Passage To Joy - accessing the capacity for joy

May 12, 2010October 29, 2015

Welcome!

It seems to me that ‘joy’ is a word that has become unfashionable and, perhaps, lost meaning for the modern age. My aim is to explore the meaning of joy, the ways in which we can develop a capacity to tap into joy, and the qualities of being that contribute to this capacity.

I invite you to comment on the articles that you will find here – simply click the post title to make sure you are in the full article and add your comments in the box at the foot of the page. Please join the conversation…and welcome!

(See also Why Passage to Joy?)

May 14, 2018May 14, 2018

Connection and responsibility

A powerful circular experience of a breath meditation sitting on the ground on a glorious day blessed by a gentle breeze; the moments when the boundaries between my being and that of water, rock or tree blur into an acknowledgement of oneness, of connection – these are true moments of grace. They are only possible when the boundaries of ‘I’, of ego-self loosen, moments of ‘awareness’, of being truly awake; the inner experience carries such certainty, sounds a resounding ‘yes’. It all seems so obvious at that moment of awareness!

Such experiences shape the core of my being, make it imperative to live from a place rooted in mindfulness, integrity, wonder and joy.

‘all breath in this world
is roped together’
~ Hannah Stephenson

As we moved to this beautiful place, where nature gently loosens those boundaries on a regular basis, I was startled by the unexpected strength of a sense not of ownership but of stewardship of the land; of a deep love and great desire to do right by it and by all the beings with which we share it. This sense of responsibility underpins my life here.

Sharon Blackie writes of ‘the enchanted life’, which for me speaks to that sense of connection and responsibility:

“Enchantment. By my definition, a vivid sense of belongingness to a rich and many-layered world, a profound and whole-hearted participation in the adventure of life. Enchantment is a natural, spontaneous human tendency – one we possess as children, but lose, through social and cultural pressures, as we grow older. I believe that it is an attitude of mind which can be cultivated: the enchanted life is possible for anyone. The enchanted life is intuitive, embraces wonder, and fully engages the mythic imagination – but it is also deeply embodied, ecological, grounded in place and community. To live an enchanted life is to be challenged, to be awakened, to be gripped and shaken to the core by the extraordinary which lies at the heart of the ordinary.”

When we wake

All breath in this world is roped together!

Each breath has the capacity to shift
a stray lock of hair
and a universe.

Everything is bound
in an eternal dance
of particulate and elemental commonality.

It is always so,
but our experience of living
is not always so.

This is something we know
only in the moments
when we wake to enchantment.

May 2018

So what is the challenge of stewardship?

In terms of both outer and inner worlds, I guess for me stewardship is about doing that which supports and maintains healthy states of growth and being, all the while maintaining an awareness of succession.

Practicalities

When we first arrived here, we had a visit from Watersheds Canada looking to participate in their Natural Edge program); in the event, our shoreline was so healthy there was nothing they felt we needed to do! But it helped our understanding; we are careful to cut back rather than in any way ‘clear’ the steep bank down to the water, we do not use phosphates that may run off into the lake.

In our wetland, we try to encourage the cattails but not the phragmites; monitor where turtles are laying their eggs, again avoiding chemicals that may damage this habitat.

We have bat and bird boxes and feed the birds all year, but especially at times of particular hardship.

We retain dead trees and brush-piles for their importance as habitats.

We welcome the beings who share this beautiful place respectfully but without the desire in any way to tame them. With time, there is a growing sense of relationship, understanding, even intimacy (into me you see).

Most of our planting is of native species, particularly those supportive to pollinators, humming-birds and butterflies – we seek to supplement what is naturally here rather than unduly to shape or tame it.

We monitor our trees, making decisions as to which saplings to encourage and which to potentially protect from our resident beaver (whose presence in our bay most evenings currently delights us).

Inner stewardship

As to the inner world, hitting my head blessed me with the impetus to develop a much more regular meditation practice than previously (part of my prescription from a neurologist!), which I try to maintain. There is also, I think, a certain discipline required in truly noting and engaging with the world around you in a mindful and joyous way that is a part of nurturing the inner world.

I am trying to learn to say ‘no’ to being the person whose job it is to make things right for others all the time. I am also trying to learn that I don’t always have to say ‘yes’ to heading into every challenge full-tilt.

Sometimes it is enough simply to observe
and let the universe unfold as it should.

Coltsfoot

All is not reaching, striving,
choosing to force growth
and embrace pain
to fertilize the soul.

It is not always so!

The coltsfoot
opens a yellow face
to the sun

but closes itself
to the dark shadows of evening
and the grey of a rainy day.

As the sun shines,
it transforms effortlessly
into radiance.

Soon, soon
its leaves will form
a carpet of green hearts.

I do not have to keep myself
resolutely open to dark
and storm.

I too can close up
when shadows fall,
ready for the sun’s return.

May 2018

April 11, 2018

Transformation, mystery and water

Fluent

I would love to live
Like a river flows,
Carried by the surprise
Of its own unfolding.

~ John O’Donohue

I look out onto my beloved lake as it transforms, very visibly, from the illusory immobility of ice to its fluid state and I listen to what it has to tell me.

Water is the true stuff of life,
The deep mystery at the centre of all that is.

Water exists in a continuous state of flow,
a constant state of transformation.

Confronted by heat or cold, it turns shape-shifter;
mysterious mists weave their enchantments,
clouds build castles in the air,
Jack Frost traces ferns across the glass,
the land is pelted by hail and graupel,
and blanketed by a quilt of snow.

The lake freezes and, later, thaws;
watching the ice come in and leave
teaches me patience with the ebb and flow,
the unseen nature of transformation.
After days of retreat and revelation
a clear sheet forms over the returned water,
once – oh joy! – with the exquisite,
unexpected blooming of frost flowers.

Yet the process of change
continues inexorably,
moment by moment rewriting
the relationship between ice and water
in patterns of constriction and release,
of return to rigidity, then surge and flood.

Transformation exists
in every moment.
What is now
is not the same as what just was
or will be.

Out on the lake,
the ice lets go as we watch;
the clouds race across
the new-blue sky
casting shadow spells
or float in the emerging reflective stillness.

Beneath all is the constancy of water
and a process of transformation
without beginning or end.

Water is the true stuff of life,
but life is all transformation!

My inner transformation,
in this body that is more than 60% water,
is similarly complex.

There is much that goes unseen.
Just when it seems the ice is melting,
something inside rigidifies once more.

There are moments of unexpected joy and light,
but also times of constriction and the flood of overwhelm.

The lake reminds me that
all is unfolding, in its own time,
exactly as it should.

As I embrace my own transitions,
may I remember that this moment is all that I have,
is all that I am or need to be.
Let me inhabit it fully,
wrap it round me like silk
then allow it to slip away . . .

March 26, 2018

Transitions in the seasons of the soul

I think there are multiple layers to the manifestation of inner seasons.

The internal season

On occasion in the past I have been very conscious of a specific internal season, particularly of winters of the soul as times of dormancy, retreat, grieving even. This is one layer and, from this perspective, I see myself now as in a transition from a winter that has been a time of mystery, of deep and subtle transformation, of stillness and silence, of hidden growth requiring patience and faith.

What has been interesting is that, in paying attention to the shift in nature these last weeks, I sense that it is not some human failing that we rarely transition smoothly; if this is the path nature takes then it seems to me that the two-steps forward one-step back dance is an inherent aspect of the character of change.

I see the land, still frozen, steeping in the thaw water that it is not yet ready to absorb, grungy, muddy, yet with hints of the possibility of spring. And I realize that I am content to live this within my own transition, to steep in a flood of insights that I am not yet fully able to soak up. I see the lake existing as thick white ice, clear glass and sparkling open water simultaneously and something inside me whispers ‘yes!’ in affirmation and recognition. In focusing on the subtleties and nuances of this time between winter and spring, I am newly comfortable in my own space of between.

Carrying all the seasons within

At another level, I am aware that I carry all the seasons within me, and can draw on the riches of each as I need or choose at any given time.

The turning of the year

Finally, there is the part of me that responds to the turning of the year, increasingly delighting in the changing rhythms that inform my living in both the exterior and interior worlds.

Now, in this time of increasing intimacy with both the natural and the inner world, each season, each new manifestation, each day of brilliant sunshine or unrelenting rain, each moment, is becoming equally precious. This is becoming almost as true for the seasons of the soul as those of the year’s turning. I try to sit with each, knowing that all things pass.

March 7, 2018

Not ‘still’ winter – perhaps the deepest transformation

When I look out at the white expanse of frozen lake, I no longer see winter as a small death, a time of darkness, a pause for breath.

I see a continual and wondrous process of transformation!

Ice is not static, but constantly changing.

In early winter’s deep cold, it was confusing that, this year, the ice seemed slower to come in. But with the cold came blankets of snow.

Each rock or dock intruding into the ice creates its own disruption.

Sometimes there is just whiteness, sometimes pools of lavender; sometimes the smoke that isn’t smoke billows around the islands. There are times of diamond brightness. Sometimes the world disappears.

Even in the heart of winter, somewhere, unseen, life goes on beneath the surface, even if I only know this by the presence in spring of turtles, frogs and fish.

The slow seeping of water bubbling out of the ground seeks its way through the ice creating a path – or a fault line?

A fallen oak leaf, absorbing light rather than reflecting it like the white surface that surrounds it, carves out space around itself.

What astonishes me is not just the overt shift from the fluidity of water to the apparent solidity of ice; nor is it the the purity and clarity of unbroken white, the illusion of stillness.

It is the awareness of a profound process of constantly occurring change.

Perhaps winter’s is the deepest transformation of all.

Snow Meditation

Snow falls silently as large crystals,
each, unimaginably, different, unique;
remains like goose-down,
softly blowing.

With thaw, the feathers congeal.

Freeze creates of them
a crisp shell,
hard and resonant.

Then, nothing.

March 2018

February 13, 2018February 13, 2018

Dancing down the drive to snow music

Snow music

My feet
find a beat
on the drum-tight shell
of ice-topped snow;

a crisp rattle,
then a tinkling, skittering
whisper of melody.

And I dance –
to the song that I hear
and to hear the music
of my dance!

February 13, 2018

Yes, for the last two days I have been dancing joyfully down our drive, delighting in the crispness of the air and beneath my feet and the unfamiliar soundscape!