Dear friends and readers,
This blog has moved to the following address:
www.lenagh.nl
Please come visit. If you had a subscription to this blog, you might want to switch your subscription to the new one. I'm looking forward to seeing you in the new location!
Madeleine
February 18, 2015
February 15, 2015
Facing challenges
I sat up on the vaulting horse, fighting tears. A little voice inside me was crying, “I can’t do this, it’s no use!” My riding instructor read my desperate face and smiled encouragingly. “Let’s try again,” she said, gently.
At the age of 65, learning to ride a horse is not easy. Especially if you, like me, have memories of a clumsy childhood, taunted by other children and even parents. During my first lesson, I loved being on the horse, moving with its cadence. But mounting and dismounting had been a real challenge and I had misgivings about the whole thing. The instructor decided to help me master this part first.
After maybe 10 mounts and dismounts, I suddenly got the trick of keeping my feet back and down, keeping my arms straight, and shifting my weight. I swung my leg up and over effortlessly. An elated instructor gave me the high-five. After a few more practice runs on the vaulting horse, I was ready for the real thing. Mounting and dismounting went like a dream. The next day, I went out and bought myself riding breeches.
When we run up against a real challenge, there is always a moment that we want to walk away. There is always a little voice inside, whispering, “It’s no use, don’t even try.” Scolding the voice, pushing it away, usually doesn’t help. We end up angry, frustrated, sometimes even damaged.
Gentle patience is needed. I have found this true of everything: the relationship that isn't working, the painting that doesn’t seem to be working, the text of a blog that doesn’t sound right, trying to build a new website with WordPress. Take a deep breath, take a short break, think about what you might be doing wrong, and go back to it. Be as kind and patient with yourself as you would wish others to be with you.
And yes, I am facing another challenge as well. In preparation of the appearance of my new book, Passage of the Stork, this coming spring, I decided to build a new website. It will integrate both this blog and the information on my present website. It means mastering the intricacies of WordPress and calls for patience and gentle persistence. The changeover will be announced on the blog as soon as I’m finished.
Photo courtesy of Yvonne Roosen.
At the age of 65, learning to ride a horse is not easy. Especially if you, like me, have memories of a clumsy childhood, taunted by other children and even parents. During my first lesson, I loved being on the horse, moving with its cadence. But mounting and dismounting had been a real challenge and I had misgivings about the whole thing. The instructor decided to help me master this part first.
When we run up against a real challenge, there is always a moment that we want to walk away. There is always a little voice inside, whispering, “It’s no use, don’t even try.” Scolding the voice, pushing it away, usually doesn’t help. We end up angry, frustrated, sometimes even damaged.
Gentle patience is needed. I have found this true of everything: the relationship that isn't working, the painting that doesn’t seem to be working, the text of a blog that doesn’t sound right, trying to build a new website with WordPress. Take a deep breath, take a short break, think about what you might be doing wrong, and go back to it. Be as kind and patient with yourself as you would wish others to be with you.
And yes, I am facing another challenge as well. In preparation of the appearance of my new book, Passage of the Stork, this coming spring, I decided to build a new website. It will integrate both this blog and the information on my present website. It means mastering the intricacies of WordPress and calls for patience and gentle persistence. The changeover will be announced on the blog as soon as I’m finished.
Photo courtesy of Yvonne Roosen.
February 7, 2015
Choices
A client, musing over her life, told me, “Happiness is a choice.” She continued, thoughtfully, “Feeling unhappy should be a choice as well. But when I feel unhappy, I lose sight of any other choices.”
Which I think is a perfect description of what happens when life overwhelms us. We lose sight of our choices and can only perceive a dark tunnel, leading nowhere. The choices are still there, it is our perception that has changed. If you have ever felt depressed and had someone tell you that you will feel better eventually, you know how strongly despair can hold a person in its grip.
Desperation often feels like, “I could be happy, if only…” A list of conditions follows: the relationship you had hoped for, the job you wanted, the clean air, water, and soil you wish for the world.
In the face of the desperation I sometimes feel about all that is so terribly wrong with the world, I have to remind myself to look at the beauty in the world as well. It means learning to live with the paradox: I’m a member of the human race, which seems to be bent on destroying the world we live in by any means possible. I am also filled with wonder at how beautiful and precious life on earth is. Including human life in all its complexity.
Instead of losing myself in one side of the paradox, I choose to consciously stand in both sides. For me, the best antidote to despair is to go out into nature and stand, breathless, at the sight of fragile, beautiful things. Like spider webs in morning dew or tiny birds, fluttering through the bushes in the garden. And then return to the problems at hand, determined not to turn my face away.
Yes, happiness is a choice. We can choose to close our eyes and turn our face away. We can also choose to constantly remind ourselves of life’s beauty. We can choose to do all that is within the limits of our possibilities for the things we believe in.
Which I think is a perfect description of what happens when life overwhelms us. We lose sight of our choices and can only perceive a dark tunnel, leading nowhere. The choices are still there, it is our perception that has changed. If you have ever felt depressed and had someone tell you that you will feel better eventually, you know how strongly despair can hold a person in its grip.
Desperation often feels like, “I could be happy, if only…” A list of conditions follows: the relationship you had hoped for, the job you wanted, the clean air, water, and soil you wish for the world.
In the face of the desperation I sometimes feel about all that is so terribly wrong with the world, I have to remind myself to look at the beauty in the world as well. It means learning to live with the paradox: I’m a member of the human race, which seems to be bent on destroying the world we live in by any means possible. I am also filled with wonder at how beautiful and precious life on earth is. Including human life in all its complexity.
Yes, happiness is a choice. We can choose to close our eyes and turn our face away. We can also choose to constantly remind ourselves of life’s beauty. We can choose to do all that is within the limits of our possibilities for the things we believe in.
February 1, 2015
Listening carefully
One of my favorite David Whyte poems begins like this:
I find this quality of being quietly present in the world very challenging. Even when I’m alone, I tend to be caught up in projects, inner chatter, doing things… anything but silence.
And so I practice sitting silently for at least a half hour daily, listening attentively to those very quiet voices deep inside me that otherwise would not be heard.
When, a few weeks ago, I got so caught up actively “doing” in the world that I started skipping this practice, I was gifted with a dream:
I’m walking through a sand-dune landscape. I stop to rest and hear very faint rustling. When I look carefully, I see two translucent puffball shapes, very similar to dandelion puffs but larger. As I gaze at them, I see beaks and eyes starting to emerge. I realize that this is the (dream) way that baby swans emerge into the world. But when I make a movement, I startle the swans and they disappear into thin air. I study the ground carefully and see traces of down forming a faint trail. I walk softly, following the trail to a hollow space in a rock cliff. A bush is growing in the hollow with similar downy shapes on it. I realize that the 'baby swans' have found this place to hide and feel relieved that they are safe.
The dream was reminding me to sit quietly again, to listen to what is almost inaudible and see what is almost invisible.
David Whyte’s poem continues:
When we do sit quietly and listen carefully, we hear things that can shape our lives and lead us to where we really need to go. Which is not necessarily where we’re heading right now. It is a challenge and a blessing.
(Poem Sometimes by David Whyte, from River Flow: New and Selected Poems, Langley, Many Rivers Press 2012)
“Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest
breathing
like the ones
in the old stories
who could cross
a shimmering bed of leaves
without a sound, […]”
I find this quality of being quietly present in the world very challenging. Even when I’m alone, I tend to be caught up in projects, inner chatter, doing things… anything but silence.
And so I practice sitting silently for at least a half hour daily, listening attentively to those very quiet voices deep inside me that otherwise would not be heard.
When, a few weeks ago, I got so caught up actively “doing” in the world that I started skipping this practice, I was gifted with a dream:
The dream was reminding me to sit quietly again, to listen to what is almost inaudible and see what is almost invisible.
David Whyte’s poem continues:
“you come
to a place
who’s only task
is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests
conceived out of nowhere
but in this place
beginning to lead everywhere. […]
When we do sit quietly and listen carefully, we hear things that can shape our lives and lead us to where we really need to go. Which is not necessarily where we’re heading right now. It is a challenge and a blessing.
(Poem Sometimes by David Whyte, from River Flow: New and Selected Poems, Langley, Many Rivers Press 2012)
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