High on Happiness

Archive for August, 2010

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A ladybug on a leaf, the slant of the late afternoon sun highlighting the plant’s veins and the color of its stem,  the grace of its pattern against the sky . . . how poignant and lovely this simple gift of joy, so freely given.

Sometimes it’s enough just to walk the earth with eyes open to her wonders, to breathe the summer air, to feel the warmth of the sun, to smell the fragrances of the field, to hear the crickets’ song.  Sometimes it fills me with such richness that I can want for nothing more.

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Today, for the first time in weeks, I got to walk in the fields.  As I rounded the bend that yielded the first glimpse of the back 18 acres, my heart leaped with joy.  The goldenrod was in bloom!

A field full of goldenrod is an amazing sight.  For me, it’s at once the golden crown of summer, given in celebration to mark its last days, and the first grand sweep from autumn’s palette. The intensity of the color takes your breath away, and you can’t help but be happy walking through it.

I call these season-spanning the days the golden days.  And how fitting, I think, is their color.  It’s the hue of balance, of the golden mean, placed between summer’s rampant growth and winter’s rest, between the sizzle and the freeze.  Everything’s nearly at its peak of maturity and fullness . . . the plants in the fields, the leaves on the trees, the spring’s generation of deer and rabbits, beaver and raccoons.  And the goldenrod shouts “Bravo! Well done!”

Time seems to pause, here at the year’s zenith, as if to give us the chance to take in the wonders the season has wrought before it passes away.  Soon it will crescendo into harvest time and painted leaves will dance and fall, bringing the play to a close.  But here, in the golden days, we have this chance to look about us at the magnificent abundance and to gather it with gratitude and gladness into our hearts.

The hillside that borders my driveway is peppered with hundreds of orange and yellow jewelweed blossoms, tiny blooms no bigger than my thumbnail.  The bumblebees love them, diving deep into the flowers’ throats until only their fuzzy tails and back legs stick out.

Along with the wild yarrow, goldenrod and Queen Anne’s lace, the jewelweed marks the last of the summer’s floral bouquet.  I think of its blossoms as jewels of joy, and imagine that invisible fairies dance in its dew-sparkled leaves in the morning to the jingle of the little bells that hang suspended in the blossoms’ petals.

The fantasy quickly fades as I pull onto the highway and crawl to work through construction zones, listening to the morning’s news on the radio.  Unemployment up; the markets down.  The usual local mayhem and threats of impending global doom.

An ambulance sits at our clinic’s curb.  Already, I see, the crisis department is shipping the day’s first client off to the inpatient unit at the hospital.

The women at the front desk smile as I walk in the front door, looking like angels.  A vision of the joy jewels flashes through my mind again, as I greet them.  A little clump of nurses is gathered by the case worker’s door, their voices and gentle laughter pouring softly down the carpeted hall.

I climb the stairs to my office, and because it’s such a lovely morning, decide I’ll open my window to let in the birdsong and air.  One of our buses is loading the abused and neglected little kids who attend our county-sponsored summer program.  Must be a field trip day.  The last two in line are wearing orange and yellow.  They giggle as they climb aboard, holding the teachers’ hands.  And I see little jewels of joy.

When happiness looks through your eyes, it takes in the whole grand sweep of things.  Open and free, it floats through the seamless now, glad for every nuance of the ever changing scene.

Happiness wears no prejudicial blinders.  It drinks in the high and the low, the near and far, the brightness and shadow, the inside and out with equal joy.

To happiness, everything is a miracle and perfection.  Every molecule is in rhythm. Every pebble, every whisker, every sunbeam and blade of grass is exactly where it should be.

Faces move happiness to tears with their beauty.  Even the ones that have never tasted its joy, even the ones that are lined with sorrow and suffering.  They, too, are embraced by the great mystery, enfolded by the infinite yes and a part of its song.

Happiness does not need to know or to understand what is beyond it.  It is enough for happiness simply to be, and to flow through open hearts and minds and to dance on the gentle smiles of those in whom it dwells.

So often the sublime simplicity of the ordinary – the daylight, the unassuming roadside flowers – waltzes past us unobserved.  But right there, in plain sight, happiness writes its secrets for all of us to see.

It speaks its truths in the laughter of children.  It sings through wee birds and the crickets in the grass.  It shines in the morning dew.  It’s most profound formulas are resolved in a smile.

We make of our lives such complex tales.  We tie ourselves in knots seeking more, hoarding great stores of the useless, rushing to pile up heaps of the unnecessary.  We drag such luggage with us everywhere we go.  No wonder we are weary!

Let it all go, in the name of freedom.  Happiness isn’t a complicated affair.  It’s the simple goodness of sunshine, of kindness, of ease.  It doesn’t need embroidery or a shoeshine.  It carries the essence of beauty in its harmony and grace.

There’s nothing in it that you need to grasp or reach for.  It falls most easily into your open hand.  It doesn’t demand that you win the race.  Although it waits, amused, at the finish line to greet you, it strolls through the crowd of watchers as well, and dances with the never-rans.  It has no standard but purity of heart.

And so it hides, right there in plain sight, in the sublime simplicity of the ordinary and familiar, waiting for you to let go of the striving that keeps you from seeing it, in all its radiant, easy, everywhere truth.

The heart of happiness knows all your sorrows.  It tastes your jealousies and anger, and understands your grief and pain.  And when they visit you, these seasons of darkness, happiness wraps them in webs of its compassionate light.

You may feel it only as a longing for relief; but that longing itself is happiness reminding you of its presence and peace.

The heart of happiness is the radiance that shines from the core of your being, from the center of your every cell, from the center of all that is.  It flows beneath your sadness as ceaselessly as it flows beneath your joy.  Its light enfolds your tears as tenderly as it sings with your laughter.

Your emotions are but melodies playing on its surface, the colors that dapple its flow.  And it dances with them, and with your thoughts and with your dreams, sparkling them with its clarity, bathing them in its beauty, endlessly pulsing its oceanic love.

It fills all the spaces; it sings in the silence; it breathes its light everywhere, to the ends of the universe and beyond.

And it knows you, intimately, as its child.  And it whispers without ceasing, “All is well.  You are loved.”

“Abundance isn’t something we acquire; it’s something we tune into.” ~Wayne Dyer

“She’s nothing, if not extravagant,” Grandpa said, sipping his lemonade on the porch.  He was gazing at the field that he had spent the day cultivating.

“Who, Grandpa?” Sam said.  He didn’t see anybody out there.  “Who’s extravagant?  And what’s that mean, anyway?”

Grandpa chuckled.  “Oh, I was just thinking,” he said.  “See that tall grass over there by the fence post, gone to seed?  Go pick me a stem of it, Sam.”

When Sam brought it back, Grandpa gently stripped the seeds from it and held them in his open hand.  “Look how many seeds came from that one stem of grass.  It’s a lot, isn’t it?  Now think how many there must be in that whole clump.  If we planted them all in one long row, why they’d probably go from here all the way to Mrs. Radie’s.”

“Maybe all the way to Uncle Jake’s!” Sam said, as Grandpa blew the seeds away.

“That’s what I meant by extravagant,” Grandpa said.  “When Nature creates, she makes plenty.  Seeds, soil, earthworms, little boys, everything.”

“Why does she make so much, Grandpa?”

“She can’t help it.  It’s how she loves us.” Grandpa said.  “It’s her happiness, just filling up all the empty spaces, so when you look there’s always something there.”

“But what about winter?” Sam asked.

“Snowflakes,” Grandpa said, leaning back into his rocker and taking another sip of lemonade.

Sam smiled.  “Extravagant,” he said quietly to himself.  “Extravagant.”

The air itself is steamy; but the sky withholds its rain.  And even though our skin and the skin of the trees and the rocks in the creek bed are slicked with a thin dampness, we are parched and wilted, all of us.

We have been through seasons like this before, of course.  We know that sooner or later the rain will come.  We lock into patience mode and make the best of it, watching, with those whose crops grow brittle in the fields, for a sign of gathering clouds.

Everything has its dry spells.  Friendships, marriages, businesses, careers.  You call on whatever reserves you have to get you by and wait.

You find diversions to while away the time and let yourself study how the landscape looks when it’s dry, when its bare bones are exposed.  Sometimes you find unexpected treasures, features and strengths you hadn’t known were there.

No time is without its blessings.  The key is to accept what is, without wanting it to be different.  Then you’re free to see it with clear eyes, to mine the moment for its goodness, while you wait for the rain.

Chocolate.

Definitely, chocolate.

For all life’s unexpected turns, it’s patches of shade and shadow, its dips into deep valleys and challenging climbs back to the light, isn’t it, still, such a lovely, winding road?

For all its unwanted goodbyes, and nights of fear-filled darkness, its frozen winters and days of endless rain, isn’t it, still, such a matchless journey?

Think of the eyes that look into your own with love.  Think of touching a baby’s toes.  Think of watching a sunrise, of hearing a child’s laugh.

Think of the fragrance of lavender, the texture of velvet, the sound of waves lapping on the shore.

Think of fat clouds in a blue sky, heaped taller than mountains.  Think of mountains and forests and deserts and seas.

Think of your childhood and all you have done since then.  Think what it will be like, looking back on today when you’ve traveled twenty more years.  Think what your face will look like when you’re eighty.

Think of the fun you have had, the work you have done, the friends you have made, the places you’ve seen.  Think of all the music you know, the stories you have heard, the books you have read, the games you have played, the arts you’ve enjoyed, the teams you have cheered.

Think of the warmth of sunlight on your skin on an early spring day, of a sky full of stars and air full of song.  Think of the fragrance of freshly mown grass and of lilacs and of the ocean.

Think of walruses and penguins, of butterflies and kangaroos.  Think about a camera flying light years into space to send you postcards from the nebulae and galaxies.

Think of all thoughts you have thought, the facts you have learned, the puzzles you have solved.  Think of all the questions that have never been answered and never will be.  Think of all the dreams you have dreamed and of those that still wait for you to make them come true.

Think of all the emotions that have coursed through your soul, the passions and the longing, the hilarity and the peace.  Think how your lungs have breathed so much air, how your heart has pumped whole rivers of blood through your veins.  Think how wondrous ears are, and eyelids.

Think of all the people you have touched and loved and who have loved and touched you.

Oh yes.  For all its dips and shadows, isn’t it, still, such a lovely, winding road?