Threads of the Web

"Of all the people you will encounter today - don't let one person spoil your day. More importantly, of all the people you will meet during your life, don't let one person - from the past, present or future - ruin your life."
- Dr. Jeff Mullen

We didn’t walk away to teach someone else a lesson. We walked away because we had learned ours.

Is whatever you’re holding onto
still serving you?

Happy Second Second Half of the Year Day. Threads is taking a break.
See ya in 2024.

Truth.

When we’re experiencing death — of a loved one, of a relationship, of a way of life, of parts of ourselves — it is overwhelming.

But we grow. You may be overwhelmed right now, but you can grow.

Our lives contain a bunch of small and large deaths. Unless we believe that growth isn’t possible, or we repress our pain and bury it under our scars, in each death is a repurposing of life.

This isn’t to say “everything happens for a reason”, or “turn your frown upside down” or that there’s a silver lining for all the darkness of our grief.

The pain may never diminish. You may always walk with a limp.

It is to say that we are more than capable of growing through the grief, learning from our experiences, and finding healthier ways to cope.

You can grow.

You are growing.

And you’ll continue to grow.

Be patient with yourself. This all takes time. Believe that you’ll become the person you need to be.

“The most fatal illusion is the settled point of view. Since life is growth and motion, a fixed point of view kills anybody who has one.” ― Brooks Atkinson

There is a beautiful complexity of growth within the human soul. In order to glimpse this, it is helpful to visualize the mind as a tower of windows. Sadly, many people remain trapped at the one window, looking out every day at the same scene in the same way. Real growth is experienced when you draw back from that one window, turn, and walk around the inner tower of the soul and see all the different windows that await your gaze. Through these different windows, you can see new vistas of possibility, presence, and creativity. Complacency, habit, and blindness often prevent you from feeling your life. So much depends on the frame of vision -- the window through which you look.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from the book, Anam Cara,
25th Anniversary Edition.
Ireland Release: February 23, 2023

Anam Cara US and Canada Release on November 29, 2022 Ireland Release on February 23, 2023 A special twenty-fifth anniversary edition of the classic work of Celtic spirituality and mysticism by beloved poet and philosopher, John O'Donohue, with a new introduction by the President of Ireland, Michael D. Hig...

We don’t walk away to teach someone a lesson. We walked away because we finally learned ours.

It would be an instant best seller!

We do not become healers.
We came as healers. We are.
Some of us are still catching up to what we are.
We do not become storytellers.
We came as carriers of the stories
we and our ancestors actually lived. We are.
Some of us are still catching up to what we are.
We do not become artists. We came as artists. We are.
Some of us are still catching up to what we are.
We do not become writers.. dancers.. musicians.. helpers.. peacemakers. We came as such. We are.
Some of us are still catching up to what we are.
We do not learn to love in this sense.
We came as Love. We are Love.
Some of us are still catching up to who we truly are.

~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Silence as a luxury: How an increasingly loud world turned something free into a commodity Our hectic, busy lives, along with the constant noise and distraction of technology, make us look for solace in an almost utopian notion of disconnection. Silent meditation centers and sensory deprivation tanks are two options that can provide respite

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come, to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.
Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

JOHN O'DONOHUE
Excerpt from the blessing, 'For One Who is Exhausted.'

My New Years wish for you:

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life's desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

JOHN O'DONOHUE