Each week I share a poem or quote to highlight our mindfulness theme. Most weeks there’s a perfect fit, and sometimes the search brings an unexpected delight. So grateful for life-affirming poems and the writers that birth them!
On Sympathetic Joy (Mudita, the third face of love) I searched high and low for a poem reflecting the spontaneous joy in another’s joy, to no avail. Finally, when I searched “mudita,” auto-correct changed it to “nudist.” Ahah! Sympathetic joy right there!
Proverb (various origins)
Shared pain is half the pain;
Shared joy is twice the joy.
On Equanimity
New Mantra (Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer)
To this day with its deepening whirlpools of grief,
I say okay. Okay to the way I am swirled
and pulled down. Okay to the thick muscled sorrow.
Okay to the throat with its clenching, its tightness.
Okay to the ambush of tears. (entire poem here)
The Paradoxical Commandments (Kent M. Keith)
People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway. (entire passage here)
NOTE: I included the following lines in class, and then learned the author did not write nor endorse them. However, I appreciate how they point us back toward intention:
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God; It was never between you and them anyway.
On Grounding, Foundation, Feeling Held and Supported
There is a Light in Me (Anna Swir)
Whether in daytime or in nighttime
I always carry inside
a light.
In the middle of noise and turmoil
I carry silence.
Always
I carry light and silence.
OCT
2021