…circles…
“I live in nature, where everything is connected, circular. The seasons are circular. The planet is circular, and so is its passage around the sun. The course of water over the earth is circular, coming down from the sky and circulating through the world to spread life and then evaporating up again. I live in a circular teepee and I build my fire in a circle, and when my loved ones visit me, we sit in a circle and talk. the life cycles of plants and animals are circular. I live outside where I can see this. the ancient people understood that our world is a circle, but we modern people have lost sight of that. I don’t live inside buildings, because buildings are dead places where nothing grows, where water doesn’t flow, and where life stops. I don’t want to live in a dead place. People say that I don’t live in the real world, but its modern Americans who live in a fake world, because they’ve stepped outside the circle. Do people live in circles today? No. They live in boxes. They wake up every morning in the box of their bedroom because a box next to them started making beeping noises to tell them it was time to get up. They eat their breakfast out of a box and then they throw that box away into another box. Then they leave the box where they live and get into a box with wheels and drive to work, which is just another big box broken up into lots of little cubicle boxes where a bunch of people spend their days sitting and staring at the computer boxes in front of them. When the day is over, everyone gets into the box with wheels again and goes home to their house boxes and spends the evening staring at the television boxes for entertainment. They get their music from a box, they get their food from a box, they keep their clothing in a box and tailor their dreams to fit a box….. you are not handcuffed to your culture.”
“Revere your senses; don’t degrade them with substances, with depression, with willful oblivion. Try to notice something new every day. Pay attention to even the most modest of daily details. Even if you’re not outside, be aware at all times. Notice what food tastes like; notice what the detergent aisle in the supermarket smells like and notice what a wildflower field smells like – then notice the difference. Notice what bare feet feel like; pay attention every day to the vital insights that mindfulness can bring. Take care of all things, of every single thing there is – your body, your intellect, your spirit, your neighbors, and the planet. Don’t pollute your soul with apathy or or spoil your health with junk food any more than you would deliberately contaminate a clean river with industrial sludge. You can never have real character if you have a careless and destructive attitude, but maturity will follow mindfulness even as day follows night.”
– Eustace Conway
iloveyou, nattie
Hmmm… think I’d better find me a square bowl.
This was exactly what I needed today.