High on Happiness

Archive for March, 2010

I set out to see what the lake was doing, now that winter was making such a sudden exit. Turned out it was holding a laugh-fest for Canadian geese.  A couple dozen of them were gathered, padding across the lake’s still frozen surface on their big webbed feet like so many clowns. “Look!” they honked at each other, “I’m walking on water!”

At once stunningly beautiful and hilarious, they made me laugh out loud.  I remembered a Zen tale I’d once heard about a monk who laughed watching chickens eat and totally understood.  Oh, the sheer exuberance in living, the wild, untrammeled joy these creatures embodied!

Just watching them was a life lesson.  No stories, no fears, no projections hampered their happiness.  They took the moment for what it was and made the absolute most of it.

“Go and do likewise,” I thought.

A week ago, the world was buried in snow.  Tonight, only the deepest patches of it remain. The first shoots of the daffodils burst through the ground today, and tonight’s evening air carried the music of songbirds.

The transition was such a sudden one that it felt a bit surreal to me, as if I had skipped over a couple weeks somehow. I kept blinking in disbelief.  But I gladly embraced the change.

Change, of course, is life’s one constancy.  Each passing moment, each season, is unique; and each unique moment passes.  Some we savor; some we endure.  Some bring lessons; some bring pleasures.

Remembering that each is fleeting helps us keep our awareness anchored in the present as the moments flow by.  Whether they’re rushing or languidly floating past, each is precious.  Each has its own peculiar beauty.  And none more than this one, right here, right now.

Two weeks ago I drove to Cleveland in a blizzard.  Imagine my surprise when I pulled in the parking lot of my motel and discovered I had come to a rest directly in front of a cherry tree packed with over two dozen robins.  The little fellah in the photo must have thought he had arrived in a heaven made of cherry vanilla ice cream.

Robins are the harbingers of hope in these parts, one of the first songbirds to return after the long, silent winter.   They’re symbols of happiness with their call, “Cherrily-cheerily! Cheer up!”   The joy they bring is celebrated in an old song that’s been a traditional part of my springtime ever since I was a little kid listening to my parents sing it.  It’s called, “When the Red, Red Robin Goes Bob, Bob, Bobbin’ Along.”

You can catch a heartfelt version of it here on you tube, backed up by some excellent guitar playing.  Give it a listen, and tuck the lyrics in your pocket to sing to yourself in the morning.

“Wake up, wake up, you sleepy head;
Get up, get up, get out of bed.
Cheer up, cheer up – the sun is red.
Live, love, laugh and be happy.”

Last July, on a whim, I set a goal to take a nature photo every day for a year and post it on the Net.  It was scary.  I didn’t know if I could do it.  A year is a long time.

Some days, I knew, would be dreary, and some would be brutally cold, and on some I just plain wouldn’t feel at all inspired to go in search of a photo after working all day at my regular job.  But the challenge of it excited me and so I plunged in.

Not long afterwards, I began writing this blog you’re reading right now, another daily venture.  And now, over 200 days in, the two projects have blended together in my experience, feeding each other, becoming important parts of my life.  The practice of producing them has enriched me in more ways than I can count.

Practices are like that.  They more than repay you for the energy you invest in them.  They take you to extraordinary places; they lead you to discoveries you couldn’t have made any other way.  They unfold beautiful lessons and precious insights.  They stretch you and grow you and bring you satisfaction and joy.

Late this afternoon, for instance, I found myself wading through heaps of snow deeper than my boots and crawling under a fallen tree to reach the edge of the creek.  I felt completely exhilarated and alive, the weariness of work left far behind me.  The creek sang with the music of rushing waters, and danced with scarves of color captured from the glowing distant hills and azure sky.  Everywhere I looked beauty met my eye and a symphony of gladness sang through my soul, filling my whole being with the music of happiness.

Somewhere I read that happy people tend to be involved in projects.  They incorporate rituals in their daily lives that allow them to stretch themselves toward greater joy.  I can see why now.  And I wholeheartedly encourage you to create space in your own day to practice something you love.  Anything.  Daily.   Watch it take on its own rhythm and begin to sing its song to you, infusing the music of happiness into your life with ever-deepening harmony and life-enhancing meaning, satisfaction and joy.

I photographed the milkweed yesterday because its filaments were so beautiful against the deep blue sky.  It’s such an ugly duckling of a plant as it grows, as hardy and prolific in my field as dandelions in an untended lawn and as easily brushed aside as a mere weed.  But oh!  When it matures, its bursting pods reveal such a miracle of seeds, so neatly packed, so beautifully dressed for flight.

The beauty of its seeds, though, is but one aspect of its amazing being.  Its nectar feeds bees, and it’s the sole food source for larval monarch butterflies.  Its filaments are more insulating than down feathers and make a wonderful hypoallergenic filling for pillows.  Its sap will remove warts and soothe poison ivy.  All this, from one lowly weed!

And this is just one tiny example of the miracles nature designs, one little glimpse into the way things work together to support the whole interwoven network of being.  The dance is so beautifully choreographed, from the tiniest cell to the vast nebulae of space.  How can we not trust that we, too, are a part of its intelligence and order?  The proof is everywhere.

Every now and then, you just have to let it all carry you away in one big wave of celebration–the very fact that you’re here.

Here: on this tiny speck of ocean-drenched rock in the midst of a milky galaxy in one speck of boundless space.

Here: conscious, breathing, growing, dreaming, feeling.

Here: moving in the flow of trillions of bits-per-second of data, with our thimblefuls of facts and all our questions, selecting out with our very own personal vibrations which ones get to play across the screens of our minds.

Here: in the sweep of human history, in the company of six billion human neighbors, and more additional life forms than we can count, in this amazing instant of time.

Celebrate, I say!  What other response is possible?

“We must learn to reawaken and to keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.” ~Henry David Thoreau

“An infinite expectation of the dawn.”  Isn’t that a beautiful phrase!  It resonates with the most joyful note of hope within us, and something in it actually does awaken us.  It reminds us that miracles lurk around every bend, that at any moment – if we’re awake – we could be assaulted by beauty, or realization, or by a rush of inspiration.

Oh, I know some slothful souls counsel that expectation is a vain thing that seldom leads anywhere except to disappointment.  My guess is that they placed their bets on narrow specificities, not on the dawn.  They expected things to go precisely this way or that, to obtain defined outcomes based on the wants of foolish ego.

That’s not what Henry David is talking about.  To infinitely expect the dawn is to believe in the ultimate and imminent triumph of light, in the dispelling of the clouds of illusion that hide true reality’s wondrous and illimitable joy.  It’s sensing the power of the mystery in which we live to reveal its daysong to us, to shoot sunbeams on our paths.  It’s about listening for that song, and looking for that light, and knowing in our hearts that its there, quivering with eagerness for us to know it.

Stay awake.  Stay awake. No matter how deep the present darkness, infinitely expect the dawn.

A clear blue sky spread itself from horizon to horizon from sunrise until dusk.  Suddenly one of spring’s first harbingers appears: puddles!  Still, deep heaps of snow remain, smoothing the shapes of things into graceful, sweeping curves that shimmer in the bright sun’s light.

Today the sight of the gentle rounds of the melting drifts brought to mind a quote on cheerfulness by writer Washington Irving.  “An inexhaustible good nature,” he said, “is one of the most precious gifts of heaven, spreading itself like oil over the troubled sea of thought, and keeping the mind smooth and equable in the roughest weather.”

He might as easily have said, “like drifts of snow over the rocky landscapes of thought.” The point is the same.  A disposition grounded in the peace of genuine happiness allows us to keep our minds smooth and untroubled regardless of outer events.

It takes practice to maintain that kind of mental smoothness.  Life’s seas still bring storms, and the ground beneath the snow’s gentle blanket is sometimes treacherous indeed.  Happiness doesn’t guarantee a life free from challenges.  But it does allow you to meet those challenges with optimism, confidence, resilience and faith.  A positive disposition keeps you from the extremes of fear and hopelessness; it empowers you by allowing you to see a broader array of options and by putting you in charge of yourself and your choices so you don’t fall prey to thinking of yourself as life’s victim.

Being born with a big helping of happy genes is indeed one of the most precious gifts of heaven.  And the twin gift is that all of us can learn to cultivate more joy, whether we were born into it or not.  I think that’s the sparkle on the snow.  We can learn.

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Flow like water, rockin’ it, laughing.  Meet reality head on.  No resistance.  No having it any other way.  Just what is, right now, with arms and eyes wide open.

Fly it.  Fall with it.  Feel its might.  One dazzling instant transforming into another faster than light, roaring its nonstop cosmic yes.

That’s the song of joy, man.  All out joy.
Be it.

The creek was beautiful, its still waters mirroring the bare branches rising above it and the mounds of snow heaped in graceful rounds on its banks.

February was a month of record snowfall here.  And like my neighbors, I’m eager for the return of spring.  But as I turned away from the water, the stark beauty of the bare trees against the snowy hill took my breath away and I felt a surprising little wave of sadness wash through me at the realization that soon it would be gone.

I stood for a long moment in the silence of the woods.  It seemed as if the whole world was holding its breath so as not to disturb this instant of beauty.

And yet, beneath it ran a strong sense of coming change.  This poised moment was balancing on the very brink of the coming season.  Beneath these snows, behind the trees’ bark, powerful miracles were at work.  This was the moment right before waking.  Winter’s dream would soon give way to a burgeoning of new life.  How beautiful the anticipation of it!  How beautiful the present moment, holding both the fullness of winter and the promise of spring so equally in its arms.