A Path With A Heart

There are a hundred paths

through the world that are

easier than loving.

But who wants easier?

-Mary Oliver

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I am hereby announcing that I am in the midst of a major transition. What this means is that I know where I've been but not exactly where I'm going. Lest I or anyone else wonder how or why that comes to be, here's an essay by Jack Kornfield called “A Path with Heart” . I found it on Jimmy James' blog, which usually manages to give me the reminders I need. And if by chance this post serves as a reminder to you, consider it my distinct pleasure.....
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“Each state we encounter will succumb to the next. There is no way to avoid the transitions of our life. The chief means of entering them gracefully is to practice them mindfully over and over again. It is like learning to ride a horse: over and over again walking, trotting, cantering, over smooth and rough terrain, mounting and dismounting, starting and stopping, until it becomes possible for us to move through life in a graceful conscious way.
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In moving through the difficult stages of our lives, we can learn to trust our heart to these cycles and their unfolding as surely as we can trust roots to go down and leaves to push up through the earth in our garden. We can trust each petal of a flower will open in the right order from outside to inside. We can trust that whatever calls our attention to practice – our body, our personal history, the community around us – in or out or retreat, it will bring to us what we need to live fully and genuinely in the timeless here and now."
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Posted by JimmyJames' Blog: Living from the Heart