High on Happiness

Posts Tagged ‘Truth’

From the crown of the hill, the tall golden grasses raised the triumphant song.  “The light has come! The light has come!  Let us lift our voices high!”

In the valley below them, the young ones asked their elders the meaning of this wondrous celebration.

“All living things long for the nourishment that the light brings, children.  And now, our time of darkness has come to an end, for on this day, the sun has been reborn and will lift us with the truth and wisdom of his light.  You will not understand until many seasons have passed, but it’s not the burning orb that fills the sky of which we sing.  It’s the sun behind the sun, for that is the source of our gladness and life.”

And the elder who spoke was right.  The young ones didn’t understand.  But they felt the joy that was sweeping the land, and it was so bold and full and brave that they could only stand in wonder and listen as the grasses trumpeted their song.

In legend, the hawk, recognizing the sacred light that poured from the wildflower’s center, drank its nectar and received the gift of clear vision.

The clarity was so deep that it extended far beyond the physical plane into the center of truth, and so the hawk became a scared bird, known for its ability to see and to guide, and the flower was named hawkweed in its honor.

I have seen the hawk soar upward on great invisible currents and disappear into the heart of the sun.  I have seen the heart of the sun in the center of the flower that bears the hawk’s name.

Sometimes legends tell more truth than we, with all our science, can grasp.  We walk among deep mystery.  Reverence is the key.

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Wake softly, my darling. The morning is pouring itself into the sky, its alchemy turning the lavender night into day.

Look how the ancient wind sweeps the stars into memory, how the trees chant the mantra of the light.

Wake softly, my love, into the dawning.  The sky is aflame with the secrets of our souls.  Look how the golden sun dissolves the illusions, how it’s luminous truth sweeps unwritten possibilities across the pure white snow.

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Strip away all the distractions, the noise.  Pare things back.  Find the essence.

Clarify.  Get down to the kernel, the central truth of things.  Focus on their harmony and rhythm and grace.

Set aside your theories and stories, the things you think you know, the names and classifications, the memories and judgments, your ideas of how things should go.

Just look at the one true thing there before you, singing in its wholeness.

Look at it as if it were brand new, as if you were, coming upon it for the very first time.

Find its message.  Find its beauty.  Find its truth.

Interesting, isn’t it, this truth stuff?

The way it upholds facts, but can’t be trapped by them?  How it shapes concepts but can’t be contained in their forms?  The way you can peel it down, layer after layer, and it’s still there?  Or follow it out into infinity and it never disappears?

It’s both relative and unchanging,   absolute and ever alive.  What was true, and truly so, for you at five is far different, richer, bigger, more complex for you now.

You can feel truth, experience it in some special place inside yourself.  But try to speak it and it breaks into pieces and bits.

Words and knowledge are of the mind; truth is of the soul.  And they can’t dunk you into the whole of it all at once, I tell you.

But I have read, and truly, “The more of it you know, the more of it you are.”

“Promise me you’ll always remember:” said Christopher Robin to Pooh, “You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” ~ A.A. Milne

That’s the thing about friends that makes them one of life’s best gifts.  They see right through to the true of us.  They see us with their hearts.

Oh sure, they see our weaknesses, too, and the ways we blunder and the blind spots that keep us from living our full potential.  But those are just the things that come with being human, a creature in a state of becoming.  And friends take all of that lightly, as if we’d put our shirts on backwards by mistake or worn a black sock with a blue one.

Friends see through to who we are inside.  They believe in the person we dream we’ll one day be.  Why, if you could see yourself through your good friends’ eyes, you wouldn’t believe how beautiful you are, how brave, how strong, how smart.

Friends encourage every step we make toward realizing our best.  They’re our biggest fans and cheerleaders.  They comfort us when we fail, bind our wounds when we’re injured, and laugh with gentle affection at the big deal we make of our temporary shortcomings.

They’re our truest fans and strongest allies.  They tell us the truth to our faces, plainly and with respect.  They defend us against those who would pull us down, even when we’re the ones doing the pulling.

Friends have faith in us, even when the rest of the world seems to be doubting our abilities and worth.  Their smiles are true; their sympathy is based in love.  They forgive our wrongs without our asking and hold our elbows while they steer us back onto the path when we stray.

To have a friend is to know that whatever comes, there’s a welcoming space for you in someone’s heart.  And so great is the love of our friends for us that the only way we can repay it is to keep a sacred space for them in our hearts in return.

It’s no accident, you know, that the world is filled with beauty, that we perceive it not only with our senses, but with our hearts and with our souls.  No randomness gives it birth; it’s the child of design, sent to reflect Perfection in time and space.

Beauty is the cosmic harmony of creation made comprehensible to human mind.  It’s the divine dance played in rhythms of color and sound to show us the pathway to joy.  It carries the sweetness of truth, the fragrance of goodness.  Beauty delights and inspires us and awakens in us the quest to know more completely the nature of its source, and its place within us.

With utmost grace, beauty weaves a wholeness of matter, spirit and mind, signaling to us the ultimate art, beckoning us to create it in our lives.  It’s a divine hint, a whisper, of how tenderly we’re loved, and an illumination of the way home.

Even as we celebrate our own joy, let us offer an invocation for all who have not yet found their paths to happiness.

May all who suffer undeserved pain
(for all pain is undeserved),
who unwittingly fall into strife
(for all strife is unwitting),
who wrestle with nightmare monsters
(for all evil is an unreal masquerade)
find comfort, healing and peace.

May all who suffer misery awaken.  May all who live with falsehood find truth.  May all hardness be met with mercy and all harshness be soothed by kind hands.

May those who are caught in arrogance be humbled. May those who think themselves low find their worth.  May those who are forgotten be recognized.  May the alienated find belonging and the lonely find friends.

May our darkness give way to light, our doubt be turned to faith, our fear to strength, and our confusion to understanding.  May we be touched by grace, opened to beauty, moved by goodness and surrendered to love.

For we all are children of the universe, of the illimitable, omnipresent Yes.  May we know its truth and dance in its glad song.

There didn’t have to be beauty.  A little wave of pleasure now and then would probably have been enough to keep things moving in the right direction.  You know, a little relief from the dullness and drudgery, the anxiety and stress.  A little bit of comfort, a tickle, a taste might have been all that was necessary.

But the world is strewn with beauty nevertheless.  Every corner of it.  It comes in endless hues and shapes and shades.

There didn’t have to be awe, or savoring, or exultation.  We probably could have moved forward with no bigger carrot than a hot, cooked meal and a warm, dry bed.

And yet wonder strikes us now and then so deeply that it takes our breath away.

Why should there be splendor?  Or tenderness enough to make our eyes well with tears?
Why symphonies?  Why poetry?  Why dance?

Why are we so moved by goodness?  Why do we yearn for truth?  What is this mystery in which we find ourselves?  And why do we seek to understand it?

Why is it at once so simple, and so grand?  And why do we feel such gratitude for the very fact of our being, and such deep, abiding joy?