[monday musings]

'Struggling with one’s own shadow self, facing interior conflicts and moral failures, undergoing rejections and abandonment, daily humiliations, experiencing any kind of abuse or your own clear limitations, even accepting that some people hate you: All of these are gateways into deeper consciousness and the flowering of the soul. These experiences give us a privileged window into the naked (read “undefendable”) now, because impossible contradictions are staring us in the face. Much-needed healing, forgiving what is, weeping over and accepting one’s interior poverty and contradictions are normally necessary to invite a person into the contemplative mind. (Watch Paul do this in a classic way from the depths of Romans 7:14 to the heights of his mystic poetry in most of Romans 8.)
In facing the contradictions that we ourselves are, we become living icons of both/and.
Once we can accept mercy, it is almost natural to hand it on to others.
You become a conduit of what you yourself have received.'

From The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See, pp. 125-126

I long for the light.

some scenes from the sunny weekend

looking up i marvel at the wonder of his artistry in the sky

 backyard cricket

 5 year old bowls big brother out and receives a well done hug

batting lessons from big sister

swinging under the pear tree and two others hiding

neighbours tractor bogged in our field

a chicken has visited the pram and kids have picked some mandarins

[monday musing]

' Person and shadow are correlative terms. Your shadow is what you refuse to see about yourself, and what you do not want others to see. The more you have cultivated and protected a chosen persona, the more shadow work you will need to do. Be especially careful therefore of any idealized role or self-image, like that of minister, mother, doctor, nice person, professor, moral believer, or president of this or that. These are huge personas to live up to, and they trap many people in lifelong delusion. The more we are attached to and unaware of such a protected self-image, the more shadow self we will likely have. Conversely, the more we live out of our shadow self, the less capable we are of recognizing the persona we are trying to protect and project. It is like a double blindness keeping you from seeing—and being—your best and deepest self. As Jesus put it: “If the lamp within you is, in fact, darkness, what darkness there will be” '

From Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, pp. 127-128, pp. 127-128

more gorgeousness

Some more images from my little monthly photo session with the babies. i worked very hard being all sorts of crazy to get them to look at me but Ruby was more interested in Ryder, Ryder was more interested in his slippers, Ruby wanted the slippers then Ryder thought ruby's toes might be nice but that didn't go down well so he went to his own toes but couldn't lift them up so ended with the slippers again while Ruby had enough of sitting and was on the move and thus the end of our photo session. I'm now in awe of baby photographer's.

weekends

are for friends, food, fire and wine

babies update

 

around here

this pretty much sums it up....if only ruby agreed.