Tag: soft

WORDS LIKE LIGHT 

Friday, September 10, 2021

SOFT AND STRONG

            I need not worry about being able to endure the difficulties I may face in the future, for I am an inseparable and essential part of an immeasurable universe that knows no boundaries to both its powerful softness and commanding strength, and which constantly shows me examples of both. There’s water, for instance, one of my greatest instructors – both lovingly soft and insuperably strong. Like water, I am soft enough to calmly accept whatever ‘falls’ into me, and also strong enough to easily carry duties and tasks as heavy as the heaviest ships. And there’s air – able to both softly flow around obstacles in its path and also hold up massive airplanes as they flow through its softness. Like air, I can smoothly stream through and around any problems, and also hold up – support, provide for, and take care of –  families and friends and strangers who need my help.   

            I am indeed fortunate to have Professor Universe for my teacher, showing me – every moment – how to use my boundless inheritance of softness and strength.

A SOFT TOUCH
(about Shay M., 91, Blessings, CT, USA)

Shay's become a soft touch in his elder years. 
He softly touches problems
and they easily dwindle away,
and fears always fall victim 
to his easy-going touch.  
He lightly strokes his worries
as if they're his friends.
and they slowly fade off with smiles. 
If he smoothly rubs a sorrow,
it whispers its wisdom to him,
and sometimes stays for weeks 
as his special instructor. 
At the gentle age of 91, 
Shay's spoken words have a soothing touch,
as if you could stroll with them 
and softly toss away your worries.

WORDS LIKE LIGHT 

Monday, August 16, 2021

SOFTEN

            If I am open to it its gift, life has a wonderful way of softening the seemingly ‘solid’ things I come into contact with. When my world seems rock-hard and hostile, just a few moments of quiet contemplation can reveal a universe of endless ease and peace, a cosmos that cushions rather than frightens. I so often fall into hours and days of struggling with supposedly solid enemies like privation and pain and uncertainty, but just a glimpse of the  boundless vastness of life – which includes ‘my’ part of it – can immediately alleviate the stiffness of everything, and then I feel again the softening that the truth does so well and so beautifully. Hardness then subsides into universal ease and rest, and the solidity of my so-called ‘problems’ dwindles down to the smoothness of clouds and sunlight. Today I hope to feel the cushions that life creates, moment by moment, as its wonderful way of allowing peacefulness to always prepare the way. 

SOFTENING
(Braelynn J., 52, Blessings, CT)

She’s sometimes softened 
just by being around roses, 
or by rising up in the morning 
under a merciful and trustworthy sky. 
She gets soft by giving showers 
of herself to friends and strangers,
as if she sprays you with kindness 
when she’s with you, 
as if something silky has been suspended around you
and promises to protect you forever. 
Braelynn’s softened by finding, 
over and over again, 
the lightness and buoyancy of life, 
even when hardness happens,
which only makes her tenderness 
softer and stronger than ever.

WORDS LIKE LIGHT

Thursday, June 24, 2021

WINGS

            Quite often, life feels heavy to me, like it’s a load that I have to lift and carry, but the truth is that it’s as soft as birds’ wings, and is able to glide and give me remarkable rides. Today, Delycia and I will be floating again in kayaks on the Wood River, and I’ll bet we’ll feel as light – and lighthearted – as life itself is. Any sense of heaviness will be left on the riverbank, and we’ll drift along the river’s surface as freely as life itself flutters from hour to hour and day to day. I don’t mean to suggest that life doesn’t feel burdensome at times, especially when fears weigh me down, but that sense of burden actually derives from my own thoughts, and I can always simply set those weighty thoughts down and feel my inborn freedom again – the wings of my inner spirit – and soon I’ll be hovering above those fears and seeing them for the powerless nobodies they are.  I will love watching the birds soaring smoothly above the river today, and I’m sure it will help me better understand how life itself is a glorious glider. Each moment today will move smoothly and carry me along, and if I stay alert, I will feel the lightness and buoyancy of it all. Even if distress makes an appearance, as it often does, life can lift me lightly up so I can see the vastness of everything and the relative smallness – the tinyness – of my distressful  thoughts.  In that way, whatever problem that seems to be there will easily work its way free and fly away with a wave.   

            To all of us, life can seem horrendous and burdensome, but today, as I float on the friendly river, I hope I can feel the floating ability of life’s wings, and let my little sense of self be lifted up into the limitless spaces of here and now.  

QUESTIONS THE EARTH ASKS US 

Are you tired of me?
Do my miracles seems stale now?
Do you not hear 
my harps in the trees and fields?
Do you not see 
the wings of snow white doves?
Do you not know 
my pure, sweet love? 
Have you forgotten the flower 
that leaned toward you last summer,
and the sunlight that likes 
the way you walk and talk,
and the thousand sacred minutes 
of each day? 
Does nothing come into your heart 
from my hands? 
Have you waved your hands 
goodbye?