Pure Part of the Abyss

I’m back. I was in transition. (But when am I not?)

I may take time to reflect on the last year (it’s been almost that long since I blogged on happiness!) but today I simply want to share some happy things. My aim is to commit to blogging about happiness on Thursdays. And it is Thursday!

Happy Things
• Spring! It’s here! I can tell because the grass is variegated with new growth and the air smells alive.

• Feist. My roommate just lent me her new CD. So good. Feist is Canadian.

• People murmuring during meditation. I went to a meditation session last night. I didn’t understand all of it but at one point after visualizing rays of white, red and blue light and some chanting people started murmuring, with beads, and sounds of OM and AH and another sound…it evoked in me a mixture of awe and surprise. Like the first time I heard the trees creaking against each other on Vancouver Island.

• New ideas. There is the danger of becoming too narrow and developing tunnel vision in graduate school (or in life, I suppose). I am making a conscious effort to stretch myself and develop breadth in my thinking. Broad thinking makes me happy even if, at times, I find it intimidating and overwhelming.

• Laughter. The sound of it – especially from people I love. The feel of it – especially at the corners of my eyes.

• The sunset over the Saskatchewan River. To me this captures the infinite possibilities of my life. Five years ago, a year ago, six months ago, even, I never imagined I would watch ice flow down a river while the sun sank low in the sky over the first city I ever visited (who knew that at 6 weeks old I would be on the same campus where I would later pursue a PhD? Thousands of miles from where I was born and reared!).

• Il Postino and Pablo Neruda. Here is an excerpt from Neruda’s Poetry that makes me happy:

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names,
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire,
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.

So, there are some happy things for this Thursday - may it be sweet!