If we were having coffee: A family Thanksgiving edition

Looking out at the snow.

The roast turkey carries with it, in its chubby hold, a sizable portion of our primitive and pagan luggage.

Primitive and pagan? Us? We of the laser, we of the microchip, we of the Union Theological Seminary and Time magazine? Of course. At least twice a year, do not millions upon millions of us cybernetic Christians and fax machine Jews participate in a ritual, a highly stylized ceremony that takes place around a large dead bird?

And is not this animal sacrificed, as in days of yore, to catch the attention of a divine spirit, to show gratitude for blessings bestowed, and to petition for blessings coveted?

The turkey, slain, slowly cooked over our gas or electric fires, is the central figure at our holy feast. It is the totem animal that brings our tribe together.

~ Tom Robbins, Skinny Legs and All

If we were having coffee: After Thanksgiving edition

Wednesday’s sunrise lights in the meadow.

If you have found your truth within yourself there is nothing more in this whole existence to find. Truth is functioning through you. When you open your eyes, it is truth opening his eyes. When you close your eyes, it is truth who is closing its eyes.

This is a tremendous meditation. If you can simply understand the device, you don’t have to do anything; whatever you are doing is being done by truth. You are walking, it is truth; you are sleeping, it is truth resting; you are speaking, it is truth speaking; you are silent, it is truth that is silent.

This is one of the most simple meditation techniques. Slowly, slowly everything settles by this simple formula, and then there is no need for the technique.

When you are cured, you throw away the meditation, you throw away the medicine. Then you live as truth–alive, radiant, contented, blissful, a song unto yourself. Your whole life becomes a prayer without any words, or better to say a prayerfulness, a grace, a beauty which does not belong to our mundane world, a ray of light coming from the beyond into the darkness of our world.

Osho, The Great Zen Master Ta Hui, Chapter 23

The mirror of life

Supernal

You find your genius by looking in the mirror of your life.  Your visible image shows your inner truth, so when you’re estimating others, what you see is what you get.  It therefore becomes critically important to see generously, or you will get only what you see; to see sharply, so that you discern the mix of traits rather than a generalized lump; and to see deeply into dark shadows, or else you will be deceived.

~ James Hillman

Giving thanks

Little things

The whole of life — even the hard — is made up of the minute parts, and if I miss the infinitesimals, I miss the whole.  These are new language lessons, and I live them out.  There is a way to live the big of giving thanks in all things.  It is this:  to give thanks in this one small thing.  The moments will add up.

~ Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

More little things

Thanksgiving

The meadow in November

I am grateful for what I am and have.  My thanksgiving is perpetual . . . O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches.  No run on my bank can drain it, for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment.

~ Henry David Thoreau