#resiliency

Obama urges resiliency and unity during speech at Obama Presidential Center opening

No one ever told me mistakes are invited and necessary, that they are a inevitable tool of breakthrough, that it's thru spoiled food, and messed up cooking that you get to make something truly wonderful, and that you need to fall on your head, and let people in your circus and look like a clown, while you're suffering and falling continuously. Fire cooks raw food. No one ever told me that falling is an art, and that like every spiritual tool, it transcends the polarity of good and bad, but actually works as a material. No one ever told me that the fifth time falling would be way more graceful than the first one, that one fall could even eventually command empathy and admiration that is mirrored thru the way I see my own mistakes, as godly and funny, as separated from all feelings of pride and rigidity. (I remember one time when all my money got out of my bag while I was falling on the street, and people were passing by and I said ‘ok guys, now's the time to come and get my money!’) No one ever told me that falling could give you the gift of fluidity, that it breaks your bones, that it spurts out all tension and gives place to your own body moving perfectly, escaping traps intuitevely, holding a cup and a full bucket of water in one hand, while your eyes are looking straight into the endless horizon, completely ready and open to the eventuality of falling yet again, and again, and again. No one ever told me it was a skill. No one told me that falling, like fire, burns away foolishness, and false ideas of how things should be. Life tells us constantly : you should not always be standing up. No one told me there was going to be continuous resistance to keep things, and our bodies, firmly on the ground, at all times, making the winds, and movements, and turbulence of life harder to go through. No one ever told me we live in a world that favors the energies that are generated from the lower parts of our bodies. Maybe, surely, if we were more in our hearts, in our throats, and on the top of our heads, it would be easier to move, and communicate with each other, and interact with each other, without being constantly afraid and stuck in our own corners, in our own rigid rules, and the rules of others. We could inspire a kind of transmutation between the supposedly good and the supposedly bad, so that there are no corners left, so that the extremities are visited from time to time but a constant hum and a deep inclination to the middle keeps us centered, devoid of any obligation to do so, devoid of any need to perfect it.

Be Still: Lessons From a Quiet Morning by the Water— Growth doesn’t always look like motion. Sometimes it begins in the stillness between breaths. #NotQuiteSuperhuman #BeStill #MindfulMoments #SlowLiving #QuietStrength #CreativityAndCalm #WellbeingJourney