Tag: happiness

In summertime I love to meditate

How sweet to sit among these luscious trees

Protected from the sun’s too powerful heat

To hear the distant humming of the bees

And for our loving eyes to swiftly meet.

In summertime I love to meditate

to count the breaths as I receive the world

To be united with all beings in this state

The flags of joy are light and soon unfurled

These summer days are long and filled with light

Though storms may come and fill the sky with rage

Small birds then gather for a sudden flight

As I write sentences across this page.

For every season has its light and shade

And for such states we humans are well made

Happiness now and then

    • Photo1400

      http://www.resurgence.org/magazine/article3525-happy-beings.htmlic

      This is a very interesting article and it has made me interested in keeping a diary although most of it will not be public.
      Happiness has been the bete noir of recent years along with self esteem but how much benefit have we got from all this?

      “To be happy is not the purpose of our being rather it is to deserve happiness.”
      Johann G. Fichte

      Photo1401

      The article also contains a review of a book surveying the field of modern writing on happiness which has been a very popular topic recently here in the UK.
      However it has not done much good because happiness is not just inside us,it is partly due to the kind of society we live in and our beliefs about entitlement.And confusing happiness and pleasure.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasure

      “Happiness is different from pleasure. Happiness has something to do with struggling and enduring and accomplishing.”
      George Sheehan quotes (American physician, author and running enthusiast, 1918 – 1993)

      Alfred North Whitehead wrote that “Too much thinking is bad for you” see below.

      “It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle — they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments.”

Words rise up like geese at dawn

York Minster,home of sacred song and word
York Minster,home of sacred song and word

WORDS RISE UP

After writing about maps I began to write about words.Words are very powerful in any kind of society but more so in a highly literate one.Words can be sacred or mundane.They can be loving or heartbreaking.And in English we have so many of them because English was developed from several other languages….Anglo-Saxon,French,Latin,Greek,Celtic…..so more than one word for some things.Here in this poem I compare words to birds [ geese ] flocking into the sky like words flock into our minds

GEESE

Words rise up like geese at dawn

When with pale sun new day is born

The words approach and dance in line

The choice of words is mine

Words spelled here by sense and sound

In clause and sentence weave around.

Which tempting words shall I now use

And which shall I refuse?

The fire lights up inside my heart

So now my writing hand can start/

I sit down at my desk and say

“This is the way I spend my day.

With words I sing and play”.

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Happiness by the book?

Why are there so many books on happiness and yet less actual happiness?I like this piece  by Amy Bloom in the  NYT.I find reading reviews makes me happy.Men make me happy of they are humorous.Women do because they converse well.And peace and quiet make me happy.

I’m so happy

Not to be a baby in a nappy.

I feel so blue

When I miss you

I don’t want a lover.

Too much bother.

I like to be alone

Just me and my comb.

Shakespeare was a poet

I know it

And I am not

I quite forgot

As I felt gay

All  of today

I’ll be sad

Or maybe mad

as rotation

is the human situation

OMG!

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Arms around each other

Some evenings,the sky turned pink
We were happy,lying in the grass
Watching the sun set.
Arms around each other.
Seemed like eternal life had come
Earlier than forecast.
Those weathermen are always wrong!
They need new training
In that timeless moment
In between two raindrops,
In between two tears.

‘How To Be Happy Though Human,

 

Image
“f we want to know what happiness is we must seek it, not as if it were a part of gold at the end of the rainbow, but among human beings who are living richly and fully the good life. If you observe a really happy man you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing double Dahlias in his garden. He will not be searching for happiness as if it were a collar gold button that has rolled under the cupboard in his bed room. He will have become aware that he is happy in the course of living 24 crowded hours of the day. If you live only for yourself you are always an immediate danger of being bored to death with the repetition of your own views and interests. No one has learned the meaning of living until he has surrendered his ego to the service of his fellowmen. If your ambition has the momentum of an express train at full speed, if you can no longer stop your mad rush for glory, power, or intellectual supremacy, try to divert your energies into socially useful channels before it is too late.
For those who seek the larger happiness and greater effectiveness open to human beings there can be but one philosophy of life, a philosophy of constructive altruism. The truly happy man is always a fighting optimist. Optimism includes not only altruism but also social responsibility, social courage and objectivity. The good life demands a working philosophy as an orientating map of conduct. This is the golden way of life. This is the satisfying life. This is the way to be happy though human.”

 

-W. Beran Wolfe, ‘How To Be Happy Though Human, 1932

 

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Birds can see God

Reverie and fantasy « katzideas

What a marvelous day yesterday was. for us here in London.

The sunlight was powerful;

the sky blue and on the trees and shrubs I could almost see buds opening.

By the lake a huge flock of pigeons rose from the trees and circled  in precise and moving geometry

whilst simultaneously many sea gulls which had been floating on the windblown water arose

and formed concentric whirling music in the sky.

We stood still on the grass in the deep silence, absorbing the colors,shapes and murmurings.

Just a normal  day in the country park but I am sure of one thing:

Birds can see God

And in such green stillness,perhaps we can feel God ,if only for a moment

Birds can see God

front garden

What a marvelous day yesterday was. for us here in London.

The sunlight was powerful;

the sky blue and on the trees and shrubs I could almost see buds opening.

By the lake a huge flock of pigeons rose from the trees and circled  in precise and moving geometry

whilst simultaneously many sea gulls which had been floating on the windblown water arose

and formed concentric whirling music in the sky.

We stood still on the grass in the deep silence, absorbing the colors,shapes and murmurings.

Just a normal April day in the country park but I am sure of one thing:

Birds can see God

And in such green stillness,perhaps we can feel God ,if only for a moment

No style of parenting produces happy children

Every kind of parenting produces unhappy adults.Read it here in The Onion

This could be a relief to anxious parents or a blow leaving parents confused about how to be good parents