My silver lining

I don't want to wait anymore. I'm tired of looking for answers

Take me some place where there's music and there's laughter

I don't know if I'm scared of dying but I'm scared of living too fast, too slow

Regret, remorse, hold on, oh no I've got to go

There’s no starting over, no new beginnings, time races on

And you've just gotta keep on keeping on

Gotta keep on going, looking straight out on the road

Can't worry 'bout what's behind you or what's coming for you further up the road

I try not to hold on to what is gone, I try to do right what is wrong

I try to keep on keeping on

Yeah I just keep on keeping on

I hear a voice calling

Calling out for me

These shackles I've made in an attempt to be free

Be it for reason, be it for love

I won't take the easy road

I've woken up in a hotel room, my worries as big as the moon

Having no idea who or what or where I am

Something good comes with the bad

A song's never just sad

There's hope, there's a silver lining

Show me my silver lining

Show me my silver lining

I hear a voice calling

Calling out for me

These shackles I've made in an attempt to be free

Be it for reason, be it for love

I won't take the easy road

I won't take the easy road

The easy road, the easy road

Show me my silver lining, I try to keep on keeping on

Show me my silver lining, I try to keep on keeping on

Show me my silver lining, I try to keep on keeping on

Show me my silver lining, I try to keep on keeping on

by First Aid Kit

On the tendency to want things to be different

"There's a number of different reasons why we end up wanting things to be different to the way that they are. The first one is simply a matter of awareness. Very often we're so caught up in thought - quite a habitual kind of thing - that we're not fully aware of where the mind is at any one time - so it tends to spin off in these discursive sorts of moments - or perhaps a particular emotion gathers a huge amount of steam until we suddenly realise what's happening and how we actually feel. So obviously being aware is key to understanding how we relate to these moments.

Then there is a resistance to how things are - wanting things to stop because we experience them as being unpleasant in some way. On the other hand, there's the tendency to chase after pleasant sensations. But even when we perhaps attain them, even if it's only of a very temporary nature, we then worry about losing them. So there's always this sort of dynamic going on where we're either wanting to get rid of the unpleasant feelings  - whether that's thoughts, situations, or emotions - doesn't matter. Or we're chasing after the opposite. It's very hard to have a relaxed, calm and contented mind when we're always wanting things to be different in this way. So this is why its important to be aware.

So we're starting to see how there is a way of working with this tendency of wanting things to be different. First we need to actually understand, appreciate and acknowledge that there is this tendency to always want things to be different in some way, or  a great deal of the time. Then it's noticing how actually it's in wanting it to be different that causes us a lot of discomfort, both in our body and in our mind. That's what causes a lot of stress and a lot of tension.

By learning skillfully how to note, to realise what this tendency is - to step back from it and see it within a wider, broader perspective, we're able to start to let go a little bit, of that tendency. It's not that we need to stop trying to change things around us - sometimes that's absolutely appropriate  - it's useful and beneficial - but in terms of our internal experience, noticing how often we're wanting things to change and how often we're swept away by either positive feelings or thoughts (indulgence) or negative feelings or thoughts (resistance)."

- Andy Puddicombe - Headspace

Water lillies © Jennifer Phillips

Life's a strange concoction

© Michael Leunig in "The Age" - Saturday August 23rd 2014

Necessary

Occasionally, 

I allow myself to feel

You're the broken person

necessary for my completeness

You're part of my core

Required reading

for the integrity

of my soul.

So break open,

I'll join you.

© Jennifer Phillips (All rights reserved)

Fuschia at night

Fuschia flowers at night © Jennifer Phillips

Don't fuck around with love

"Never share deep emotions unless you enjoy big explosions..."

On freedom

There are times when the flux of life

Has the quality of lava,

Melting, reshaping every familiar feature,

As its red fire runs from height to depth.

What landscape will emerge,

What accessibilities, inaccessibilities,

What cultivability,

After the ash settles and the rock cools,

Lies nowhere in our power.

Our only freedom 

Abides in choosing, or not choosing,

To open ourselves to the changed terrain,

To search for paths and passes amid the alien crags,

To grow what vines we can, where we can,

And to taste the new wine without regretting the old.

by David Singleton

Tiger's eye crystals © Jennifer Phillips

Truth

"There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic."

by Anais Nin

Mosaic - Copyright Free Images

Little aches and pains

Thanks for your letter and your kind words of comfort

It’s good to hear from you again

I’m going ok, taking it day by day

You know what they say - “Can’t complain”

It’s just these little aches and pains

I got ‘em always now, sunshine or rain.

It must be nice up there on the river

Maybe I could visit, I haven’t had a trip in a while

There’s nothing much keeping me here

I see the gang maybe once or twice a year

You and me, we could walk a rambling country mile

Test out these little aches and pains

When all else goes, they remain.

Disabled we’re born, disabled we die

Is that a cliché? I’ll make it one!

And hope it doesn’t get too creaky

I have found that what you don’t know will hurt you

And what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker

Leaves you with little aches and pains

I got ‘em always now, sunshine or rain

Oh, these little aches and pains

I don’t count my losses now,  just my gains.

by Paul & Dan Kelly

Overtaking grief

"... Both of them pushing Gloria in a wheelchair along the banks of the river. Up a lazy river where the robin's song wakes a brand new morning as we roll along. It was a celebration, that day. They had dug their feet down into happiness and weren't prepared to let go. They threw sticks into an eddy and watched them circle. Put a blanket down, ate Wonder Bread sandwiches. Later in the afternoon her sister started crying, like a change in the weather, for no reason except the popping of a wine cork. Jaslyn handed her a wadded tissue. Gloria laughed at them and said that she'd overtaken grief a long time ago, that she was tired of everyone wanting to go to heaven, nobody wanting to die. The only thing worth grieving over, she said, was that sometimes there was more beauty in this life than the world could bear.
Gloria left with a smile on her face. They closed her eyes with the glare of the sun still on them, rolled the wheelchair up the hill, stayed a little while looking out over the land until the insects of evening gathered."

by Colum McCann in Let the Great World Spin

Sunset on Murray River © Jennifer Phillips