Small But Certain Happiness

Last week I shared on the theme of ‘small but certain happiness’ as an invitation to let simple, everyday joys you don’t have to strive for or earn in. If you missed it, I also wrote this newsletter where I unpacked this theme and shared about the source of my inspiration.

You may find in times that feel hard, uncertain, unsettling, and despair-ridden, that simple joys appear trivial. Leaning in may make you feel guilty. Or, you might not even notice what there is to lean into. Your mind could be racing around with worry or confusion or dread, so you wind up bypassing the little wonders that abound around you right now. What if your simplest joy is actually a return to the very life-giving grace that carries and sustains you through?

Small but certain happiness (SBCH) asks you to slow down and take a look around where you are right now. Let some simple, certain joy stream in. It could be belting it out in the shower, savoring a spoonful of honey, snuggling up with your animal companion, or getting nose deep in your favorite spring bloom. The Nootka Rose is in full bloom in Bellingham today and I stopped and breathed in her earthy-cinnamon swirl of aroma. Later I curled up with my canine soul sister Wren for a too-brief period of time, feeling her body and mine soften. Right now as I sit typing I am feeling the tingle of my aliveness in my hands, post-gardening.

The practice of SBCH has reminded me that my mind, body, and heart are actually designed for me to experience joy, so why not let joy in, and daily? It’s not to negate or turn away from the reality of the hardship, devastation, grief, and anger many of us face and hold. SBCH isn’t about us ignoring or stuffing anything inside. It’s about opening up and simply recognizing we can move through what is hard without ourselves hardening. We can be real with what’s happening around us and remain receptive to what is joyful, sweet, kind. SBCH becomes a quite powerful practice of becoming present, calm and receptive. Turn your attention to something, anything, you don’t have to reach for that sparks joy.

Here are a few poems that have been like a balm to me so far this year and some recent moments of SBCH.

For When People Ask | by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

I want a word that means
okay and not okay,
more than that: a word that means
devastated and stunned with joy.
I want the word that says
I feel it all all at once.
The heart is not like a songbird
singing only one note at a time,
more like a Tuvan throat singer
able to sing both a drone
and simultaneously
two or three harmonics high above it—
a sound, the Tuvans say,
that gives the impression
of wind swirling among rocks.
The heart understands swirl,
how the churning of opposite feelings
weaves through us like an insistent breeze
leads us wordlessly deeper into ourselves,
blesses us with paradox
so we might walk more openly
into this world so rife with devastation,
this world so ripe with joy.

The Peace of Wild Things | by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Morning After | by Maya Stein

Again another chance to praise the same room, the same floor, the same view, the same tea, the same image in the mirror, which today is startlingly not the same. Again the chance to find the miracle in the flowers that bloom, the miracle in the morning sun, the miracle in the willows beside the pond. Again the chance to fall in love with the same sky, the same field, the same dirt, the same broken world. Again the chance to show up with these same tired arms and put them to work, the same as yesterday, which is to learn to lift up, to heal, to carry, to build, to be in the world, to praise the same room, same floor, same view, same tea.

Don’t Hesitate | by Mary Oliver

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

The Question | by Tara Brach

All day, I replay these words:
Is this the path of love?
I think of them as I rise, as
I wake my children, as I wash dishes,
as I drive too close behind the slow
blue Subaru, Is this the path of love?
Think of these words as I stand in line
at the grocery store,
think of them as I sit on the couch
with my daughter. Amazing how
quickly six words become compass,
the new lens through which to see myself
in the world. I notice what the question is not.
Not, “Is this right?” Not,
“Is this wrong?” It just longs to know
how the action of existence
links us to the path to love.
And is it this? Is it this? All day,
I let myself be led by the question.
All day I let myself not be too certain
of the answer. Is it this?
Is this the path of love? I ask
as I wait for the next word to come.

“May, more than any other month of the year, wants us to feel most alive.” —Fennel Hudson

Sit with awareness of the place where your body makes contact with the ground. Press down, as if rooting into the earth. Lift up through your spine, as if a stem, rise up. Sense the structures that surround and support your heart. Go inside. Breathe to bloom. Breathe to soothe. Like a flower, bloom. Like a flower, soothe. Take your heart as a light-filled field extending out in all directions beyond what the sharpest eye can see. Take your mind as the sky, matching in vastness, beholding the flowers that grow up in the field of the heart. Love, kindness, friendliness, compassion, joy, beauty, grace…these are the flowers.

Centering words along these lines have guided us many times in the month of May, a month I’ve dedicated to the theme of “backbends and blooms.” Midway through the month I stumbled into the research of Behavioral Scientist Nancy Etcoff. She conducted a study, published by Harvard, which focused on the effects of fresh cut flowers in our homes. The results of her study indicate that flowers in our living spaces increase our access to feelings of compassion and kindness and decrease our experience of anxiety and worry. Flowers in our homes also boost our energy, as if cheering us on. “You can do it, human!” they tell us from our kitchen counters and coffee tables.

I’ve shared a few poems to inspire us on our way through the lovely, flowering month of May. Many of you have asked for copies of the poems. So here you have them!

Kindness | by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Consider the tulip,
how it rises every spring
out of the same soil,
which is, of course,
not at all the same soil,
but new. How long ago
someone’s hands planted a bulb
and gave to this place
a living scrap of beauty.

Consider the six red petals,
the yellow at the center,
the soft green rubber of the stem,
how it bows to the world. How,
the longer we sit beside it,
the more we bow to it.

It is something like kindness,
is it not? The way someone plants
in you a bit of beauty—a kind word,
perhaps, or a touch, the gift
of their time or their smile.
And years later, in the soil that is you,
it emerges again, pushing aside
the dead leaves, insisting on beauty,
a celebration of the one who planted it,
the one who perceives it, and
the fertile place where it has grown.

Like the Peony | by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Like the peony that opens
and opens and opens,
this is how I want to meet life—
surviving the cold
then returning to bloom
again. Again.
That vibrant. That many-petaled.
Embarrassingly fulsome,
as if life just can’t
get enough of itself.
I know how winter ravages.
Sounds like a metaphor?
Truth is life cuts you to the ground
and you lose all but the roots.
Sometimes those, too.
How is it, then, comes
the chance to bloom again,
to be less master of life,
and more servant
to the life that pushes through.
I want to be fluent in blooming.
I want to trust the possibility
of sweet spring perfume
as much as I trust
the inevitability of frost.
I am so grateful for beauty,
albeit brief,
for the chance to be naked,
tender, soft.
 

The Singular and Cheerful Life | by Mary Oliver

The singular and cheerful life

of any flower

in anyone's garden

or any still unowned field--

if there are any--

catches me

by the heart,

by its color

by its obedience

to the holiest of laws:

be alive

until you are not.

Ragweed,

pale violet bull thistle,

morning glories curling

through the field corn;

those princes of everything green--

the grasses

of which there are truly

an uncountable company,

each on its singular stem

striving

to rise and ripen.

What, in the earth world,

is there not to be amazed by

and to be steadied by

and to cherish?

Oh, my dear heart,

my own dear heart,

full of hesitations,

questions, choice of directions,

look at the world.

Behold the morning glory,

the meanest flower, the ragweed, the thistle.

 Look at the grass.

Dandelions Bloom More than Once | by Carly Haapala

Did you know that a dandelion blooms more than once?

That its life is

open and close and

open and close and

stretch out and then

curl up,

let go and then

hold tight,

bloom and then

rest and then

let the wind carry you

open and close and

open and close.

And when it appears

that I have no more to give

just let me curl. up and rest awhile

and I’ll bloom all golden and bright and

full of brand new wishes.

The sun stood still

On Winter Solstice the sun stood still as if to say:

“Let’s take this slow,

let’s be in the pause,

let’s be in the space

between one cycle’s end

and the next cycle’s beginning.”

Now watch how the same cosmic patterns

are alive in you, like the natural pause

at the bottom of the exhalation.

Winter solstice is the space that gives

to the next brightening cycle,

the next breath in.

Liza Higbee-Robinson

Unfinished and Unresolved…Happy New Year!

In the northern hemisphere, New Year’s arrives just when a little encouragement to keep going through winter is helpful. The sense that we are collectively jumping off an edge into something brand new energizes, refreshes, emboldens us, at least initially. We may have opportunity around New Year’s to pause from our regular work and routines, reflect on the passage of time, honor the myriad cosmic orbits that carry us through our existence. A space for us to shout, as loudly as we like, about what it is we desire for ourselves, opens to receive us. We may set ambitious and soulful intentions for ourselves, or resolve to do or not do something with our time and energy in the coming year. We may call in one word: ease or peace or love or joy, to be the tone for the new year. My friend and colleague Kelly characterizes us as our most aspirational selves on New Year’s Day.

When we set our intentions or resolutions with an expectation of sudden transformation, we are likely to find ourselves disheartened or disappointed when a few days or weeks into the year, we find ourselves…still ourselves, with the same old habits, and the same old mindsets, and the same old challenges. This is not to indicate that we are incapable of growth and change. We are. It’s just that growth rarely happens over night. Growth processes require an enduring commitment to move through periods of certain failure, to pick ourselves up, get back on track and begin again and again and again.

What if we kept our intentions, and gave ourselves the space to express them imperfectly, without precision, at our own pace? What if we gave ourselves space to be the unfinished and unresolved projects that we are? What if we kept going, while accepting that we won’t get it all right this year, as was the case last year, as will be the case every year? We will slip and slide and make a mess and puzzle over what to do about it, many times over in 2023. And we can still do the beautiful, brave, kind, and caring things we imagine and desire for ourselves.

Enjoy some poems that have been good company to me in these first days of 2023.

Poem to the New Year | Maya Stein

There you are, as always,
approaching, approaching,
dangling like a mess of carrots,
playing your constant peek-a-boo,
inescapable as a virus
and suddenly the pressure is on
to make those final, hopeful amends,
reduce oneself into a slim, aerodynamic spectacle,
and finally, in a last-ditch, gut-clenching effort,
to morph into sudden, spectacular greatness.

As always, you are like religion.
It's hard not to want to please you.
But instead of a great leaping, evangelical stride
what usually happens is an evisceration,
me peeling my own layers, scrubbing the dirt off like mad,
demanding enormous things of myself at the end of December
I "forget" just weeks into January,
which is when the guilt sets in,
simple and cold and sharp as ice.

What I want, I suppose, is for you to be a little gentler
with your arrival, not so earnest and punctual.
Don't worry if you're late this time.
I don't mind if you finish your book, drink another cup of tea, sleep.
I'm fine, really.
Can entertain myself plenty.
Buy something nice, on sale.
Rent a movie.
Enjoy what's left in the donut box.
Stay out of the rain.
Keep myself dry and soft and happy
for a little while longer.

Mornings at Blackwater Pond | Mary Oliver

For years, every morning, I drank

from Blackwater Pond.

It was flavored with oak leaves and also, no doubt,

the feet of ducks.

And always it assuaged me

from the dry bowl of the very far past.

What I want to say is

that the past is the past,

and the present is what your life is,

and you are capable

of choosing what that will be,

darling citizen.

So come to the pond,

or the river of your imagination,

or the harbor of your longing,

and put your lips to the world.

And live

your life.

The Most Important Thing | Julia Fahrenbacher

I am making a home inside myself. A shelter
of kindness where everything
is forgiven, everything allowed—a quiet patch
of sunlight to stretch out without hurry,
where all that has been banished
and buried is welcomed, spoken, listened to—released.
​
A fiercely friendly place I can claim as my very own.
​
I am throwing arms open
to the whole of myself—especially the fearful,
fault-finding, falling apart, unfinished parts, knowing
every seed and weed, every drop
of rain, has made the soil richer.
​
I will light a candle, pour a hot cup of tea, gather
around the warmth of my own blazing fire. I will howl
if I want to, knowing this flame can burn through
any perceived problem, any prescribed perfectionism,
any lying limitation, every heavy thing.
​
I am making a home inside myself
where grace blooms in grand and glorious
abundance, a shelter of kindness that grows
all the truest things.
​
I whisper hallelujah to the friendly
sky. Watch now as I burst into blossom.

From Which It All Began | Bernadette Miller

Tell me, what would you do today if you knew your life to be a celebration of this world?

Would you stop to gather sunlight dropping soundlessly upon pines beyond your window pane?

Would you court dreams too wide for the container of consciousness?

Would you linger in the terrible beauty of uncertainty as if the fullness of the world depended upon your presence?

Would you cast your hopes upon possibilities that abide only in departure?

Would you become the motion of your song, losing itself in over tones of delight or despair

and returning, finally, to the stillness from which it all began?

Winter Solstice Poems

Enjoy this selection of three poems by three of my favorite poets to guide us into winter, and into the light. Happy Solstice! Happy Yule!

Snow on Western Red Cedar

On Winter Solstice | Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

On this gray, near-drizzling day

I write again this love letter

for the earth, which is, I suppose,

what all poems are, though they

disguise themselves as poems about

children or wine or baseball or snow.

On this longest night, it’s so clear—

the truest reason to write at all is to fall

more deeply in love with the world,

with its trees and its drizzle

and its stubborn shine and its

relentless hunger and its corners

that will never ever ever see the growing light.

Fall in love with the octopus that can detach

an arm on purpose and then grow it back again.

Fall in love with the elusive lynx

and the crooked forest and the frazzle ice

tinkling in the San Miguel River.

Fall in love even with this profoundly flawed

species that, despite all its faults,

is still capable of falling more deeply,

more wildly in love.

Snow clad trees

White-Eyes | Mary Oliver

In winter

    all the singing is in

         the tops of the trees

             where the wind-bird

with its white eyes

    shoves and pushes

         among the branches.

             Like any of us

he wants to go to sleep,

    but he's restless—

         he has an idea,

             and slowly it unfolds

from under his beating wings

    as long as he stays awake.

         But his big, round music, after all,

             is too breathy to last.

So, it's over.

    In the pine-crown

         he makes his nest,

             he's done all he can.

I don't know the name of this bird,

    I only imagine his glittering beak

         tucked in a white wing

             while the clouds—

which he has summoned

    from the north—

         which he has taught

             to be mild, and silent—

thicken, and begin to fall

    into the world below

         like stars, or the feathers

               of some unimaginable bird

that loves us,

    that is asleep now, and silent—

         that has turned itself

             into snow.

Yule offering

To Know the Dark | Wendell Berry

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

Journey Home

This is a journey home.

You can begin anytime, to move

through and around all that is.

Feel the push of what’s behind you,

the pull of what’s ahead. Settle

into pools of calm for moments at a time.

Move with the swiftness of rapids charged

and blurring everything that is

back together.

This is a journey home.

You can begin anytime, to gather

up all the bits and pieces of who you are,

who you will be.

Then, jump in!

Your body is made to carry your soul this way.

No matter what pushes you, pulls you,

no matter what draws you to linger,

what urges you to move,

you are going home.

Liza Higbee-Robinson