Bite-sized comfort and spirituality in a turmultuous world
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Comforting Thought: Eccentricity
“To live rooted on a changing earth is to create a new story. There are so few voices left that speak for wild nature first. It’s time to clasp hands (paws, fins, feathers, branches) and know where we stand.” Lyanda Lynn Haupt
Comforting Thought: Real love runs on a lower voltage than our culture leads us to believe
When we pay attention to the sensations in our bodies, we can feel that love is the energetic opposite of fear. Love seems to open and expand us right down to the cellular level, while fear causes us to contract and withdraw into ourselves. Yet so often, fear keeps us from being able to say…
Comforting Thought: Wild hearts breed protection of a wild earth
“We enter as pilgrims, as wayfarers knowing there is something we are seeking. Something nameless, beautiful, waiting and wanting.” ~ Lyanda Lynn Haupt
Comforting Thought: Love is the energetic opposite of fear
When we pay attention to the sensations in our bodies, we can feel that love is the energetic opposite of fear. Love seems to open and expand us right down to the cellular level, while fear causes us to contract and withdraw into ourselves. Yet so often, fear keeps us from being able to say…
Comforting Thought: What natural sound would you preserve forever?
Silence The song of the cicadas Penetrates the rocks In Japanese there are many onomatopoeic words for the sounds in nature. shito shito: the sound of light rain zā zā: the sound of heavy rain kasa kasa: the light sound of leaves rustling under foot hyū hyū: the sound of wind blowing goro goro: the…
Comforting Thought: The Sun by Mary Oliver
“Do you think that there is anywhere, in any language – a word billowing enough – for the pleasure that fills you, as the sun, reaches out and warms you”: The Sun by Mary Oliver
Comforting Thought: Kindness is a muscle we exercise
Kindness is not a fixed trait that we either have or lack, but more like a muscle that can be developed and strengthened. We exercise kindness in any moment where we recognise our shared humanity- with all of the hopes, dreams, joys, dissapointments, vulnerability and suffering that this implies. Such simple but profound awareness levels…
Comforting Thought: Holding a Frog
“Holding a frog – if you are quiet and slower than slow, you do not have to ‘catch’ a frog at all – you can just slide your hand beneath one and lift it up without inciting any hint of fear or effort to escape.” Lyanda Lynn Haupt
Comforting Thought: Illnesses come from our lack of connection to nature
Many of our illnesses, stresses and anxieties are due to a lack of connection with nature. Taking a hands-on approach to the natural world will help you to restore that connection. Feel the breeze on your face, let the water of the stream ripple through your hands, lie on the ground, take your shoes off…
Comforting Thought: Knowledge Deepens Appreciation
“Aldo Leopold said that our ability to perceive the quality of nature begins ‘as in art, with the pretty’ After that it expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language. What he was getting at is this: knowledge deepens appreciation. Seeing cranes feeding in a wetland he saw not…
Dissapearing into the desert
“The desert could not be claimed or owned–it was a piece of cloth carried by winds, never held down by stones, and given a hundred shifting names… Its caravans, those strange rambling feasts and cultures, left nothing behind, not an ember. All of us, even those with European homes and children in the distance, wished…
Environmentalism boils down to faith in the end
Faith in the possibility of change, the prospect of a better future. For green shoots in the rubble, fresh water in the desert. And our faith is often tested. Everywhere I have looked, everywhere I have been – places bent and broken, despoiled and desolate, polluted and poisoned, I have found new life springing from…
Comforting Thought: Each life is a mission of discovering the question of why you were born
According to Carl Jung, each life is an individuation process, one of discovering the particular question you were put on earth to answer. This question may have been left unanswered by an ancestor, although you must proceed with it in the manner of your own generation. But the question is not easy, or it would…
Comforting Thought: We should allow ourselves to receive love and care from others
Paradoxically, letting go sometimes means allowing ourselves to receive love and care from others. Our can-do culture has made many of us believe that we should always be self-sufficient. Somewhere along the way we also get the message that asking for help is a sign of weakness. We often forget that we’re interdependent creatures whose…
Comforting Thought: Regard yourself as a cloud
“Regard yourself as a cloud in the flesh; because, you see, clouds never make mistakes. Then through this capacity you will develop a kind of confidence … you will be able to trust your own intuition.” Alan Watts
Comforting Thought: Rough Diamonds
Abandoned sites and places that are not aesthetically pleasing can teach us a more sophisticated way of looking at the natural environment, not in terms of the picturesque, or even the care of which it has been tended, but with an eye upon ecological virility.
Comforting Thought: A traumatic childhood may actually make you more conscious, complex and understanding of others
Dr Elaine Aron in her research looking at Highly Sensitive People (HSPs) found that they are generally more affected by traumatic childhoods and that they are more depressed and anxious as adults. However, there is a big hopeful caveat with this finding – the HSP has all of the emotional tools and understanding of self…
Comforting Thought: Keeping Together in Time
As I have always know intuitively: movement, dance and physicality of our bodies is the key to unlocking connection with other people and our connection to our inner feelings and true self. This was an incredibly powerful insight from ‘The Body Keeps the Score.’ This is why yoga feels good, cycling feels good, sex feels…
Comforting Thought: Soft Fascination
We pay attention differently when we are in nature. This is called ‘soft fascination’ The great 19th century thinker William James (brother of novelist Henry James) proposed that there are two ways of paying attention. The first is voluntary and directed, which is used for tasks that demand concentration. For example doing work, walking along…
Comforting Thought: The interconnectedness of all living things
Everything in its right place One feels keenly the sense of interconnectedness of all living things: a sense of everything being in its right place. This is biology as teleology, rainforest as pocketwatch fallen open on the path- but instead of the hand of God crafting its workings, coevolution is the force by which the…
Comforting Thought: Introverts mature more gracefully than extroverts
Some extraverted people can avoid being introverted and turning inwards, for years at a time. Later in life, self-reflection becomes important for everyone. In short, introverts may mature more gracefully. So you are in good company. Ignore the barbs about ‘lightening up’. Enjoy the levity of others and allow yourself your own specialty. If you’re…
Comforting Thought: The blue of distance, the green of time
“The colour of hills that recede layer upon layer into the horizon. Well this is the green of time. The green that grows from nothing, anything if left for long enough.” It comes at first as mildew and mould. A misting of green-grey, or mustard-green, the green of decay. But then it grows into a…
Comforting Thought: Viktor Frankl knew a lot about finding meaning even in the worst situations
Frankl was a Jewish psychiatrist who was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp. He was a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) and in his famous book ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ he describes how he was called upon to inspire his fellow prisoners, how he intuitively understood what they needed. He observed that under those awful circumstances,…
Comforting Thought: Hens are the goodness of the universe
This morning, a friend and I hung over the half door, watching a mother hen feeding her chickens. The hen bustled around breaking up the bread into crumbs small enough to feed her tiny, hungry offspring. The clucking sound she made was the essential sound of motherhood, the goodness of the universe was in that…
Poignant Thought: The Wild Cows on the Island of Swona
In the mid-20th Century, on the remote island of Swona in Scotland, the Rosie family kept animals including a herd of cows. As the decades wore on, their children moved away and the elderly stalwarts of the family stayed on and eventually died there. Moving of the cattle from the island would have been too…
Comforting Thought: When fear melts, all that is left is love
Love has many identities. The love of parents, spouses, siblings. The heady love of youth, the mellow love of old age. The love of passion, all fiery and insatiable, the subtle love of maturity. The love one person has for another for no particular reason. When fear melts, all that is left is love. In…
Comforting Thought: A cat represents our shared humanity during the worst of times
A cat represents our shared humanity during the worst of times Readers of this blog will remember I reviewed the biographical book about the doomed Karluk and her crew in the enthralling book ‘The Ice Master’ by Jennifer Niven. That book briefly mentions but doesn’t highlight the plight of the plucky feline on board named…
Comforting Thought: Take a donkey’s kiss
Donkey kisses have to be taken. They are not given. But they are soft as cotton wool. They come with liquid brown eyes that look at you with mischief. Eyes that, inspite of it all forgive the wrongs done to them by human ignorance. So gently, and with great care, take a donkey kiss. And…
Comforting Thought: A highly sensitive person (HSP) can be an enduring anchor during difficult times
Whatever the times, suffering eventually touches every life. How we live with it, and help others to is one of the greatest ethical and creative opportunities for HSPs. We HSPs do a great disservice to ourselves and others when we think of ourselves as weak compared to the warrior. Our strength is different, but frequently…
Comforting Thought: Valueable things in life are shy
Please know that the truest most valuable things in life don’t come with fireworks. They are shy. They come wrapped in breezes, warm and cold. They can be tasted, felt, seen and touched. They are stealthy. Remember to stay alert. Ordinary Beauty: Meaningful Moments in Everyday Life by Mary McEvoy
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