today with the intention of going for walk when I instantly turned back towards the house. When I was reminded that the brilliant sunshine was making me squint, I thought I had better go back to look for my sunglasses.

I looked in all the usual places but no sign of them. I was on the point of giving up and saying this is a waste of time and a waste of the precious sunshine which I was eager to get out into when suddenly I found myself hovering around the magazine rack in my sitting room and then the memory came to me instantly, of about a week or two ago, of tidying out my bag and putting my reading glasses into their case and then I put something on top of the magazine rack which fell down at the back of it.

Now the magazine rack is almost up against the wall, but not fully so, thereby creating a little gap for something to fall off it. The rack is only small and light with a fairly narrow table top so it’s easy for something to fall off it. I could suddenly recall having said to myself at the time, you should pick that up now while you think of it because chances are if you don’t, you’ll forget about that and then be looking for it at some later stage. This little inner prompting was instantly ignored by a kind of lazy, ah I’ll do it later type of attitude; Just a stubborn refusal to budge. It would have taken half a second to lean over and pick up whatever it was that had fallen. Such a small thing to do and such a small thing to write about and in case any of you might admonish me for being too hard on myself, which is a very new age kind of love yourself type of thing that’s preached at people these days for good old fashioned examination of conscience, I would maintain that it is vital to be ruthlessly honest with ourselves, not beating oneself up as people might call it but recognizing every small little action has a result, and the result might not be to my ultimate benefit.

At the stage I was looking today, all I knew was that I had dropped something at the back of the magazine rack and that it may or may not be the sunglasses. Anyway I was thrilled when I found them; that usual sort of pleasure you get from finding something you’ve lost, but also thrilled for another reason because to me it represented a lesson that life was trying to teach me and which I’ve already written about a few days ago in this blog about following that instinct to do what I’m being prompted to do at the time, rather than say, oh yeah, I’ll do it in a minute.

Now when I write about doing instantly what I’m being prompted to do in the moment, I must equally recognise that this does not mean doing everything I’m being prompted to do in the moment. This is where the spiritual practice of discernment comes in and unlike the prompting mentioned above to follow a simple inner command to pick up the glasses now, or sit down and write now, I must equally distinguish between other types of instant action that is more to do with reaction and making assumptions without first finding out the facts, the type of instant reactions that lead to arguments and misunderstandings which we may later regret and while I’m on this topic, I find myself asking the question does failure in one area lead to failure in another area. If one is used to giving in to one’s whims and not having sufficient will power, does it lead to lack of control in one’s emotional life, over reacting, judging, flying off the handle, taking things personally and making assumptions.

So a while back I was in a book shop and lifted up a book simply called Willpower by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney. You may agree or disagree, but something in this description makes me feel I’m being pointed in the right direction.

The description of the book on Amazon is as follows;

Pioneering research psychologist Roy F. Baumeister collaborates with New York Times science writer John Tierney to revolutionize our understanding of the most coveted human virtue: self-control. Drawing on cutting-edge research and the wisdom of real-life experts, Willpower shares lessons on how to focus our strength, resist temptation, and redirect our lives. It shows readers how to be realistic when setting goals, monitor their progress, and how to keep faith when they falter. By blending practical wisdom with the best of recent research science, Willpower makes it clear that whatever we seek—from happiness to good health to financial security—we won’t reach our goals without first learning to harness self-control.

A strong man masters others. A truly wise man masters himself.

Taoist saying

In The Garden

Sunday 18th November

I had been looking at my front garden for days looking a bit bedraggled and had been intending to get around to tidying it up a bit.

When I saw what a nice crisp day it was today, I got the rake out and raked up all the leaves on the grass and then swept the remaining leaves that were on the pathway.

As I was raking up the leaves, I heard the voice of a solitary blackbird keeping me company and so I wrote the following haiku:


raking up leaves
a solitary blackbird
serenades me

And to complete today’s reflection, a nice picture and a few lines from the master WB Yeats

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine and fifty swans.

from The Wild Swans at Coole
by William Butler Yeats

Looking For An Original Voice

Reflection Sat Aug 17th


When I awoke this morning, the first word that sprung to mind when I thought what I would write today was the word ‘platitude’. It just seemed to come out of nowhere.
I remembered the first time, I encountered that word, I had written an essay for a teacher who was herself an accomplished writer and a prize winner for some of her writing, and I remembered being so chuffed when she wrote a comment on one of my essays saying ‘one of the most original essays I have ever read on this topic.’ The title was ‘My Own Personal Hell’. She then went on to say, she found it very helpful. It was either helpful or hopeful. I couldn’t quite make out that bit of the handwriting, and then she added, ‘but do avoid the odd platitude which creeps in and spoils an otherwise original essay.’

At that stage of my life, I had actually not come across the word ‘platitude’ before, and so the dictionary was pulled out and consulted, and while I know now what it is, I once again consulted it, for a reminder of how it is defined.

Platitude: ‘Trite or commonplace remark esp. one solemnly delivered, dullness, insipidity’ and then I was kind of seized with a sort of sense of dread, followed by a kind of ‘why even bother, what good did writing ever do’ sort of question, and I thought of the line I heard somewhere, ‘I had a very good education, it took me a long time to get over it, ‘ and I wondered does formal education takes us into vanity and ego which takes us further away from a truly original voice, and then I thought of all the great artists who stand out because of their originality and who can therefore offer to the world a new vision, a new way of seeing, and it occurred to me that this must take not only great courage, but also something in one’s formation that is not hindered, and if one’s unique individuality was and is hindered, how does one recover their own authentic and unique voice?

For this question, I have selected the following poem by John O’Donohue from Benedictus:

For The Artist at the Start of Day

May morning be astir with the harvest of night
Your mind quickening to the eros of a new question,
Your eyes seduced by some unintended glimpse
That cut right through the surface to a source.

May this be a morning of innocent beginning,
When the gift within you slips clear
Of the sticky web of the personal
With its hurt and its haunting,
And fixed fortress corners,


A morning when you become a pure vessel
For what wants to ascend from silence,

May your imagination know
The grace of perfect danger,

To reach beyond imitation,
And the wheel of repetition,

Deep into the call of all
The unfinished and unsolved

Until the veil of the unknown yields
And something original begins
To stir towards your senses
And grow stronger in your heart

In order to come to birth
In a clean line of form,
That claims from time
A rhythm not yet heard
That calls space to
A different shape.

May it be its own force-field
And dwell uniquely
Between the heart and the light

To surprise the hungry eye
By how deftly it fits
About its secret loss.

Seeing Things In A New Light

Reflection                                                                                                           16^th November 2012

Sometime on these short wintery days when it gets dark at about 4.30pm, we can get a bit despondent.  Natural light or indeed the absence of it definitely seems to affect mood.  We’ve heard about SAD, seasonal associated disorder, so it’s no surprise that lack of light can cause depression, and yet it was in the depths of winter that I was surprised to see something in a completely new light, almost as if seeing it for the first time.  This was a very large tree close to where I live and totally bereft of leaves, and  it struck me that sometimes we look at things and yet don’t really see them and perhaps it is when we experience darkness, that we are closer to illumination, to truly entering into the eternal present and so I wrote the following poem, and below that I leave you with those beautiful lines from William Blake.

Winter Tree

Driving down Eglinton Road

I asked myself how come

I’d never noticed you before?

Certainly not in winter

When you stood out in front of me

In your nakedness

I wasn’t expecting beauty

In bare winter branches as you stood there

Doing your treelike thing

Of sprawling upwards and outwards,

And as I gazed at you more intently,

You sent me your defiant winter vibe:

“I’m here starkers beside the dual carriageway

No fancy gown of leafy green for me these days

Take me or leave me just as I am today”.

Like a prizewinning piece of sculpture

You spoke to me that day;

“Hey you, WAKE UP

You’ve never seen me like this before”.

Published in Static Poetry III and News Four

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour.

William Blake

Unavoidable Questions From Wednesday

Reflection                                Thursday 15th November                                                                                         

                             

As a follow on from Wednesday’s reflection, one thing occurred to me, if I had attended to this writing and posting on Wednesday , the same day I was on the bike and the same day I got the inner prompting to do this,  I would not now be a day behind with my daily reflections.   

So why did I not follow through on my own inner prompting?  Why did I not follow the command from the higher self or soul and instead succumb to the desire for escape and comfort, to lounge about a bit more, to escape  to that nice little café up the road to have yet again another daily cappuccino  or to escape into the kitchen to have some biscuits that I didn’t really need and to while away the day being  compelled to live from habit rather than take the risk of something a bit daunting and scary?  Why did I linger in bed for an extra hour because I dreaded getting up and facing into the day?

Are we affected by every simple little choice we make?  What choices leave us feeling disappointed? What choices bring us peace and a feeling of accomplishment?  Have we wasted time that could have been used to greater advantage?

No sooner do I ask these questions, but I tell myself well I could change the date of Wednesday’s reflection to Thursday the 15^th, which is cheating and would not satisfy my obsessive compulsion with the need for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, simply because the reflection belonged to Wednesday and at some level, it was important to me to document it as belonging to Wednesday. Alternatively I could write two reflections for today and risk making my readers if I continue to have them  yawn,which they may  well be possibly doing anyway.

So now I have to ask the question, why was the need to linger on in bed today much stronger, and of course I know the answer to that question lies in the fact that I now feel I have publicly locked myself into some type of commitment I can’t easily run away from, because now at least, my sixty four friends or so on face book will see that I am a fraud and  a phony  or someone not to be taken seriously, unless I keep my word, and so I now recognize in the cold glaring light of day, it is difficult to embrace change, difficult to let go of old ways that no longer serve us, but something deep inside us knows, we must at least keep trying, and for any of us who might have a struggle as I continually do between apathy and enthusiasm, I dedicate my poem below:

The Silent Voice

I wake up and greet the day
with a sense of knowing what
needs to be done.

My daily struggle begins
between apathy and enthusiasm.
yet something, or someone urges me on,
I cannot really say who or what it is .

A quiet voice perhaps that will not
be silenced.

A voice that will never leave me.

A voice that urges me to plumb
the depths like a fish,
and to embrace the sky like a lover.

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”    T. S. Eliot

Reflection

Out and about on the Bike                                                                           Wed 14^th November 2012

Today I decided to take the bike out.  The weather was lovely for this time of year and all the streets were littered with great splashes of colour as I trudged through all the leaves.   As I happily rode along I thought to myself how much being on a bike is a bit like life.  In fact the bike is a kind of analogy for life itself.  There are similarities between both.

The first thing that strikes me about the bike is that in order to steer and stay on, we must not veer to either right or left, but stay in the centre, so that tells me no extremes and to always aim for balance and the middle ground.  Do I always listen to my own advice? No.  Am I wise and have all the answers? No, but I can become more aware and strive to find a better way,  and I can enjoy exploring the route.

The second thing that came to me while out on the bike, every time I avoid the uphill route, and seek to only have the pleasant easy routes, I cannot escape the fact that these downhills will inevitably lead to their opposite  and I will have to face the uphill part of the journey to get to my destination, and so I would Iike to leave you with two poems on these themes, one that I wrote myself called The Middle Ground, and the other called Binaries, by Anthony Cronin.

The Middle Ground                                    By Rachael Stanley

I recall a voice from years ago,
a yoga teacher sharing wisdom with his pupils,
‘Where there’s freedom, there’s balance
and where there’s balance, there’s freedom.’

In the middle, between two opposites
like a weighing scales measuring out
an even measure,
or like a rider on a bicycle

who does not lean to either side,
but balances in the middle,
or like a special envoy on a mission
of peace between two nations at war.

The whole of life strives towards this balance,
‘Where there’s balance, there’s freedom,
and where there’s freedom, there’s balance.’

http://mistymountainreview.blogspot.ie/2012_04_01_archive.html

Binaries                                                          By Anthony Cronin

Everything we experience,

Everything we feel,

Has its opposite;

As

Day has night,

Heat has cold;

Youth, age;

Dark, light.

This is surely somehow significant

And so propitious

As to seem benignant.

Consider the encompassing light,

Revealing, defining, enriching;

Repealing the disabling dark.

How marvellous the light.

But then there is also the dark,

Concealing, hiding, removing;

Nullifying the cruel clarities

Conducive to a sleep and a forgetting.

Who could live without dark?