High on Happiness

Posts Tagged ‘harmony’

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Even when the world is windless and drained of color, your beauty takes my breath away.

I know you give no thought to it, to the way you stand apart from the crowd, to the simplicity and balance of your life.

You think of yourself as ordinary, passing from season to season, doing what’s before you to be done.

And yet you do it all so well, with such harmony and grace.

I know that you would laugh to hear me say so, but you hold more beauty than my words could ever say.

And even in the darkness, you take my breath away.

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She’s like a kid set loose with a new kit of paints.  The whole world’s her sketchbook. There’s nowhere she doesn’t leave her mark.

Red vines scraggle down the fence posts.  Splotches of yellow leaves dot the puddles and the moss.  Seeds fly on white feathers or lodged in tan copters that whirl to the ground.

She has a certain feel for color and space.  Everything falls in such precise harmony, each part relating to the other just so, as if it could not possibly be otherwise.

Why just this morning, after the rain, I found a still life on the boards of my front porch.  Isn’t it exquisite? Do you see what I mean?

Suddenly the hillside is decked with autumn’s wildflowers.   A whole bouquet of colors cascades down its slopes.

They don’t squabble over turf, or wrangle over religion.  They’re not out to champion causes or to win each other’s hearts and minds.  If they have strong beliefs, they keep them to themselves.

The aster doesn’t tell the orchid that there’s only one way to make nectar, or believe that lavender’s superior to orange.  The goldenrod doesn’t insist that the little snowballs spread its tendrils wide or mock its pallor.

Instead, they revel in each other’s unique beauty, each finding in the other a charming complement to her own particular color and form.  They delight to be part of such a wondrous and varied bouquet.

And so they sing their autumn songs, each one in its own voice, with its own tone.  And the chorus rises in perfect harmony and scents the air with their joy.

She lay in a field all fresh and green that stretched to the far horizon, watching clouds paint scenes of sailing ships and roly-poly bears.  Lipizzaner stallions led a parade and grew wings and became pearly dragons.  And overhead the tree branches swayed and a thousand white doves turned into flowers whose petals drifted down on the breeze.

Down, down, down they fell, light as angel’s wings.  She floated somehow up to meet them and some turned into whispers and wrapped themselves around her like ribbons, dancing and trailing behind her as far as she could see.  And she twirled in the air, laughing, and still the white petals fell, each one singing a note of the song.

“Serenity,” one chimed.  “Happiness,” hummed another.   And soon she was surrounded by a symphony of exquisite sounds:  friendship, grace, generosity, joy, harmony, innocence, goodwill.

The petals were cascading down in waves now, singing every beautiful word she had ever heard, and she thought that she could float on forever.

But at last the shower of petals slowed, gently placing her back on the grass as their music faded away.

She opened her eyes, and there before her, three perfect white crocuses bloomed.  “Faith,” chimed one, every so softly.  “Hope,” piped the second.  “Love,” sang the third.  And she tucked their music in her heart and waltzed home, filled with gladness and joy.

The lovely old Victorian farm house is gone now, and the substantial barn where they kept the dairy cows.  At one time a big chicken coop stood in the side yard, too.  I watched them all age, and finally be torn down when a developer bought the property.

But the land still bears their mark and holds a few remnants of their presence.

The most tangible one is the little section of hand-hewn fence that separated the large pasture from their yard.

I love that fence.  It evokes whole movies in my mind of a hard working turn-of-the-century farm family.  I see the father working the fields, the kids helping to milk the cows, feed the chickens, the mother baking bread in the brick oven in the kitchen.  I’m sure they had horses, too, and cats and dogs.  They worked hard, and slept well, and watched the sunsets from their big porch at the end of a hot, summer day.

The images wash over me with a warm nostalgia, reminding me of simpler days, clearer values, lives lived in closer harmony with the earth.

When he put up that fence, I imagine the young farmer had no idea that it would outlast everything, that the sweat on his brow would glisten through the decades.  You never know how far your gestures will travel through time, which of your works will crumble, which endure.  You live your life, doing the best you can.  That’s all life asks.

And in return, life creates a legacy of some kind in your honor.  A token that endures, a word, an act of kindness that gets passed on and on, a value you instilled in the hearts of your children.  In ways we’ll never know, we make our marks on the world.  Just by living our lives, by doing the best that we can.


Peace flows as calmly as a winter stream, as deep as the sky.  Riding our breaths, it fills the spaces between them.  Riding life’s music, it’s the song between the notes.

It’s the presence of harmony and connection, weaving all things into an endless, dynamic whole.

It’s the grace that underlies being, the motion that makes all things sing.  It’s the ever-changing rhythm of the dance, the river of life’s flowing seen through eyes of acceptance and love.

Peace is the whispering of the great Yes, the infinite affirmation that all is, and will be, well.

It unfolds its gifts to us when we trust life as it comes, when we embrace its mystery and echo back its Yes, letting go of our need for it to be anything other than it is, letting ourselves take it as beautiful and perfect beyond our ability to see.

And when we accept the gifts that peace would offer, it wraps around our wounds and heals them.  It dissolves our fears and leaves us valiant and free.  It bathes us in its beauty and makes us fresh and new.

Its right here, now, this very season, this very moment, gift-wrapped with joy and tied with ribbons of love, offering itself to us for a single, silent yes.

Just for the joy of it, the Celestial Artisans took the winds in hand and, infusing them with harmony, wove the fallen pine needles into an intricate design.

While they were at it, they swept the nearby snow into a great, smooth swirl, and lay a sprig of spent seed pods atop it as an accent.

It didn’t matter to them whether any mere human would notice these particular creations.  But if one did, by chance, perhaps her spirit would dance to their rhythms and see in them a reflection of the invisible joy that brought them into being.  That was their secret hope.

Yet it was enough for the Artisans simply to create their designs.  It’s what they exist to do—to translate divine love into kaleidoscopic patterns and form, to instill material existence with harmony and beauty.  That is their mission, their worship, and their play.  And in it they find great fulfillment and joy.

In every moment, the secret tells itself.  It writes its poems with rocks and fallen leaves, pens them on snowdrifts and grasses, paints them on mirrors and window panes.  They’re everywhere.

They float on sound and sing through color.  They’re in every patch of earth and sky, in every form, in every possibility, in every word and dream.

They echo the music of the spheres, and of the soul, and sing the dimensions of the heart.

And it’s all a yes and a grand harmony.  And it’s all joy, and all for you and me.  All these endless poems, written everywhere.

“Happiness is not a matter of intensity, but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.” ~ Thomas Merton

The trees shine up from the creek’s surface, their castaway leaves laughing on the ground and floating merrily on the water.  Beneath my feet, they crunch as I walk.  The earth, in the afternoon’s heat, smells of autumn, and crickets sing.

Today is the Autumnal Equinox, when day and night stand in balance.  Here in the woods, it feels holy, as if the earth, poised on the cusp of the new season, is pausing at the end of its long summer sigh before it gathers everything in.

There’s a stillness about things, almost a watchfulness.  I can feel the last of summer settling away.  And in the far distance, I imagine I hear the high whistle of winter winds as they ready themselves for their part in the dance.

All things contain each other.  In every grain, the whole tells its dynamic, ever-evolving story.  The up merges with the down; the inside blends with the out.  And in this moment, this precious instant when the earth balances between seasons, I feel the harmony and order of it all, and it tastes of unending happiness.

The half-mile long dirt road veers sharply where the old oak grows.  It’s a landmark of sorts in these parts.

Standing at the base of a bramble-covered driveway that led to a farm house that’s no longer there, it carries within its towering limbs a thousand tales.

It’s a majestic tree.  When you stand beneath it and gaze up at its gnarled branches, you can’t help but feel a sense of awe.  It seems noble somehow, so ancient and enduring, so in harmony with the life force that flows through its massive form.

It’s the epitome of strength and of benevolence, affording a home to countless generations of insects, squirrels and birds, shading the wildflowers that grow beneath it, feeding small creatures with its abundant crop of nuts.

I don’t know why, exactly, but when I stand beneath it I feel healed somehow, as if it has given me some of its strength and shared a silent message.  I sense its deep roots extending into the earth below me and feel my own rootedness.  I see its branches extending outward and upward and I’m inspired to reach upward and outward as well.  I see how it flourishes, despite its antiquity, and I’m encouraged to endure, and to dance, as it does, in harmony with the life force that flows on and on and on.

And so I sing its strength tonight, and share it with you.  It’s given me such blessings.  The least I can do is pass a few of them on.