High on Happiness

Posts Tagged ‘harmony’

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Joy rides photons as if they were bobsleds, careening through space, zipping past stars, sliding through the curves of space-time into matter just for the sheer dazzle of it.

And once it gets there, it blazes into invisible color and erupts into soaring silent song.  It sparkles its bliss like confetti, flinging it with abandon into the waters and winds.

And you drink it and breathe it without even knowing and it tastes like harmony and when you’re filled with it all you can see is beauty and the dancing spectrum of light.

You think this is a fairy tale or some fantastic story.  But it’s the nearest that truth can squeeze into words to tell you that you’re made of joy, that it’s in you, forever and always.  Drink the water.  Breathe the air.

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Every hue its place in the rainbow, every note has its place in the song.  Every motion, every season, every leaf and bug and star plays its part in the magnificent unfolding.

Even those things that live in the darkness.  The things we call vile; the things that repulse.  They, too, play their part, although you must stand at a great distance to see it and look through clear eyes.

Nothing goes to waste.  Nothing is unused or in vain.  Everything serves; everything supports and contributes. Every thought.  Every gesture.  Every breath.  Every word.

A hand larger than we can conceive weaves it all together into one endless song according to laws too high for us to comprehend except in the deepest reaches of our being.  And they guide us and shape us, as they do with all things, so that we, too, are a part of great harmony of it all, whether we know it or not.

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I was reading about the concept of balance when I came across two quotes.  The first, by Trappist monk and poet Thomas Merton said, “Happiness is not a matter of intensity, but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.”

I thought about that, about the calm, deep center from which happiness arises.  Although it splashes and ripples and sparkles with joy when it bursts out into the world, the core of happiness, its wellspring, is indeed a beautiful point of perfect harmony and balance.  It’s the state where genuine mindfulness takes you, the perspective that allows you to perceive the world’s glorious rhythmic order and grace, and to feel its reflection in your own being.

But how do we find that spot in the midst of the upheavals and stresses life brings us?  The second quote I found, from science fiction writer Frank Herbert, held the clue: “There’s no secret to balance,” he said.  “You just have to feel the waves.”

What put the two quotes together in my mind was the memory of a wonderful poster I saw years ago.  A laughing, white-bearded guru in a soaking wet gown was speeding down the edge of an enormous wave on a surfboard, his arms outstretched, hair flying in the wind.  “You can’t stop the ocean from flowing,” the caption said, “but you can learn to surf its waves.”

That’s what Herbert was saying.  The key isn’t in pretending the waves don’t exist, or in trying to stay on their crests, but in staying centered as you ride them.  It’s in understanding that the surface of life’s ocean is a turbulent affair, where highs are followed by lows that give way to new highs.  Gladness is followed by sorrow that gives way to another round of gladness in wave after wave after wave.  Happiness is allowing yourself to feel the peaks and troughs with your whole being so you can glide with them in harmony, centered in your awareness that it’s all just the rhythm of the ocean’s flowing dance.