As part of my winter reading, I’m back to Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach. Maybe because the book is laid out by daily chapters, one for each day of the year, I tend to start reading it at the first of each year as part of the fresh start mentality, then drift away. I do love this book and am going to try and stick with it for the whole year this time. In today’s entry Sarah writes about…
refuge
January 8, 2018If you are like me, winter may just be your favorite time for reading. Do you have anything interesting on your nightstand, smartphone or Kindle at the moment? Having recently discovered author Sally Clarkson, I’ve been reading her book The Lifegiving Home: Creating a Place of Belonging and Becoming, cowritten with her daughter Sarah Clarkson. The central theme of the book is the importance of making one’s home a place that provides a refuge, and physical and spiritual nourishment and…
back home
November 8, 2017How many of you no longer live in the same town where you grew up? Do you find it difficult to get back home to visit family and friends? Lately, I am finding this to be a challenge and it is bothersome, indeed. I got to spend a fantastic weekend recently in the town where I was born and lived for 34 years. It was so good to see my family! Life seems to get so busy and the time…
like water
October 22, 2017Some more goodness from the Tao te Ching, excerpt from chapter 8 (Stephen Mitchell translation): The supreme good is like water, which nourishes all things without trying to. It is content with the low places that people disdain. Thus it is like the Tao. In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don’t try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely…
mashup
October 18, 2017I love this quote by Austin Kleon (Steal Like an Artist) – “You are, in fact, a mashup of what you choose to let into your life.” If you have not read this book, give it a try. It is a great resource; full of wisdom, humor and common sense. Also, a quick, easy read. One of those that you can read a page or two at a time as you find the time, and get something out of in…
perfection
May 15, 2017In today’s Simple Abundance entry, Sarah describes a situation in her life during which she created a container garden that she wanted to be as perfect as the one she was attempting to model from one of those glossy, lifestyle magazines. Try as she might, it just never seemed to be as good. Finally, she said enough is enough, it is beautiful the way it is (paraphrased). I can so relate to Sarah, especially at this time of the year, when…
soul color
May 9, 2017Back to reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Book 5 contains this lovely paragraph: “The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts. Color it with a run of thoughts like these: i. Anywhere you can lead your life, you can lead a good one. ii. Things gravitate toward what they were intended for.” For some reason this makes me think of the expression “bloom where you are planted.” Think…
ripe & decaying
March 20, 2017I am reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (Roman Emperor, 2nd century) and this stood out (Book 3, In Carnuntum): “We should remember that even Nature’s inadvertence has its own charm, its own attractiveness.” Unsure of exactly what “inadvertence” meant, I looked it up. From Dictionary.com: the act or effect of inattention; an oversight. Some examples provided by Mr. Aurelius (can I refer to him that way? seems weird…he was a Roman Emperor, for crying out loud): the way loaves of bread split open on the top when they are…
be yourself
January 23, 2017I am reading a book that was a Christmas gift, called “The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember” by Fred Rogers. Yes, the Mister Rogers that many of us grew up with. This book was published in 2003, which is also the year that he passed away. There is a whole section titled The Courage to be Yourself. One of the paragraphs goes like this: “The values we care about the deepest, and the movements within society…
answered prayers
November 13, 2016Today in Simple Abundance, Sarah references Oscar Wilde, who believed that there are only two tragedies in life: not getting what you pray for and getting it. She goes on to discuss prayers, with all their inherent uncertainties. Are we praying for the right thing? Why do we always seem to receive a “No”? Could we even handle it if we got a “Yes” instead? When I silently pray for peace, for universal freedom, for forgiveness, can I send out that…
